Alana's Dharma Blog

I am waiting for a table at a cafe and when one opens-up the waiter tells me to have a seat and he will be over to clear the table in a few moments. I sit down and look at the last patron’s trash piled on the table and I feel disgusted. What a mess these folks left behind at my table.

Of course, the waiter comes and cleans everything up, sets my heart at ease, and before I know it I am enjoying my meal. When I am done, I stretch my legs, feel myself full and relaxed, and take-out a book to start reading. Then I stop. I look around at my own trash piled on the table and it hits me…

Someone else’s trash on my table makes me squirm, but my trash is perfectly ok. And other people’s trash on their tables is totally ok, just as long as it’s not on my table. But trash is trash and tables are tables right? There is it again, the culprit of my discomfort, my delusion — me and mine.

 

Aspirations are one of those ‘Big Buddhisty Things’; they cameo in all the liturgy, we are instructed to make them whenever we do something good, they even managed to make it onto the Buddha’s critical stuff shortlist (often poorly translated as ‘right thought’ in the the 8 fold path). So, naturally, I obsessed over my own. I crafted it, word-smithed it, revised it over time. But at around this point in my practice (late 2013) I had come-up with a version that looks a lot like what I still use today.

In plain speak, an aspiration (Buddhist or otherwise) is simply setting a goal. It expresses the intention to move towards that goal, and it calls upon the force of momentum we have already created (for the Buddhist aspiration variety, that is usually in the form of our past good deeds), to help ensure we we get there.

My teacher, Me Yo, emphasized the importance of  crafting a good aspiration, reiterating it, dedicating myself, and my merit, to its accomplishment. Without further ado here is aspiration 1.0 and a few notes of later day changes.

I dedicate all the merit of my current and all my past lives to becoming, at least, a sotapana (first stage of enlightenment) now, as quickly as possible, preferably in this life.  

I ask that if I am born at all, I am born into circumstances of dharma, with true teachers and dharma friends.

I ask for the comforts of this world, health, wealth, beauty and long life (Alana’s present day note: I dropped this part of the aspiration several years ago, figuring it was best to be narrow and focused on leaving this world, comforts and all).

Above all else, I ask for the wisdom to know right view from wrong and the willpower to choose what is right. (Alana’s present day note, again several years ago this line also changed when I realize willpower has nothing to do with anything. Once I see wrong views, the change in action comes with ease, not force. Nowadays I ask for wisdom and any other quality that will help me reach enlightenment quickly).

Let me take back any vows and  remove any obstacles that stand in the way of my  walking the path to complete enlightenment, now, as quickly as possible, preferably in this life.

Since Dharma Practice Day One, Mae Yo has repeated one homework assignment to me over and over — “Alana, look at your stories, go and prove that all your problems really start from your sense of me and mine.” Somehow, I kept ignoring the assignment; just an empty space in my notebook again and again.

Even though I had sort of figured-out that I was the one causing my problems (see the last section, Whoo Wait a Sec its Me…), I figured I could tweak myself, improve myself and then the problems would go away. This idea that the very concept of self and self belongings is a lie (wrong view) and that any self I created, even a new and improved one, was going to keep biting me in the ass, I guess it never really clicked until…

Shortly after I had ‘finished’ the homework about suffering in where my mind visits most often, I happened to go to temple and listen to LP Anan talk about his experiences helping look after a baby some community members were leaving at the temple while they went to school/work.  I must have been primed to really start thinking about the perils of me and mine because the sermon hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt it resonate in my heart and, ultimately it launched my very first effort to answer that age old homework assignment about me and mine.

In this entry, I want to just share a few of LP Anan’s remarks that really got my ball rolling. In the next entry I will share my own contemplations on the topic.

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A couple with a newborn came to the temple in some dire straights — they had no one to help care for their child while they went to school/work and not enough money to pay for daycare. Mae Yo, being Mae Yo, offered to help and soon enough the temple was doubling as day care and the monks doubling as nannies.  LP Anan (one of the monks) was explaining how, at first, he didn’t want to care for the baby. He certainly didn’t want to change a dirty diaper. Its disgusting!

But over time, the baby started to grow on him. The baby would smile, when LP Anan held him. Or cry when he was put down. And LP Anan came to love the baby, to feel needed by him, to feel proud to be such a good caretaker of the baby. The baby became his responsibility. The baby became his.

Suddenly changing diapers became an act of love, something LP could do to prove what a good caretaker he was. Diaper time went from being disgusting to being desirable, at least when it was his baby’s diaper time (other baby’s diapers were, of course, still disgusting). And I, heard loud and clear in LP Anan’s story —  the condition of ownership is the ticket — that is what transforms a yuk, a suffering, into something desirable, something that we want to nurture and protect and preserve.

Incidentally several months later, the couple moved away and, of course took their baby with them. And LP Anan, suffered loss, suffered sorrow. Not because a baby had moved away, but because his baby had moved away….

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When I got home from temple I went back through my homework about suffering in where my mind visits most often (see the previous 3 entries) and I noticed a theme (finally!!!!!). My time, my body, my clothes, my self… in each story my suffering has a singular seed — me and mine. And in each story I was able to forgive the pain my time (the careful planning and frequent disappointment), my body (soreness, hunger), my clothes (obligation for continued striving) caused me for one simple reason –they are mine.  Imagine that, Mae Yo was right after all..

 

So, a little reminder, this entry is the third part of my homework assignment to use snippets of my life/experiences (a biopsy) to start evaluating what happiness is and if it’s worth it. Specifically I was told to:

1. Figure out where my mind visits often, my memories/fantasies.
2. See the suffering. How long is the suffering versus happiness?
3. How do I repeat the cycle?

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A Slave to Fashion

You see, I am a Fashionista it’s one of the places my mind visits most often. Even as a kid, I loved to play dress-up. By the time I could drive, my favorite destination was the mall. Even when I was broke in college, I made weekly shopping trips to the goodwill. Little by little, paycheck by paycheck, I came to frequent Marshals, then Bloomys, then Neimans and Barney’s…

I remember my first pair of black boots. I put them on and felt so sexy, so strong, like some bad-ass chick in the movies ready to kick ass. In my wrong view ridden mind, clothes give me a sense of control. With just a little fabric and some bling, I believe I can make people see me the way I want to be seen. I can come-off as sexy and strong (black boots), professional and smart (crisp blazer), wealthy (Goyard bag), buttoned-up (matching belt and shoes), ageless (black dress), stylish… Clothes help make me special and unique, at least till I take them off, or they go out of fashion, or they make the wrong impression…

But my bright and fancy wardrobe has a dark side. It’s not just the monthly credit card bill, or the time I spend shopping and caring for my clothes. Sometimes I open my closet door and I literally feel oppressed. I feel like I have so many items, I have the responsibility to figure out how to wear them all. I need to plan outfits that are original and appropriate, that no one has seen me in before.  I need to shop constantly, to keep up with the stylish image I have created. I bought a great skirt, but now I need to find a shirt and shoes to match. I used to shop at Gap and Banana Republic but once I got a feel for Prada fabric, saw how Gucci fits just right (#3), I set new standards, conditions (#4) for what this fashionista should and shouldn’t go around wearing.  I can’t go back after all, so I get trapped in a cycle of more clothes, more matching, better brands, new outfits. I have to preserve my image. I have to preserve myself.

This is how I get reborn. Just like with clothes, I have an ever changing ‘fact’ sheet (#3 memory) of what is fashionable, desirable, situationally appropriate. Of what is good. I (#4) imagine-up an outfit that fits the bill, I imagine how that outfit helps create an Alana, I imagine the Alana that I will or won’t be. And once I have the perfect outfit, the perfect Alana, I need to figure out how to keep it up, how to one-up it for the next event. Black booted, kick-ass Alana  doesn’t give-up after all, so my only choice is to keep becoming….