Alana's Dharma Blog

Just a a little recap of the previous post: Below is yet more evidence to support my contemplations on the topic that everything is dukkha. The evidence is organized into themes, based around the best examples I found to help prove to myself an assertation I had heard many times from my teachers — that everything is suffering. Moreover, I sought to understand not just the conclusion, but the WHY: Why everything in the world must be suffering, what it is about the nature of the world and everything in it that guarantees that every leaf I turn, every rock I look under, every new corner I turn, I will always find the suffering innate in this world.

Back when I was contemplating on the 4es a lot, I came to realize pain is mostly excess pressure (though at times it can be too little/much heat). The problem, that any massage shows us, is that it is a fine line between pleasurable pressure and pain. We come into this world to experience worldly delights, but the same mechanism by which we experience pleasure (an arrangement of 4es that can sense pressure or heat) ensures we will inevitably experience pain. The organs we use to hear/smell beauty guarantee we will hear/smell things that make us uncomfortable. But this body is not just a mechanism by which we experience physical pain, it is the cause. Physical pain is a result of embodiment. Having a body is painful, having a body is dukkha.

Ok Dear Reader, here we are, the moment we have all been waiting for, the big conclusion of my everything is dukkha contemplations. In fact, as you have seen from my most recent interruptions — “The Pandemic is Over and Still there is no Shelter to Be Found” — this is hardly a conclusion; my understanding of dukkha has continued to grown and deepen. It has become a tool, a cornerstone, of my practice in a way it really couldn’t before I took the time to deeply consider dukkha’s nature, how it exists as an inevitable feature in the fabric of my life, the world.

Over the next 4 blogs, I will re-publish the write-up I shared with Mae Yo and Mae Neecha, which covered not just the conclusion that everything is dukkha, but my growing understanding of WHY everything is –must be –dukkha. I originally shared all these posts back in summer 2022, when they were fresh. Now though I want to put them back in order, share them in the context of all the work, circumstance and burgeoning understanding that got me there. So, without further ado –a rehash/renewal: Everything is Dukkha

For years, when I considered the first noble truth, I translated it as ‘life entails suffering’. This shaped my view of the world, of practice: Life has joyful parts, but it also has suffering parts. You can’t have one without the other. Case closed. But after reading LP Thoon’s biography, I was struck by how often he said “Everything is suffering”. I had heard this in Phra Arjan Dang’s sermons too. I realized how different these takes were from my own, which basically sees happiness, delight, and joy, abundant in the world, just with a “side” of suffering.  I asked Mae Neecha about it and she said:

My mom had survived her big surgery, her road to recovery was long and painful, but she was on it. After things settled down a bit, I reached out to Mae Neecha just to let her know how things were going. Our conversation was short, but really captured a lot of my contemplations from that super difficult time. I will share our exchange here, in full:

A: Just on a personal note — my mom is exiting the hospital for in- patient rehab tomorrow; further surgery is being put off till she is a bit stronger. At this point it looks like a long road, but she should recover. My stepfather meanwhile collapsed and is also in the hospital as well now. Definitely feels like when it rains it pours. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know ka. Thank you so much for your advice and support 🙏.

MN: Oh wow, how is your mom taking all of it? Though our bodies are really frail and we can get hurt or die at any time, our minds are even more volatile – sometimes it is the mind that causes physical ailments… like stress making us ill.

A: It’s funny — mentally my mom is A ok. Her religion seems to give her strength, and the delusional ability to look on the bright side. She has been in chronic pain from a rare neurological disorder since I was a kid, so she accepts pain as totally normal. It is really just the physical stuff for her.

She seems to be taking the stuff with my stepdad in stride too. He has refused care for a number of health issues and the collapse got him hospitalized with docs to address all the issues, so in a way she is relieved. Though he caught Covid in the ER and that is a bit scary given his many risk factors.

I however look at my mom and definitely don’t see the “bright side”; I mean in a worldly sense I do, in a dhamma sense though it’s impossible for me not to look at her and see how our normalizing suffering is our trap. I see so clearly a woman with the will of steel and a body that clearly doesn’t do her bidding. And I wonder at the crazy karma she has — this is her second serious car accident. She had sepsis a few years ago. She has this chronic pain issue that kept her bedridden in my childhood…

So much for one lifetime, but my mom, she just marches right on thanking God for each save. And for a family and friends that support her, and all that stuff. Watching this play out is like seeing how the mouse trap is built in that old game…stuck in this world because if you see grace where there is really suffering, if you accept it as normal, how will you ever get out?

As for me, I am exhausted, but frankly happy for the opportunity to do right by my mom and balance out any debts I owe her. Thankfully, I am able to take the time to be here and help her through this. I am happy to also be a support to my brother.

MN: Luang por often talks about how seeing things as “normal” stunts wisdom. Because it happens to everyone doesn’t mean it’s normal, it means it is an inevitable, inescapable truth of life. No one can outrun suffering.

Without accepting that what we face is due to our own actions, without this Buddhist explanation of things, how would people ever understand why bad things happen to them? They have to look at the bright side in order to deflect blame and hope for better. Bad things that happen to us are just random and let’s just hope they quickly pass. It’s always out of our hands because that means we aren’t accountable.. It’s less painful that way

A: Yah, my brother was so upset and angry at the guy who hit her (ironically she is not). I was talking to him and trying to calm him down and I realized that this is just our turn. My mom’s turn for pain, Seth’s and my turn to struggle for family. Seth felt it was so unfair, but we all take turns with pain, aging, struggling for ourselves and our peeps. Only the timing and the details are different. The world is super fair. We take turns

MN: Yes the system is fair. We see it happen to others and we see it happen to us. In turns like you said

A: A long time ago you asked me if I had ever considered that that the world did have an order and consistency to it. That it just wasn’t mine. I have decided you are totally correct.

Yes — folks don’t want to take accountability. So better to see stuff as random, or someone else’s fault. I get that. But I think the bottom line truth is the only way to stop taking turns is to get out of line. We can refine our actions and behavior for sure, we can build good karma for a turn at a better life. But if you stay in line you are always just waiting for a turn.

I think this idea of normalized suffering is super powerful though. If it’s normal it’s inescapable, so you just live with it instead of trying to find a solution. If it is normal you learn to ignore it, it blends into the background. We actually become numb, like my mom to pain. If you are numb to suffering, there is no way to see that this world is Dukka (Which I have also concluded in a deeply in-depth, comprehensive, months long exercise to prove it to myself. I keep trying to write it up to send to you, but then I see more and more and keep revising. But soon(ish) I’ll send the contemplation along) and if you don’t see the world is Dukka you can’t see how it operates in accord with the common conditions. And if you can’t see the world operating in accord with the common conditions, how can you see it doesn’t follow your rules?

MN: This is so deep! I love how you described this. Lately, we have been watching “Ask Steve” Steve Harvey Show clips and it is so amazing how Buddhist his way of thinking is. He basically tells each person to look to themselves to fix the problem, that it isn’t random, that it isn’t something they should just accept – but that they are the ones causing their suffering and they can change that suffering by changing themselves. And a lot of people ask him stuff along the lines of, “is this normal?” Or they have issues because they aren’t “normal.”

A: Ha, that is super Buddhist. The more I practice though, the more clear it is to me that dhamma is just the truth of the world, it is there for everyone to workout, including Mr. Harvey. I mean the amazing road map the Buddha left, and the compass (and regular hints) you and Mae Yo give, are huge helps to me…but the world doesn’t really hide it’s nature, we just figure out the most convoluted “logic” to turn a blind eye to it.

Yah before all this Eric was in a situation where he could exploit a loophole in his contract to quit his job and get the whole pay, but it was sorta a stretch; at the end of the day he decided not to exploit: we figured that if you have an agreement and you collect on it, you will pay what you owe one way or another.

But it was tempting to just self aggrandize. And that’s when it hit me, he and I ( and most other folks) are struggling to create a cushion for a good life/future, but so often don’t even put in place the right karmic causes. We are selfish and cut corners instead of being generous. But what I saw even further was that I could correct the view and the behaviors to put in place the right stuff for a better future. And in that moment I realized that still wasn’t an exit. It was just a long trap. More turns.

In April 2022, after spending a lovely winter in Miami with my family, I was making the drive back to Connecticut when my brother called: My mom had been hit by a car, she was in critical condition at the hospital, the situation was life and death.  I turned the car around and started driving back to Miami right away.

The next few days were a bit of a blur and I wasn’t really able to contemplate in those early moments.

I had reached out to Mae Neecha to apprise her on the situation and ask some advice; I considered it could be the last opportunity I had to speak with my mom and I wanted her thoughts.

A few days later my mom had stabilized enough for surgery; it was a risky brain operation, but the doctors thought it would help. While I waited for my mom to come out of surgery, I had some time to think.

The thing that had stood out to me most was the image of my mom writhing in a hospital bed in pain. My mom is such a strong woman, she has had numerous accidents and sicknesses in her life, she lives in chronic pain. To see her pain reach a pitch so unbearable was unfathomable to me. To see a body that she had seemingly been in tight control of, which she had learned to manage, to endure, to use so functionally, refuse to allow her to perform basic functions – move, pee, shit, eat, sleep – hit me hard.

This is the cost of having a body. We take up a body imagining the pleasure it will bring, the fun things it will let us do, the fantasies we can play out in it. But the very same neural pathways that allow us to experience pleasure ensure that we will also feel pain. Can anything with a cost so steep really be sukkah? What I see in front of me is so clearly dukkha.

A long time ago I had seen an episode of some supernatural show. In it, the main character was in a hell. Each morning, he woke-up to a beautiful wife and family, he was so happy, but when he went to the garage to get his car and go to work, he encountered a demon. All day the demon would burn him, pull teeth, physically torture him. This, essentially was the main character’s ‘job’. Then, at 6 pm, the character would forget it all and head back up to his family. The next morning, it was rinse and repeat, back to the torture chamber.

We run around life, in this breakable, painable body ignoring the unavoidable torcher that lays in wait just down the hall, around the corner, ready to pounce at any time. We have discomfort constantly – a body that gets hungry, cold, tired, that needs to regulate in changing environments, often its in the background. Sometimes discomfort inches up to pain. Sometimes, as in my mom’s case, to agony. This is part of the physical, rupa nature of bodies. But we forget.

When the pain isn’t too bad, when the worst passes, we head back ‘upstairs’ to our ‘normal life’ and we go on pretending that physical pain is somehow the ‘exception’. But it is the rule. Its is a continual, unavoidable state that comes hand-in-hand with having a body.  If you don’t notice it now, just watch and wait, I promise, it is coming.

That character in that TV show lived in a hell state, he just didn’t realize it. He forgot the pain that had been, that was coming. But the pain was characteristic of the state he was in. Pain is characteristic of being in an embodied state. What is characterized by pain must be dukka. Even if we forget, even if we ignore, it doesn’t change what this world, what having a body really is.

I spend so much time stressing and fearing, arranging and hoarding, I cling to this tendency for vigilance because of this over inflated sense of self. I can’t put down the idea that this time might just be about me. I MIGHT, in any given circumstance, be able to do just the right thing to cause the effect I want. Be damned all those times that the opposite has been true; I was a cause all right, in getting things I definitely did not want (the root canal, the onset of rosacea, the garden dig that fucked the house foundation). And be damned the fact that what I want at any given time is sorta arbitrary: Something I imagine will fulfill a fantasy, and then which I build a fantasy around, clinging to, and getting saddened by losing the thing I imagined the value into in the first place. And be damned that all of this vigilance, the effort and stress of it, hurt me; I foolishly think it’s worth the cost to carry around a safety blanket, no matter how heavy, no matter how warm I get, no matter that it may put me in danger, just because one day it may help when I am cold. Even though — no matter what I believe — if the causes and conditions for my being cold, for my dying of freezing, get met, I will freeze with or without a blanket.

MIGHT is not an affirmation of anything except for the reality that there is also MIGHT NOT. A while back, when I was considering, I told Mae Neecha that the fact that my yellow purse SOMETIMES makes people think I am awesome is why I cling to it. But later I reflected, the only thing sometimes proves is sometimes not, ie NEVER ALWAYS. Clinging to a purse because I think it makes people think I am awesome sometimes is stupid; if the purse’s nature was that of a tool to make people think I am awesome it would work for everyone always.

Might/Maybe/Sometimes are symptoms of a world where the matrix is true. And why is the matrix true? Because everything is circumstantial, conditional, occasions when the proper causes/conditions/factors have been met for arising and occasions they have not. In this word, what happens proves the causes for it happening were met, and nothing more. It certainly doesn’t prove a purse will prove my awesomeness. It also doesn’t prove my awesomeness. It doesn’t even prove me.

Myopically, I measure my worth, the worthiness of my efforts, on a case-by-case basis. On those occasions that it doesn’t strain credulity to assume my vigilance gets me what I want, I put a feather in my hat, feel proud, confirm this idea that it tis I, Alana-The-Great, who maybe can’t pown the world, but can at least have dominion over what I have named and claimed as MY CORNER. In those cases, when circumstances land in the favorable corner of the matrix, I get the outcomes I want, so yay, a point for me and for my vigilance. But before I tally my points, before I brush under the table all the stuff that didn’t land in the corner of the matrix I had hoped for, it’s worth asking another question: Are my victories really even victories? Am I really ever getting what I want? What I have come into this world to achieve? These crumbs that keep me sustained, but perpetually hungry and willing to fight for more, what are they really? Which brings me back to anxiety in the sauna…

When the pandemic started, vigilant monitoring of the news got me lots of masks and toilet paper ahead of lockdowns. I patted my own back for my prowess staying informed, for my power to protect myself, I called this victory to justify further vigilance. I used it to fuel my hope that I might just be able to effectuate the outcome I want, some of the time. Enough of the time to make it worth it… but masks and toilet paper is a pretty shitty prize. What I really want is a world without disease, where I don’t have to worry about viruses or bacteria consuming me. A world where I need masks and toilet paper hoards at all is a world that is not going to let me win. I am not going to get what I want here, or at the spa, or in the cabin in the woods, they are the same, there is disease here, there is decay.

When I got long covid, I patted myself on the back for doing all the research that helped me isolate the likely cause, and the right drugs to cure me. Never mind btw the crumb I brush under the table, that I figured it out on my second guess, after the first guess led me to take medication that made me much worse. Right alongside my research/preparation prowess, I credited my bank account balance with being able to afford the drugs (off label) and the doctor willing to prescribe them. Sure I had become subject to disease, but I kicked it right back in the hole, by bringing the brute force of ALANA to bear on the situation. Here was proof the tools I had amassed could protect me.

But really — what I want most in this world is to be safe. All the preparation, all the knowledge, all the willpower, all the wealth, these are what I have cultivated as a means to the end of being safe. Is a world where I got sick in the first place — where my stressing at the spa shows that I am fully aware could happen any time again — actually safe?

And if wealth and qualities could really have kept me safe, why didn’t they prevent me from getting covid? Or at least long covid? All that I claim and then cling to because I hope they will protect me, at best seem to do so SOMETIMES. Which is to say, NEVER ALWAYS. Which is also to say, not on my terms. Which is all an indication that its not my actions, my preparations, my blahblahblah, that determine my health or sickness, if they did these would reliably do so all the time.

All these conditions require a cause to be helpful. They require my having the karma to not get sick at that time, if that karma is lacking, or alternatively if the karma for illness is ripe, I get sick no matter what preparations I put in place. How do I know? All the preparations I took to avoid long covid didn’t work. I had stockpiled Paxlovid, took metformin, washed my sinuses, put every bit of science, every paper I had read, every action I had know at the time that might prevent long covid, into effect and still long covid came. Besides, how can I be protected in a world that offers no shelter?

At the beginning of the pandemic, Mae Yo sent me a picture to contemplate, it was a prize fighter holding his hands up in victory, but his face was all swollen and bruised. The text below said something like if this is the winner, imagine the loser. It made me reflect: Here I was a Covid lockdown winner, I had a cushy job I could work from home, a bank balance that allowed me to get everything delivered, a ton of toilet paper and masks…but then is that really winning? Nothing about my life in lockdown felt like a win. Sitting in the spa today, I realized that my ‘post pandemic’ life doesn’t feel much like a win either. Whether you are up or down, if you are in a dukkha world, what you get is dukkha.

Here is the part that fools me: I do get what seems to me to be wins some of the time. As I said before, clearly my actions/abilities have a palpable impact; sometimes that impact is in accord with my wishes, with what I envision myself to be, what I think my life ought to be. For years I had both the sheer force of will, plus the financial wherewithal, and the general circumstances to covid isolate. Because I was never exposed to covid, I never caught it in that time. WIN! But as soon as I came out – I felt like I had to come out and live — covid got me. Actually, to be more specific, on our first trip, Covid got Eric. And then my partner, who in my mind exists to keep me safe, is one of those tools I have stockpiled in the name of safety, ended up getting me sick. Just a wait, a duration before I lost.

And another example: For years I worked-out vigorously, I brought the sheer force of my will to the task of being fit and supremely fit I was. WIN! I trained my body to control it, to force its shape to my will, to prove to others I was on top and in control. To prove it to myself so I could convince myself I had a modicum of safety. Afterall, I can’t control everything, but at least myself, my body…if I can’t master that what can I expect to have mastery over? What can I depend on? What will be the proof of my exceptionalism, or of the qualities I value and identify with? For all those years of training, for all the crazy fit shit I could do, 1 bout of covid gave me long covid that literally laid me out flat. I had all the will in the world to exercise, to get back to who I had been, but my body simply wouldn’t obey, it just kept collapsing in exhaustion. Just a wait, a duration, before I lost.

I lost my fitness, I also lost the fantasy of my body to prove my control — if this body could prove my control of shit, then duh, I would have been able to actually control it. It couldn’t have been circumstantial, conditional, dependent on a disease-free state that vanished after just a week battling a microscopic virus. Dependent on something other than my actions, my secret sauce.

I am fooled by the sometimes; I take a duration of time that I seem to be affecting outcomes more-or-less in line with my desire/imagination and I think it proves me, proves my efforts ‘WORK’. Again, this is myopic. The big picture is that I go from circumstance to circumstance trying to get the outcome I want instead of seeing any ‘victory’ in this world is a pyrrhic one. All I need to do is peek at the time outside of the duration –a duration btw that I don’t dictate –and I will see the truth: If some shit I did or I was actually ‘worked’ it would work ever fucking time. But every object, every effort, everything is just like that yellow purse; if it in and of itself had the power to effectuate some outcome, it would do so all the time. If it proved anything, it would prove it all the time. And actually, it does prove something, the thing I quickly brush under the table, that I desperately want to ignore. It proves that everything in this world is conditional, arising only when the causes are ripe. Causes are ripe some of the time. All of the time they become exhausted.

None of this proves anything about me. It just proves the nature of the world. And yet, in my ignorance, I think it proves that my vigilance, my sadhana, my efforts are worthy, that there is hope, that if I can just adjust and recalculate and figure out how to do better next time then I can find my refuge, then I can have the life and be the me I want to be. But this thinking, this view, will never ever EVER get me that happy haven I desire. That is literally not the nature of the world, that is not the nature of the body I use to be in this world. What this thinking does get me however is suffering: More rebirths, more tries to try and accomplish what is impossible. In the end, there is only duration because there is arising and ceasing. What arises and ceases, all of it is conditional, and what is conditional can’t prove me. It can’t be me. It’s just what arises based on circumstances, circumstances that arose based on other circumstances, ad infinitum. This isn’t special, no part of it, no moment, no cause and no effect, its just the mundane process of the world.

So where to next with all of this? The scaffolding is laid, I see the contours of how this world works, of my wrong view, of karma. Now is the task of sticking it to my heart. More evidence, different words, more angles, more internalizing, more examples. More and more till my heart can’t refuse the truth. More and more because for lifetimes I have sought refuge, it has been my raison d’etre, I have hustled and suffered on this refuge hunt and all this time I have been searching in the wrong place. All this time, I have looked outwards, bringing the force of my will, my vigilance, my parami, to try and mould the world, my corner of it anyway, into a shape that –at least temporarily – looks like refuge to me. But refuge isn’t out there anywhere. I need to bring my force to change my heart, my hope, my expectations. Real refuge, a real cessation of dukkha, is to change myself, to develop right view.

Now Dear Reader –cliff hanger –the tasks have already begun, but you will need to wait a little while till that story gets told. It’s not complete yet anyway… Next week, we get back to 2022 where we left off.

All righty Dear Reader – I am once again going to mix things up and get a little out of order for this sorta-temporally-linear blog; I am adding in a contemplation from this past week, late Sept. 2024. Why? Well for starters, it is so clearly rooted in the topic of ‘the world offers no shelter’, it is almost a natural extension of the last blog. An extension that shows how my dukkha contemplations have progressed, and how the topic of dukkha continues to be a strong scaffolding for my post-dukkha-aha-moment contemplations.

But mostly, it is because while I spend a whole lotta time thinking, it’s a rare contemplation that really squeezes my heart, that feels as emotionally powerful as it does logical. This contemplation hit me hard and has prompted me to reconsider, and gain more clarity on another critical topic, karma…

I went to the spa today, mid-day on a Monday, I expected it would be quiet. Instead, it was a zoo. I did my usual dance to duck and dodge the crowds, aka the disease carriers, but it was impossible, there were too many people. As I sat in the sauna – vigilantly listening to detect any cough, any sniffle – I started thinking about how stressed out I am all of the time …

I have so much money, but I continually stress on how to keep it, whether it will be enough, how to invest and if we need more. I pour over spreadsheets, calculating, adjusting, making ‘sure’ we are on track. I fear every unexpected expense will push us out of budget. I wonder whether everything I buy is worth the risk to my bank account, to my future in which I need money to survive. In my mind, I am supposed to have this money to enjoy life with, to be safe, but it turns out to be a source of constant stress. And as for safety…despite all the money, I see peril everywhere. Proof: Here I am sitting in a sauna worrying about Covid instead of relaxing.

I have this lovely vacation home in Montreal, also something I bought to relax, enjoy, take refuge in to escape the Miami summers, but I worry about it constantly too. I worry about how to preserve it, about humidity levels, and floods when I am away. I stress when it breaks on how we can fix it rapidly enough to prevent it becoming damaged past the point it is habitable for me. I fear that that mold will be my evictor. Or the government will be my evictor; geopolitical instability could make American tourist visas scarce. Or the property taxes will become prohibitively expensive, and we will need to sell. And is someplace really a refuge if you worry about it being ruined, or it ruining you all the time? If at any moment you can be evicted — or at least denied pleasurable use — by the elements, or naughty neighbor, by governments and geopolitics?

I have this body – I am sitting here trying to give it sensual pleasure, to find relaxation at the spa, but here I am worried about disease. Continually, I worry about disease. I think this body is ‘my ticket’, to the future I imagine, to the freedom to do what I want to do, to go where I want to go, to write my unparalleled story of awesomeness and love and wealth and adventure. To prove and manifest who I am. But just look at Covid — I spent over a year isolated and alone, afraid to go out, to meet other people, to travel, to go the places I wanted to go and do the things I wanted to do, all to protect this body. Instead of being an instrument of my will, instead of being in service to my story or to my enjoyment, this body was something I felt intense need to protect, to preserve, even at the expense of my story or enjoyment. There was no pleasure from this body during that time, only constant stress.

I started thinking back to my contemplation of fear. How in the yoga room I came to realize if I could ‘breathe through’ fear, it must not be in a yoga pose, not in a situation, fear lies with me. Stress of course does too. Here I am at the spa, which in the past has been a place I go to decompress and relax, only the last few times have been overcrowded and stressful. The stress though isn’t in the situation, it’s not at the spa, it lives with me, in my heart. This is stuff I already ‘know’, its rote platitudes at this point.

I had left the sauna and was walking toward a cold pool when I saw a guy with a big wound on his leg – it really looked like a MERSA infection. Here he was, wandering around the spa, going in shared pools and saunas. At first, I wanted to get angry at him. At the woman who was coughing in the sauna too. At all the people who come to public places sick, endangering others. But are they really the problem? If I think these people are the cause of my stress, I am dead fucking wrong. This is a spa. A place humans go in droves, they intermingle, share water and facilities. This is a place where disease spreads.

Everyplace humans gather is a place disease spreads: A school, a hospital, a concert hall. Even my own home is a place disease spreads – I caught Covid from Eric at home, not some grand public gathering. Even in isolation, disease spreads, in my pandemic cottage – purchased to protect me from disease, away from all those covid spreaders – a bat put me at risk for rabies and sent me to the hospital, mid pandemic, for shots.

This is the nature — the fundamental rupa — of bacteria and viruses that consume human bodies and use them to replicate and spread. This is the fact of human bodies, that are subject to disease, to being consumed by these viruses and bacteria. That are consumables, that one way or another will become consumed, used up, changed past the point they can continue to support what I call an Alana, or the life I imagine she has/will have. I am getting stressed out by the WAY THINGS ARE, HOW THEY ARE MEANT TO BE, HOW THEY HAVE ALWAYS BEEN AND ALWAYS WILL BE.

In my head, I’m affronting these coughers and sneezers and open-wounders asking, “is the spa really a place for sick people?” But Alana,” is the spa really the place for people worried about being sick? Is this world? You seriously showed up to the wrong party girrrrlll, why the hell are you still here?”.

Fear, stress from the spa, that lies in my heart, but so too did the sense of relaxation and comfort I have gotten there in the past. Neither of these reflects a proper understanding of reality. To see this as a haven misses the danger innate in the circumstance, in the world. To see it as a continual threat misses something even more subtle –that being in this world, no matter where I am, is a risk. Threats abound ALWAYS. Whether or not this body is consumed, made sick, or dies in any given circumstance, by any given threat, is about whether the causes and conditions for this body being sick/consumed/dead have been met, not about whether someone sick comes into the sauna.

That right there is truth of karma, the truth I just don’t quite get. That right there is also the key to solving all this fucking stress: What the world is, karma, they are one in the same — shit that arises when the causes and conditions for arising are met and ceases when the causes and conditions for cessation have been met. My problem is that I want all that arising and ceasing to be on my terms. Clinging to the hope I can somehow achieve that (some people beat ‘the house’ some of the time after all), and resultantly to the things that have arisen, and that will cease, that is my suffering. I see the problem. I see the solution. And yet I still can’t seem to get there.

I can’t get over the idea of my own power, my faith that my own abilities/actions will be the causes I want them to be and manifest the effects I want to manifest. I mistake agency (that I can act in ways I think will impact my future positively) for control. I mistake the fact that of course I do have an impact on my life, on preserving my health, and my wealth, and my belongings, as proof that the things I do at any given moment determine whether I get the outcome I want. But, as Mae Neecha has said, and I still foolishly don’t believe, our actions now matter, but how much? Aren’t they just a small trickle of the whole gushing stream of causes, conditions and factors that come together to forge an outcome?
Afterall, I bought a plane ticket to get to retreat in 2023, I took time off, I RSVPed, I had a body, I mentally prepared myself. Then I caught Covid and couldn’t go – going to retreat was not within the scope of ‘permitted activities” for this body at that time. Later, when I talked to Mae Yo, she said something that I still can’t completely understand, but that is the crux of all of this: I didn’t have the causes to go to retreat. I had factors — like sunlight and water and soil — but there was no seed, no cause, so no tree could grow.

I have spent many hours over the years contemplating the Four Dhamma Summaries, I have read and re-read the Ratthapala Sutta, which goes into a beautiful explanation of the summaries. These short, pithy truths have always deeply resonated with me. None more so than the second Dhamma Summary – The world offers no shelter, there is no protector.

The truth is, I am desperate for shelter, for protection. When I look at my sandan, those niggling tendencies, beliefs and resultant behaviors, that continuously underpin my stories, there is probably none more prevalent than my desire for safety. I come into this world seeking shelter. But over and over I have been disappointed. Over and over I find insecurity and danger.

The world offers no shelter … nothing made this more clear than covid, after all, where could I hide from disease? Believe me, I tried, I holed myself up and used my massive resources to stay safe: I worked from home, had everything delivered, avoided all human contact, till a medical emergency sent me to the hospital, ground fucking zero for sick people, in the middle of a pandemic.

As covid progressed, and I watched governments repeatedly fail to pass policies that kept people safe, my mind just kept coming back to the words there is no protector, there is no one in charge.

Later, once I had emerged a bit from my bubble, I would go to the store and see all the anti-maskers, defying the law, endangering everyone around them. Ensuring there was no shelter, no safety, even in a state that had mask ordinances. There was a law, but no one was able to enforce it… The world offers no shelter, there is no protector.

Before Covid, I truly used to think there were things – states, institutions, law enforcement, social norms, human decency – that could be counted on to protect people, but Covid, people’s behavior during Covid, decimated that belief. It showed me that there can be places of relative safety, of temporary comfort, but those can change at anytime.

An apartment that once gave me a quiet space turned into a construction zone. A city – SF –that once made me feel emotionally whole, became a smoke ridden health hazard to my asthmatic self. A relaxing day at the spa became a hellscape as I watched my beloved collapse to the ground from overheating and I feared for his life. I may not have been an essential worker, forced into the world during lockdowns, but my time for risk of illness and danger still came. It will keep coming right up until the time my death comes.

There is no place to hide from these things, there is no one who will avoid them or make it so that I can avoid them. The world offers no shelter. There is no one in charge. One morning, while I was chanting the Dhamma Summaries, it dawned on me – A world where there is no shelter and where no one is in control must be a dukka world.

A long time ago, my old Vajrayana teacher was visiting San Fran. We were walking in Golden Gate Park, on a beautiful day and she smiled and said, “the Bay Area is the peak of samsara”. It is a comment that has really stuck with me over the years and it came back to me again recently.

When my teacher made her comment, my mind focused immediately on the ‘peak’ part — SF was tops of this world for pleasure/ comfort — and I was inclined to agree. Now, with the lengthening fire season, and increasing homelessness, with my weakening ties and lessening emotional attachments to the place, I think SF has passed its peak.

A troubled SF however proves more than just that peak states pass their peak; by their passing that peak they also prove that even peakiest moments of this world are still peaks in this world. After all they are acting in accord with the  NATURE of this world, which is to shift/cease.

If you are on the top of a mountain or in the bottom of a valley, you are still on earth. If you are in the front of the bus or the back of the bus you are still on the bus. If you have a peak life, or a peak moment in life, you are still trapped in samsara–in this world of rebirths. And what is this world? I am starting to see with increasing clarity that this world is dukkha.

As my winter in Miami was winding down to an end, I started to think ahead about my return to Greenwich. In my mind, homecomings should be happy occasions, but in this case, I feared disappointment: For my last 5 months in Greenwich, I would wake-up every morning, save Sunday, to a cacophony of construction so close it sounded like there were bulldozers in my bedroom. When I left for Miami, the work was not even halfway done, I considered the fact that I would  likely be going home, to continued construction.  Going home, my home, my space,  but a place I could find no refuge or peace.

Of course, it wasn’t always this way, when we got the Greenwich place it was cute and quiet; I signed the lease because it seemed like  the perfect refuge from Manhattan.  But then, zoning laws changed, and the row of charming historic homes across the street were demolished to make room for a mega condo. Now, the Greenwich place is far louder and more uncomfortable than the NY loft ever was.

Beyond the sheer physical suffering, the problem here is that circumstances are always changing (again with the impermanence) and the changes occur in accord with the causes and conditions for change, like new zoning laws, and CLEARLY not in accord with my personal wishes. Now, there are times when the world happens to be in states that align closely enough with my wishes that I feel comfortable, after all, my Greenwich flat was, more or less, a fine home for years. But my own comfort at certain circumstances can’t possibly confirm that the world bows to my wishes, or that changes that occur do so in accord with those wishes, otherwise those zoning laws never would have changed.

Frankly,  if even my own home, my own ears, won’t bow to me, my rules or my control, I am not sure what hope I can have that anything at all in this world will yield to my wishes/rules/control. Disappointment (anger as well) arises because shit isn’t the way we want it to be, it  doesn’t follow our hope, our standards, our expectations. In other words, it doesn’t follow our rules. But by its fundamental nature this world doesn’t follow my rules, so doesn’t that make it definitionally disappointing? How can I not count disappointment as one of the many faces of dukka?

I had been contemplating for a long time on how everything is suffering, so I decide to flip the issue a bit and ask a new question — what do I think happiness is?

At some point it dawned on me that sukkah arises from a wrong perception of what things actually are. Happiness is just a misunderstanding.

Back when I had my Porsche, it frequently made me happy. Cruising along, top down, wind blowing in my hair, I felt so alive, so on-top-and-in-control of my life.  Because I was so sure that car confirmed me, my power, my worthiness, it brought me joy. I can still recall those moments of electrifying pride. Happiness.

But, when I went to sell the car, the dealership found a mechanical problem. I ended up having to sell it for so much less than I had paid, so much less than I thought it was worth, so much less than I thought it proved I was worth. Standing in the dealership that day, I felt deceived by the car; all those years I thought it had proven my awesomeness, my control, but now it made me feel a fool. Someone so ignorant, I didn’t even know my own car was sick. Someone so not-on-top, that I let something precious go to shit.

On the way home from the dealership, I mourned. I also contemplated. I likened the situation to a woman who felt so affirmed, so loved, by their lover only to realize that he was cheating. That she was one of many of his women. And, I put myself in her shoes, feeling that, in that moment of realization, all the sense of special that lover had imbued me with was drained away, leaving me feeling crushed, used.

The point here is that I read ‘special’ as the message of my objects — cars, lovers — and it makes me happy. But what if I later learn that those things never made me special at all? Doesn’t it follow that my happiness was based only off a misunderstanding of what I think things are/mean.

When I was moving from SF to NY, Eric and I took a 3 week vacation between departing California and arriving in NY. For those few weeks, as I lay on the beach soaking up the Mediterranean sunshine, I fantasized about the exciting new life waiting for me in NY. I was happy, for a brief moment, till I landed at JFK and the rude, filthy, loud reality of New York intruded on my happy imaginings.

Happiness is born when my imagination interprets some ‘signs’ I see right now as proof that I am the Alana I want to be, and the future will be the future I want it to be. But this is like reading tea leaves; I fantasize some meaning into something that can’t really hold or fulfill that meaning at all. It’s just a tea leaf. It’s just a car, it’s just a lover, it’s just a place that I live. The future will be whatever it will be without regard to either what I want it to be, or what I imagine it will be. Sukkha is just a side effect of my misreading reality.

I was in the midst of planning a little getaway for Eric and me. As I picked activities, restaurants, fantasized about future fun, I stopped to consider my homework: Prove everything is dukkha. That is when it hit me — times of enjoyment are just times I ignore the suffering that is always there. Vacation is just a short while when I don’t let the reality of suffering intrude upon my fantasies.

When I go on vacation, I simply ignore my to-do list of burdens;  I put stress aside and try to relax. But the reality is that none of my responsibilities, none of the things that weigh and stress me really disappear. In fact, when I return from a trip, that same to-do list is there to greet me, as well as a pile of new worries and responsibilities that stacked-up in my inbox while my out of office message was on.

I obsess about my body, my fitness, my weight. But on vacation, I tell myself to worry about it later so that I can indulge and enjoy. All while engaging in the very eating that will cause me shame and stress later. That will require vigor and effort and sacrifice to take off.

Since the tasks required to tend to a breakable, decaying, body are endless and routine, there always seems to be a mammogram, or broken crown, or some other painful, anxiety producing procedure/ appointment to tend to just after I get home. All through the trip I put it out of mind, tell myself to worry later about the worrisome things that are just around the corner.

Looming over every trip from the get go is it’s end. No matter the fun, the enjoyment, the lessening of stress and suffering, the short reprieve a vacation brings, each day of it brings me closer to it’s end. The suffering of loss is built in and pressing closer each day.

Of course a trip has its own dissatisfactions and discomforts. But usually I can put my routine- daily-big-hairy-stresses aside for a little while, look away towards the distraction that a trip brings. There are periods I ignore suffering, even as it lives, thrives and compounds. But whether I look at it or not, dukka is always there. Everything must be suffering because the highlights of my life are periods I try to distract myself and turn a blind eye to the suffering that is still so clearly there.

I came across an Atlantic article today, the upshot of which was that the secret to satisfaction has nothing to do with achievement, money, or stuff –the secret to satisfaction is wanting less.

As I was reading, I stopped to look out the window at the sunlight so beautifully shimmering over the water in the bay below. I took a deep breath, enjoying the view and then realized that this thing — this view – that I enjoy so much has already caused me a world of suffering…

Eric and I had been spending a few months in Miami. We were staying at a bay front property, an Airbnb, in the same apartment building my dad used to live. I loved the building, especially the view. But it isn’t enough to just enjoy this view, this experience of living in Miami again, while I have it. No! I want to claim it, I want to guarantee more of it in the future. So, I have already started hunting for real estate in this building, I have already had a ton of drama and fights with Eric over it too. Now, realizing that having what I have just makes me want more, I see that even if I get an apartment I want, I will find a way, a thing, to want all over again.

The truth is, I don’t even need to want MORE necessarily, sometimes it’s just the desire to keep what I have. The problem is, trying to keep what I have is more work, more stress, more sorrow when inevitable loss comes. I already have this view right in front of me; what I have already is clearly a burden.

Long ago LP Nut talked about a hike with LP Anan where he was asked to carry along a chair. The hike was long, arduous. The chair made it a terrible struggle. At the end, LP Anan asked –why didn’t you just put down the chair? Why is it I can’t put down my burdens?

I’m so afraid of loss, but gain is also a problem. Having is a problem. They are both burdens — the burden of acquiring, the burden of keeping, and the burden of loss only arise as a result of the burden of having. If having hurts and not having hurts then where is Sukka?

Sometimes I feel stuck, don’t know how to proceed, but I sort of do– look at the sing story. What is the point? That I never really have anything to begin with. It is just an illusion that it is mine. I struggle and fight to acquire and maintain simple to feed my illusion. A body , belongings are means not ends. What I use to move through this world.

Eric and I were spending 3 months in Miami to pass the winter and be close to my family. I was delighted, having the time of my life; I wanted to stay longer, to settle down, Eric who was not quite as enamored, was unsure.  Still, because he loves me, Eric offered to buy me a place in Miami. He offered to commit to several months a year there. I, however, wanted more.

I was upset, snippy with Eric, his compromise wasn’t enough for me. He was giving part, I wanted all. He was begrudging, I wanted enthusiastic. It wasn’t enough that Eric was willing to do all this for me – I wanted him to want the same thing as me.

Eric pointed out how unreasonable I was being, how poorly I was treating him when he as so willing to meet me more than halfway. He was right of course, I apologized, felt contrite.

Later in the car I was still feeling guilty for my treatment of Eric and got to thinking about the whole issue more. Here, I had such an amazing husband, a partner really and willing to give and to compromise, but I was still dissatisfied. I wanted more. But even as I craved more, demanded more, behaved poorly doing so, I felt burdened by the debt I owe to Eric, for being such an attentive partner, for taking such good care of me, for giving me everything in his power to give me even when, reflecting on my behavior, I feel I don’t deserve it.

If I have, but I want more, this is dukkha.  If someone can have as much as I do, and still there is ALWAYS ROOM FOR MORE, there is always dukkha. And if having, getting, creates a weight of debt, a burden to pay back, this too is dukkha. Where does dukkha end if craving continues in such a peak life?

I had been reading and editing the second part of LP Thoon’s Autobiography and I ended up going back to the first part to look more closely at the Ubai that ultimately helped him become enlightened: It was about a Skunk Vine. He had cleared a path for walking meditation, but the very next day a new skunk vine had begun to grow where it had already been cleared before. He saw that the cause of the skunk weed growing is in the bulb itself. Once the cause for becoming exists it is only a matter of the right circumstances — water, soil, sun, etc — for it to begin growing. Unless it is fully uprooted ,and the bulb destroyed, it will keep growing back anytime the circumstances for growth align. For him, he saw that this is the same with rebirth/becoming. As long as the root cause exists –desire — rebirths will occur when the circumstances are fertile. Only uprooting and destroying desire, the cause for becoming, is going to lead to cessation.

I think until I had my own snowflake realization, I couldn’t quite register the import of this Ubai. Now though, I see it much more clearly: The cause of a snowflake is the nature of water itself. All it takes are for the right conditions to come — temp, humidity, wind, etc and you get snow. Over and over the same drop of water can cycle through freeze and thaw. The particular shape of the snowflake depends on the environmental conditions that give it shape, but the tendency to arise as a flake–ceaselessly — is in the water.

The other day I was doing some volunteer work at a food bank. I started considering why some folks were on the receiving side of the line and others on the giving side. Fresh off of re-reading the skunk vine story, I began thinking in terms of core causes:

Why was there a food drive at all? Because 4E humans need 4e food to survive. This is common to all humans. Frankly it is common to all 4es, they tend to degrade and disaggregate and need continual ‘re-feeding’ to sustain a shape for any duration.

Why are there embodied humans in need of food? Because each of us was born from the desire to be/become, from our craving for satisfaction, from our belief that said satisfaction is to be found in the rupa world.

Already it was clear that the volunteers and the folks needing donations share fundamental core causes, though the details of their circumstances differed, so I pushed more on how these differences arise. I thought about the 8 worldly conditions. Now I have pushed on this topic a lot over the years and I have already considered how both impermanence, and the relativity of experiences, make these conditions a basic truth of the world. This basic nature of the world then is yet another shared core cause — if you are in this world, you are subject to this up/down, up/down cycle. Givers and receivers are just at different points in the cycle. My mom (who I was there volunteering with me) actually helped a lot calling out clear evidence of this shifting state; she commented, a bit critically, at folks driving through in fancy cars to pickup food and I saw that just because you could afford a Lexus yesterday it doesn’t mean you can afford groceries today.

Though in a single instant the givers and receivers may look worlds apart, the truth is we are sharing the same core causes of being there — we all keep becoming, and once we have become we need food, and upon becoming we will cycle between states of abundance and scarcity. What we share –whether we are in a high point, or at a low point – is the cycle of being and becoming in this world. What motivates becoming, hunger (desire). Hunger is dukkha. Once we become, we must labor for survival. Labor, struggle, is dukkha. What is the cycle of abundance and poverty, just states where there is more and less dukkha. What do we all share? We share the truth of this world, we share dukkha.

It looked like Eric’s job was going to be fully remote. Besides, his contract was coming to an end in the next few years, and we hoped we would have enough it retire. It was time to consider where to put down roots and build a life. Connecticut, which neither of us were particularly fond of, was always meant to be temporary, just a place close to Eric’s office.

We decided we would try out Pittsburgh – it was a mid-sized, affordable city, and it let us be closer to Eric’s family. When we visited, we fell in love with a house there and inquired about a purchase. The place was in default – bank owned – so there was to be an auction to determine the buyer. Eric and I signed-up to join the auction, scheduled for several months hence, and waited.

While we waited, we let our imaginations run wild: We considered the renovations we would make. The time we would get to spend with family. Life in our new neighborhood. With each passing day, our excitement, our delight rose to new heights.

When the auction day came, the home was already ours in our heads, we just needed to finalize the formalities. We were so sure we would be the highest bidders, there was only one other person signed-up for the auction and they didn’t seem all that serious. But at the last second, a dark hose bidder showed-up. A deep-pocked developer who convinced the judge to allow him to be part of the bidding, even though he had not followed procedure and signed-up in advance. Yup, you already know where this is heading — we lost the bid. We lost our house. We were crushed.

A few days later, I was thinking more about the course of events, about my disappointment, and it dawned on me – I was sad about loosing something I didn’t even have yet. Something I never had, and never will have.

The house was supposed to solve a future problem – giving us a place to live, a new life. My hunger is so pervasive, I am so use to it, that I don’t even need to relieve it to feel joy, just the belief I might relieve it later is enough to provide momentary contentment. But the other side is also true, just fantasy was enough to crush my heart with disappointment.

The thing about imagination is that, unlike reality, it is boundless. If I don’t even need to have to lose. My wants are infinite, my imagination on how to solve those wants, also infinite. So how can my dukkha be anything less than infinite as well?

I wake up, notice the silence in my bedroom, and breathe a sigh of relief – thank god its Sunday.

For months, there has been a massive construction project going on across the street from my house. Everyday, I wake up to the sound of jackhammers, earth-movers and dynamite. Sunday is my one day of reprieve and, as I close my eyes again, to relish a few more minutes of quiet lazing, it dawns on me that this warm, comfortable feeling isn’t really good at all, its just less bad. My comfort is just relatively less suffering. Sukkha really is just dialing down dukka, for a little while…till Monday.

I have already established that my base state –hunger, desire, is a state that is dukkah. Then I relieve it, make it less, for a short time. That is just less of the pervasive state of hunger, turning down the dial. Soon enough, hunger will arise again. Why — because I am hungry by my nature, it is an inevitable aspect of desire. Hunger is both suffering in and of itself, and the motivation for further efforting and stress as I try to ‘solve’ the hunger, i.e. even more dukkha.

But here, in my quiet Sunday morning, is a further nuance to the reality of suffering: If good is just a temporary reprieve of bad, a little quiet in a noisy world, would I even feel good, or happy, or fulfilled, without the bad? If my apartment were not so unpleasant almost all the time, would Sunday be a relief?

In truth, I wouldn’t even appreciate or enjoy the quiet without the shitty foil of constant noise. So isn’t that all dukkah? If I literally need the suffering to have the un-suffering? If Un-suffering is born of suffering: Born in contrast to it, born of the effort to achieve that state? And any moment of relief exists hand-in hand with fear of loosing that relief. Struggle to hold onto it just a little longer. Knowledge that Monday always follows Sunday…

I was so stressed out trying to get to Pilates on time this morning: It felt like the red lights were conspiring against me, forcing me to stop at every block. Ensuring I would be late, would have to awkwardly disrupt the class when I arrived.

During class, I kept fidgeting with my mask, worried some pose, some deep breath might have dislodged it, left room for virus laden air to seep though.

After class, I was reading the news, more covid, worse surge, Omicron…I worried again about this new wave, about how I would stay safe and still get to see my family in Miami.

As I sat there, worrying, I realized that it was only 10 AM, but I had been in a state of low-level stress since I woke-up. It was unrelenting. I had been trying for weeks to prove all of life is dukka, but had I really considered the pervasiveness of this unrelenting, low grade, background stress? What was it? Where did it come from? How does it prove not just that everything is dukkha, but WHY everything is dukkha.

I see as long as I have desire, the stress comes right along with it. I desire to do Pilates, to be liked by the instructor, so I stress about being on time to class, about how that will effect my ability to practice, my likability to the instructor. I desire to have a healthy body, so I stress about catching Covid. Of course, I also desire a life, a chance to spend time with loved ones, so I stress about how to go on a trip to Miami while stressing about avoiding Covid. I have an agenda –a story I tell myself, a story I want to actualize, and so I desire all the elements of that story. All the elements I think I need to bring that story about.

All of life is a rat race. Trying to acquire what we desire, and protect what we desire to keep, while trying to be free of what we desire to be free of. Dukkah really is a direct result of craving; after all, if I don’t want, what do I care if shit goes this way or that, if shirt changes and shifts like the sands. Its my desire that things be one way or another –that I am on time and not late, that I am a good and attentive family member not bad, that I am healthy not sick, that provokes my caring, it provokes stress.

As long as there is craving, there is Dukkah — the two go hand-in-hand. And, for me, there is always desire. We are literally all born of desire, driven by desire, continue because of seeking to quench desire, desire undergirds everything we do or experience in this world. Therefore everything is Dukkha, because everything is tinged by desire.

I woke-up the day after thanksgiving to news of Omicron. I was devastated: Just as I had begun to taste a little post-vaccine freedom, I was now imagining a newly locked down life.

One of the things stressing me out the most was that I would need to cancel an upcoming trip to see my family in January. I have barely seen them since the pandemic began, particularly my brother and his family. I feel not just disconnected, but derelict — I knew they had already returned to basically normal life, and I felt embarrassed, like my not yet having done so was being judged by them, and that my absence was being read as a lack of care. I worried about the toll of my absence on our relationship. So, though the timing was tough, the pricing extremely high, I started hatching plan to fly down to Miami, via charter, and see them all the following week.

I sent a group chat to Mom and Seth and asked their availability. Mom was free, Seth said he was busy, but he is always busy. So I booked the flight. Over the next day or two though my brother kept sending more messages about his business, about how he doesn’t have time, he went so far as to send over a text with his day-by-day commitments so I could figure out if I could ‘squeeze’ myself into his free time. It seemed clear to me Seth didn’t want me to come, that I was an interruption in his busy life, that I was an intrusion and a burden. I was hurt. I would have canceled, but I didn’t want to disappoint my mom, to make her feel the same level of unvalued as my brother was making me feel.

As hurt as I was, I started thinking about my wrong views:

In my egotism, I believed my brother and his family were pining away for my company. I felt like I was disappointing them by not seeing them for so long. I thought the visit would be a boon, a favor for them. But here it was the opposite, my brother made it clear my visit was a burden. The proof was right in front of me that the world –even my little corner of it, even the people I loved and identified with the most – doesn’t revolve around me, doesn’t affirm me.

I knew that Seth didn’t see risk in Omicron, and I suspected he believed my own risk calculation was overblown to the point of being crazy. I guessed that he felt now like my ‘crazy’ was a reason he had to ‘drop everything’ and accommodate me. Even knowing/suspecting all this, I still believed my brother would want to see me if he understood that it could be the last time for a long time. I believed he would prioritize time with me, no matter the circumstances, even if he didn’t agree with the reasons or urgency behind the visit. But why?

The truth is, everyone in this world, operates under conditions. Even love, which we tend to pretend is so absolute, is conditional. Both the feelings we feel, and the priority – measured by actions – we give to our loved ones is done with terms and conditions. With fine print. Under specific circumstances. To simply believe that Seth, in every circumstance and under all conditions, would want to see me is a deeply wrong. To believe that just because I weigh a situation as sufficiently important to ‘drop everything’, he would as well, is crazy. His conditions for love, for attention, are shaped by his life, his beliefs, his priorities, not by mine.

I thought more about my suffering and realized too how I was ultimately its author. Seth and I weren’t always close, for many years in my 20s we were basically estranged. But we became closer after my dad’s death and when his Seth’s first child was born.  At that time, I decided I wanted to BE a better family member. I decided there was virtue in the identity of good sister, good auntie, and I embarked on acting the part. I used my brother to create a particular identity.

But using him to create my identity was a double-edged sword — as our relationship came to symbolize a facet of my virtue, his disapproval/rejection took on the power to deflate me. I realized everything we use to build our sense of self is like this — money, partner, clothes, job — as long as I have these things I can see them as aggrandizements to Alana. But once they are lost, once they turn on me, or fall out of favor of either myself or those I seek to impress, I see them as ego blows. It is two sides of the same coin. And because of impermanence I am bound to lose these things and suffer the inevitable blow. But in truth, I don’t have to, that blow is my choice. Just like with Seth, I chose to use him, to imagine him making me the me I want to be. The choice was both mine and arbitrary. And had I not chosen him, had I not given him that ‘power’ I wouldn’t have felt so pained when I felt rejected by him.

As I contemplated, an image popped into my mind. It is like taking on something we love, we feel boosted by, and in that moment it sinks little claws under our skin, like a wall anchor, going in smooth – as long as it is going with the grain – painless and unnoticed. But when it is time for that thing to come out, the hook catches, pulls against the grain, and we suffer such pain with the separation. Pain I allowed by letting it sink in in the first place.

After some of my initial contemplations on everything is suffering, I reached-out to Mae Neecha via Line with an update. I want to share that conversation as her response — particularly her comment about how our desire to maximize, even when we are already happy, proves dukkha — helped guide my investigation into considering increasingly  subtle forms of suffering.

Alana:  I have been thinking a lot about this idea everything is suffering, turning it over in my mind and I now see it crystal clear:

I have been on a 5 day modified fast that I get to break tomorrow( it is a program recommended by my Rheumatologist to help modulate the immune system and try and prevent autoimmune issues, I do it every 4-6 weeks now) . Anyway,  I am so excited to eat tomorrow, thinking of how great it will feel. But it makes me see my joy is just a relief from deprivation. Of course everything is suffering if happiness is just a temporary relief from a state of longing/craving/ hunger/ suffering.

I have had more in depth and technical contemplations around this topic, but this one example just drives the point home. Just wanted to share since we talked about this recently.

MN: The other day, I was thinking about how suffering and happiness are different points on the same scale. And how if while you feel happy, it could still be better somehow (if only .. were here, if only there was … instead) that already indicates that it is suffering and not happiness.

Alana: Or how when you feel happy, in the back of your mind, you are always wondering how to preserve that happiness and afraid of losing the situation that makes you happy.

Then there is the poison that losing something that made you happy before creates longing to have it again. Hunger, craving, is dukka.  After all, what is craving but trying to satiate dissatisfaction. Dissatisfaction is the primal state. It is why we become in the first place… Dukka is there from the beginning.

MN: Dukkha is all there is. We just give it different names. But it doesn’t change the fact that it is all the same – dukkha.

Alana: Fair. Part of my efforts to understand were in fact to try out different translations: suffering, dissatisfaction, stress ( I got the most out of that one), hunger, disappointment, etc…

MN: It isn’t supposed to be easy for us to see that everything is suffering. We are born for all the different variations and names of suffering that we think are everlasting happiness. Once we can see that everything is suffering, and that there is nothing other than suffering, that is when we will be on our way out of the cycle of rebirth.

Alana: That is definitely a work in progress!