So, by the time I got back from my forest nap adventure, I had a pretty solid grasp on the limitations of my ability to preserve what I have, i.e. to keep and maintain control over my present circumstances. But there is another idea in my always choosing A — a fairly pervasive one in my life really — that I can make decisions to hedge my future, to keep doors open so I ‘always’ have more choices later, more potential paths and potential escaper routes. Its like trying to preserve, only for the future. I decided it deserved a little additional attention, so I went to talk about it with LP Nut.

The following blog is an amalgamation of 2 conversations LP and I had and some of my contemplations around them. I never meant for this to get a formal write-up, so his teachings and my thoughts are sort of melded together in the notes I took. Still, there were some powerful seeds of my future practice planted in these ideas/dialogues/contemplations, so I am going to reconstruct and share to the best of my ability.

When I went to LP the first time and expressed my struggle finding the wrong view underlying this idea that I can keep options open for later he shared an example from his own life. He explained that he loves his parents and being with them, but he moved away from home because he also wants his freedom. Even still, in his heart he feels comforted that he can go and visit them, that the option to return to them is still there. But, this feeling is based on a wrong view, that he knows what a future visit will look like. That it will be nurturing, fun, rewarding. That it will be what he wants/imagines. That it will be possible at all.

Fast forward to our next conversation and LP suggested that I need to consider probability and duration more carefully. After all, if I think I can control my future options through my decisions now it’s worth really considering the likelihood of my success, for how long and, of course, at what cost. He also told me to look more carefully at the factors that go into having an experience I want –what exactly are the conditions that had to be met for me to call something satisfying?

We took a recent trip Eric and I had shared as an example. I went to the hotsprings with Eric because I wanted us to be together, share time together. But LP asked, was it exactly how I imagined it? Were there times we were apart (of course), times we fought, or simply weren’t totally happy, where these disappointments (again, of course, of course and of course)?  If I believe I can somehow make decisions to keep options open for the future, how likely is it the future will be what I imagine and hope for? Was it the case with my vacation?

LP shared a story of a girl who had come to the temple recently devastated by the death of her boyfriend. He asked me if I uews

nderstood why she was so upset. I ventured a guess – the girl imagined (#4) a future with her boyfriend and his death destroyed her happy imaginations of that future so she felt loss.  As LP explained, this is the same problem with my imagining ‘options’ and open doors for my own future. They are based on my imagination alone, not on any certain, guaranteed future. The future is unknowable, it is impermanent, it arises based on a precise combination of conditions/factors that are totally beyond my imagination’s ability to know or control.

For Eric and I to go on vacation together a number of conditions had to be met. We needed the money, our jobs needed to approve the time off, the hotel had to have available bookings, the roads needed to be passable, the weather accommodating, our health good enough for travel, etc. A bunch of conditions, most entirely outside of our control, had to be ripe for just one trip to happen. And even if the trip had been all sunshine and rainbows, was exactly as I imagined when I planned it, there is an important caveat – it came to an end. Its duration was not infinite.

The truth is, this world has happy moments, like a good vacation, and then those come to an end. Duration is uncertain; only cessation, at some unknown point, can be guaranteed.

I got back to thinking again about why I always chose A. Why we chose F.U.ber this time around instead of Sonos. It hit me — I think the money and career boost of F.U.ber keeps doors open so that I can enjoy the Sonos beach bum, lazy life, experience later.  So by continuing to choose A, I keep open the future option of more A, or B, or possibly C or D. I think $ and career experience = future choices, future control. But is a job at F.U.ber a necessary, or sufficient, condition to have beach bum life later? Does money or career experience come with any guarantees? Countless times, including my vacation, my imagination failed to predict or control the future. Why should I believe it when it tells me that if I just collect a few tools — $ and experience – I can turn possibility into probability or even a guarantee for ever and always?