I was at the Wat and a friend was talking with Mae Yo about an issue of hers: She had asked someone to go to the store and pick-up a case of Coke, they came home with Pepsi.  Over and over she asked them to go and make and exchange and she grew more and more frustrated when they didn’t. The thing is, she already knew her wrong view: when someone fucks something up, they should fix it. She already knew she was the one suffering. But still the problem wasn’t fixed –so what are us practitioners supposed to do when we know we have set a condition, but it just seems so real and right?

A few minutes before Mae Yo had pointed to a stack of papers and pens and other stuff on the table — a bunch of stuff I said  looked like mess– and Mae Yo told us the goal was to be neutral about it. We should see it as an impermanent pile of things, not a mess per se. Or, at least, if it is a mess, it is only one in conventional terms, it is something we should not be bothered by.

But seriously, it still looked like a mess to me, and messes bother me. How am I supposed to come to neutral? I know it is my condition of what is mess and what is clean, I know these conditions will come and bite me in the ass, They already had, as I was uncomfortable sitting there and staring at the mess. But looking at that friggen pile, I was 100% sure it was a mess!!!

Neecha pointed out that it is really just my memory (3) of past object piles informing my imagination (4) to think of it as a mess. And, my memory and imagination have been wrong so many times before. Mae Yo suggested I zoom-out, just looking at mess may not be enough, maybe I should consider concepts of cleanliness, safety, and my experiences with those to consider their performance. But to be completely honest, I left that conversation thinking me and my definition of mess were a totally hopeless mess…

Fast forward a few weeks: I had been to a concert with one of my favorite Jazz singers, Paula West, and it had sparked some contemplations about what is familiar  being what is preferable to me (we will look at this in the next blog). Older songs I had heard before I liked, newer ones I tended to judge based on my experience with her old music.

But it dawned on me the songs are really just a jumble of notes and lyrics (just like a mess is just a jumble of objects). I see them as enjoyable, or not, based on my own familiarity (memory–#3).  I then use my imagination (#4), drawing parallels to other music I like, the way her new songs sound like old favorites, to create new memories, new songs that I can like and use to judge future music.

Suddenly it just seemed kind of silly that I could think some note combos are absolutely great (clean) and others are absolutely bad (messy), particularly when my yard stick is my own creation, based on my own past experiences,  and I’m continually manipulating the notches on the yardstick as I interpret new experiences and imagine ways they impact the future.

And here it is –I think I may sorta kinda understand what Mae Yo was trying to say about the process by which I can bring my emotions to neutral: When I love/hate something, it is my emotions, my feelings, my vedana (that would be the second aggregate) that is responding to the imagination (#4) of what it means which is based off my past memories (#3). The path is is manipulate my own imagination (#4)– by assessing the evidence in the world, paying attention to the 2 sides of everything, impermanence and the suffering– so that my mind overwrites my old memories #3 with new ones that are more accurate and aligned with the truth (impermanence). With new memories, I will have new beliefs, new imaginations, that can, ultimately change my emotional responses (Vedana) of love/hate and bring my to neutral.