Alana's Dharma Blog

Karma is one of those Bhuddisty topics that’s big, huge. Understanding it fully is equivalent to understanding the whole kit-n-kaboodle of how this world works, how we came to be born, the cycle we are stuck in and how to bring about its cessation. In other words, my details are pretty sketchy ;). Arguably it was way too big a topic for me at the time in my practice I began to consider it (the next entry dates back to 4/14 ) . Frankly it is still too big for me now… But I came across that dragon laying in my path and I poked at it…so, to be fair to my program of recording my path, I will share those contemplations, or rather the synopsis which took the form of an email with questions to Mae Yo and Neecha, in the next few posts.

First though, I feel like I want to give a little intro about Karma in broad terms

 

A Little Intro to Karma (to The Best of My Limited Ability)

So then, what is karma? Karma is quite simply the universal law of cause and effect that governs this world. Everything and everyone is subject to it, period. Period. The problem is, after that statement of fact, it gets a little fuzzy. That’s because no one, but the Buddha, can actually fully see someone’s karma —  i.e. the intersecting web of causes that leads to effects that in turn becomes more causes that have certain effects..and the snowballing continues. Add in countless lifetimes, and countless beings whose lifetimes are intersecting, and karma starts making quantum theory look simple.

So, rather than give myself massive migraines contemplating the unknowables of Karma, I like to use a parallel and think of karma like dark matter in the universe. Scientist can’t see dark matter, they don’t know exactly what it is, but they know it’s real because they can see its (gravitational) effects on the things around it.  With karma, we will never see the full picture, are never be able to point to that ‘one thing’ that was the definitive cause of that one effect, but we sure as heck can start seeing patterns and understanding likely consequences. Our experiences of its effects in our everyday life can prove to us karma is real.

So an example:  You can’t say I went and shot-up my neighbor’s house yesterday and that’s the reason my house was shot-up today. Afterall, plenty of folks who shot-up other people’s houses never have their houses shot-up, and many folks who have had their houses shot-up never did it to someone else. Nonetheless, you can begin to see that folks who are in gangs, who run around doing gangy things, like shooting-up houses, are way more likely than other folks to suffer some kind of gang violence themselves.  Or folks who bully and abuse are more likely to have been abused themselves (after all, we learn the behaviors from somewhere). Or folks who are generous and kind often receive favor and affection from others (because we do tend to favor the folks who have been kind to us). Again, none of these are fixed relationships, because no action takes place in a vacuum there are many circumstances and factors that feed a result, and yet…

And yet, karma is not magic and it is not fully unfathomable/unknowable. And that is probably the critical point for my contemplating on it and, for my sharing those contemplations with you in the posts to come. Because I have real examples of how when I was being a bitch (like to my friend Candy) I escalated fights and got bitchiness back, and when I stopped being a bitch fighting de-escalated and I got sweetness back.  So, I have learned that I can alter myself, my beliefs and (as a result) behaviors in order to change the effects I get.  I have also, as you will see in the next post, developed a healthy dose of concern, of cautiousness about the seeds I sow ( the karma I create) because frankly, I don’t want to get bitten by the bad stuff later on.

The next few posts will be about my initial karma contemplations.

We’ll begin this entry with a little civics lesson about the San Francisco jury selection process. Basically, everyone eligible to serve on a jury can be called on once a year. If summoned, you don’t necessarily need to go to court, you get place on stand-by. Each day you call in and see if you were selected to serve on the jury pool, if not, you simply need to call in the next day. If you make it a whole week without getting called in (woo hoo), you are free from jury service for another 12 months. Unless….

Back in late 2013, I got a jury summons. Each day I called-in praying my name would not get selected. Each day I was delighted by the news that I had been passed over for some other poor person who was wasting away their day sitting in court instead of me. By the end of the week I had avoided getting called and I was free for another year. Yipee!!!  Fast forward to Feb. 2014, I get a letter in the mail calling me to serve on  federal jury duty in Oakland. Apparently, folks who had served at a local court in the last 12 months were exempt; since I however had only been on stand-by, there was no way out of the federal jury summons. And, federal court is much worse than local, I had to go all the way to Oakland and cases tend to be much much longer…..

Suddenly, I was really wishing I had been called in back in 2013, if I had just done my service locally I  could have avoided the whole federal summons mess. That’s when it hit me, the very thing that brought me so much joy back in 2013 (not getting called for jury duty) was causing me so much regret just a few months later. I was so sure of what I wanted and then it changed so quickly. How much energy do I put into getting what I want? How much hope and worry, joy and sorrow, pierces my life based on these things? And then my desires can change so fast, they are so fickle, so mutable — is it worth it?

I thought about examples of this from my life:

• My husband got a job transfer and we were so so worried it would be the end of his career, something terrible. So much scheming and planning to avoid it and in the end it happened anyway. Turned-out to be a great move, better position, better work environment, more money, more career potential.
• I wanted to stay in Houston, my old town, so so much. I cried and screamed and pulled my hair when I found out we were leaving. Now I love San Francisco.
• I was so happy my neighborhood finally went to permit parking. I spent $250 on a sticker and then sold my car. I felt like I had wasted the money.  
• I was so excited to go on a trip to Kenya and then I got run down by a rhino–ouch.

Over and over again I throw my heart at a desire, I let desire be the line that connects the dots of my life, drags me from one point to another. Because I want some things and want to avoid others, my life is a constant roller coaster of highs and lows, joys and disappointments, sweet success of achievement and deep despair over loss.  But, how long does the desire, the thing I invested so much energy and hope in even last? Even if I get my desire, look how fragile it is —  a federal jury summons can transform a past victory (avoiding local jury duty) to a regret in the time it takes to open an envelope…

It is worth noting that before this contemplation I was already aware that I was the one who made the rules, decided what was desirable or undesirable in every circumstance/occasion (see http://alana.kpyusa.org/what-kind-of-a-throws-a-sponge-on-the-ground-in-this-beautiful-unspoiled-forest/). But I really thought that I knew what I wanted, that once I decided it stuck. Now I began to see the very things I want can change over time. It thew a new element of uncertainty, of impermanence into the mix. It further built the case that I am playing a game, that in the end I really can’t win…after all even a victory can turn into a defeat so fast.

Note from the present day: This story was one of my early contemplations on the slights and discomforts I face in my everyday life. The slights and discomforts I invite on in, in exchange for those sweet, snowy, moments I desire. As suffering goes, these little blips are barely perceptible and so easily forgotten. But it is actually their normality,  their pervasiveness, that make them such compelling evidence of the trade offs, the sufferings for enjoyments, I chose. Because the ‘sufferings’ are so ‘small’ I will bold the ones I caught in my story. Perhaps you, Dear Reader, can catch a few more…

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Needless to say, us Miami girls don’t get too many snow days growing up. So, when a friend invited me to use his cabin in Tahoe on the weekend a big blizzard was set to strike, I was excited like a kid in a candy store (on a snow day).  

Eric and I drove up on Friday and I set the alarm for frightfully early on Sat. when the snow was supposed to start — I didn’t want to miss out on even a moment of snow. 6 AM, no snow. 7 AM no snow, 8 AM no snow. For hours I paced, between the window and the weather report on TV, just waiting for my winter wonderland to begin.

Before the first flakes hit the ground at 8:30, I was pestering my husband to get up and get ready to go play in the snow. Annoyed, he complied, dressing and grumbling, driving and rolling his eyes, till we got up to one of the ski lodges where we could spend the day and watch the snowy show.

Except, since we weren’t actually guests in the lodge, I had to earn my keep, ordering mediocre food, too many drinks, the massages, all stuff I didn’t really want to have or to have to pay for. But all worth it in my mind for the dazzling winter display on the mountain.

As the snow got harder however Eric and I started to worry about getting back down the mountain again. Slowly, anxiously, we drove down the icy roads back to our cabin below. We made it so far, got so close, only a mile left to the cabin and off the road we drift into a huge pile of snow.

The car was stuck.  As I assessed the reality of being stuck, in the freezing cold, getting dark, side of the road in Tahoe, my inside voice is just screaming, “fuck fuck fuck”. I used my outside voice to call AAA, “What do you mean there is a 7 hour wait for roadside assistance …  fuck fuck fuck.”

We walked the last mile back to the cabin and we waited. Of course, we eventually go the car towed out. By morning, the roads had been cleared, the sun was shining, and we drove back to SF where we lived happily ever after. The End.

Waaaaiiiittt a  sec, not soooo fast on that fairytale ending.  

On the way home, I caught myself planning for the next time; what I would do different, the tire chains I would bring, the more central lodge I would stay at, the tweaks I could make (control) to have the pretty snow, but without the slights, the inconveniences. Hell, maybe I could even figure out how to get the snow without it being so darn cold…

The snow, it was pretty, for sure (at least until I ended in a ditch filled with it), but was it worth it? Once the sun had come out,  and I had hindsight on the prior day, it all started feeling like an adventure, a fun story to tell friends, a trial, for sure, but one I had come-out on the top of. But, I couldn’t help wonder, when will it be enough? What if I got hurt? If Eric was hurt? If the car had required pricey repairs?

Even without it getting too serious, when do all those slights and pin pricks add up to pain? What do they show me about this world? About what my life is made of? About what shadow side comes lurking with my desires and the pleasure of fulfilling them?

Present day Alana can’t help wonder if the little pains I incurred chasing my small snowy dreams might have been a warning to me. If I had really understood, would I be suffering so hugely today with the disappointment and aggravation of a NY life incurred by chasing my big NY dream? I dedicate this blog to learning my own lessons, absorbing them deep in my heart, so that one day, I am free of making the same mistakes over and over again.

 

On the tail of so much travel —  India, Hawaii —  it’s wasn’t terribly surprising that my To Do list was insanely long. Doctors visits and  taxes to pay and calls to make, oh my. What did strike me as odd though was the feeling in my heart as I looked at the list, it might as well have said “lions and tigers and bears oh my.”

I sat at my desk, carefully writing out each to do, creating sublists of my list on sticky notes that I would obsessively arrange and then re-arrange. With each bullet, each sticky note overhaul, my heart craved calm, soothing, a sense of order and control. But soothing never came, I just looked at my list and panicked. In my mind, that list, was an indictment of my own limitations of control. It was a series of tasks each of which I could fail, any of which could prove me to be a failure. And in that moment, I realized, what was happening in mind might actually be crazy…let’s have a look at the wrong views:

 

• Wrong view 1: That control is even possible.   But really, if I were in control, would I have a huge todo list in the first place? Would I be overwhelmed by it? I don’t want these tasks, I don’t want to feel burdened by them, if my control was real, I could just eliminate them altogether, or at least eliminate the overwhelmed feeling that comes with them. The problem is already evidence that I don’t control.

 

• Wrong view 2: That  if I could just number and order all the tasks of my life, they would be in my power to control. Crazy list making Alana ignored the possibility that even a perfect list did not ensure I controlled each item and its outcome. Or that I can never really be master of a  list that doesn’t really end, there are always more items to add on (impermanence). Or that sometimes things get done on their own, or don’t end up needing to be done at all, list or not.

 

• Wrong view 3: Deeper still was what control over the items on my list meant to me. If I control I am a successful adult, someone who is mature and responsible and all adulty and stuff. Because, thinks crazy Alana,  folks who don’t make lists, who don’t control, are always failures right? List making, controlling, is what it means to be an adult (permanent). If I fail, if I drop the ball, if even one call falls through the cracks, what kind of person am I?

 

• Wrong view 4: The deepest fear, the heart of the matter, if I fail, if I am someone who is not in control, people will judge me and find me lacking. More than anything else, I wanted this list to protect me from looking like a lazy fool, from being someone others see as immature, undependable, irresponsible. Of being someone who is unlovable. But, I started to gather the evidence and question… is it true?

Does everyone even value control the way I do? If my friend Sue valued control would she have been so over weight? And do I even value control absolutely in other people? Mae Yo, my super ninja teacher, often says folks don’t listen to her. If even Mae Yo can’t control her students is control the ultimate measure of success? Do I judge my teacher harshly for her lack of control? When I was a vegetarian I controlled my diet, but did others love me more? In truth most of my family thought I was a pain in the ass to have dinner with.

The truth is, as long as I live in this world, there will be a todo list. A series of obligations, duties, I ought to try my best to fulfill. But the list, it says nothing about me beyond that I am a part of this world.