It has been over 3 years since I began this blog and, before we move to the next ‘chapter’, I want to reflect from the present day perspective a bit about some of what I have learned.  The blog idea originally came from Neecha, but back when she suggested it –over 7 years ago — I felt like I was not ready to share my practice with the world, frankly I felt like doing so would make me a fraud: Who was I anyway? Not some great practitioner I assure you, just an every day gal with an everyday life. No one blog-worthy and that was that. Until…

Until that fateful mini-retreat, and Dharma Meltdown 2.o , when a little dirt on my beige pants had me sobbing in tears because I was so sure it was ‘proof’ of my impurity — ie. bad Buddhistiness. A little baby shake from Neecha, some contemplation on my meltdown and presto: My meltdown problem was solved PLUS I was finally ready to write this blog. When I was ready, I was ready because I decided that I may have held a wrong view — the view that my idea of what a good Buddhist actually is may not be the whole picture (a wrong view  strengthened through my interpretation of particular rupa, like perfectly white robes). There could be other stuff (stuff suggested in forms and behaviors that comprised my practice, like keeping a notebook) that made me a ‘good Buddhist’ or at least blog-worthy practitioner. And so, a blogger was born and, frankly I am glad she was because there has been a great deal of advantage that I have gotten from the practice of keeping the blog: Forced consistency in my practice, the chance to review old stories and to strengthen my understanding of the truths I uncovered, the ability to practice thinking analytically about my wrong views.

Recently though, I have come to see there is a even deeper wrong view that underlies this whole endeavor…I have been contemplating self and self belonging with renewed vigor in the last few months and after having my nails done I looked down at them and was surprised to see the paint chipping off fairly quickly. I thought to myself, “I have been being so careful, how are these things chipping so soon?” Then it hit me like a ton of bricks, the nature of nail polish is to chip, left alone long enough that is the way it decays; at most I am a factor in helping it stick around longer or chip faster, but I was never the cause. It is in the nature of white (or beige) cloth to become dirty — how in the fuck did I ever think that this was about ME? That it proved something absolutely in ME? That I should be able to  conquered this aspect of impermanence and not doing so is a personal failure (talk about fuel for eternal becoming). Woohoo Egooo… 

Enter Ego: I run around this world ‘interpreting’ signs in rupa, reading tea leaves, looking for meaning and every sign, every leaf, every micron of meaning always points back to me. But a tea leaf is just a leaf: It is made up of 4 elements and it (like everything else in this world) is subject to the three common characteristic, the only meaning in it is the meaning I imagine to be there. And the problem with my imagination is it has a singular agenda — creating and sustaining ME.

Beginning this blog sprung from my usual ‘epic’ struggle between being A (some version of good) and being B(some version of bad), but either way, I believed MYSELF to BE a SOMETHING. A part of me felt like this blog would prove/make real the idea I had of alternate good Buddhist, one who kept notes and diligently practiced, even if I couldn’t keep white clean.

Enter Truth: The good news My Friends is that Rupa doesn’t actually lie; instead of using it to tell falsehoods and build the self we can use it to  shed light on truth.  Just looking back over my blog is quite fine evidence that the great ME has changed a hell of a lot. You see, originally I believed I could use this blog to create some orderly narrative:  A series of stories, written post-facto, that showed my progress as it occurred. Sure, there was going to be change (cataloging it was sorta the point), but it was going to be controlled, hedged, turned on and off by MY WILL so that at any given moment I could ‘drop into’ my old self and tell it like it was. But here My Friends is where I admit the lie —  Today’s Alana can never speak with the voice of yesterday’s Alana. I know because I find myself regularly looking through my past notes and trying to reconcile exactly what I will blog when I just can’t un-see the things I have seen since the old story. I can’t really find or feel the meaning I know I once gave something, it has becoming too jumbled with new scenes and new meaning and new knowledge and new beliefs that have arisen in the interim.  Yesterday Alana and Today Alana are not the same, so where exactly is this ME anyway? And while there has clearly been a progression of this path, I sure as hell can’t swear by the meaning I read into each story, better yet the whole story arc.

And yet, I have every intention of continuing to forged ahead, to practice and to blog as I am able. But it is not to prove I am a Good Buddhist. It is not to become a good Buddhist. It is not to become anything at all, rather it is to un-become. To revisit each story as an opportunity to pick at the truth, to expose the wrong view, to feed my imagination the information it needs to forged ahead with a new agenda — unraveling and undermining ME.

I dedicate this blog, my practice, and all the merit  I have created in past and present life to entering The Stream as quickly as possible: Now, this week, this  month, this year, at the most in this life. To having the wisdom to uproot my wrong views, the parami to become enlightened, the energy to keep-on-keeping-on and the removal of any obstacles that might stand in my way. If I am born at all I ask to be born into circumstances of Dharma with true teachers, Kalianametra and on the path. May all the causes, conditions and factors that need to arise in order for me to become enlightened, arise and result in my enlightenment pronto!