In fall 2021, I had been digging deeper on an old Ubai: The special snowflake. Below is a synopsis of my thoughts on this topic that I shared with Mae Neecha. As it is a fairly long synopsis, I will divide this into several entries.
Before now, I saw clearly that when I consider the fact that each snowflake is special and unique in small ways, I miss the greater commonality — that all flakes arise when water reaches a certain temperature and melt when it heats over 32 degrees. In the most fundamental way, independent of their slight crystalline differences, snowflakes are the same. Bound to arise and cease according to the rupa rules that govern snow. Just as this body of mine, despite the detailed differences I tend to dwell on, is the same as all bodies around me. Arising and ceasing when the physical conditions for arising and ceasing are met.
What I didn’t quite see before however is the fact that each snowflake having its own unique crystal form isn’t some wacky coincidence, best off ignored to fully understand the nature of the world, it is, in and of itself, an affirmation of the nature of this world and the rules that govern it.
The crystalline form a water droplet takes at the moment it becomes a snowflake — based on all the unique causes and conditions of that moment — is precisely why each snowflake has a specific, and unique shape. In other words, the difference in fine details between every snowflake affirms the full truth of cause and effect giving rise to the nuanced differences of this world. Different causes, different circumstance = different effects, and as the stream of time moves, there will never be the exact same set of circumstances/ causes, so there can never be the same effect. Hence, there will never be the exact same snowflake crystal structure twice.
Differences in bodies, differences in nations, differences in personalities, all these arise simply because of differences in karma (cause and effect). This is just normal, the way the world operates, there is nothing special about the process and, surely noting special about the products of the process. Just because a snowflake is unique, arising from its own unique set of causes, it doesn’t mean it is special. It’s just one more snowflake churned out by the process by which all snowflakes arise.
Difference/details isn’t an exception, it isn’t an abrogation of the dhamma, it is actually manifest proof of it. I am a fool for trying to use difference to find evidence of exception, or exceptionalism, in myself or anything else, when the true lesson of the snowflake is that everything is the same — subject to the governing rules of this world, aka karma and the 3 common conditions, WITHOUT EXCEPTION. There are no special snowflakes, just flakes that have unique shapes based on the conditions that gave rise to them.
The snowflake tells the whole truth of this world –not just the truth of rupa that I originally saw, but the truth of karma as well. {{{And — modern day Alana (Feb. 2024) really wants to add that, most critically, snowflakes, in their total lack of specialness, tell the truth of anatta as well, but more on this later.}}}
Why is this anything other than an overly academic observation of snowflakes? Because Alana has a disease of delusion by details. Rather than taking details, and nuanced differences that exist in this world, are evidence that the laws of karma are working A-OK all the time, exception free, I twist and warp those differences and details to be ‘evidence’ that supports my wrong view of how the world is. Or rather, how the world, according to Alana, should be: How I can force it to be (or at least my little corner of it) if I can just control and whip up the precise set of circumstances I need to manifest the effects I like.
{{{And again, modern day Alana wants to interject to point out how this belief that I am special, different, helps feed an even deeper delusion, that I am atta, I have an abiding self. Atta requires differentiation. If everything, everyone, is the same, with what will I build an identity? What will justify my belief in, my hope for, a world that will act in accord with my rules and standards rather than its own? Afterall, to get different effects, for different rules to be in effect, there would need to be something different about the cause, there would need to be something different –special — about me… }}}
All the while, as I am dazzled by each little snowflakes’ grooves and ridges, picking out the ones that ‘prove’ my version of reality, I am missing the nature of both the snowflakes and the snow. The nature of arising in a particular form, and then ceasing, in accord with causes and conditions.
Ugh….I so should have known before that the whole part of the Ubai that felt a little shady/sketchy to me — the fact that snowflakes are the same and different — was manifest evidence of the blind spots of my view. But, at least it isn’t too late, so here are just a few more detailed examples of the lessons I can learn from the uniqueness –the detail — part of snowflakes. Seriously, I will say ahead of time this won’t possibly be everything I have or can learn, but it’s a start:
How I find false specialness and safety in details when really they are showing me that we are all subject to our karma, I can’t possibly be ‘safe’ from the effect of causes I put into place:
I hide special in the details, this is an old ‘ahha’ that I have shared before. I hear a story on NPR of a rape victim and immediately perk my ears to find the reasons why she is not like me — how the circumstances are different, the country, the age, the use of drugs, whatever the dumb ass shit she did to put herself in the situation to get raped –that obviously I would never do (even though I promise I have done plenty of dumb ass shit that could have gotten me raped before) — any/every detail I can cling to to justify why she is not me. And more importantly, why I am not her. Here is the big punchline: She is actually not ‘me’ (she is her own unique –always shifting –snowflake), but that doesn’t mean anything about me (different circumstances give rise to a different –always shifting — shaped snowflake), especially not that I am safe (all snow melts). Let’s drill down a little further to look at why my crazy ass mental gymnastics to prove my specialness and safety with details are bald-faced wrong views. Let’s start with the easier of the two and work our way to more complicated:
1) All Snow Melts: This is the easier truth to see — already at the heart of my original snowflake contemplations — but obviously still not 100% clear to me (or I would be a Sotapana), so let’s re-look:
This morning I was chanting, and after reading the parts of the body bit, I thought to myself how damn unreliable bodies are. My mind strongly flashed to a memory I had of the first person I met with MS. I was in my 20s, she in her 30s, and we were volunteering at the same organization. She was wheelchair bound. So many years ago now, and I so clearly remember thinking how happy I was not to be her. Fast forward to present day; I got a blood test result recently that indicates I may be developing/am at risk of an autoimmune disease. Lupus, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Connective Tissue Disease — no doctor can tell me what, or when or even if. As I was considering the unreliableness of bodies, this woman and her autoimmune disease, me and my blood tests, I thought about one of those stories where the Buddha basically tells a woman in mourning that “everything that is subject to break will break.” It made me pause, because in truth, I don’t really care which disease I get, how I break — I just don’t want to break.
My mind does mental gymnastics to prove who I am not, what I am not (as well as what I am, but that is for a different day) –not the raped woman, not the MS woman — and it is correct, I am neither of these women. Then, my mind stops, not taking the thought to completion. Because the complete thought is that it doesn’t matter one bit to me how I break, not really, what I am desperate for is to not break at all, or at least not for a very long time, or to be as unbroken as possible. But that I am unbreakable, or bound to be lesser broken, or longer unbroken, is not what the details and differences between these women and I “prove” at all. No amount of detail disguises the similarity; snow is snow, breakable things break, all people (including alanas) are subject to cessation (i.e. impermanence) and suffering along the way. And as we shall get to below, we are all heir to our karma.
Mechanistically, what is happening here is my imagination is seizing on some bit of rupa –details — that I use to ‘prove’ or mark the differences between these women and I, so I can imagine-up a different story for myself. A different identity. All so I can feel safe, sleep at night, convince myself to keep going. But imagination is, by definition, not reality. Which is to say, all the meaning I imagine into details really doesn’t protect me from squat. No imagining a long healthy life will keep me from getting an autoimmune disease. No imagining I am ‘better than’ a rape victim will keep me from being raped. All that imagining meaning (where meaning is based on memory/ pattern recognition) into the differences and details does is make me feel better for one hot second. Feel better till new details arise, that I imagine new meanings for, and I ping pong between being comforted and feeling terror (two sides of this capability of imagination) based on the rupa details I see, and the stories I use them to curate. All independent of well, you know, actual reality.
So, if the details don’t prove I am safe, exempt from misfortune, what exactly do they prove? Karma of course!
2) Snowflakes are unique cus karma is for real:
So the super subtle truth, alla unique snowflakes, is in fact that in any/every detail I am not those other women and they are not ‘me’. We can never be, have been, nor ever in the future will be the same; Each rape, each disease, each woman called a ‘me’ or ‘she’, arise based on totally different sets of circumstances, brought about by a different sets of reasons (i.e. effects caused by past and current behaviors and views). Just like each snowflake has slightly different crystalline structures that arise based on the exact circumstances of their freezing.
So, back to chanting here: This morning I was reading that bit, “I am owner to my actions, heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my action and live dependent on my actions”. Now, normally, that part makes me a little squirmy, you know, I got karma issues. But this morning, my little inside voice said, “well duh, who else would be heir to my action, who else’s actions would I be born of?” That would be like a snowflake taking on a shape completely independent of the circumstances that mold it into its precise crystalline structure, it would be impossible.
Now, none of this is to say Alana hasn’t been, or can’t be, or won’t be raped or diseased, quite the opposite actually; after all in a rupa world, where we all share the same basic elemental forms, disaggregation of those forms (i.e disease) and forced taking of those forms (i.e. rape) are extraordinarily common/normal/necessary events. And in a world each of us enter in the first place striving and feeling entitled to/ be/become/ fulfill our desire, depriving or using others to benefit ourselves is an extraordinarily common behavior, with common results. And, skipping ahead to a topic we will address in the next section — this continual process of cause and effect, arising and ceasing, births is basically endless (save for enlightenment) — across near infinite time, of course I’ll face many permutations of rape and illness, each one a bit different, but common in their total suckiness.
A few weeks ago, Eric considered quitting his abusive job. I encouraged him to, said we would figure it out. But he wants this to be his last job pre-retirement and thinks we don’t have enough savings to retire now without compromising our lifestyle. He candidly told me that in the past ( like when we moved to NY) , me compromising on where we live hasn’t worked well. I don’t exactly suffer silently and he doesn’t want to be miserable because I am. It really hit my heart, even if I could promise “I have changed, this time will be different, I have corrected some views (which is a matter of debate for another time)”, he wouldn’t believe me, he said as much.
There is no way to avoid the consequences of my past behavior; I now see there are inescapable results of being picky, difficult, hard to satisfy. It’s not about good Alana/Bad Alana, it’s just about the way crystals form. My persnicketiness and low forbearance threshold isn’t a ‘victimless’ personality trait. It hurts me and the folks who love me and try and care for me. In the short term, I have to deal with a strained husband, a strained relationship, and feeling trapped in CT; In the longer term, there is no denying the guilt in my heart that needs repayment. The thing is, it is so clear how long and self perpetuating this trait and its consequences are, I can see that from my lifetime trying desperately to satisfy my difficult, needy relatives. This is all to say, the causes I seeded yield the effects I reap; even if today’s Alana ‘disowns’ the past behaviors, even if I change, consequences follow me.
Here is the issue with details then: My mind is a slippery beast, I use partial truth — that all snowflakes really are unique, to obfuscate the whole of the truth — that other people deal with the consequences of their actions, and I will deal with the consequences of mine. I can imagine all the ways I am not that, I am this, I don’t deserve that, I deserve this, but in reality there is no ‘safety’ in being ‘not them’, it doesn’t free me from my own burdens born of greed, or from ignorantly being born to live in a world of impermanence and suffering.
And there is no special, no identity in not being them/being who I imagine/having the future I imagine, because we are all just subjects, utterly unexceptional, always moving/shifting/changing based on the causes, cogs to the fundamental laws that govern all of us just the same. The details are just momentary shapes, resulting from the forces that moulded them before, already changed/changing to some new shape.
