January 1

Had five drinks last night, which is a big drunk these days, and resolved to be indolent today. Didn't keep it. This is the second day free of computer games, one of my least damaging addictions, but still a waste of creative energy. I added another thousand words to Road Tripe, which is the working title of the conversion of this journal into a travelogue. Remember that all memory is creative.

I'm drumming my fingers on the table. Solitude and clean living have their limits. I've been looking at railroad routes (remember, trains are an acceptable use of fossil fuel, except when they introduce new species to habitats that cannot deal with them, like gringos into New Mexico) and there is a train from San Antonio to Deming. That's only fifty miles from Silver City, which is on the edge of the Gila. Silver City is a fairly big town. The Gila might be crowded. I'm going there anyway.

Lots of fireworks last night, all night long, which didn't exactly keep me awake, because I would have had trouble sleeping anyway. I got up at 11:45, intuitively (without my glasses on I never know what time it is in the dark), got dressed and took my tequila bottle out to the street, to see if I could share it with revelers. None were there, and after about fifteen minutes none had come by, so I toasted Erin, my homies, and all that I love, came back to mi habitacion, had another tequila chased by a beer and wrote a little more Road Tripe.

Gil Fronsdal is my guru, but he doesn't know it. He has lectured extensively at the Insight Meditation Center in San Francisco, has been a Buddhist for a long time, and a scholar in the western tradition, and a cook, and a father. Last winter I started listening to some of his lectures that are available on the net. His style reflects his experience. He began by studying comparative religion, became a Zen monk in Japan, then studied and became a practitioner of the Vipassana tradition, that of South East Asia, and now makes his living by lecturing on Buddhism. His style is light, relaxed, humorous and comforting, and the content of his lectures is profound. I can learn a lot from him, and with this time on my hands and a good internet connection, I can learn a little every day.

I do not expect to be transformed into a new person by this practice, nor to experience any kind of epiphany. The goal of Buddhist practice is to let go of the attachments that cause our suffering, and that is a difficult thing to do, and very few, perhaps only the Buddha himself, have been able to fully accomplish it. It has taken me a long time to even accept the legitimacy of such a goal: for all of my life I have worked against the external causes of individual human suffering: oppression and injustice that lead to hunger, for instance, and I have thought that religious attempts to ease such suffering were mere ploys of the ruling class.

To quote Fronsdal on the renunciation of attachments:

Renunciation is often difficult. Grappling with the power of desire,

attachments, and fear may require great personal struggle. But that

struggle yields many benefits. We develop the inner strength to

overcome temptation and compulsion. We don't have to live with the

suffering and contraction that come with clinging. Clinging can be

exhausting; letting go is restful. We may taste the luminous mind of

freedom, which is hidden when clinging is present. And, last but not

least, we are more available to work for the welfare of others.