Slay my Siddhartha
Chop Bodhi Tree - A Fine Cross!
Nail Jesus, Find God

Many of you know that I'm a Kerouac fan.

This past week, I finally got around to acquainting myself with "On the Road" which is highly appropriate given my current occupation in Rocky Mount, NC where Kerouac used to visit his sister, Nin.
In one sentence, "On the Road" can be described as a crazy fable of Neal Cassidy and his posse which takes multiple journeys across the America involving love, lust and everything inbetween and without. The grand-theft-auto style of Cassidy was delight to my soul but also revealed a startling revelation - which is the interest of this writing.
As I ready for the end of medical school years and the practicum to follow, my heart yearns for a certain escape and dynamic quality. Certainly the road is ripe and tempting those who have been beating the paths less travelled. "On the Road" allures me to take to the road again, but I recognize, through Cassidy's example, the threat it poses for those I love - them whose values align with the predictable traditions of our fathers.
I believed that true spiritual development is irrespective of the "old" values which serve only to stabilize society to the detriment of true creative spiritual growth. This individual approach to spirituality has helped me escape the confines of organized religion, the 9-to-5 mentality, and most importantly the oxymoronic "scientific values" of 21st century.
To become a Cassidy myself, I would have to depend on generosity of people who have less than I. They would gladly feed me, clothe me, and drive me to wherever my soul fancied. This is somewhat socially irresponsible. To be a Cassidy means to become indebted to the world - especially the poor, the sick, and the downtrodden.
"On the Road" shook me to my core ridding me of the spiritual miscalculation of, yet again, what is right and wrong. I am going on the road while feeding the hungry, healing the sick and taking people to places that they've never been.

When Cassidy steal car, I Cassidy road.

Life can be loveless.

For a while early in my twenties, I felt this way. Life - the culmination of the body, mind, situations, relationships, and light - was just glim. Fortuantely, these hopeless, loveless times are not perpetual motions. Though it may take years, we often find ourselves in new strange adventures which fill our hearts with excitement. The entity without subject - Love - finds us, and suddenly we understand such profound things as Bob Marley is a prophet. Ideas like "everything's alright, and a child that cries is the child you soothe" fill your head with cotton candies and, though these ideas fleeting and immature, you are whole because you know you are love.

For a few year in my early twenties, I was this loveless zombie. Every step was heavy. The sky was always gray. I searched for my Buddha and Jesus drinking wine under a tree playing chess but, never finding either, cried nightmares of anger and revenge against no one but myself in the mirror. I thought it'd never end, and I gave up the search for love in some ways.

So it's was a surprise when this one morning in India, as I rode this small yellow truck with the volunteer camp friends, I recognized something about myself which was different from the days before. The best vague description of this experience was that I was happy beyond my prior self. I slept with the music of crashing Indian Ocean waves under the blanket of starry night skies. Life was a miracle and a grace. Everything was cool, clear and I had no fear in the darkness. This was the first time, I had found love in my heart again since childhood with the sense of newness every day and adventure in the most mundane things of life.

Sometime this third year of medical school, I had lost that love again. My days were dreary, and I lost the soul music. I woke up panicking every morning, not knowing where I'm supposed to go, who I'm supposed to see. I didn't know what to look for in a patient. I stuttered in front of my superiors. It was the wake-up-panicking-daily kind of stress that drained me. My function was to dread going to work and look forward to going home. I lost track of what I really love about what I do - the learning and the care of patients.

It was so until approximately the third week of my surgery rotation this March. I woke up one morning as usual. Got ready for work: brush teeth, take a shower, eat breakfast, get in scrubs and grab all the paper for the day. I grabbed the blue bicycle out of the shed, tucked my pant sleeves under my sock and started pedaling my way up the hill towards the hospital. As I moved past the houses, I was able to look at myself -- to watch myself think -- as I was looking forward to the day just like I did on that Indian truck. I loved what I do; and I loved who I am. Man, that spring air was fresh! I pedaled every Carolina spring morning - dispatching my doubts and fear under my bicycle tires. Freedom was delicious and hot like a bowl of soup at the end of a winter day's hike.

Now it's hot June summer in Rocky Mount, this North Carolina city where Jack Kerouac used to come visit his sister, Nin, every so often to rest and write of his adventures. I am nearing the end of my third year of medical school and also feeling the end of this long journey of medical school having less than a year of it left. As wonderful and crazy these past few years have been, I spend each day in electrifying expectancy for what new adventures are to come my way.