224 College St., Oberlin

Luyen and I finally had a long anticipated talk. How did she change so much from last semester? I think she sees a break in the clouds, but that’s all she sees; nothing concrete. And if what she’s going through is anything like what I went through, then I don’t think the storm is anywhere near passing.

Luyen is not the ultimate end. Neither is having perfect communication or being in the perfect relationship or being the dopest bass player in town. This entire lifetime is a drop. It’s just one in a whole series of lifetimes. Ultimate end? How arrogant to think I’m anywhere near it. This lifetime, identified as Koji, is not going to reach the end. There are many more of these to come, attempting to get on that final path, the final Way of looking at life and existence. Many changes to come, too. Many lifetimes from now, after much learning, developing, progressing, and possibly incorporating elements of what I’ve learned in this lifetime, maybe I’ll be on the final leg of the journey. And of course I have no idea what that person would be like. If “I” were to meet him or her, it’s possible that I wouldn’t be able to stand the jerk.

One lifetime is just a joke, and I realize how attached and how material I am. How trivial it all is and I still can’t give it up right now. If I could, I would. I haven’t, so I can’t. But suicide won’t make things go quicker. It may make things worse if I end up in a lifetime where spiritual doors aren’t as accessible as they are for me now. But I wonder if it’s possible for some people to have suicide as a spiritual achievement. Maybe I’m referring to some of the people who are actually able to go through with it. I wonder if maybe it’s in their nature that suicide will get them placed in a more spiritually accessible lifetime.

That doesn’t go against ideas of karma. You have to take a leap of faith and remove human ethics and judgments commonly applied to the idea of karma. You have to know that the time people die is probably the time when they’re supposed to die. It may sound like I’m taking a result and making a reason to fit it, but who can claim to know?