I’ve been tempted to close down this blog since I have not written anything in such a long time. Some major changes are coming in my life, namely our (my family) migration from this Formidable island to Calgary, Canada. The decision to move was instigated by our serious consideration of what we wanted for our kids’ education and how we would achieve these goals here in Taiwan. The final conclusion was that it would be impossible if we stayed. There is a good post about the education system in Taiwan here, which aside form being a great post in its own right, quotes other posts on the failings of the educational system in Taiwan. My friend Mark at doubtingtoshuo feels differently than I do about the state of affairs. He is impressed by both the academic and artistic output of his students. As a fellow teacher and administrator, I will grant that exceptions, even many exceptions, do abound. However, even the exceptional cases must follow, by default, the needlessly demanding schedule imposed on Taiwanese youth. There are those parents, the few contrarian lemurs who fight the system. But these brave souls often end up fighting their own children, too. Kids WANT to go to bushiban until 10 pm, because that’s what all their friends are doing. It’s New Year’s Day, and our neighbor’s 6 year old daughter came over to play with our son. “Where’s your sister?”
“Oh, she had to stay home to do homework.” She is nine.
Moving to Canada, after not living there for roughly 17 years, is a daunting prospect for me. Impending change is always a catalyst for some serious self-examination. I haven’t felt this fearful in a while, having opted instead to “eat my marshmallow” for the past few years, both professionally and personally. It’s easy to hide behind the excuse of being busy at work and having to devote the rest of my spare time for “family time”. But the truth is also that a fair amount of inertia has settled in, more than I wanted to admit. In response to this discovery, I’ve been–*gasp!* reading personal development stuff. One blog I discovered a few weeks ago was stevepavlina.com. I am still not sure how I feel overall about his blog, but it is mostly positive. He has monetized his blog and he claims to be turning a fair profit from it. I know many people have reservations about monetizing a blog, but I don’t. He is a “try anything once” person, like I am–or at least this is the way I see myself. This month, Pavlina has been on an all raw diet. I decided to mirror his experiment. I did go almost raw for a couple of weeks after a fast a couple of years ago, I hadn’t done any research. Although I am not eating the exact same foods as Steve, I am trying as hard as possible to stick to an 80/10/10 diet. (this is a number representing the caloric ratio between carbs/protein/fat) . 80/10/10 is a diet popularized by Dr. Doug Graham. His website is www.foodnsport.com. I’ve been doing lots of reading on raw foodism for the past two weeks, and certainly there is controversy, but overall I think going raw is an extremely good choice for my health, social constraints notwithstanding. I am on day 16 and I feel fabulous, mostly. There were INTENSE headaches for the first week, but they were detox headaches, which have now subsided. The only problem is money! The quantity of food I have to ingest to meet my caloric needs is very high. I get most of my carbs (and fat, and protein!) from fruit–not cheap. I’ve had difficulty in finding unroasted/unboiled nuts in Taichung. That is the only “cheating” I’ve done so far. Anyhow, I will keep it up until my wife screams at me, or I start feeling worse.
Speaking of my wife, We started doing yoga together 2 weeks ago. This is the first time we both do something together on a regular basis that doesn’t involve a) kids or b) a screen. Yesterday, I suggested tantric yoga every Wednesday, you know, to change it up a little. When she laughed I also laughed, but didn’t have the balls to tell her I wasn’t joking.
1 teaching position is opening up in the junior high school after Chinese New Year.
Please apply only if you are currently in Taiwan. Please address an email containing your resume and covering letter to Gary/Patrick for the Junior High. The address is at the end of this post. Please try to minimize the size of your attachments as the school email box is small. (no 3 MB scans of your graduating photo, please!)
I am going to write about our junior high since this is the school for which I am a coordinator, though we also have a senior high which employs about 11 foreign teachers. I will mention this one briefly and refer to it primarily in contrast with the junior program. Our side employs 10 teachers. Although the two are on the same campus and share the same Principal, and the foreign teachers have the same contract, the two are separate entities. The senior high has been around for 70 years, and is decidedly more traditional in its pedagogy and administrative structure and procedures. The ESL program is comparable to other senior high schools in Taiwan with well-established ESL programs. If you want to know more about this side of things, leave me a message here and I will steer you in the right direction.
The junior high ESL program is quite unique. Our students in 1st and 2nd year spend 13 hours a week with their foreign teachers as follows:
6 hours core ESL
2 hours CALL (Computer Assisted Language Learning)
So Part II. I didn’t get around to writing this post on the weekend I said I would. Luckily, my meditation practice (which I’ve been able to rigorously keep up) has brought me to a more Liberated space where I can procrastinate guilt free.
I did some Googling on Vipassana retreats in Taiwan and found this post by Prince Roy. Great post! It’s actually a click through from another post about Spicy Girl’s course. I love the photos of the “Captain’s Chairs to Enlightenment.” Meditation centers usually have a wide array of pillows, cushions and stools which are available to meditators. As you can imagine, sitting for long periods of time can get at the very least uncomfortable, and often very painful. When the pain first hits you, there is the tendency to do whatever you can to alleviate it, a normal human response. But one quickly discovers that no matter how many layers of comfort one piles on, the discomfort and pain eventually rise to the surface. Like cream. I also confess that during my first course in 2000 I had my billowy throne, my liberation lounge-chair. As I mentioned in the previous post, you learn (through experience) that working with the pain is actually an effective method of developing panna. When I was a new student, this realization came to me after the 5th day. Slowly the layers of cushions and strategically placed blankets began to be stripped away. Mostly the pain remained, but my reaction to it changed. And when those pain-free moments, even minutes, manifested themselves there was no illusion that they were the result of 10 inches of cotton padding on my ass.
This retreat took me for a loop because on the first 3 days, I could not sit for more than 10 minutes because of the pain. In the end I discovered the “zen chair”, which saved me. It was just uncomfortable enough to start getting painful after 30 or 40 minutes of sitting. (You can see it in the slide show) Sitting at home now, I can still manage 2 daily sessions in my regular half-lotus position, but if I do another course I will have to go back to the zen chair. In any case, I found my rhythm on Day 4.
Speaking of Day 4, it’s supposed to be an “important” day, as this is the day that we recieve instructions on how to do Vipassana. (the first 3 days are for Annapanna, or breath observation) While Goenka’s recorded instructions were playing on the speakers, a funeral procession was making its way down Hsin Shr’s main street. As it approached the center, it got progressivley louder. So much so that the AT had to keep turning up the volume. It got really loud in the meditation hall at one point and since funerals crawl along at a slug’s pace, the battle of noise persited for a good 5 minutes. Those of you who live in Taiwan know the din these processions make, and there is nothing enlightening or peaceful about them.  The loudest portion of funeral processions is usually the Karaoke bus. (I Googled “Taiwan funeral karaoke bus” and the only shot which suited my needs is–surprise, surprise–from Michael Turton’s Flickr account. I am shamelessly stealing it. If you wannafightabouddit Mike, you’ll have to come get me. Just let me know so I can get the barbecue going first…) Picture one or two woebegone women in wornout costumes hanging off poles at the back of one of these contraptions, singing and dancing. They use microphones and broadcast as loudly a their speakers will allow. It was such a bizarre juxtaposition. I had to work hard to contain myself. All things considered, this wasn’t as off the wall as the constant booming coming from the rifle range. Less than 1 km from the center is a military base. Roughly 6 out of 10 mornings-but who’s counting?- starting around 9 am the shooting would start and continue until 11 or 12. While the boys reloaded, the bawan sellers (imagine a deep-fried dumpling on steroids) would promenade up and down the Hsin Shr strip, screaming , “Bawan!” also over loudspeakers. These added touches would never happen at a center in the US or Canada, where the atmosphere is “ideal” for meditation. But what is ideal? Dealing with this was just more opportunity to develop equanimity. Like the snoring in the dorm was. Like the freak who sat next to me every meal who ate with the demeanor of a professional cheerleader, snapping beans into his mouth one by one, zing-zing-zing-zing. Like the freak on the other side who managed to make slurping sounds even while eating salad. Like the the freak in the middle who was eating so slowly he looked like a 3-toed sloth. Hey wait a minute…that one was me.
All in all, it was a great course. I deepened my understanding of some things which before I did not see. For instance, I discovered that consummating the sexual urge, wether under the auspices of a loving relationship, in the seedy underbelly of a redlight district, or the singular comfort of a chair and screen all lead ultimately to some degree of suffering. Perhaps a topic for another post? In any case, I won’t become chaste anytime soon, but it was an amazing experience to make the discovery without any self-judgement. On another note, my relationship with my kids seems to be improving, and the usually ever-present feeling that nothing I am doing about anything is enough is vastly diminished, sometimes completely gone. If I can continue sitting once or twice a day it will be beneficial for me and for the ones I care for. Ja-yo!
I decided back in March to do a course this summer. This would be my 3rd 10-day course in 8 years. Vipassana is a meditation technique which, according to the literature, is an ancient Indian technique whch was rediscovered by Sidharta Gotama (The Buddha) 2,500 years ago. They go on to say:
Vipassana is a way of self-transformation through self-observation. It focuses on the deep interconnection between mind and body, which can be experienced directly by disciplined attention to the physical sensations that form the life of the body, and that continuously interconnect and condition the life of the mind. It is this observation-based, self-exploratory journey to the common root of mind and body that dissolves mental impurity, resulting in a balanced mind full of love and compassion.
The scientific laws that operate one’s thoughts, feelings, judgements and sensations become clear. Through direct experience, the nature of how one grows or regresses, how one produces suffering or frees oneself from suffering is understood. Life becomes characterized by increased awareness, non-delusion, self-control and peace.
My first course was in April of 2000 at the centre in Shelbourne, Mass. I stayed on for a second course immediately after the first, except this one I chose to serve as well. “Serving” a course means you become a worker for the duration of the course, cooking and cleaning for the benefit of those “sitting” the course. I found the experience to be of great benefit and, while I maintained my practice, I was able to sustain a level of harmony with myself and others that I had not before experienced. Of course, it was short-lived; I quickly let my practice slide after just a few months. Although much of the intellectual understanding remained, the day to day benefits also began to fade. Such is the way of “Anicca”, or Impermanence, with a capital I.
This year (from about February) has been a difficult one for me on a few levels. The vicissitudes of life took me on roller coaster rides for which I had a great deal of aversion. My ability to put into practice the motto “This too shall pass.”, or as Goenka calls it, equanimity, was greatly diminished. It was time for me to get down to some serious samadhi (meditative concentration) and panna (wisdom/understanding the true nature of things). My sila (morality) was already pretty good. Except for the porn…
As the starting day approached-July 11-I began to get anxious. I knew it was important that I monitor myself for expectations I might have. I also was a little fearful of the rigorous schedule: 4:00 am wake-up, 10 hours of sitting throughout the day with 2 breaks for breakfast and lunch (no dinner for old students) and another rest period, lights-out at 9:30. I tried to take a course about 4 years ago, but had to stop due to a nasty fever which would not break. At the time, I felt great dissapointment because of this (exactly the opposite reaction of what the tecnique teaches!). I hoped this feeling would not return to sabotage my current effort. And finally, I was extremely worried that my body would not be able to take all that sitting as well as I had managed it a few years back. One usually has to work through alot of pain, especially in the legs and back. It is one of the tools which makes this tecnique work. But for a couple of years now, I have pretty uncomfortable pain if I stay in any one position for more than 10 minutes, let alone 10 hours. This includes sitting on my comfy couch while I am being distracted by Deadwood or Six feet Under. Hell, I can’t even manage 10 minutes in one position while I am asleep, so claims my wife. On the day, we all packed into the car and drove off to the hills behind our home. The centre is only 10 minutes away by car, a lucky boon. We arrived a few hours before the course was to begin. Though official silence was not yet in effect (you can’t have any verbal or visual contact with anyone except the Assistant Teacher or Course Manager for the duration of the course), an air of peace and quiet permeated the entire grounds. An atmosphere that was quickly dispelled by my two children running around like maniacs, screaming at the top of their lungs. I could see that some of the fellow meditators were already trying hard to observe their sensations!
The first 2 days were hell. So much pain! It turns out I can no longer sit in the position I am accustomed to, at least not for those prolonged periods. I finally gave in, and approached the A.T. with this problem. She suggested a back rest, which I tried for a couple of sits. I approached the A.T. again and told her it wasn’t helping. She said that a chair would be placed at the back and I could use that. Oh no! A chair! Why, that would make me a veritable Vipassana pussy, a mollified mediocre meditator! Again, I conceded. Although not ideal, It did allow me to sit for more than 10 minutes at a time. Unfortunately, it also made me very drowsy-not uncomfortable enough, I guess.
This is the end of Part I. Ill finish this one up later this weekend.
In the meantime, if you are interested, you can click through and listen to a podcast of a Goenka talk in Cupertino, California.
January 17, 2008 
Posted in personal 
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 The loudest portion of funeral processions is usually the Karaoke bus. (I Googled “Taiwan funeral karaoke bus” and the only shot which suited my needs is–surprise, surprise–from 
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