Overly Concerned. AKA the Dis-Ease of Ownership
In the sermon I was editing for Mae Neecha, LP Thoon says: “When we are at home, we are concerned about our home; but we are overly concerned. Our concern for our children and grandchildren is also in excess. The same goes for just about anything else we are concerned about. Our soul is tied up with concerns and worries, and the soul that is to assume a life-form or birth goes straight to the thing it cares most about. The same goes for this present lifetime.”
This concept, of being overly concerned, it really struck me. Afterall, I can see just how much suffering I experience becasue of excessive concern. I am constaintly stressing over and struggling for shit that I call my own. But, does it really need to be this way — dis-eased by excessive concern all of the time? Obsessed and obsessive? I decide to consder a simple example, my use of several rental cars, to test out what it might look like to live in this world, use things, function in day-to-day life, without the added stress of being ‘overly concerned’.
A few years ago Eric and I rented a bright yellow convertable Corvet to drive down the West Coast of Florida. The car was fancy, flashy and hella fun to drive, but its primary purpose was to get me from pont A to point B. When it has acomplished that task, I returned it to the rental center with no regrets or hesitations. I knew the car wasn’t mine. MY HEART KNEW THE CAR WASN’T MINE. In fact, at one point, we were pulling out of a gas station, top down, and a guy in the car next to me shouted out, “Nice car!”; I thanked him of course, but I was fully concious of my little inside voice saying “the car is just a loaner, not mine” and my ego failed to puff up accordingly.
I compare that to the old Porche, which I was so sure was mine, and to the deep ego bruising I got on the day I sold it –for a deep discount — it having lost value due to unseen engine problems. When I sold that Porche, I felt betrayed, slighted, like it had decived me about its value, like it had made a fool of me for being decieved and not knowing of the silent engine issues brewing. Afterall, how could On-Top-of-The -World-and-in-Control-Alana (which was an ideentiy I felt was bolstered by my fancy car), really be so on top and in control if I let my own car decay, loose value, silently breakdown without my even knowing? I cried and raged on the way home from selling that Porche. Wouldn’t it have been easier to just drop it off at the counter the way I did the Corvet. Afterall, the Porche too had gotten me from point A to point B. A fixed journey for a finite time. But me, I was overly concerned.
What about my body? Isn’t its job to get me from point A to Point B in this world? A body is just a vessel that I use from birth to death. So why do I obsesse over it, why am I so afraid of the day I need to’return’ it and move on? So much of my daily life stress, years of hypocondira, each darkened mole and off cycle period, each high choleserold test or proximity to someone else’s sneeze, workouts and diets — constant fear and Dis-Ease– becasue I am overly cocnerned.
On a diffrent trip, I rented a car to drive along the California Lost Coast. About halfway through the trip, the maintnace light started flashing on the dashboard and I dutifully took the car to the next Enterprise Rental Agency I could find. As I waited in the lobby while their mechanic had a look, I figured there were just 3 possibilities:
1) it was something not immediately repairable, but the car could limp along for the rest of the trip
2) it needs surgery/repair
3) its dead and I need a new car
Of course this was an inconvience, not what I wanted, and yet I was no overly concerned. The car afterall was not mine. If the mechanic had told me the issue wasn’t fatal, it was safe to limp along for the rest of my journey, I would have continued the trip without feeling wounded, ‘lesser’, the way I would feel if I were crippled or had a serious disease. If the car completely died, even if it cut my trip short, I would have been disapointed but not devestated. Contrast that to how crushed I would be at the news of a terminal disease. My body afterall is ‘mine’.
Then there was that trip to Italy, when I backed the rental car into an old city wall and I left a huge and ugly dent/scratch. I called the rental agency, but they said insurance covered it, I could keep the car and keep driving it to the end of my trip. Battered and bruised, super uglified, I drove that car another 2 weeks without second thought. But when it is my body, my face, that is blemished or mishappen, the shame is so profound I hesitate to leave the house.
The thing is, all cars, all objects, all bodies — they bruise and break, they disease and they decay. But only when I claim something as mine do I suffer the accordant dis-ease. There is no way to treat the objects, they are not sick, their impermanence is completely normal. The only way to end the dis-ease is to treat the mind, to cure myself of the belief that these objects are me/mine, so that I don’t have to be overly concerned all of the time.
