Self and Self Belonging – Alana's Dharma Blog

To-may-toe, To-mah-toe, Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe, Alana, Sandy

September 9, 2016 alana Comments 0 Comment

Again, I have chosen a story that utilizes a method that I have found particularly helpful in my practice. The method, which was taught at the 2012 KPY retreat, basically takes 2 objects and compares them as follows:

A is Better than B
B is Better than A
A and B are essentially the same
A and B are so different from each other they are not worth comparing

Back in the day, I liked this method as a quick fix –something that really forced me to shift my perspective in a hurry, something to take the edge off of a bloated sense of self. Without further ado, here is the story:

I was on my way home and my husband called to tell me that our friends Sandy and Blake were at our house, unexpectedly, to borrow something. As soon as I hung-up the phone I started feeling uneasy –I really didn’t feel like seeing those guys at all. I was already edgy about Sandy and Blake from their mooching (see the last blog). Plus, at the time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why (don’t worry, this will be the topic of a future blog), but even though I loved Sandy, she could really get under my skin — the things she said and did annoyed me. A lot. Often. I simply wasn’t in the mood that day.

I pull over the car, to stall, but also to contemplate a bit. To try to do something to set my heart at ease enough that I wasn’t being mean to everyone as soon as I stepped foot in the door. Here is what I thought:

Alana is Better than Sandy: Well Duh. Of course I’m better in all ways…but more specifically, I am smarter, more responsible, prettier, I dress better, I actually have a job, I had better grades in school, I am richer, more generous, more articulate, I don’t mooch, I am more considerate, more conscientious, more physically fit, I plan ahead, am more calculated, more cautious, more compassionate, people just like me better (some people anyway…).

Sandy Is Better than Alana: Sandy is more fun, more care free, skinnier, easier going, has more friends, more adventurous, more outgoing, more open to new things and new people, more outdoorsy, more tolerant of change, Sandy goes with the flow, is less of a worrier, more of a caregiver, Sandy cooks, she is crafty, good with her hands, good with kids, good in new situations, gives her husband more freedom, people just like her better (some people anyway…)

Sandy and Alana are Basically the Same: Honestly, we are both 30 something white women living in SF. We grew up with rich daddies and married young. We are both college educated, have masters degrees, we like the same music, the same food, the same hangouts, the same activities, we have the same set of friends. We both like to play dress-up and peacock around. We both try to find jobs that make us seem important, busy enough, but not sooo busy or sooo important as to be stressful. We both bask in our sense of self awesome, open-minded, new agey hippy crap. We love to jump on trends that reinforce our hip sense of our hip selves. We spend every Friday night, almost every free moment, together, doing the same things. If she weren’t blond and I weren’t brunette –would anyone even notice if you switched one of us out for the other? In those critical ways that make up our everyday identity we are basically the same. Why quibble over who is better or worse?

Sandy and Alana are so Different from Each Other We are Not Worth Comparing: Sandy and I each have our own families, husbands, jobs and responsibilities. We manage each of these according to the rules, the norms, that we believe are appropriate, based on our own experiences and beliefs. We each have our own dreams, our own aspirations for the future. What success means to me is different than what it means to Sandy. What makes me happy, satisfied, anxious or angry are totally different than the things that evoke those responses in Sandy. Ultimately, my karma and Sandy’s are totally different from each other, so what is the point in comparing tomatoes to potatoes, they aren’t the same vegetable at all.

When I started the car again, it was with a profound sense of relief. Relief from the burden of needing to return home and keep vigilant watch, to note each of Sandy’s words or actions as evidence in my case against her and in favor of me. Overtime, my annoyance crept back…it wasn’t for quite a while longer till I started finding the deeper causes of my unrest with Sandy and could start killing them at their root.

Warning, this is another current day addition…looks like I just can’t help myself: I have used this method several times over the course of my practice with some very epic issues. Watching the pattern, I can look behind the curtain a bit and see where the profound power of this exercise lies: it uses a sneaky trick of my mind — the way in which I use comparisons to define the world — against myself. This exercise forces me to face the fact that it is my perspective, informed by all of my past experiences, biases and beliefs, that colors my ‘reality’ — Alana is better than Sandy. In truth however, there are always 2 sides, Sandy is also better than Alana in certain ways, at certain times, and according to certain people.

Deeper still, is that if I am able to see both sides, to minimize the bias for self, I can start to see that these comparisons I use to prop-up myself, the things I love and believe in, are hollow; ultimately, things, people, are so similar — made of the same elements, the same aggregates, arising and ceasing, having virtues and flaws, for people having hopes and disappointments, etc. This exercise has helped bring me way more humility because it shows me my own unexceptionalism.

Deepest of all, no two things are the same. In fact no one thing is the same from one moment to the next. For Sandy and I, we each have our own unique causes, karma, factors, directions and ultimately cessations. We are comparable only in my mind, only in select aspects, only for a very short time, only to serve my own agenda. So where is the sense in comparing? In boosting my sense of self with ‘information’ that ultimately fails to see the impermanence of each of our arising and ceasing? In tethering my sense of self to someone else, to something else, when in the end, that causes me to be the one who is bound, tied, imprisoned, not free.

Stop Being Such a Mooch

September 2, 2016 alana Comments 0 Comment

I had these friends, we’ll call them, Blake and Sandy, who were always mooching off my husband and I. When we went to dinner, the grocery, the farmers market, the movies, these two would just stand on the side while my hubs and I pulled-out our wallets. I figured, for sure, when they hung out with other friends, it couldn’t be like that. So why were we always expected to pick-up the tab?

The situation really tore me-up, I worried we couldn’t afford to pay for 4 all the time, we had to use our money to meet our own wants and needs, to save for retirement, a rainy day. I imagined-up a future scenario where we were just a few dollars shy of being able to pay for my life saving surgery…If only we hadn’t bought those ice creams for Blake and Sandy. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be greedy; my husband and I made more money than Blake and Sandy so shouldn’t we be the ones to pick-up the tab? Then again (so many voices in my head), I couldn’t help feeling taken advantage of, maybe they couldn’t pay for a fancy meal, but would an occasional cup of coffee be too much to ask for?

But, of course, there are a ton of wrong views and pretty deep concepts here (you may have noticed already that that’s sort of the theme of all these posts ;)) so let’s take a closer look:

1) That friends are all supposed to behave in some fixed, predictable, formulaic way. When it comes time to picking-up the bill, either bills should be split equally or those with more should always pony-up more. The problem was, if things should always be split equally, I was violating my own rules. My husband is the big earner in our house — let’s just say my quaint low-stress non-profit job is not exactly bringing in the big bucks — but still, we share everything equally.

And if those with more always bear the financial responsibility, there have been times at my job that I have had more in the bank then my organization — should I be paying them my salary? And is it the case that whatever the rule is it applies to every relationship across time and space or was it ok that Blake and Sandy may be treating us different than their other friends?

2. If I spend on X it doesn’t mean I won’t be able to get the Y I want/need… Alright Dear Reader, here I am going to exercise my ‘later addition author’s prerogative’ and add a bit more details. This is because though I want these stories to reflect my natural progress, I also want this blog to be clear and helpful. So, originally, as far as I got on this topic was that money is not necessarily black and white, I could spend some on X and some on Y. Or I could spend on X and still have enough for Y later. I had a bunch of scratched-out diagrams in my notebook, not terribly clear.

Fast forward to a meal I was having with a friend the other night. I order first and ask for french fries. My friend, who loves fires, orders after me and she does not order fries. In my head I’m already thinking, “Crap. Why didn’t she just get her own fries, now she is going to eat all of mine.” Food arrives and sure enough my friend and I both start hoovering down the fries. But then, we both get full, and in the end there are a few fries left in the basket. I immediately saw my wrong view — because a resource is finite it means I won’t have enough. But the truth is, I really can’t know my future wants/needs (even in the course of one meal). Moreover, I can’t know my future resources. I didn’t know how many fries would actually come in an order, just like I couldn’t have known how much cash I would have in the bank when it came time to pay for all the imaginary wants/needs that I perceived myself to be trading off in order to buy stuff for Blake and Sandy.

3. That money is equivalent to safety and security. Clearly this is not true, rich folks die, get diseases, get into accidents, have pain and loss everyday. Money does not protect them. In fact, there may be times where money makes one more vulnerable, like being a target of theft. Additionally, friends are sometimes a source of safety and security — so can I know in any instance whether money or friends, neither or both are going to help me (too many variables for a magic 8 ball to help answer)?

4. That there is a single activity or behavior which will indicate someone is taking advantage. These friends, actually did a lot for Eric and I. Even though they didn’t split bills, they took care of our home when we were away, helped us run errands, taught us lots of new skills and fun tricks, they were emotionally supportive and could be a lot of fun to hang-out with.Can any one activity and behavior demonstrate if they really cared for us or were they just using us (are these even either/or things or could it be both/neither)? Can I know what’s in someone else’s heart driving them? If not, why did I zoom in on one thing–mooching–and use that to judge their intention rather than picking another activity like time spent with us as the indicator of what was in their hearts?

At around this time, I had been contemplating Rupa (without much clarity or success to be honest so the explanation here has been colored by some more recent contemplations). Rupa is a fancy word for the tangible form that exists out in the world (including our bodies), versus all the stuff going on in our heads. This form, Rupa, on its own, is neutral, something that is just composed of the elements that make-up the physical world. The problem however is when our wrong-view ridden minds sense it, it really gets our imagination running. This Rupa, which in this story is money (dolla dolla bills yo), acts like a trigger for the problems that arise. It’s sort of a base, a foundation for the whole drama –after all, if there were no money in this story there would be no story at all.

Ultimately, the way I see Rupa, and the belief I can own it and control it is a major source of daily suffering. Starting to see this, and the mechanics of how the outside physical world interacts with my mind was a starting point for seeing the way this whole kit-and-kaboodle of myself and my beliefs arises. But those details are an entry for much much later… (shameless pitch to get you to keep on reading 😉 ) For now, lets just say..what a bunch of noise, for me, my husband, my friends, all based on the all mighty dollar.

Watching Plants Grow May Not Be as Boring as it Sounds

August 19, 2016 alana Comments 2 comments

I would like to preface this blog by telling you upfront, you have heard it all before. It is on a theme you may have noticed already — Ideal/ Good Alana versus Normal/Bad Alana. You can see it in the prelude to this blog (Super Buddhist versus Everyday Alana), in the Homeless Alana story, In the Compassionate Alana story, spoiler alert : in an upcoming blog about mooching friends and in the last blog of this section about fearing my practice progressing. I am not so clever … it has taken me 6 years to truly see how deeply this wrong view, and its close cousins — Good Alana versus Bad Other Peeps and Bad Alana Versus Way Holier than Me Peeps — runs.

It has caused so much havoc in my life, just read the stories, they speak for themselves. It’s a real danger because, among other things, it builds my ego; Good Alana is a judgey, entitled, thankless, witch, but even Bad Alana is egotistical (little heart variety), she thinks she is soooo exceptional (after all, she is the worst of the worst… so unworthy of enlightenment she barricades her own path). It’s a hindrance to my practice, to my relationships, to my sense of wellbeing. The weird thing is, this duality that underpins my views, this belief that I can separate one side from another in neat bundles and still retain the whole …it’s not even possible. You know how I know that ? I spent time staring at a potted plant. Yup, there is wisdom to be found in the most unlikely places; all around us in fact. One of the reasons I am sharing this particular story is to highlight another one of my superduper all time favorite dharma techniques…cue ooohhh ahh soundtrack flash a few lights…

Ubaitam

An Ubaitam is essentially an external stimulant that helps us apply the truths we see out in the world to ourselves. It is a tool for internalizing ( which we will talk about even more in a future blog), for drawing parallels that show us the way in which we, just like everything else, are subject to the basic conditions that govern this world (they aren’t called the 3 common characteristics for nothing). The belief that we are so special, so exceptional, is the source of many of our wrong views; actually, thinking we are so special is a major foundation for our entire wrong view of self. Ubaitam can be really really helpful to show how all of us are like plants (which have two sides), and cell phones (which break), and umbrellas (which decay).

The Story: We had a group of nuns visit the temple and I was speaking to one (Mae Toy) about my difficulty accepting my faults. When I was a Bad Alana, someone who made mistakes at work, lost my patience with my family, even just skipped the gym for a day, I would feel guilty for weeks. Really, I would think over and over again about my shortcomings, about my failures, about how far I was from being the ideal Alana I wanted to be. This was not a productive assessment of my mistakes and a consideration of how to avoid them in the future. This was just rolling around in my self-hate.

The Nun went to a table and picked-up a potted plant and asked me what I saw. I went on and on about how green and lush the plant was. About its beauty and the beauty it offered to its surrounding. When I was done she pointed out that I had forgotten some stuff. The plant sat in, was in fact nourished by, dirt. Almost half the plant, with its root structure, sits in darkness and dirt below the base of the pot. Just like us humans, just like everything in the world, the plant has two sides. There is the lush green part but there is also the dirty roots –you can’t have one without the other. Anything less is not a plant.

This was my first mini understanding, tiny glimmer, that my flaws, my shortcomings and all my mistakes are part of who I am. In fact, many of the same causes of attributes which I consider virtuous in some situations, end up manifesting as faults in other situations. Deeper still, who is judging which Alana, Good or Bad, is playing the starring role in any given situation (if I am being a ‘considerate Alana’ and letting the car in front of me enter a lane, the car behind me may think I am slowing them down) ?

Bad Alana exists as part of the same package as Good Alana –they don’t come apart (actually, the whole package is a continuously changing bundle anyway, not static good or static bad). There really are two sides to every coin — it’s never just heads or just tails — I however get so distracted by what I am focusing on (green leaves), I forget about the other side (the dirt).

For years, actually, for all my lives, I have been in denial about the basic nature of this world, with its two sidedness and about my own nature as a being that is in and part of this world. With this story, I got the first tiny shards of awareness (it was super early in my practice, 2011 maybe), the first bit of evidence that I am not really special at all, that I can compare myself to the things around me to give me the perspective I need to fix my wrong views and lower my ego.

The awesome thing is, years later, this Ubaitam keeps giving. Each time (and clearly there are many many many times) that I begin to sense the Good/Bad duality wrong view is lurking, I imagine the plant. The image, it’s like a shortcut, some quick reference that can keep me focused, can help recall the contemplations I have had on the plant theme, i.e. two-sidedness, over time.

I love, love, love, Ubaitam. You will see them all over my practice because for me they are like video game powerups, or like finding a secret warp to a new level. They are shortcuts to big understanding. So Dear Reader…can you spot all the Ubaitam so far 😉 ?

Get your Grimey Hands off my Teacup

June 17, 2016 alana Comments 3 comments

The reason I chose this story to share is it uses one of my all-time favorite contemplation methods. The method comes directly from a teaching Luang Por Thoon gave to a man named Singh that quickly led to his enlightenment. The method is essentially asking a series of questions about objects we ‘own’ in order to better understand the nature of the objects (impermanent) and our relationship with those objects (also impermanent) and, in the process, to weaken our attachment to them. Basically, we have a bunch of stuff that we use while we are in this world, but it doesn’t actually belong to us, it is not stuff we ultimately own or control, it’s not like we can take it with us when we die. We work so hard to get ‘our’ things, we work hard to keep them, we mourn when they are gone. Because we are deluded, we believe these things will serve us as we imagine they will, permanently, and our misunderstanding drives us to continue accumulating, to come back for more lifetime after lifetime and with each life, with each scavenger hunt for things, we suffer the pains of being disappointed by the limitations of these objects, the pain of getting them, the pain of trying to preserve them and the pain of their loss. . . Without further ado, the questions*:

Where did the item come from
Think about the item leaving you
Think about leaving the item behind
How do you control the item
How does the item control you

The Story:

I get to the 2012 KPY retreat and on my first night I grab a cup from the kitchen. I wash it SUPER well and then I tape a note on the cup, “Alana’s Cup, do not clean, I will reuse teabag”. Sounds very eco of me right? Conserving and all, who can argue with what a great person I am being? The real reason — I do not want to to share cups with other folks at the retreat, I don’t want their germs, their disease. So clearly, if I just take a cup and make it ‘mine’ with this simple sticky note, I will be safe from all those dirty grimey folks licking-up on my cup and making me sick. My cup is, by definition, cleaner and safer than ya’lls cups (even though I kept forgetting it outside and there is some possibility all manner of bug and vermin were crawling-up in it –wait how is the plague spread again?). Clearly, this is all very sane ;)…

So, let’s start with the idea that the cup is mine (I did label it after all) and get down to our questions:

Where did the cup come from? The cup came from the KPY kitchen. Someone may have donated it, KPY may have bought it, some other person whose cup it was may have brought it on retreat and left it behind. Before that the cup came from some store, before that some factory. Someone labored to make the cup, manufacture it, the clay that made-up the cup was molded, shaped. Before that it came from the ground… When exactly did the cup become mine? In fact, when exactly did the cup become a cup instead of a lump of clay? Why would I believe that a sticky note (which was written in my super illegible handwriting, in English, at a retreat where most folk’s first language is Thai) made it mine. Made it so others would know not to use ‘my cup’ and my cup would know not to run -off with some other thirsty person…

How can the cup leave me? The cup actually did leave me several times on retreat –I kept forgetting it outside. Sure I managed to recover it each time, but was the cup mine when it was lost? What if it broke? Would it still be mine..would each piece be mine? What if someone took the sticky note off of it –that sticky seemed to have the magical power to make the cup mine so did its removal return it to the status of KPY community cup?

How can I leave the cup? Clearly I could leave the retreat center, so was I going to take the cup with me? Was I actually going to steal a KPY cup because I had convinced myself, with that all powerful note and a little effort of a good scrubbing, that the cup was mine? Or, I could be out in the woods, get attacked by a bear (that was attracted by the sweet smell of my delicious tea) and die — I guess I wouldn’t really need the cup then…

How do I control the cup? Thats easy, I can wash it, label it, carry it around, drink from it, play mini drums on it, I can do anything I want right? Because it’s just an object and an object that’s mine! Well, maybe I can’t do anything with it, I can’t make it sprout wings and fly after all, but of course I am the person and the cup is a cup, I must be in control. Right? Well, not so fast…

How does the cup control me? Once I make that cup ‘mine’ suddenly I have a responsibility, a burden. I have to carry it around (so no one takes it –clearly even I don’t believe my note is enough), I have to wash it, I have to make sure my sticky isn’t chipping off. When I lost the cup I had to retrace my steps, one time I had to walk halfway down the mountain, to retrieve it. I felt slightly self conscious about the cup, about labeling it, so I both wanted folks to see the label but I also wanted to hide it as best I could. I had to worry –should I take the cup back to the tent? I know food in the tent is a no-no because of bears…can they smell tea?

What are the risks of all this craziness? Someone could see the label and be offended by it, I could create disharmony in the community. Perhaps I lose the cup carrying it around, or someone who needs a cup to drink from can’t find one since I have raided the kitchen for ‘mine’.

More dangerous still though is that I feed the control monster — I reinforce this idea that I am empowered, I can control risk by having my own cup (cup=control). I can avoid all the death and disease out there that is lurking behind every corner just ready to get me. I create a false sense of safety , built on a false understanding of the nature of ‘my cup’, rather than dealing with the fact that diseases spread and I am subject to them with or without a cup.

Plus, what does ‘after me’ really mean? Is disease after me? Is impermanence a personal affront that with enough effort (and some teacups) I can control? LP Nut helped me immensely with this contemplation…he taught me the method of “Killing the Hope”. (Lucky luck, we have a twofer here –two methods, for the price of one story). As he explained it, I need to look at the world, look who out there is exempt from death and disease and loss. Gather the evidence and determine whether or not I can control or change these things, exempt myself, or whether they are realities that need to be accepted. I.e. I need to kill the hope that I can escape impermanence so that I can accept. So here are a few highlights of my evidence:

I, unlike my husband at the time, vigilantly watch what I eat and exercise –my blood sugar is a little high and his is just fine, all my control is not yielding the results I desire.
I was considering taking a yellow fever vaccine for some travel, my Dr. recommended against it. Why? Because a number of folks have gotten the vaccine and actually gotten yellow fever from it. Guess control wasn’t working for them either.
As hard as I diet and exercise I still feel fat most of the time
I wash my hands obsessively, but I still manage to get sick
I hired financial advisors to help manage and control my money and then I still lost money the last time the markets dipped
I went to Italy for an easy, risk free, vacation and ended up getting food poisoning
I went on birth control to manage pregnancy and menstrual symptoms but it caused me weight gain
Despite all my lotions and potions I am starting to get wrinkles and grey hair
Once I graduated university I had to leave all my friends and my university life behind even though I did not want to
My father died
My cat died
My friend Sue gained weight even though I tried to ‘help her’ avoid it
I lost faith in my Vajrayana practice even though I worked so hard at it, chanted hundreds of thousands of mantras and meditated every day
This actor I really liked, played Spartacus on TV. He was so talented and crazy fit/beautiful. He was diagnosed with a rare cancer just when his acting career began to take off. At first they said it was highly treatable and then, he died from complications
I tried to control my teeth, prevent pain, by getting crowns and then the crowns ended up causing me pain

Gathering all this evidence (there was actually even more, but I won’t bore you) was what helped the pieces started coming together, when I started seeing the limitations of my control and the fact that sometimes I can’t just fight, I need to accept. My next few stories will take up this theme further.

I also want to say that, mostly, at the time of this contemplation my focus was on impermanence, on my wrong views regarding control and disease/unwanted outcomes. Contemplating on the cup, realizing my relationship with it and its abilities to fight disease were not fixed, were a backdoor into considering my control of death and disease more broadly. In other words, I used an analysis of my crazy view that I control the cup and use it like a talisman to ward off disease, in order to consider the broader questions of whether disease is something within my complete power to avoid . But now, reviewing and rewriting this story I see so much more fruit here sooo…. I am going to write this later addition synopsis concerning ownership, which is another potential aspect of the teacup contemplation. Though this does not follow my contemplation timeline, I think it will help clarify and make this entry richer. So I am going to use that ‘blogger’s prerogative’ and fill-in the lines a bit more on the topic of owning (plus..this is how my practice works, back over the same stories, the same themes, getting deeper and richer over time):

We get so caught-up buying things, owning things, thinking they are ours –we don’t notice these items totally manipulate us, they bully us, they force our hands all the time. Like with the teacup, it’s easy at first to say I’m in control, the cup makes my life better, more convenient, safe from the disease I fear. Or that, with my extensive wardrobe, I can define who I am, shape my identity and make it real. But from the get-go the items are in charge. I seek them out, it’s not like the cup labeled itself or my clothes hop into the shopping cart on their own. I pay for them with money or elbow grease. I need to care for the items, to clean them, to interact with the items on their terms if I have any desire to retain and preserve them (if it’s breakable I have to handle with care, if it’s white fabric I have to be so careful about stains, when a part or a gear wears out I must replace it, when the car needs gas I have to stop what I am doing and feed it).

Trust this fashionista, once I have found that perfect purse I have to have it (it’s like it calls to me from across the store). I spend hard earned money on it and then I worry constantly about keeping it nice. When it finally does wear out, or goes out of fashion, I need one that’s just as good or better..it’s not like I’m going to go from carrying a Chanel purse to something from the Gap..I have standards after all. And those standards, they came from the Chanel bag (my misunderstanding of it anyway), from the wardrobe I have built that matches that bag, so really, who is in charge?

Even more subtly still, these items, each one, we obtain to solve a problem. I need a cup to keep me disease free. I need a bag to carry all my other stuff, I need an accessory to match my clothes, I need a thing I wear to make other folks think I’m pretty and fashionable (that I am a person who is in control of my super buttoned-up image). And in return for a problem patch I get an item that creates a bunch more problems — gives me new responsibilities, sets new standards, makes me dependent, plants the seed for the ‘need’ for more new items in the future. And does the item even solve the problem I think it solves? If so, for how long? Can a cup keep me disease free? Can a purse make you see me as beautiful or polished or in control? So is an item we can’t control really ours? How much do we pay, how much do we suffer, for the privilege of fake owning it for some limited time?

* I have actually see multiple versions of the questions that go with this story. Here I have the ones I used for this contemplation.

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