Alana's Dharma Blog

There was a little market down the block from my house that had struggled for years. It was such an eyesore, attracted unsavory characters, the whole neighborhood was waiting, hoping, it would shut down. That something fun and chic would open in its place and increase all of our property values. I walked by the market, looked-in and saw the owner arranging his empty shelves, trying his best to make the store look fuller, nicer, stocked. That’s when I realized — If I got my wish and the store closed down, the owner would lose his livelihood, the income he uses to support himself and his family.

I was worse than being someone who doesn’t care about the struggles of the shop owner,  I was someone who didn’t even notice them. How could I? All I saw was my perspective, I was blind to  anything outside of it. The truth is that everything in this world has two sides. We however are used to only seeing one side –our own, the one we believe, the one which benefits us. This is not to say every situation is an us versus them, an I’m happy and you’re sad. But in this period of my practice I did start seeing that my perspective, my beliefs, they weren’t universal, they weren’t the end-all-be-all. There are other angles, other perspectives.
Over time this understanding has become second nature. I find myself constantly looking at situations from other people’s perspectives;  almost as quickly as I begin to formulate my own case in an argument, I start balancing that, hedging it, trying to see the other side. This has been one of the insights that has softened me the most, begun to chip away at the greatness of ME. Ironically, I am someone that put such a premium on being ‘compassionate’… what hope did I have of getting there when all I could see was myself?

The Prelude: In general, my practice is to sorta put one foot in front of the other and trudge along my path. But, I have found that sometimes it helps to look-up and look around. To reflect on the distance I have come and to make sure I’m still headed along the right path.  The look back — the wohhh something has actually changed in my heart (and much later in my practice  I started noticing change in my relationships, behaviors, etc.) moment — is so awesomely motivating (albeit sometimes kinda humbling). After all, why bother with a practice that doesn’t help change me, that doesn’t move me along to where I want to be?

As far as looking to make sure I  haven’t wandered from the trail, well that was actually one of my greatest fears in the early years of my practice (I have since come to notice my own internal compass and come to trust it).  I have asked Mae Yo the same question about it like 1,000 times — how will I know if my practice goes off the rails? Goes totally south? Gets sooo off track I’m screwed forever? (My favorite version of this question, “is it like a videogame where you need to hit certain save points, like the flag in Mario 1, or all your progress is lost?” Answer FYI –no Alana, you keep your progress even if you don’t get the flag. Wisdom apparently has more staying power than Mr. Mario).

Of the many answers she has given me, two have really stuck. 1) You will know, just like you knew that your viewpoints in the past were wrong and caused you suffering, and how you know now that your viewpoints are right and balanced. 2) Lessing ego is a sign of correct practice (years latter and many blogs from now, was an aha moment of just why this one is true…but for a while I just took Mae Yo’s word for it).

To some degree, this sort of reflection is a bit automatic. Fast thoughts that check-in or note differences with how I saw things in the past to now, or to see if the same wrong-views re-arise in similar situations. Once in awhile however I do a full halt to really consider. The entry that follows, is one such ‘halt’ and occurred shortly after the story from the last blog, Judge this you Crazy Witch (July 2013). In my notebook it was titled “Something’s Changed: How I Feel Now”  and I will just go ahead and rewrite it here. Do note, that though I feel a bit discouraged by my past behaviors in the entry, the clarity and change was something I found heartening. Also note, the natural (tiny little) decrease in ego that this entry implies. Without further ado….

The Entry:

I have been suspecting something changed after I started seeing the way that I set conditions (the sponge, the kale), the way I seed this life and then suffer because of it.   

How I feel now:

1. Disillusioned: I feel a little more disillusioned with life.I see more clearly the suffering built into the fabric of life. I want out with greater resolve. I see even the things I want or like are tinged with suffering or its potential. My stuffed closet makes it hard to find something to wear in the morning. Travel plans bring stress, or $ concern, or friction between Eric and I to make decisions.
2. Less Picky: I’m starting to feel a little less diehard about particular decision/preferences. If Eric wants a particular trip, restaurant, thing, fine. It’s not like I have no preferences, but I feel a little less rigid. These conditions, they make things so hard. Why have I been so darn picky?
3. Less annoyed:  Noises, family, panhandlers feel a little less irritating to me. When I do get annoyed, like when someone cuts me off in traffic, I can catch it more quickly. I have learned to actively seek out the wrong views. To instinctively ask if this thing is about me? Needs to involve me? Needs to draw me in?
4. Sheepish:  I have been so judgemental…I am embarrassed. It’s ridiculous the way I have applied my own, arbitrary, and often not even doable by myself, standards to others. I don’t even tell them about these standards, I don’t give them a chance to live up to them or fail. I just snap judge. I am so harsh.
5. Clarity: I feel like I have peaked inside the watch casing a bit. Like I am starting to see how gears move. I used to aspire for the wisdom to see right view from wrong and the forbearance to choose right action (later note: I always wanted to be a good Alana, act like a good Alana). Now though, I’m starting to suspect it’s not about forbearance, or will. With a right view as the base, right action can come. With a wrong view, what hope do I have for my actions…I have been foolish.  All the conditions we create, all the identities, relationships, judgements, it’s all so fragile…

One day I drive by my friend Sandy’s favorite shop and I get to thinking about her. Specifically how much she annoys me. Often. Alot. Then I realize I’m in the car alone, Sandy is no where near by, we haven’t even talked in a few weeks…In other words, there is only one place all this venom can be coming from and it’s not from Sandy, it’s from me.

So why, why , why is it that Sandy gets on my nerves so much? It hits me like a ton of bricks –Sandy is completely ‘out of control’. She doesn’t take birth control, even though she doesn’t want kids, leaving pregnancy to chance. She says she will do well in school but starts doing poorly one semester in. She has never had a ‘real’ job.She can’t even control staying awake when she comes to hang-out at our house. She mooches, not taking responsibility for being financially in control. Worst of all, despite being totally out of control, she always lands on her feet.

For me, self control isn’t just a critical part of my identity, it’s a moral virtue. I was someone who worked-out 3X a day to control my body, I kept meticulous spreadsheets and budgets to control our finances, I maxed-out my retirement account at my first job even though I could barely afford my rent, I was thinking about padding university applications before I even wore a bra (padded or otherwise)… I lived and breathed a constant, painful, fight for control. Clearly, I could not just give Sandy a pass.  I had to see ‘out of control’ Sandy as a failure, as a terrible person in order to be a contrast to my own buttoned-up awesomeness; to do otherwise would undermine my sense of value, my sense of self.  

The even bigger problem is, Sandy challenges my sense of order in the universe, undermines my sense of safety and justness. It’s not like I worked so hard to control because it was fun, easy, rewarding. I did it because somewhere in my brain I believed that control was an antidote to impermanence. That if I just managed my body, managed my money, managed my education, I would be safe, I would have certainty, I would be prepared. But Sandy keeps being OK. Everytime she doesn’t get pregnant, everytime she ‘finds’ money, passes a class without studying, I feel a stabbing sense of injustice,  because my version of cause and effect (control=safe and happy outcomes) is fair and Sandy, well that whole thing just isn’t right!!!

When I look back at this story, I see how many wrong views there were about Karma, cause and effect, but those contemplations did not come until a bit later. Here though, what I saw is its me, my definition of virtue that drives my annoyance at Sandy. It’s my need to reinforce my own sense of self and sense of order, my own wrong views, that force me to be so critical of Sandy. So Sandy is back on the scene, only not really, since I was alone, in my car, creating all that pain by myself. The most ironic part of the story though is this, if control is such a virtue and I had already begun to see the limitations of my own control, what kind of terrible failure was I? Forget Sandy, by my own definition, I’m the real villain in this story.