[kasandrasikl]

I'm an art student. I'll be living with my mother for a year or two while i get my first degree. I spend my day building the IKEA furniture we bought for the new apartment. I dwell in silence whenever i feel brave enough.

I listen to Alan Watts like my life depends on it. I play a little guitar, and im practicing in harmonica. I'll get a new one in the mail specially made for classical music. I watch movies and play videogames at night. I run about 7 miles a day. I draw and sketch whenever i feel like it but I'm trying to make it a habit to draw every day. I used to write stories but i no longer feel like it. I've painted several paintings and sold some of them. I like solitude. I feel safe when I'm alone, rather than lonely. I feel the loneliest when I'm around people.

There's a temple in a suburban house about 5 miles away from where i live. After we settle down and everything is in order, I'll walk down there, preferably every Sunday, like mass in a church. I listen to techno music and classical, and I always get happy when the both are combined. Jazz is also enjoyable for me. I suffer from panic attacks sometimes but I've had that since i was a kid. They don't have a big effect on me at all anymore.

Here's a list of my spiritual experiences so far:

1). i woke up one morning and found out i wasn't in my body. i felt as if i was rather an ever expanding no-thing. colors and shapes were seen. but no one to look at them. weird. time had no sense. it could've lasted a split second or an eternity. i don't know.
2). riding the bus, i forgot about the past and the future for a split second. judgement regarding time was dropped completely.
3). i felt the back of my head while sitting down watching tv. suddenly, my awareness wasn't in my head anymore, but my head was in awareness.
4). i sat in deep silence for a minute or so. silence had this endless, boundless property of "no property or characteristic." it felt perfectly still yet overflowing. its hard to describe something which doesn't have an appearance or sound. thats as best as i can do.
5). in a car ride, i suddenly felt like my five senses and mind were a prison for me. it felt claustrophobic and stuffy to be sensing these things. disappearing in silence felt like "heaven" or like an "ahhhhhhhh" compared to the senses i was perceiving.

Those are my main experiences. they have been occurring in flukes and i have no control over having them or not. they have also become more frequent. Whether they mean something or not, you know more than i do.

I've read about half of the Platform Sutra. I've seen some youtube videos where monks and some other people who practice talk about an "unborn nature". I don't know anything of this "unborn nature" and can't fathom it. they call it unfabricated, unmade, unbound, empty light sometimes. I have no idea of what they are talking about, somehow, i feel like words don't help in understanding such a thing. somehow, i feel like trying to understand such a thing will only confuse me.