I feel poisoned and cursed, tainted and marred, diseased and dying, perverted and obscene. This world is too ugly, this reality too unbearable, this life too overwhelming, and this sickness too damaging. I fear there may not remain a single ounce of purity left inside my soul, but I strive on anyway. It feels like I am trying climb up the slippery walls of a ferocious waterfall composed of all these despicable ideas and opinions and egos and atrocities which strike me with the force of a thousand hurricanes bombarding me downwards. The task is almost impossible and the obstacles nearly unsurpassable. And how here in the midst of this chaos and destruction and ill will and hatred and greed and delusion can I keep my bearings straight? And how then can a seeker keep his will fastened securely on the path he has chosen without faltering without failing? And how now after beginning can one even contemplate a notion as disgraceful as giving up, bending over, and folding under the pressures of the entire universe? It is inconceivable. So solve this for me then, oh enlightened beings of beginningless time. Show me the path I must walk and I will walk. Bring me a teacher that I may finally and fully surrender and give up and end the chaos. Teach me the truth and guide me as I stumble all alone in the darkest darknesses of Samsara. I have travelled now for one year making swift progress and blissful development, but I fear I am not capable of making it to the other shore on my own. I do not know if I hold within me the strength, the resilience, and the wisdom to go all the way. Too many challenges abound and myriad difficulties collect and I have not very many tools to aid me in the skillful transformation of obstacle into opportunity. I have no teacher and no master. I have no faith and I have no more strength. I am drained and I am tired. Where do I go now? In whom do I place my faith now? How may I continue on this path all on my own? This world is too sick and the germ that infects it is too powerfully contagious. I am revolted every time I turn on the TV and I am disgusted every time I have a conversation with anyone. Why is there no purity here for me to touch and fall back on in dire times like these? Why are there no Buddhas to beat me with their sticks of loving-kindness and to scold me with their words of compassion and to watch me with their eyes full of wisdom? I have been so perverted by this world that I am here seeking a master to beat me! This is the brutal language of this world. This land of suffering, misery, and despair. You got one thing right, oh Noble Sakyamuni: LIFE IS SUFFERING. In fact, you called this the First Noble Truth. This is the most important truth, according to you. And the saddening thing is that amidst all this chaos death and destruction, there are none who clearly face and accept this misery; in fact, none who even see it at face value. There are none in this world of fire who can even admit that their life is miserable, but instead cloak their dukkha with their wicked grasping and searching, their conditioned cycle of desire and acquire, in the desperate attempt to fill this gaping maw, the bottom of which is nowhere to be found, and the filling and satisfying of whom is never to be secured. Out! Out of this drudgery and this misery and delusion! I cannot stay here much longer, I fear I will surely breakdown and melt into infinity soon. In fact, this is what I search for. The funny thing here is that this present state of mine has been foreshadowed for me. I have had a glimpse of this neurosis that I was destined to face in the form of agony and misery displayed in the behavior of a close friend of mine in a similar situation to me, spiritually-speaking. And the other funny thing is that has tended to be a recurring pattern for me in my life: seeing hints and clues of what was to come in my life in the lives of those around me and close to me. So here I am now, much of the hysteria diffused by this ejaculation, but still in the same exact situation: desperate, sick, and lost wandering around aimlessly on this wheel of pointlessness. What to do? What to do? Oh, shit, I already know the answer to this and all other questions I expressed here. The answer is NOTHING. Nothing is required of me. I needn’t do anything, not a single thing. I need only kindle what remnants of my faith I can scavenge out of the debris scattered throughout my inner space and hope that there is enough to get me through to the other shore. I need only to let go of these debates, questions, and concerns. I need to stop caring. I must STOP GIVING A FUCK and just have faith in the dharma. I need to surrender my fate over to the universe and whatever divine and controlling power that rests behind it. I need to trust that this is but a dream, an ethereal simulation to be awakened out of. I need to see that TRUTH is attainable in this life and that this dukkha can cease finally and irreversibly. So, from this pit to the next I fumble around, and one day it will all be over. I must have faith and I must be patient, silently enduring the fire, solemnly maintaining the practice.