Dakarai

I’m reading the book Lost in Place by Mark Salzman. Mark loves kung fu and Buddhism. He admires everything about it. He stays in his basement practicing and burning Smokey candles that smelled like burned card board. I admire Mark because he’s devoted to something he love even though the people around him don’t think it’s a good idea for him to make that his career. His parent loves him very much but don’t support him in his efforts to join a Zen monastery. They want him to finish high school and get his diploma first before can do any of that but they offered to put him and drive him to kung fu lessons if he could find a kung fu school. Mark is under the impression that if he joined Buddhism he would end all his problems. The Tao Te Ching book advised to stop learning and you would end your problems. He told his father that if nothing is done, nothing is left undone. His father tried to reason with him on the fact that he had to have some type of education so he could supply himself with the things he needed to survive.

I relate with Mark because I felt the way he felt. I thought that if I did nothing my parents would take care of me and everything would be ok. That was a lie and I was under the wrong impression. When I was little my father would always tell me that I could always live with them and I never had to go. Now I know he was just talking. I also relate to Mark in another way. I would stay in my basement also and exercise all day. Pushups and sit ups are what I basically did. I wanted to be a WWE wrestler and somewhat still wouldn’t mind doing. I would stay in the basement with my little brother and we would just wrestle for hours and work out. I even ordered rey mesterio mask and I would wear in outside. Instead of smelling like burned card board it smelled like must. M y father also wasn’t ok with me wanting to be a wrestler. He felt that it was a waist of my life and I needed to stay in school and then go to college.