Alana's Dharma Blog

So, a little warning Dear Readers: This next blog is a bit our of order. It is a continuation of the Part 5 blog and will start out exactly like that blog and then go in a completely separate direction. So, if a few sentences in you have that creeping deja vu feeling, please press-on my friends. “How can this be?” you may be asking… “I thought you were trying to give a blow-by-blow as close to real action report as possible –liar.” Please recall my friends that this contemplation unfolded as a Line conversation, so there were different threads that were simultaneously unfolding. Plus, this contemplation reflects my own thinking process and there are frequently branches in my thought, new topics that arise and which I circle back to address at a later time. Hang in there, I promise the  next blog will continue on from where we ended in Part 6 and incorporate thoughts from here as well.

By way of content introduction, this fragment of the conversation is an exploration of the difference between being a factor and being a cause.

Please do note, my early contemplations on this topic didn’t get it all exactly correct: After many more months of contemplation, I now understand how Nama can be a cause of things in the Rupa world (my original conclusions assumed otherwise). But, these first contemplations, though not entirely on the mark, helped me begin to floss out the topic of control in the context of my new understandings around rupa and that is the most important part for now.

MN: The thing that most practitioners don’t understand is that even when you get the outcome you expected, it is still an impermanent outcome.

A: Of course! I think each time I get an outcome I want it confirms my control. Like picking heads or tails in a coin toss correctly. But if I were in control the evidence would be replicability and the ability to preserve. I suppose this is one way that nama and rupa’ interact. Rupa’ stirs my imagination to self-lie, with the agenda of selling my personal fairytale of Alana the in-control hero who accurately guesses coin tosses.

MN: I really like what you’ve said here. If you always believed successes are fully attributed to your amazingness and your amazingness is no longer the cause, what can you attribute them to now?

A: My amazingness isn’t the cause of heads/tales in a coin toss, the cause is the 4es of a coin, meeting the 4es of a hand, meeting the 4es of the air and the surface it lands on.

MN: So what is the cause for situations that seemed safe to you, or the cause for whenever you’ve thought yourself to be good or compassionate?

A: Back-up a sec, I have a qq: take the situation that my bra strap breaks midday. The cause is the erosion of the 4Es of the bra band. But if I saw a thinning bra strap this AM when I put the thing on and I ignored it, I have some fault that it broke midday and I had to run around with lopsided boobs. So the coin is obvious, but this example seems like a mix of the bra 4e and my own actions (and the beliefs that led to those actions).

MN: If you remove your behavior and it happens anyway, what is the true cause? Have you ever bought something and never used it and it still broke?

There are causes and factors. Causes are crucial to the result, factors contribute and magnify but on their own cannot cause the result

A: If I remove my choice to wear a thinning bra this AM then the cause of breakage is the seed of change/cessation/breakage innate in the 4es of the bra.

The factors though? I suppose I put it in the dryer and heat has the ability to expedite breakage, or my boobs are extra big and the pressure can expedite breakage?

But what about my behavior? I suppose wearing it, the friction, the heat, the sweat that the bra was exposed to because I chose to wear it are also factors for it breaking today.

But how do I see my choice to wear it? A factor? And if so, a follow-up possible conclusion is I am not ever a cause in this world, but a factor. Yes? If causes are in the Rupa?

MN: This is worth proving or disproving

A:  Wait, one thing I do cause…my birth. Wait, if after birth I am no longer the cause for anything in this world…how can I be a lord of my stuff? Of my body? Not cause =no control.

Am I a queen if ‘my’ subjects don’t actually subject? If they don’t follow my rules at all? If the actions I read as adulation (confirmation of my awesomeness like heads on a coin toss) is not something I am the cause of?

A: Ugggh…I still think I can use my cute yellow purse to convince other people of my awesomeness even if I don’t really control the bag itself.

Actually I think I can convince some people some of the time. But that is enough…not enough suffering maybe?

MN If it’s only some of the time, then is it true?

A: I wish I could believe that some of the time is untrue… I can’t even control my own delusions all the time.

A: (reply several days after the previous exchange) To answer an earlier question  — if I do something and my mom is unhappy I am a factor not a cause. The cause is her view/expectations about how daughters act, I and my actions in the Rupa world are magnifiers. Moreover, the magnitude of my factorness varies across time/situation, so if my brother and her are on the outs for example it can magnify my factorness.

This all brings me to self and self belonging. I (wrongly) view myself as lord of my belongings. They follow my rules, they are subject to me, they representative me by singing hymns of my glory in all directions. Except…

Except that in a Rupa world causes must lie within Rupa (excepting birth, delusion, the elimination of delusion and possibly karma???). So really I am subject to my shit. I have to follow its rules. I suppose I’m the one that must be singing praises to its glory. I am testing as I am able. Brush my teeth, service to Rupa. Put in contacts, service to Rupa…store glasses, service to Rupa. Shower, dress, eat, caffeinate. Even this vacation is so Eric and I can survey Portland and Seattle as possible future homes — I am taking Rupa and using it to feed my imagination about possible future rupa. Back and forth to SF is in service of spending time in MY job, the one that represents me. The time I spend in the north east is in service to my bank account, Eric still needs this job. Ugh, it’s kind of sad actually…

I misunderstood factor and cause. So I thought every cavity free dentist visit, every pound lost, every wrinkle frozen, every slimming outfit, every lifting bra, every complimented hand bag, were all victories. Now I am starting to see that, at best, they are moments that I am a factor in staving-off the ‘losing’/decay/aging/ dirtying/ change that is caused by the 4es of the body and objects themselves… All this before I even start really considering 2 sides and cost… More thinking to be done on this front for sure.

But before our last few days in Rupa mode I knew the conclusion –I don’t control my belongings. Now I actually understand why.

MN: I like this. This is how incorporating rupa and the 4E into dhamma contemplations balances everything out.

You can believe in whatever fiction, but the rupa will be an undeniable, straightforward truth that either proves or disproves it.

Factor vs cause is key in dhamma contemplations. Understanding the differences can make all the difference

On to the Hard Stuff…This blog is a direct continuation of the last, so if you haven’t covered it yet, please head back there to read that one first.

As a recap: the last few blogs have pivoted off of questions Mae Neecha had asked me early in our conversation:

“Is hot and cold generally the same for humans? For instance, desert temperatures are hot, arctic temperatures are cold? Is human hot and cold the same is kangaroo hot and cold? Or penguin hot and cold? If it is indeed only in our minds, then if we don’t think it, then it won’t exist?”

As you may recall, my first ah-ha/zone/retreat night contemplation had left me too nama-centric; taken to an extreme, but logical, conclusion, the view was that my mind/ my thoughts/ my beliefs alone govern my experiences of this world. All the work, till this point, has been about balancing out that view. Developing a rather nuanced understanding of rupa so that I could see what it is, how it functions in this world, and how my nama relates to it.

In the last blog I got as far as seeing how the fairly straightforward ideas of hot/cold are grounded in form: both the form of the temperatured object and the form of the beings that perceive the temperatured object. And then that particularly tempetured objects, like hot food, can have a meaning I assign (being cared-for or loved) based on my experiences and imagination.

Here we will start digging a bit deeper. I use literally the same model of how hot/cold work to begin to dissect even more abstract, and for me emotionally loaded, topics like good, pretty, safe, etc. So here we go…

A: I have figured out a few more: strong/weak, loud/quiet, delicious/yuk, dark/light, rich/poor.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

NOTE: This part was not in the original conversation, it was implied. But I will fill it in here so you can trace my thinking process a bit more clearly.

Strong/Weak — Based on the 4es of an object, it can exhibit a particular hardness or weight. Based on 4es of a human, humans can have the ability to exert a certain amount of power or strength on physical objects. There is variability within species because I can regularly weight lift, thereby altering my own 4es to become stronger. Moreover there is natural difference in 4es of muscle across our species, across sex and age.

Delicious/Yuk – The 4es of a particular food give it a taste. The 4es of a human enable us to register taste. There is some consensus across the species – most poisonous plants taste bad. Sugar tastes sweet. But if I find a food too bitter or too sweet can be based on what I am used to, based on what my palate has been trained for. So, a Japanese person who has spent their whole lives eating Japanese food will have a different palat then an American person. I used to find certain Japanese foods too fishy, but as I ate more Japanese food my palat was trained and I no longer found I so fishy.

Rich/Poor – quantity of goods is something that can be measured for 4e objects. Humans can use our own 4es to sense and therefore quantify objects. But the amount of an object that constitutes a lot can depend on the context of an individual. A lot of money in India may be less then a lot of money in America based on what I am used to and what a single dollar can buy. Moreover, a lot can depend on what I had in the past.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

But I am stuck on ones like good and pretty because I see that what something is used to/adapted to has a role in all of this, but I can’t see the purely Rupa role for clean or pretty or good.

Let me share how far I have gotten on clean and maybe you can help from there…

I was thinking about light and dark and remembered an art exhibit I saw in Japan; people in a group go into a pitch-black room and sit. Then about 15 min later I started to see a light. Everyone else saw it too. I thought something had turned on but the docent explained nothing in the room changed, our eyes simply adapted to the darkness and we could see. This is how I know adapted/used to plays a role here and I saw it in rich/poor, strong/weak, etc.

For a dirty room, I see the 4es can accumulate and there is some quantity at which humans 4Es can experience it. So dust for example, a certain quantity interacts with human eyes and is visible, it can interact with lung 4es and effect breathing. I know dirty for a dust mites or mole must be different than for humans. I also know my own personal 4Es play a role–as an asthmatic it may take a lesser quantity of dust to begin a 4e coughing reaction in my chest than yours.

My problem is, I know dirty in India is different than dirty standards in SF. I also known when I take my SF self to India it is really troubling to be in a society where the clean standards are so different than mine. For Innuits vs Miami folk and temperature I can clearly see the Rupa reason why we would call different things cold, but I can’t see it for dirty.

Also for things like good/bad, lovable/hateable I am having an issue. I can see how what I am used to plays a role: so if I wasn’t used to SF I don’t think I would hate NY so much. I also see not everyone and not every species hates it. But I can’t break it into Rupa, it seems so personal preference. I see love is something that exists across humans and across species, but I can’t see how I love Eric but my brother loves his wife is something that is deeply rooted in the Rupa realm other than on each of our individual interpretation of it based on our own 3s and 4s. Struggling with beauty too.

Thank you!!!

A: Ok on clean maybe I am closer than I thought. In Mexico, Mexicans drink the water and don’t get sick, but my Dr. warned me not to drink water when I went cause Americans are more likely to get sick. So fine I see the Rupa in clean.

But how is love or goodness broken into elements…hard ☹️ Wait..does good have to do with karma? Ugh hard

MN: You’re making good progress! (good)

Here’s the answer to back solve for – Every intangible quality has rupa and the 4e at its core. Without rupa and 4e, those qualities wouldn’t be able to be seen or proven.

For love, what is it that you love? How do you perceive that love? What tangibles prove Eric’s love for you? What physical things prove your love for Eric?

Let’s get the rupa and 4e cleared away before we dive into karma. That’s also important and seems that karma’s role in everything is missing from your in the zone realization

A: Ok I got beauty/ ugly is just an arrangement of 4Es that is pleasing/displeasing to my the senses (more 4es).

I think I have figured out hate too ( I’ll get love on my own as an extension). I’ll start with the punchline: for me hate is about stability and I can clearly find a 4E basis for stability.

I used to keep fish tanks and you are not supposed to empty all the water out of a tank to clean it, only some. The water has its own unique temp, pH, boom and if you change it all at once it can shock the fish to death, they need stability.( 4Es of fish need a particular arrangement of 4 Es in the environment that can’t change too quickly).

I hate NY, it is loud, dirty, overcrowded, people speak harshly, body language is harsh, movement is fast. Alana’s 4es was used/ adapted to an SF arrangement of 4es and NY 4Es shocked my system. It was unstable.

I hated my mom as a kid; when she flipped out for seemingly no reason she would flail, yell, withhold food, clothes, shelter, physical affection and attention and isolate me so no one else could provide these. The 4es of my environment registered as unstable to my 4es.

There are 4 E reasons a Bedouin would register a certain arrangement of 4Es as more or less stable than a Midwestern kid who has never left their hometown. But there is a range for humans. There is also a different range for cockroaches than for ( the super sensitive) Mandarin Gobi.

Moreover(I’m still testing) if temperature is in the 4e of water and registering it is in my 4e than feeling heat is a symptom of the interaction btwn the water 4e and my 4e. Just so, stability is in the environment and my ability to register more or less is based on my 4 es. Hate is a symptom of the interaction between the 4es in the environment and the 4 es in my self.

Zooming out of Rupa world for a sec: To this day my Mom’s voice, word choice perfume, face, all prickle me. It is old memories and my storyteller self (4) smoothing over all that has changed and selling the lie that my mom and I and the situation are still the same. That she is still a much weightier factor in my stability/instability than she act is in the current circumstances I.

Also, as long as we are zoomed out here: I spend most of my life chasing shit I love and trying to avoid what I hate. If hate is just instability, and instability is (increasingly obviously) the rule of this world…that is a pretty clear path to help me loosen my attachment.

Anyway, next needs to be good/bad. I have saved it because it is crazy hot button for me, but I will try. My instinct is to start with worthy of reward/punishment. Or worthy of safety/ unsaftey. Any thoughts?

Thank you!!!

MN: The 4E are the basis for everything. Our feelings of like or dislike are represented by things, tangible physical objects.

If I am pleased after a meal, that pleasure is based on the 4E of food my 4E has just consumed.

If I hate someone, that person is the 4E that I hate, the subject of the things we disagree on are all 4E. Our clashing values are represented by 4E – the greedy take and the non-greedy pass… on what? On a tangible thing like a dress, a car, a meal, etc.

If I am annoyed at someone driving slowly, what are they being slow about? Driving a 4E car on a 4E road at a rate that makes 4E me think I’ll be late for my appt with my 4E doctor at the 4E medical building.

A: I see how the 4Es serve as a base. I do have a question though: For hot and a group of humans from Miami there is general consensus on a hot or cold day.

For hate though, it seems harder. When I really push I see that everything I hate is wrapped up with Rupa that  makes me feel like the world around me is unstable/unsafe/ unpredictable. This then gets to a core wrong view of mine– that a stable predictable world is achievable and preferable and that if I just make the right tweaks I can get there.

For you, it seems like the 4es you hate are different things because you read the rupa to mean different things. Yes?

Is this all part of how rupa and nama interplay?

MN: When it comes to hate, there has to be an object for that hate. Whether it is a person, place, or thing.

If you hate hot weather, a high pitched voice, a fussy baby, being low on gas, cars honking, dishonesty, etc … each instance of hate is embodied by something tangible. Without that object of hate, the feeling of hate wouldn’t be triggered.

Have you considered that this instability that you are adverse to might be part of the overall stability of the larger system?

And the world IS predictable in its way… only we don’t understand or see the world’s rules because we are so focused on our own…because we think we are the world.

A: Ok, I see that we love in a Rupa world. Rupa is the foundation for the world, the things I do in it and what I believe. As a resident in the Rupa world I am at most a factor, causes are in the Rupa itself.

But that isn’t the whole story…of I get a hot meal it is the hot meal that triggers my view/belief that I am loved and cared for. I use the Rupa as proof…

But then, I don’t think the cause of my view is the Rupa, I think the Rupa is a factor. If it were the cause, my views would be born out in the real world and I think we have established they’re not, after all I hate NY because it exposed a rendition of Rupa I don’t and to see/believe exists.

What is the rest of the story?

Alright Dear Reader, this is our pausing point. We will return to this question in an upcoming blog, but this has already run quite long.

Rupa Beyond the Basics – How Rupa Lies at the Foundation of Concepts Like Safe, Clean, Good, Etc. 

If I understand what rupa is –alternating, shifting, decaying arrangements of 4es – and I am still consumed by desire for it, it points to another problem: I am dazzled by what I think rupa represents, what it MEANS, or what it guarantees. That, and I don’t truly see its shadow side, the pain and suffering it delivers to my life. I don’t yet feel exhausted by its impermanence, its unreliability…Ugh, clearly, I still have a lot of work to do…  

But, as a starting point, I needed a bridge, an understanding of how rupa and nama interact. How lil’ ole’ rupa, just a collection of those 4es, ends up providing a foundation for absolutely everything: love, safety, goodness, etc.  

Rupa is just like soil, it is the medium through which our desires are nourished and then born out. Rupa is the building material our nama uses to build itself and its vision of the world. It drives us, but only because of the meaning we assign to it, because of what we believe it means or what we believe it will help us achieve/become.   

This next contemplation takes a little to warm up, but it is a biggie –it is where I start actually seeing the way rupa provides a foundation for all those concepts that rule my life: Safe, good, clean, pretty, etc.  

Because this is super long, I am going to divide it into 2 blogs. In the first I look at a rather simple concept: hot/cold. In the next blog you can see how I used what I had figured out from the relatively easy concept of ‘hot/cold’ to work through way tougher topics like love/ hate, clean/dirty, good/bad.  

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MN: The thing that most practitioners don’t understand is that even when you get the outcome you expected, it is still an impermanent outcome. 

A: Of course! I think each time I get an outcome I want it confirms my control. Like picking heads or tails in a coin toss correctly. But if I were in control the evidence would be replicability and the ability to preserve. I suppose this is one way that nama and rupa‘ interact. Rupa’ stirs my imagination to self-lie, with the agenda of selling my personal fairytale of Alana the in-control hero who accurately guesses coin tosses. 

MN: I really like what you’ve said here. If you always believed successes are fully attributed to your amazingness and your amazingness is no longer the cause, what can you attribute them to now?  

A: My amazingness isn’t the cause of heads/tales in a coin toss, the cause is the 4es of a coin, meeting the 4es of a hand, meeting the 4es of the air and the surface it lands on.  

MN: So what is the cause for situations that seemed safe to you, or the cause for whenever you’ve thought yourself to be good or compassionate? 

A: Is it really the same as a coin? The cause of a hotel room I think is safe is the configuration of the 4es? 

MN: What is safe, in terms of 4e. What 4e cues indicate safe or unsafe 

A: Cues of safe: clean, orderly, kempt… 

But what is clean on 4E terms?  

OK I’ll try: safe in 4e terms concerning cleanliness is non decayed? 

MN: What kind of configuration signals safe or clean or good? 

MN: What is safe on safari? Safe at the temple? Safe at the grocery store? All in rupa/4e terms? 

For instance, safe can be where you are far from harm (harm being another living being) or safe from predators. Or safe being enough food and water and warmth and shelter. See how it is physically based? 

A: So I tend to focus on cleanliness as safe from disease. But there was a decent looking cafe “fooled” me into thinking it was nice and clean and safe till I saw the filthy bathroom; a part of me wants to file this under incomplete view, once I saw the bathroom I had more info on the rupa to feed through my nama. 

But, I freaked out because I thought that dirty must = diseases. That is what started me down the Homeless Alana rabbit hole…. 

I’m still not totally clear though, is it that cleanliness is based in the form but I interpret the acceptable degree and the imagined outcome via memory and imagination? 

MN: What is dirty? What is cleanliness? It is totally related and contingent upon rupa. What is disease if not the 4es? 

A: I guess disease is an arrangement of the elements I don’t want? Diseases are an arrangement of rupa that results from, and leads to, further decay. 

MN: What kind of diseases are there. Can you name some? 

A: Cancer, diabetes, flu, cold 

MN: What is cancer? What is the flu? What is diabetes or a cold? In a strictly physical sense? 

Isn’t the flu a virus? What is a virus? What is it made of? How does it come into existence, live, multiply, decay, and die? 

A: Virus is also 4es has liquids that are encased in a solid cell wall it is able to move, more freely than in heat than in cold. It requires liquids to spread and replicate, etc. 

MN: Viruses are alive, living things that require liquid blood, air, solids, heat. They eat our 4e to survive. So if dirty means diseases like viruses, then is dirty based on the 4e? 

A: Definitely 

A: Which brings me to the question of how a group of peeps can all agree water is hot… Fire can act on water and make it hot. It is in the Rupa. 

But you and I can have a different view on the desirability of hot; if I am trying to make coffee it is great, if you are trying to wash salad greens you may think not so great. 

It also acts on my Rupa differently than yours. So If I was just in a cold pool and jumped in a hot one than the hot water will cause a greater change in my Rupa than in yours and that is perceptible to me. 

MN: Go back to what I asked about humans and animal species and living beings perceiving hot, and consensus among a species. Why would that be? How is that explained by 4e composition?  

A: Humans, kangaroos, snakes are all types of 4e arrangements. When water of a certain temp interacts with our type-similar 4es it has a similar effect. But not exactly the same either because of variation within the 4es amongst humans or amongst snakes. 

MN: What is the lowest and highest temp humans can tolerate vs lowest and highest temp penguins can tolerate? Why is it similar across species? What is the basis for this tolerance? Physical make up or mental makeup? 

A: Physical makeup is the foundation of tolerance. Similarities arise because we all share the same shit. Differences because proportions are different and the threshold in which disease/imbalance sets in for a human versus a snake. 

MN: Yes. For bison with thick wool, whales with blubber, they can tolerate colder temperatures than humans. So human cold, something all humans would not survive, is still tolerable to these animals. They wouldn’t say it is deathly cold. 

MN: So is hot and cold in the physical make up? Some insects can even freeze and unfreeze back to life. So our human perception of universally freezing cold is nothing to these insects. 

Some animals in the desert can survive just fine in temperatures in which humans would be burnt to a crisp. Again, the difference in the 4e make up is at the root of this difference. 

A: OK –temperature is in the physical properties of water. What temp is hot or cold will depend on the 4es of the type swimming in it. 

A: I understand hot and cold clearly. Based on the 4es of an object, it can exhibit a particular temperature. Based on 4es of a human, we can register that temp as hot or cold. There is variability within species because the 4Es of water can act on the 4Es of my body and so I can actually experience a certain temp as hotter than you because I just jumped out of a cold pool which changed the state of my own 4Es and causes me to experience temp different then say you, coming out of a sauna. 

I can also have a preference and/or assign particular meaning to hot/cold and that is where 3 (memory) and 4 (imagination) comes in. I associate a hot meal with care. My mom rarely cooked and from very young, before I could use a stove on my own, I had to figure out how to ea. So now if Eric serves me hot food, versus cold food I feel more loved and cared for. 

MN: Ok so if hot and cold are determined by physical make up, can you apply the rest of your safe/clean/good qualities list to this concept, to see how they have 4e rupa at the foundation?  

Dear Readers, this blog is a direct continuation of the previous so, if you haven’t read last week’s entry then please do head back there and read it before you continue here.

A little summery/context/extra info:  The dialog below essentially captures the process through which I began to understand how the 4 elements work to make up every physical form in this world. Truth be told, for a long practicing Buddhist, I had a really poor grasp on this ‘101 topic’ prior to this contemplation. After I started really understanding the 4 elements I came to see my practice had no chance of success without this key understanding –how can I expect to become unattached to my possessions if I don’t even understand what they actually are? How will I stop believing the things I call ‘mine’ are subject to my rules until I understand what the actual rules of the world that govern all forms are?  How  am  I supposed to internalize the decay/death of objects when I don’t see the fundamental building blocks of those objects are exactly the same as my own?

I spent an entire day just trying to understand the way 4 elements come together into particular forms and then dis-aggregate, feed and rearrange into other forms. I started with simple objects, coins and coffee and went on to trees, bees, and then compound objects like cars and cows.  For example:

A Tree: arises from the earth, is nourished by water and solid minerals and requires heat to synthesize nutrients and circulate (wind) those nutrients through the tree and grow (wind). The solid of the trunk , protects and provides channels for the sap (liquid) to move (wind) up to the leaves so they can effectively capture sunlight (fire) to photosynthesize nutrients. A shift in the balance of the elements creates change in the tree and if the shift is sufficient it causes death.   If there is insufficient water in the earth to move up the roots (solid) of the tree, it will die and its elements will go back to the soil.  An absence of heat causes sap (liquid) to flow (move) less freely  and the solid of the leaves  becomes more fragile and wind  blows them from the tree where they decay and nourish the bugs.  If a rot softens the solid trunk of a tree it can no longer protect the softer inner layers and it is prone to being consumed by insect. A tree requires wind to carry the seed to the ground where it grows, but a hurricane can uproot and kill it.

Several weeks later I came back to this topic and did a little exercise in which I analyzed each of my body parts to understand it in terms of 4 elements. I then considered how imbalances in each of these parts, and then ultimately my body as a whole would lead to sickness and death.  So For example: my lungs are solid tissue requiring a certain body temperature to move and blood to be nourished so that it can move air through my body. As an asthmatic, I know that solid particles (dust) can move into my airways and cause a liquid to form in my lungs that creates greater resistance to solid tissue’s moment and makes it hard to move the air I need to survive through my body. I have had fish tanks and seen the little air hoses become clogged, start filling with water, cracking and ‘die’ because they can no longer move air into the tank. So can’t I also die if my balance of elements becomes sufficiently  changed?

In addition to softening my belief that I am somehow  exempt from death and decay this exercise also helped bolster my understand of exactly why all form is temporary (impermanent). The elements are constantly shifting and changing balance and effecting each other. The introduction of a particle of dust can shift the 4es of my lungs. No 4e object is a closed system in and of itself, the interaction with other objects, and the shifting that comes with changes in the environment, and the  propensity for each element to erode back to the earth  is the REASON they will never be stable. They will never be ‘mine’ forever.

But…I am way way ahead of myself here. So, if you want the nitty gritty of how I got here, see below:

How the 4 Elements Work –The Basics

A: I don’t understand the 4 elements. Can you perhaps give me an example of how you would use them to talk about a tree or fish or bird?

MN: Everything is made up of the 4 elements. A tree requires sunlight to grow, needs water to live, breathes in air, and draws from minerals in the dirt and it has a solid form.

Fish require water to live, air to breathe and internal air pressure to tolerate various depths, heat to stay alive and moving, and is comprised of solid matter. A larger fish eats a smaller fish, and in doing so absorbs the smaller fish’s 4 elements. When the big fish poops, it releases some of those 4 elements back into nature. When it dies and decomposes, its 4 elements return to the earth.

MN:  Try to see how all things are comprised of the four elements. For instance, like the tree we consume the 4 elements: we need air to breathe and air pressure to function, water to drink and blood to flow through our veins, solid foods (made up of 4 elements, as well) to build up and sustain our own solid bodies, and heat to stay warm and flexible. An imbalance of any of these, we get sick and die. Absent any of these we instantly die. When we die, the four elements return to the earth – our corpses fertilize the earth and plants and animals eat our discarded 4 elements.

Try to understand the role rupa and the 4 elements have in defining particular qualities in order to understand whether these qualities truly *only* exist in the mind.

–How do “hot” or “cold” relate to the tangible form and the four elements?

— How are “safe”/”unsafe” or “good”/”bad” or “skilled”/”unskilled” determined by the tangible form and the four elements?

–How can we feel the same things, have a general consensus of what is “tolerable”/”intolerable” among species? Why is it different from humans to various animal or plant species? What is the role of rupa here?

—What is the role of rupa in shaping view? What is at the foundation of view?

—What is the relationship between reality and view? Is there overlap or are they mutually exclusive?

A: QQ: just once– how would you think about the elements of a coin in a toss?

So the coin is solid, its toss depends on air, where are liquid and heat in a coin? Does every item need to have all 4 of the elements?

A: Wait maybe when fire is applied to a coin it becomes liquid. So heat was actually required to take the original metal, liquify it, and turn it into a coin shape?

MN: Yes. Like you said, in forming the coin, there are solid metals forged in heat, cooled with air, shaped while in liquid form.

A: So do you need to see all four elements in every object

MN: Yes

A: Is it because everything is all 4 elements in different proportions?

MN: Yup

A: I like this hot and cold game 😉… Do the proportions dictate the particular rules of each object? So if a really coin has a particular proportion of solid such that when flipped the air acts on it to give a probability of getting heads 50 Percent of the time. But…a false coin, which has a different proportions of solid could interact with air such that it flips heads at a much higher percent of the time?

MN: When it comes to a coin toss, whether metal coin, plastic coin, or glass coin, the probability of heads or probability of tails is contingent on what?

A: The interaction of the solid and wind elements I think?

MN: The coins are forged in different ways, combining different proportions of the 4 elements. There is so much impermanence involved in this process, even when the same type of coin is replicated in a single factory’s assembly line. Each coin is the same, yet unique in terms of its composition.

Then when the coin is tossed, those slight discrepancies in the four elemental composition will factor into the conditions that cause it to show heads or tails. For instance, a coin that is “heads” heavy may be more likely to show heads. But ultimately chances are it will end up with a mostly random combo of heads and tails.

And yes, the physical conditions at the time of toss also factor into the results. The wind element, the moisture in our fingers and the air, the weight of the coin and the surface it lands on, the heat and how it reacts to that particular material.

So, how do the 4 elements factor into probability and impermanence? How do we use tangibles and the 4 elements to determine, value, and define things?

A: How about something like coffee? In its liquid state fuels my solid forms movement through a solid worlds

MN: Coffee is also 4 elemental, once in our body, the 4 elements of coffee break down and travel to their respective teams… liquid from coffee feeding liquid in our body, solid feeding solid, air feeding air, heat feeding heat

AD: Ok so a diamond with higher clarity and shine is more highly valued because it is more rare. Can we say that the heat and pressure in the earth acted upon a particular diamond of a particular proportion of the elements and resulted in more shine and clarity? How do I get more nuanced?

So, we need to think about not just the elements in the current state of the object but also in the process of forming and the process of dissolution?

Is it possible to understand the proportions of say one diamond versus another is a nuances way or is it sufficient to see they are different?

So if diamond a has more clarity than diamond b than do I need to understand what element and in what proportions cause clarity? Is it even possible? Or is it sufficient to see the difference and understand there is an elemental cause?

Can I go a step further and see that whatever elemental difference causes great clarity in diamond A, that difference began in the formation. Creates a different perception in a human in it’s current state and will solve in a different way/ proportion of elements back to the earth? All along it will act differently RE; shine?

So there is however only so clearly or cloudy a diamond can get.

MN: Just a basic understanding is fine. For instance, if the diamond has more or less clarity, it could be due in part to the pressure (wind element) where it was forged, the mineral composition in the ground, as well as the moisture and heat in that location. You don’t need to know precise scientific reasons, just the trends the elements follow. Wind element contributes to___ features, water element contributes to…

The differences appear in all stages: birth, aging, sickness, death

A: So maple syrup (yes I’m at a farmers market) has liquid but it flows which is viscosity, a combo of it’s water and air. Or it’s water and earth spectrum which is influenced by current heat and air. It has solid elements and it changes from liquid to solid at certain heat leveled so in the bottle I see it has a level of heat in it that is responsible for it’s current viscosity. It has a flavor that that is derived  of it’s solid parts and liquid parts…what else?

MN: Maple syrup is tree sap and part of the tree, the tree grows by eating minerals in the dirt and increasing its solid form, by drinking water, by breathing air, and by being warm enough to survive. The syrup is made by boiling and cooling, all of which depend on liquid, heat, air, and earth elements

A: So it’s like a paint pallet. An artist will know a color and oil versus water type, thickness, the ratios of paints together and the type of canvas you put it on will all determine the characteristics of the final painting?

MN: Yeah –Even paints are 4 elemental. Colors, as well. We are each a piece of 4 elemental art. Only there is no “final”, we are living art, shifting and changing all the time

A: QQ: am I right that it is impossible to think about just the elements in an object without considering how the elements and elements in other items  have acted on the object and how the object will act on the elements and elements in other objects in turn:

Example fish doesn’t just have blood it needs water in ocean and it acts on the ocean by peeing.

Or tree had air that allows roots to spread that act upon the movement in the soil? I ask to be sure I am correct in thinking about the whole picture bc I am having trouble isolating a fish without thinking about ocean

MN:  All interrelated, not isolated.

Everything feeds off of everything’s four elements. We eat certain meats bc we cant get those nutrients (aka 4 elements) on our own. We eat cow meat to get grass nutrition  (our 4E eats cow 4E), eat nuts from trees for certain vitamins (vitamins=4E), mosquitoes eat our 4E in sucking our blood, flies eat our 4E in eating our skin. Goats lick the mineral salts from rocks to get their 4E, leopards eat those goats, leopards 4E back to earth when they poop and pee and after death.

We are all connected. Like that pocahontas song!

A: I will say rupa is a straight forward contemplation, but pretty powerful too…I generally think the world is so exciting, but today I started thinking it’s not as alluring as I thought, it’s just the same shit mixed up in different mold.