Around the time Mae Yo was peppering me with video clips, I saw something of my own that really pierced my heart. I had started watching True Bloods on HBO and the opening credit sequence just blew me away. I have attached the video here for reference:
While many of my contemplations are technical: An exploration of worldly or mental processes, or cause and effect, when I saw this video my response was just visceral. This is how the world really looks without ‘make-up-on’ and it is not pretty. I watched it again and again, sometimes pulling out a piece of paper and making a list of what I saw, or calling out loud what the video demonstrates this world really boils down to: Desire, delusional hope, violence, desire, violence, hate, aging, death, desire, decay ,hate, delusional hope, desire, decay, violence, delusional hope, birth, delusional hope, birth.
I could clearly see that the images were changing in their details, but the world is just on a loop. Same shit, different day. Desire, delusional hope, violence, desire, violence, hate, aging, death, desire, decay ,hate, delusional hope, desire, decay, violence, delusional hope, birth, delusional hope, birth. Each time I watched it I wondered how this is what I keep coming back for.
In Nov 2019 Mae Yo sent me a number of YouTube videos to aid my practice and fuel my contemplations, this is the forth and final in a series of blogs that documents my conversation with her/insights on the videos she sent. Again, I will link the videos she shared below, I would encourage you to watch the clips prior to reading the rest of the blog.
On the spaceship video:
The boy works so hard for years to save enough to achieve his dream. When I watched, I didn’t actually think the ship would take off, but it did. So then my next question was “and then what”?
Even when we achieve a goal or get something we want it doesn’t predict the future, or make any guarantees, or prevent suffering and decay. It’s just a different twist on more of the same (apparently those 3 characteristics are called ‘common’ for a reason).
When I got my job back in SF after moving away, I thought my problems had been solved. My dream of a return (at least partial) had been fulfilled. But my dream came with a whole new set of sufferings. Before I missed my job, now I miss Eric half the time. Before my life felt overwhelming because of being in NY all the time and now it feels overwhelming because of all the travel.
Obviously, I still do it 2 years on, so in some ways I think it is better than an alternative. But when I really think about it I realize that what drove me to want to come back in the first place is that I missed my old Alana life, the identity I had built. Between an apartment, a part time living situation and the old job back I thought I could “reclaim” old identity.
But the city has changed, my job has changed, I have changed. It’s like even the stuff I get after the goal line is still shifting and impermanent( imagine that ;)). I am constantly working to focus on the stuff that seems the same (that bridge still looks golden) and to close one eye to the changes and the stuff I don’t like ( what needles? Of course my job is still the same even though half of the staff has changed since I left the first time). That denial, that self-imposed delusion, is how I convince myself that my efforts are worth the ‘.success’…to the stars and beyond…
… A bit more on the spaceship clip and my question of “and then what”...
It seems like so many movies or books just end with the characters ‘sailing into the sunset’, some happily ever after. But the only reason I think it is a happy ending is because I don’t know the ‘and then what’. I don’t know about the disease or the death or the breakup or the loss. My inability to see further in time gives me the illusion that perpetual happy endings are possible.
For Eric and I, the happy ending we dream about is an early retirement. A time in some near distant future where we can travel where we want, do what we want, be free to enjoy life together. Ironically, nothing else in my adult life has been as stressful as our efforts to achieve this goal. The move to NY and us staying on the East Coast despite hating it, that was in service of money for early retirement (plus the move to SF when I didn’t want to leave Texas, the move to Texas when I wanted to stay with my family in Atlanta). All the late nights of Eric working, the ruined vacations, the holidays he wasn’t around are costs of a high-powered job for early retirement. The office Game of Thrones style politics that has us frequently fearing Eric’s job loss, or scheming to stay ahead is a roller coaster of constant stress. A current legal ‘thing’ I can’t legally talk about has our stress level through the roof, courtesy of his working life.
And I trade all of this stress for an imagined ending I can’t even guarantee is happy. And if it is happy, then happy for how long?
I think Eric and I sorta see travel as ‘practice’ for our early retirement, a taste of what is to come. But if I am being honest travel has its stresses — planning sucks, missed flights and trains, total crap hotels (which are really a problem for me when they trigger my asthma). Downright dangers even (let us not forget the run down by a rhino on Kenya). And vacation is a time I can usually set aside a number of daily stresses, put a hold on the todo list of tax returns and drs appointments and diets and house repairs for a few weeks. But do I really think that I can avoid taxes and drs in retirement? It is like my whole paradigm for the ‘and then what’ isn’t even realistic when I take a closer look. And yet, I keep piling on the stress to get there.
In Nov 2019 Mae Yo sent me a number of YouTube videos to aid my practice and fuel my contemplations, this is the third in a series of blogs that documents my conversation with her/insights on the videos she sent. These are not as long as the pervious few conversations so I will combine several videos/comments in this post. Again, I will link the videos she shared below, I would encourage you to watch the clips prior to reading the rest of the blog.
Video 1: Sweet Cocoon
AD: Thank you ka. I really love this one ka.
AD: I put so much effort into beauty and my body because, on some level I think it makes me safe –exceptional and somehow exempt from death and decay. But beautiful butterflies and people die all the time. It is normal. There is no such thing as someone exceptional enough to defy the 3 common characteristics (impermanence, suffering and no-self). And trying to do so, with beauty or goodness, skill, wealth, and any other trait that makes me a special snowflake is so so much work for success that is temporary at best and failure that is ultimately assured ka.
Video 2 Dumbest Answers Family Feud:
AD: It seems so silly that folks keep doubling down on the same, clearly wrong, answer. And yet, isn’t that the reason I keep getting born? Like maybe this time will be different? Like I can tweak stuff a little, change the accent a bit like those women in the video (mom), and get a life where I really am in control, where I actually am special and exempt from suffering and unwanted change.
This morning I went to put a sweater on and I saw a hole in it. I was upset, a little surprised, after all, I have taken good care of it. But over and over my stuff breaks, it fails me. How do I still have any surprise left in me when rupa objects erode, when they don’t act any different just because I call them mine.
Video 3: Kid’s Thank You to Police
AD: Ahh, its the old ego-stroking relationship cycle. I choose a quality I value and make myself feel special via my having/ relating to that quality. Then I get external validation of my own awesomeness when people who have the quality I like like me in return. In a mutual relationship it runs two ways where the other person feels validated as well by me.
In the clip the girl feels connected to law enforcement (identity) and builds relationships with police officers to strengthen that identity. The officers in turn take her appreciation as a confirmation of their own awesomeness and the cycle self-feeds.
This is a cornerstone of my relationship with Eric as well. Because I love him his love in return reinforces my sense of specialness ( I particularly look to him to make me feel like a good person). But the truth that I am just beginning to realize is it doesn’t actually help make me special or protect me from suffering. When my Dad got sick I clung to Eric at night hoping he could somehow make it ok. But my Dad died anyway, Eric couldn’t stop it; Eric’s love of me did not protect me from loss. In fact my love for my dad, my view of him as mine and special did not protect him either.
In Nov 2019 Mae Yo sent me a number of YouTube videos to aid my practice and fuel my contemplations, this is the second in a series of blogs that documents my conversation with her/insights on the videos she sent. Again, I will link the video she shared below, I would encourage you to watch the clip prior to reading the rest of the blog.
In addition to the video/comments, this blog recounts my pressing Mae Yo to share her thoughts on the video and her admonishment that if she shares her insight, rather than allowing me to arrive at my own contemplations and conclusions, it would ultimately be a hindrance to my practice. Admittedly, this part of the conversation feels very personal to me — an admonishment from my teacher. I share it because in the wake of her warning I felt scolded, and from that feeling of being scolded I had an important insight on one of my deep, recurrent, personality traits — yup, you probably guessed it — the need to be a ‘good Alana’, or in this case, a ‘good student’.
I really want to share this contemplation, as well as my conversation with and reply to Mae Yo. Therefore, be forewarned, the blog has a slightly wonky structure. It will be my line chat with Mae Yo, followed by my contemplation, followed by my reply and sum-up of the contemplation to Maw Yo. I’ll try and delineate the changes to keep it as clear as possible. So hang on…here we go:
First Line chat with Mae Yo, starting with my response to the duck video she sent over:
Alana: The expectations around how someone/something will be arise from myself. From my “reading” the rupa in a situation. The baby ducks believed the fake duck was Mom because they came to this world with a belief that ‘who’ was there when they were born, or fed, or young was their Mom. But the reality is it was just a particular arrangement of rupa that they overlaid their beliefs on. This overlay is the process by which I make something mine.
What did you see in the ducks Mae Yo ka?
Mae Yo: What’s more important to you Alana between what I get from it or what you get from it.?
Alana: What I get from it ka. But sometimes it also helps to hear what someone else sees too…
Mae Yo: Don’t you gain or benefit from the clips that l sent you.?
Alana: I do absolutely ka. Especially the duck one ka. Thank you ka.
I think I am just afraid sometimes that I miss a point or meaning that is important … That’s is why I asked about why you chose these clips ka.
Mae Yo: Dharma is different from worldly, if I tell you what I see or tell you what I learned from it, it will hurt you, it will become your memory. It will make it more difficult for you . Lp Thoon tought me only two words like and dislike.
One time, Luong Por ask me to find him some bear organ ( in Thai called D- me ) .l keep thinking why , what is it that he really wants from me? He said D-me is good for making medicine. It’s not easy or possible to find D-me, then must be something else that he wants to tell me . D = ดี, it means good. I have a lot of good dharma but I’m too serious and get mad very easily. No one can come close to me just like no one can come close to a bear. So I realized that he didn’t really want D-me, he just wants me to be a bit easier on people.
Alana’s brief thoughts after feeling ‘scolded’ by Mae Yo
Mae Yo had been sending me clips on line and I shared what I saw and asked her about what she saw/why she sent them as well. She replied, by asking what is more important — what I see or what she sees? I feel scolded. I feel like a bad student, a bad Buddhist, I want to run to a corner and cry. I don’t want to be bad, and I sure as hell don’t want what I see as the consequences of badness: Being hung out to dry, abandoned by those who help me, unprotects and unsafe.
Actually, I just want to run and call Eric…
Which makes me see that I call Eric so that he makes me feel better about myself. He makes me feel good and safe. Its the same thing I expect from all of my belongings. To be made real, to sell the story I want to sell about myself to myself — a story of good alana.
But the truth is, what Eric says about me doesn’t make me good or safe at all. It didn’t keep my Dad from dying. It won’t make Mae Yo keep wanting to teach me. It doesn’t protect me from death or from the fruit of my karma. And if Eric can’t do it, how can a house or a shoe or a CD?
Those baby ducks look at a mechanical duck and think it is “Mom” –it will keep them safe, behave as they expect, confer some identity in relation (as children). But what they think isn’t true, it isn’t real, it is just their beliefs overlain on a rupa object. Just so, I look to Eric, I imbue him with meaning, with assumptions that I have about who he is and what he make me. It is just my beliefs overlain on his rupa/nama.
Second Line chat with Mae Yo, on my desire to be a good student
Alana: I think I understand Mae Yo. Thank you for helping me on this path and thank you for not making it harder…it is already plenty hard on its own ka ;).
The truth is though that my self consciousness and fear of missing something is a personality trait that comes up again and again for me : I so desperately want to be a good whatever ( good student, good Buddhist, good daughter, good person, probably even a good bear at some point back there).
Underlying this trait though is a wrong view that:
1. I can be a thing. A good whatever all the time. Like good is some static (unchanginf) state.
2. That my standard of what good is is somehow universally true and if I can just follow it, all the time, I will be the special snowflake I am so desperate to be.
3. That I can rely on rupa (especially if it is MINE) to reflect or confirm my goodness. Like this whole world and everything in it is just whispering Good Alana/Bad Alana all the time.
Its a work in progress, but I am definitely working on it.
Mae Yo simply replied by sending a positive line sticker.
