Dear Reader, this blog is a direct continuation of the previous, if you have not already done so please go back and read Part 1.

Where I am planning to go/have already begun going from here:

That all basically covers the contours of the great retreat contemplation. I was talking to LP Nut about some of this and he offered a suggestion. He said, I should see there are many mes in my mind, skillful and unskillful and I needed to confront the unskillful ones with the Truth. I know, I know, I have heard the same idea over and over, but somehow, this time, it really hit home. Now I feel like boldly speaking truth to my lies is my mission of utmost importance.

Tactically, the direction that is taking is 5 fold:

1. Proving I don’t control and my body/stuff –I clearly see that essentially, my body and stuff – because they are both subject to rules of rupa — are fundamentally the same ( at least for the purposes of this exercise). My car, and my skin and bones suit, each operate according to their factors, their abilities, changing with time/circumstances and environment. Neither body or car operate the same at 25 degrees as at 100 degrees, they are both limited in their function by what they are physically designed to do, subject to break, subject to change, etc. So I am just trying to mentally catch as many instances I can that prove I don’t control them.

 

I have had some luck actually getting a few of these to hit my heart. I was at the hotsprings and there was loud construction harshing my mellow. I thought to myself, if I control my body, why can’t I just stop hearing this annoying sound, why don’t my ears auto filter stuff I don’t like? I pressed and pressed and finally said it, my body doesn’t belong to me! In a few instances I am going on to step #2

2. Digging more deeply into the rules that govern the world (mostly Rupa, a little everything else) – For some of my I don’t control body/stuff observations, I am digging a little deeper to try and see some of the factors involved in a change, a decay, a limitation of my control (damn those ears that hear all sounds they can hear and not just the ones I want). So, like with my body and puberty (or the raging yeast infection I have right now), there are clearly physical conditions (hormones, vaginal PH, etc) that must be ripe for any change to occur and there are factors that must be present (having a female body, having a vagina), that are innate in the objects, that precipitate a change. I know, even for something as simple as a rash under my wedding ring, or a yeast infection, I can’t possibly see all the ingredients at work in creating the effect, but it is clear that cause and effect are real. They are understandable as such. I can’t shake the craving to understand cause and effect (then and now) further.

 

3. Does my body/stuff even do what I think it does? I started thinking about my old houses, my old apartments and how I feel differently about them though all served their function of sheltering me. Or the fact that, legally, technically, I own the NY place, but I hate it, I don’t think of it as mine at all, I crave the day when, practically, I can be rid of it.  Then I moved on to the Porsche, sold before I moved, and sold with great disappointment in the selling process and price. Long and short (thought this is its own very detailed contemplation) I saw that I thought that car showed I was rich, classy, fun, awesome in someway, but when I sold it for pennies on the dollar I bought it for I felt a fool, I felt like my car deceived me (I know, I deceived myself). But it begs the question, does the car do what I thought it did for me (even less so now that I don’t own or drive it anymore)? The house? I’m just starting to make-out that there are car and house ( and husband and father and body, etc.) shaped holes in my heart. My #4 creates the holes and when something comes close enough to fitting the particular shaped hole my #4 has imagined, #4 grabs that thing and stuffs it in the hole — it makes it mine. But since nothing stays the same shape (i.e everything dies and decays and changes), the hole will eventually come unfilled and my heart gets broken every time.

 

4. Prove I am not special in 3 parts: A few weeks before retreat I was listing to NPR news podcast and story came on about a woman who had been raped. As the story unfolds, I think how I’m not like the victim; she got in the car with a stranger, a drug dealer, looking for a fix. Stupid right, I’m better than her, I’m safe. Next news article, bombings in Yemen, but I don’t live in some war-torn place, I’m better, safer. A few more stories before I notice the game my mind is playing with me: ‘proving’ I am special, different than people who suffer misfortune, I am safe. Needless to say, this does not serve me as a practioner and makes all my internalizations limited in their impact so a fix in 3 parts:

 

• Case by case, when I put up the shield of special, I am challenging it with facts, truth. For the rape victim: I have done plenty of drugs in my life and, as a teen, I got into cars with plenty of strangers…frankly, the only reason I wasn’t raped is that the many rando guys I ran off with were not inclined to rape me at that time, or the circumstances for some other reason were not conducive/ripe…I opened-up plenty of opportunity. Not special. I may not live in war torn Yemen, but I was in NY during 9-11 and now I live a few blocks from the trade center. Not special. Etc.

 

• Even if I am ‘special’ does it keep me safe? The other day, I was (I thought) driving perfectly well. Then I heard a honk. I realized even if I was being a perfect driver (i.e being special through the power of my awesomeness, in driving in this case) I wasn’t protected from honks. I may have been the target, or I may have just been in the vicinity of someone else getting honked at. But, shootings are much the same, you can be a target or a rando in the line of fire. My definitions of special (good driving, good decision making about random men, good luck in where I live) don’t do anything to actually keep me safe.

 

• Which brings me back to…cause and effect: My being a victim of rape, bombings, honking or shootings, follows the same rules as everything else: It arises based on factors coming together, factors of the environment, the people in it, of myself and my own actions/proclivities and karma. To the best of my ability I am trying to flesh-out cause and effect, arising and ceasing, now and then, so that I can kill this special nonsense once and for all.

 

5. Thinking about duration –I heard news the other day that my ex boyfriend’s wife just died, suddenly, young, of a heart attack. It really struck me, the difference between her and I – duration. A long time ago Mae Yo told me to think about duration; I am like that super slow kid in the class that has a 5 minute lagtime before catching the punchline of the joke…finally, I see why I need to really consider this further.  Some girls begin menstruating earlier, some later, but all girls (who live long enough and have a healthy reproductive system) eventually succumb.

 

Final Thoughts

My ex boyfriend and I have stayed friends over the years, so I reached-out to him to offer my condolences and support at the loss of his wife. This is someone I once loved deeply, I am still fond of, if there was anything at all I could do to ease his suffering I would, of course I would. But I see so clearly I can’t. His pain arises in his heart, its where it will cease.  Then I started thinking, I love myself 1000 times more than I loved him and it is in my power to ease my own pain…suddenly I have so much conviction to stop, stop the fucking delusion that is so obviously the seed  of my suffering, of my becoming.

I was in bed the other night, recapping all the ways the day proved I don’t control my body and then I had a further thought (many actually, but this is condensed)…Back when I had been in NY only a few months, I was devastatingly depressed, I felt so so terribly trapped. The thing is, I had all the merits I would think would give me control, would allow me to get unbound. I had plenty of money, Eric’s support, a family and some real friends who would give me shelter or assistance, I have an education, I’m at the peak of my career with great references and experience. It should have been simple, just me exerting my will, but I was frozen. I couldn’t move, or make a change, or escape, not until the circumstances for such movement where ripe. Even if I don’t control my crap, my body, my peeps, I feel like I should control my own life, like my life is mine, but that early NY experience made it so clear that it is not…

The thing is, I would never drive a car I knew I had no control over, the brake lines cut, the steering wheel broken. I would never take a pill a rando gave me on the street if I had no idea what it was/effects. The idea of such things is ridiculous…so why the hell do I keep pushing for new rebirths, in bodies I don’t control, in lives I don’t control? Delusion is totally not my friend…