Alana's Dharma Blog

When I returned from Hawaii, my mule encounter fresh on the brain, I made an appointment to talk to Mae Yo. I had, after all, identified a huge tendency of mine, a deep wrong view in which I divide the world into neat little partitions: areas of suffering and areas of comfort. I live for those corners of comfort, my spaces of refuge from suffering — that peace, that joy, that comfort is part of my life, if only I could figure out how to have it forever…

Of course, there is no life without suffering, that my friends is Buddhism 101, so my question for Mae Yo — how do I fix this delusion that I can set-up boundaries to delineate suffering free zones? Because, as long as I think those zones exist, I think this world is worth it.

In response to my question, Mae Yo and LP Anan read me a quote from the Buddha. Roughly paraphrased it went something like this, “ If I the Buddha, the most ninja awesome badass ever, could separate Sukka (happiness) from Dukka (suffering), I would have continued to live in this world. But, because I can not separate Sukka from Dukka I will return Sukka back to its true owner, Dukka, and I leave this world for good.”

That then was my homework, to go and see that everything has 2 sides. That and one final question from Mae Yo — Can I call something Sukka if what is outside of it is Dukka?

Once again, I had my work cut-out for me…

 

Eric and I were on vacation again, Hawaii’s Big Island, sitting on a mule drawn carriage taking us on a tour of the Waipi’o valley.  It was impossible not to enjoy a beautiful day, in a beautiful place, as the mules plodded along the path. But then, we hit a rough patch in the road, slippery from mud and puddles, and the mules began to lose their footing. They struggled and slipped, unable to pull the carriage any further until they just stopped.  

The driver clicked at them, but they wouldn’t budge. He yelled but still they wouldn’t move. He began to beat them with a stick and finally the animals began to pull, their breath heaving, their feet sliding under them, as the driver kept yelling and hitting some more. My heart broke, I felt for the poor animals, their suffering, the shitiness of their life, of being a slave to such a cruel driver… but its not exactly like I could hop off the cart in the middle of the jungle in protest.

When we got back to the barn, I watched as the driver unhooked the mules, and they ran into the field and began frolicking and grazing with their friends. They were being so playful, they looked so carefree, it was like the beating and the struggling were some distant mule memory…stupid asses I thought.

Then I realized, the stupid ass is me. In my mind, I divide this world into neat little sections, sections of pain and sections of comfort, sections of suffering on slippery roads and sections of frolicking in fields with my friends.  I believe if I just take the right steps, hop on planes to Hawaii or plan the perfect dinner date, I can move out of the pain zone and into the comfort zone.

Of course, I understand there is suffering in my life, but a part of me thinks the refuge is just over the line if I can get there. At least I can take small trips over there to the comfort side and that seems to be enough for me to think it’s worth it. And the trips — to Hawaii, out to dinner, frolicking in fields with friends — they work sometimes, for a little while, long enough to forget the suffering on the road just behind me.

Something Neecha had said to me in an email had been bugging me for weeks. She said, “as we have been coming back again and again, there must be something that seems worth it for us. if we cannot find what that is, we cannot leave this world, either.” Intellectually of course I knew she was right, but I just wasn’t feeling it… As I stood there looking at those mules, I realized that this partitioning off of the world into sections is one of my huge patterns, it is how I view the world to make it seem ‘worth it’. But how do I undo, how do I make this world seem not worth it? Time for another conversation with Mae Yo…

 

If self is the storyteller, self belongings are the props that help make the story believable. They are the accessories that make the outfit, that make the whole thing pull together…Enter, the pink skirt:

With my organization’s big annual gala in mind, I start trolling ebay looking for the perfect outfit. As soon as I saw that neon pink, silk, Oscar De La Renta  skirt, I knew it was mine. In my mind, I was wearing it before I even paid for it — thinking of the shoes, the purse, the shirt that would match. Thinking of the look I wanted so that everyone would  see me as fun, young but professional, stylish. Above everything, so people would see me as pretty, someone worthy of adoration, someone worthy of love and attention, someone valuable. A good Alana.

The skirt arrived a few days later, my excitement high as I tore open the package and ran to the bathroom to try it on. Wooohooo.. Yikes, fat, frumpy, cotton candy ass was totally not the look I was going for. I banished that skirt straight to the give-away-pile, it’s just totally not me, its not mine at all (or if it is, its my burden to carry over to the Goodwill)

That give-away-pile, was filled with stuff I gathered to sell the story, to dress the part of the Alana I wanted to be. But it was all stuff that failed to do its part in the end. It was props that made me look dated instead of fashionable, fat and frumpy instead of beautiful and thin, cheap instead of rich, whorish rather than sexy. That then is the truth, these props, these self belongings, they don’t do what I think they do, at least not all the time, forever, with everyone. If they did, that pink skirt would have made me a knockout..no further shopping required. And if the storyteller’s props are a sham, what about the stories?

I set-up these stories, these standards, these “refuges” –beauty is a certain thing, moral rightness is a certain thing (like not being a cheater) , likability is a certain thing (adventurous rhino survivor). With these ideas, these parameters, which I myself define, I create a narrative of a structured and predictable world and an Alana that deserves the best that world has to offer. These stories keep me safe from a chaotic world, just like a fit body keeps me safe from death, and a pretty face keeps me safe from being abhorred. But beauty fades, the face sags, the moral standards change (vegetarian Alana versus meat eating Alana), what is likeable to one person isn’t to the next. And besides, 1000 times I have seen pretty young people die, horrible people have good fortune and good ones face suffering. I have seen people safe and stable in one moment and then swept-up in a landslide the next.

All this time I have been looking for the wrong thing–to be safe. Beauty to keep me safe, money, love, my family, my friends, popularity, clothes, my body, health, food, all things I look to to keep me safe from what exactly? No matter what things I have, no matter what stories I tell, I’ll still grow old, suffer, die.

The truth is my ‘refuges of safety’ —  the stories my self is born to tell — are lies that keep me safe from nothing at all.  Impermanence is the final word. And now I at least have an inkling as to why all those wise Buddhists before me have said, the only source of refuge in this world is the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.

This blog is a continuation of the previous blog — Some (More) HW on Self and Self Belonging.

As I began to understand how the process of creating self and self belonging works, I struggled with my usual question: Why do I do this — prop-up a self and continue to fuel it? What purpose does it serve?  My contemplations so far had gotten me to see that my sense of self and self belonging help sell a lie about an unchanging self and world, they smooth isolated instances in time into a narrative and help me pick facts to include in that narrative and which to ignore. It is like self is a gifted storyteller…(did you guys ever see the movie Usual Suspects?)

But beyond that, I was stuck. humph. I asked Neecha and Mae Yo for guidance and they suggested I consider what would happen if I didn’t create a self, is it even possible to avoid? I struggled with this for a while and decided to apply one of those old handy dandy contemplation tools I keep in my pocket — I decided to zoom out…if self is a storyteller then instead of asking about self (which I’m totally stuck on),  I can ask questions about telling stories: What kind of stories do I tell in my life? Why do I tell stories or exaggerations or lies?

I see that I generally have 2 types of stories I tell..the ones that are told out loud to others and the quiet ones I tell to myself. Let’s take a closer look at each:

Example Out Loud Story: The Great Tweezers Lie of 1993:

Finally, I will admit the truth, all these decades later — it was I who took my Mom’s tweezers and forgot to put them away. But back then, 14 year old Alana was afraid of getting grounded; when my Mom came-in and accused me of taking the tweezers, I looked her in the eye and I lied, “ What tweezers? I don’t have any idea what you are talking about.”

So there is is the reason for my story: I lied to save myself, to avoid my Mom’s wrath. How many other ‘out loud stories’ have I told and why:

• At a dinner party, with everyone captivity listening to my travel tales,”I got run down by a rhino on safari and lived to tell the tale.”I tell of my adventurousness, my glamorous exotic experiences; I never admit how afraid I felt, how I never want to go on safari again…
• 30 minutes late to work and I exaggerate to my boss, “traffic took 30 minutes to move 10 blocks.” I leave out the part that I left the house late. I want to seem responsible, a victim of circumstance not a person who can’t make it out the door on time.
• Talking to a donor at an event, I learn they went to my university. It was a fine school, but I’m hardly a die-hard alumni. Still I find myself sharing tales and ‘bonding’ over a common experience which, in general life, means quite little to me. But I want to be liked, to find common ground with a stranger, to be successful at my job.

The stories I tell out-loud are always meant to control other people’s perceptions of me. They are meant to get people to like me, or to protect myself from negative judgement or consequences.

Example Story I Tell Myself: That’s Not Cheating

When I was in highschool I had a ‘rule’ — I would not be a cheater. I would not cheat on my partners and I wouldn’t would mess around with someone else’s partner either. But there was once, I liked a guy so much, he just already had a girlfriend. Based on my rule, I wouldn’t cheat, but I flirted, invited him over to study, insinuated..I got him to break-up with his girlfriend so we could go out. But that’s not cheating..I waited till after the break-up to mess around with him. I created an imaginary line, a story, and then I defined myself as someone who stayed on the “right” side of it. I did it because I wanted to protect myself from seeing myself as a cheater. I wanted to believe I was a good person, who deserved friends, and good faithful partners.

How many other ‘inside stories’ have I told and why:

• In my relationship with my mom, I painted myself as the victim and my mom as the ‘wicked witch.’ I ignored the other side, the times I was hurtful to her, the times she was the hero. I did it because I didn’t want to see my own ugliness, my lack of gratitude. The truth that I was being a bad child a lot of the time.
• I hate New Yorkers, I look outward to find ugliness in their actions, to distract myself from my own ugliness, the traits about myself I don’t like.

The stories I tell myself are all designed to bolster my sense of being a good Alana. They obfuscate my negative qualities, they defend my righteousness and justify my potentially bad behavior through selective memory, arbitrary rules and standards, and downright lies. I need to be a good Alana. I value goodness, I think it is what makes me worthy of love, of protection, of good karma and a comfortable life.  I believe that good people deserve good outcomes and that the world will deliver those.  So I tell stories that affirm my goodness, because that goodness is what makes my worldly existence seem predictable, orderly and safe.  

At the end of the day, my self as storyteller reinforces my vision of the world as a predictable place, one I can navigate if I just follow the rules (rules of my own creation). It lets me be in control, to imagine a world worth living in because I ,as a self proclaimed ‘good’ person, will get good stuff and avoid the bad. It makes me believe it is worth being born.