Alana's Dharma Blog

MN: This makes you think about how it could turn out if people we’ve wronged controlled how we were punished for those wrongs. Keep going until their revenge is satisfied. https://youtu.be/_flYlbBpSok

AD: Ugh, that is disturbing. I need to think on it more, but the thing that really jumps out at me is how scary vengeance can be if we allow it to run unfettered. We already know what becomes of the murdered in this story, but my other fear is what happens if I am the father?  Vengeance will blind people to any sense of conscience or consequence, then we open ourselves up to an endless retributive cycle.

What really drives this home to me is that in the movie, the viewer, because they begin the story where the murderer is already the victim, feels bad for the murder. But of course, if we saw him brutalizing a child would we feel the same? We are so colored by the perspective from which we see events. Of course, if I were the father, my perfect child raped and killed I would see myself as the victim. Over and over these rolls will flip and switch.

But we all are so fixated on us, our perspective and roll. I know for a fact, when I look at my relationship with my Mom, that by believing myself to be the hero, or the victim, or the one with a fixed roll of right (versus one that swaps and switches and is contingent on situation and perspective) is the source of endless struggles. I hurt her, she hurts me. It wasn’t till I at least began trying to shift my perspective that I could shift my auto response.

Vengeance I think requires the belief that I deserve vindication, I am in the right. It also doesn’t really see the cycle or the other side. And it is so passionate, it blinds us to consequences. In other words vengeance rests on a wrong view of permanence. Which of course, makes sense in that all our wrong views are grounded in not seeing the full picture of impermanence, but I don’t think I ever saw how it could work for vengeance before…

AD: Also…on a totally different topic. But watching this movie as an exploration of body as self/ identity is pretty poignant. What is interesting is the movie clearly takes pain out of the equation. It also takes needing the body for self-care out as the guy has care givers. It even takes body as a tool to live freely and do activities he likes out as he is a prisoner anyway. Really that leaves his devastation at losing his body specifically arising not out of particular functions but the idea of body as self. It is quite clear when they say is breaking point is losing ‘Little Willie”…

It is interesting to consider when the cumulative loss of parts equals loss of self. Can a collection of parts be a self if individual parts can go and we still think me and mine?

And probably most poignant, the loss of limb is a result of the guy’s past actions, of that there is no doubt. But his actual suffering arises because of his view of his body as self.

For me I suppose the suffering would lie in the fear that more of “me” could be taken at anytime. That if this body is subject to the whims of someone else to whittle away as they see fit, what does that say for my own power in this world? Something as basic as my body is not mine to command. It confirms my lack of control, of autonomy, of self-determination, when it is surgically whittled down at the arbitrary request of someone else.

I suppose to the point of karma really — that is all what the murderer took from the girl: her opportunity for self-determination. Her hope for a future, dependent on her body.

MN: There’s a LOT to process from this this film. It’s so disturbing yet brings a lot of our beliefs to light. TTP, vengeance, freedom, identity, self and self belongings, kamma, rules/laws created by society, right and wrong, blame, guilt, …

MN: I missed the “little willie” part – a lot of times, that’s what men believe makes them a man. many believe that they’re less of a man if they’re small, more of a man if large. or if they’re fertile and can get it up, they’re manly .. but infertile or impotent, and they’re not. They can lose limbs, but the one thing they can’t deal with losing is their “manhood.”

This is such food for thought. I especially feel the truth in this statement:

“And probably most poingnet, the loss of limb is a result of the guys past actions, of that there is no doubt. **But his actual suffering arises because of his view of his body as self.**”

So often I have seen that when I see someone “get what they deserve” I don’t feel as good about it as I thought I would. Because in the end, when we see anyone suffering, we know and can relate (because we’ve been through all kinds of suffering and hell realms) – and that recognition doesn’t make us feel good.

AD: This issue isn’t just for the boys, recently ( on the tail of finding that cervical cyst) I had a really powerful contemplation on my own lady parts. The full version is actually posted on the English HW line, but the punchline is this:

Being a woman is a deeply important part of my identity so clearly I need a vagina to make my claim of womanhood credible. But that leaves me depending on an utterly undependable body part to establish my claim of who I am. It is a part that causes me frequent discomfort and embarrassment and a part I need to make accommodations for in my every day life — how do I call it myself if it involves my needing to do things I don’t want to do, and need to make accommodations for?

What is more, I build my identity on an item that can literally be the death of me, that can force me to abandon the Alana identity I have worked so hard to build and nurture. And my lady parts may or may not be the end of me. But this body in one way or another definitely will be. What business do I have saying this body is who I am when it will die and wipe out my entire sense of Alana self along with it.

Finally, I really see that I claim this body, and it’s Lady parts, as a foundation for the fairytale future my imagination cooks up, this really is at the core the way my mind uses rupa –as a prop to make my self-spun story convincing. But the truth is it is a foundation so flimsy that a single doctors appointment can shake it to the core. How do I call this body me or mine if it isn’t going to give me the future I want. When in fact it definitely gives me the future I Do Not Want, ie death and disease.

Around June 2021, Mae Neecha, on the tale of our karma conversations, had reached out again to share a few videos for contemplation. In the next 2 blogs I want to share a few highlights – though, in the interest of brevity, not the complete record – of that conversation, particularly in light of Mae Neecha’s insights about the delusions of specialness and differences that give rise to rebirth.

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AD: I just started watching Loki, one of the Marvel spinoff shows about Loki. In the Avengers movies he is a comical villain, planning to try and take over the world to rule it. In the show, he is time warped into an alternative universe — a time universe — that guards multiple timelines. Loki is being interrogated and he is so self-important, claiming his awesome godlike power and intention to take over earth. The interrogator, who has seen multiple timelines and realities play out over and over, sort of smiles and nods at him like he is a cute child.

Finally, Loki escapes and finds a file room where the infinity stone he seeks is, only he finds tons of them in a desk drawer. A clerk remarks that lots of his office mates use these infinity stones as paper weights. In the movies these are all powerful objects that launch epic wars. In this context though, they are just baubles. It is then Loki understands his story trying to takeover earth is up. He sees it is small and sort of silly in the broader context. After all, just a change of circumstances and stuff that is so powerful is petty. All his schemes are just the schemes of so many men over so many times, in different worlds and different timelines, that eventually fizzle. Stories saved to files in record rooms.

It has really been striking me lately how zooming out can really take the shine of special out of self and situations. My “epic” mistake is thinking things and people that are normal are extraordinary (because they are associated with me or my beliefs). In believing that decay and change, sickness and death is something broken that if I try hard enough I can “fix”, rather than seeing my story and everyone else’s tends to play out in more or less the same way. There is nothing “broken” for me to be fixing.

MN: Ooh I really like this. The nothingness of a spec like me feeling is so necessary in dhamma practice. It’s almost comical how often we have to tell ourselves this. And how often we try to deny it or fight it.

AD: Yah, I am starting to sense my own smallness. I am honestly just hitting self and self belongings, especially rupa, super hard but it has a way of giving perspective. After all, the #1 job my imagination ascribes to this body is to somehow make me a special me, it is ( in my funhouse mirror mind) some supposed manifester of the traits I value and want to associate with. That plus the tool that I depend on to stay alive so I can weave my fairytale future story.

But in reality it is just a body, a 4e thing. No matter what meaning and story I ascribe to it, it doesn’t really change the facts of what it is. I suppose that is where the perspective is coming from.

Yesterday I went for my annual mammogram and breast ultrasound. As there is social distancing in effect, they had me wait in a room that had all the scans of my boobs up. It just looked like black and white waves. I couldn’t say which pic was which part of which boob. I honestly wouldn’t know they were my boobs if there wasn’t a name on the chart.

It made me see that these physical parts that I have tied so much of my identity, my womanhood, my sensuality to, are just layers of fat and tissue and water. If you pasted up the pics of all the women in the office, it would look more or less the same.

MN: Gotta watch this channel https://youtube.com/c/InstituteofHumanAnatomy. The doctor is so excited talking about body parts from people who donated their bodies to science. It is like those boob pictures. Just 4e, but we say my boob, my leg, my Achilles tendon. He sees them as components. But when we are still alive and well, they aren’t components – but our pride and identity.

AD: Yes, obviously there is a conventional need to identify. But I see that the problem is when #4 (imagination) starts to believe the convenient convention is actual reality. We claim, then we cling because #4 becomes invested.

After clinging comes suffering bc clinging doesn’t change the reality that if I call something mine, or I call it Bob, it will shift and decay like all 4es.

It is a long and detailed contemplation, but the punchline I got to yesterday was that it is my imagination being invested in some particular future/outcome (i.e. hope) that creates all my burdens. The burden to acquire and preserve shit towards the goal of achievement of the outcome. The sorrow and stress when I lose the thing necessary for that outcome.

If I just put down preference for outcome a vs outcome b, I don’t have to suffer anymore.

I create my suffering. And really what for? Even when I have achieved a goal outcome in real life have I really felt satisfied? Mostly I have almost immediately fixated on preserving, or grown board and wants more or different. Or, like after my mammogram yesterday, I breath a sigh of relief that I can live another day to keep building my fairytale future. In other words, I don’t get much for the cost. Definitely nothing enduring.

Rupa that I claim is just the future-fairytale props I use to convince myself the fairytale is on track and will come true. Be it a body, a cute outfit or an IRA, these things, in so far as I let them keep feeding fantasy mongering #4 are toxic

MN: Preference is the glue that makes us come back to be reborn. Not understanding that no matter what choice you make, you will always meet the same result – suffering

AD: Oh, clearly.  Without a fairytale, some attachment to a particular outcome, what would be the fuel to become at all? If a or b or c or d is all fine by me. If it is just the product of all the causes that brought it into being, not meaningful to me, there is no inertia nor burden.

MN: We really believe in “different”…that we are different, that each outcome is different… and so it is worth it to keep coming back to experience different things.  We fail to see that, no matter what name we give it, it is always the same thing on the menu.

AD: Ughh I intellectually understand that. But I know in my heart I don’t believe it. I’m not bored enough, or unenammored enough yet. But…I am working on it. I feel disillusionment creeping in.  I have been having a series of ‘almost’ health issues. A cervical cyst the doc thought could be cancer, a mole that was inflamed but benign, blood markers for an autoimmune disease but no symptoms (yet anyway). One after another it is starting to erode my hope to somehow march through this world unscathed. Like this particular body can be different from every other object that gets sick and breaks.

MN: That’s why it is so beneficial to see our own past lives. To see how often we have failed attempting the very same thing. Trying to preserve this body, trying to preserve our status, trying to preserve our belongings – and failing miserably every time. Well we do not have the Buddha to point out our past lives to us, we can look into the past of this life and draw the same conclusion. Because we are basically running the same storyline everyday, every week, every month, every year.

I was left a small inheritance from my grandma. Unhesitatingly, I gave it away to a cousin – one of my grandma’s other grandchildren – that was in school and really needed the money far more than I did. It got me thinking, why the money was something I wasn’t at all greedy for when I am greedy for so many other things. I realized I never really thought of the inheritance as mine. I never imagined a future with it. It was never an important part of my plans.

The things I imagine a future with, the things I view as most essential to the future I want –my body, Eric and my money — those are what I cling to tightest. Those are what I am most greedy for. Because of my imaginary future, I suffer at any sign these items, which I need for this future to come true, may become damaged, defunct, or dead. I stress extra hard to hold onto these things.

Several years back, I had a friend who miscarried, she and her husband were absolutely devastated by the loss of her pregnancy, and I struggled to understand why. To me, it seemed like they were mourning the loss of a baby they didn’t even have yet. Only when I came to understand they were mourning the loss of the future they imagined they would have with that baby did I understand their reaction.

We become attached to our imagination of the future. We cling to the objects that we believe are requisite to that future coming true. We claim those objects as ours, mine, in the hopes we can control them – hang onto them – make sure that through our claims, through our efforts, we can ensure those objects our fantasy future depends on will still be around when the future actually comes.

A long time ago LP Nut told me a story of how LP Anan had taken a group on a hike and made everyone carry a chair. LP Anan’s question to the group was, “why can’t you lay down the burden of the chair and just keep walking?” I imagined myself on that hike, unable to put down the chair, and I realized for me, I wouldn’t lay down the chair because I imagine some scenario I might need it in the future, so I cling to it just in case. It’s the same reason I have so many shoes and dresses and jewelry I still can’t seem to consign –the just in case my story calls for it later. It’s the reason I cling to my vast sums of money, but easily give away the small pittance my grandmother left me. It’s too trivial an amount to effect my future, I don’t imagine a just in case where I might need it.

A few days after considering the inheritance issue, I was waiting at the radiology center to go get my annual mammogram, waiting in fear that the doctor might see something suspicious. Why — because I am attached to a story I need this body for, a story where it is healthy and still usable by me. I need it the way I need a chair, the shoes and the clothes, the wealth, just in case, for what happens next. If I could just lay down my attachment to the story having this ending or that, this story arc or that, I wouldn’t have to worry about the just in cases, I wouldn’t have to stress and suffer anymore.

I trade a whole lot of worry, and work, and pain to be attached to an imaginary story. What is the upside I really get through? If the mammogram is ok, all I get is a little, temporary relief from the worry it created, worry that will come back again just as soon as I again sense a threat to this body. Thats because, deep down, I know –everyone knows—that the objects, the body, we use to hang these fantasies on, are here for only a little while before they shift/decay/die.

And do these objects really even confirm my story? Even if I have them, all aligned, for a single point in time, is that a confirmation of the story I have imagined? If so, for how long? will it satisfy me or make me? Even if I have all the objects, can’t I have a “wrong story?” I mean I have Eric, body and money right now, am I happy? Is this my peak story? If I were really so satisfied by this particular arrangement, why am I so stressed all the time? Why am I always focusing on preserving, or acquiring, building my story?

I run around and use physical objects like props in a play,  to help manifest and confirm the stories I tell about who I am, what my future will be. But, the objects I choose to do so are arbitrary. One home can be subbed for another, one boyfriend for another. But once I latch-on, once the object is part of my imagination, I cling. Once I cling, I suffer to hold, and I suffer to loose. But these objects my imagination has grown attached to, that it hangs its storyline on, are no different than any other objects. No matter what I imagine, impermanence, annatta always write the end of the story and it is always the same. I will leave them and they will leave me.