Alana's Dharma Blog

I was out to dinner with a friend and when the waiter came to take our order, my friend invited me to go first. “I’ll take a salad and a side of fries” I said. My friend proceeded to order her meal, but –wah wah wah — she did not order fries. “Fuck” I thought, “I can’t believe she didn’t order fries, she loves fries and now she is totally going to hoover down mine.”

Sure enough, no sooner had my fries hit the table then my friend’s greasy paws were all up in my plate. I seethed (silently of course). But, as we both were eating, something happened — I got full. Half a basket of still warm, golden, fries were staring-up at me, begging to be scarfed, but I seriously couldn’t eat another bite. And then it hit me, the wrong view: Just because a resource is finite it doesn’t mean I won’t have enough.  

I had considered before that my items change and depart, that they are not in my control, but still, my heart so deeply believed that what I want is what I want, permanent, period. But the truth is that my needs and wants fluctuate as much as my items do, they are not permanent, they are not infinite. Luckily, greed — this quality that seems so stubbornly stuck in my heart that it can’t even take a night off for me to enjoy a date with  a friend — has its own kryptonite; thank you wisdom, for coming to join the meal.

After a stressful day at the office I decided to stop by my favorite thrift shop on the way home for  a little ‘retail therapy’. I found myself walking down the aisle, looking at each frilly, fancy, colourful dress and thinking to myself, “Will this one preserve me?” “Will this one make me stay young? Return my lost beauty? Make me thin?”  

I watched how my imagination went to work conjuring images of the party I would wear the dress to, the comments from friends,  the shoes that would match, the ‘look’ I was going to capture wearing that dress. I consider how my memory works to draw me to specific brands that have fit in the past, to particular colors and cuts. These clothes, they are tools my mind (my imagination) uses to sell a lie — the lie that I can preserve and control my body, my self.

But If I pay attention, these clothes actually tell the truth… I bring 4 items into the dressing room: Two make me look fat, one makes me look like a frumpy old woman. One item, just one skirt, I can work with (as long as I wear a long shirt with it  because it doesn’t zip it all the way up). How in the hell does my mind use those fitting room statistics and conclude I am in control? I can’t make the items fit me. I can’t make my body fit the items. Instead of preserving me, making me pretty and thin, these items and their not quite zipping zippers, are proof I have gotten fat, lost my figure, gotten old.

These items are bullying and mocking  me and yet I still want them. Tomorrow, when I think of this shopping trip, I will remember it as great fun not a great humiliation. I will look at the new, not-quite-zipping skirt and think –success –something to make me look cute, something the preserve the image I have so carefully crafted. Again, I will ignore the obvious: How can an impermanent skirt, one already starting to unravel around the over stretched zipper, give me the power to permanently preserve?

I decide to head back out to the aisles and see if I can find a long shirt to match that non-zipping skirt. I see a woman browsing ahead of me and feel myself getting anxious and antsy — what if she gets to my perfect long shirt first? As I am maneuvering to get ahead of her, I realize this — wanting/defending what is ‘mine’ — is how wars over belongings get started.

Here is the thing though, my wedding dress has been specially dry cleaned and packed away in my closet. The dress is preserved, but I am too fat and saggy to wear it anymore. Why am I pushing and shoving to find a perfect shirt that, like my wedding dress, will fail to preserve me?  Why am I so easily lulled by ignorance and greed when even a dress knows better?