All my relationships have stagnated. Amina and I have fallen into a comfortable groove with little hope of change. We just are what we are now. Just friends, that’s all we are and that’s all we’ll ever be. We’ve been friends too long and that friendship has found its own intimacy. She is so much to me, I couldn’t ask for any more; any more would be trivial. Most of all, she keeps her distance.
Luyen is not what I thought she was last semester. Not at all. I’m finding myself explaining myself more than I’d ever thought I’d have to. The understanding between us has stopped and has become forced. Too much negativity has gone between us to bring us back to anywhere we were before. It died in its sleep.
So I mull over existence and grapple with god. Life and existence are just pictures, and the pictures are just fabric. Canvasses with senses that make them alive. Alive, not real. You can live to be alive, or you can live for the Real. I’m getting a lot of good ideas from the Islam seminar I’m taking and the ideas get mixed in with my past learnings. I read into the material a lot of crossover between Zen and Islam and Sufism.
I ran into a wall with Zen. I felt like I couldn’t get anymore without entering a monastery. Zen essentially presents ideas in abstractions and either you intuit meanings or it’s all bullshit. Sufism, particularly as expressed in the writings of Ibn al-‘Arabi, is exactly what Zen tries to teach, except the ideas are explained in metaphysical detail. There is more process involved, rather than either getting it or not. There is nothing wrong with either way, it’s just that I had run into a wall with Zen. With the readings now, I feeling like I’m getting an explanation for many Zen concepts.
But I can’t imagine progressing on this journey. I’m so inadequate and so many people don’t even know this voyage even exists. I’m certainly no better than any one else. So many people think they’re on the path and are making progress, but they’re just jaded. Spiritual seekers because they can afford it. They never quite live it and it’s not at all real. They bask in how much they know and how advanced they are. But what do I know about another person’s soul, feelings and thoughts, and what makes me any different from them? How to distinguish one person’s truth from another?
