After days using the exercise from the Anatta-Lakkhana sutra to contemplate my belongings and my body it started to become increasing clear to me that each object I contemplated on –every object in the world — is just marching through the shifting states of rupa. Clearly it isn’t you, you cant say that any of the 4 elements in any given combination, that will definitely disaggregate, is you. It isn’t representative of you either — it represents its march – its process of entropy, its process of shifting, the object represents the nature of rupa itself to move toward, and ultimately arrive at, the cessation of any given form. I can use rupa objects to interact with other rupa objects, possibly causing them to change, within the scope of rupa rules; but that doesn’t make something mine, it doesn’t mean it reflects me, these objects are simply acting in accord with their nature, not affirming me. And yet, sometimes, the states they achieve seem to align so closely with my desires it almost seems they affirm me…

Previously, I had spent many months caught up on the idea that by being a cause, by being able to use one rupa object to change another rupa object, I was special, or unique or that I could get what I wanted. But now I see, what I want is a result, I couldn’t care less about being the cause. But even when I am the cause, no particular result is guaranteed. Its just that sometimes the result I want does in fact happen, and when it does I assign meaning, presume power, to myself as the cause.

Recently my rosacea was flaring, my skin was red, burning, I had pimples and pustules galore. This is a 4e process.  My nama wants to ‘fix’ the skin, bring it back to a less inflamed state that I prefer, that better ‘represents’ beautiful me. Immediately I get to imagining ways to fix. My memory of my Dr. helping in the past prompts me to give her a call. She prescribes a cream and ‘voila’, it helps. Why? Because in this instance, the 4es of the cream interact with the 4es of my skin and calm the redness and pain.

The thing is, there have been sometimes I called the doc and got a script and it made the rosacea worse. There have been sometimes I called the doc and got a script and the rosacea got better, but I had horrible side effects from the drugs and had to stop using them. So sure, I can be a cause, sometimes that cause achieves a desired result, but there is no way I can guarantee a result. Without guaranteeing a result –without ALWAYS — I can’t possibly claim control of this world, or ‘my objects’: I can’t rely on them to take shapes I believe reflect me, I can’t depend on them being there for me, they can’t affirm I am some special-exceptional-master-of-the-universe because they don’t act in accord with my wishes or rules, they simply act in accord with their nature –shifting when the causes for a shift have been met, with total disregard for my desired result.

Even when I am able to cause an object to change into a state I desire, it remains in that state only temporarily. This was not my first rosacea flare, in the past I had flares that I had tempered with  meds. The problem was, the meds had stopped working. Nor was this the first time a med had stopped working; countless times I had a flare, cleared it with a drug, and then had the drug stop working. Flare, new drug, remission, flare, new drug, remission, flare, new drug, remission, flare. Each time I  manage a remission, I feel victorious, in control, I have forced my skin back to the state it is ‘supposed’ to be in, the state I imagine my skin looks. But the truth is it is a momentary state, it is only a SOMETIMES STATE. And as much as I only want the sometimeses that I like to represent me — the young, the pretty the less red and bumpy and itchy — I can’t just isolate those states and claim them; my face is the whole path, the whole march, all the states that particular 4e object shift into before its cessation.