Alana's Dharma Blog

Wandering around a cute little town in Napa, starving, my yelp app navigated me to what looked like the perfect lunch spot, a restaurant called Ad Hoc. I walked up the front steps  to peek out the menu and I saw a huge sign above the door that read, ” Ad Hoc — for the temporary relief of hunger”.

After lunch, once my hunger was temporarily relieved, I started thinking more about that sign…here I was in a fancy foodie town,  feasting on fancy foodie food and its so easy to forget exactly what food is actually for: the temporary relief of hunger. And yet, in my delusion, I often think it is so much more…

When I sashay down the aisles at Whole Foods, I feel like I belong in its foodie paradise. When others mispronounce food names –gyro, acai, poke — I silently pat myself on the back for being ‘in the know’. When Eric cooks a gourmet meal for a crowd, I beam with pride to have such a gourmond husband. For me, food is about feeding my identity as much as it is about feeding my body.

The problem is, can food actually make me a thing? When I tried my hardest to eat healthy my blood work kept coming back with high blood sugar –food didn’t make me a healthy person. When I was a vegetarian I made my whole family slaves to my dietary ‘needs’ — food didn’t make me compassionate. When I ate all the fancy restaurants in town did it make me fancy? How can a physical object I use for a brief moment in time imbue me with an abstract quality, an identity? After all, when I look under the burger bun, under the lettuce, tomato, meat paddy, I just don’t see ‘foodie identity’ lurking in any particular ingredient.

I was sitting on the beach in Maui, surveying all the stuff I had brought along on my sun and surf outing: sandals- mine, hat -mine, kindle – mine, beach chair – borrowed, beach towel-borrowed, beach games -borrowed. All these objects –mine and borrowed — just jumbled together, it made me start thinking what exactly is the difference between the two? I know, I know, in a conventional sense the mine stuff comes back home to SF, the borrowed stuff stays at the Maui beach rental. But in a dhamma sense, why do I feel so differently about these two categories of objects? Aren’t they essentially the same? After all, they are both just sets of rupa objects, living in a rupa world.

In this weeks blog I will share notes from an exercise I did exploring how I might apply the technique I successfully used to kill my obsessive fear to greed/desire for my belongings. Since this draws directly on my past contemplation it will be helpful to you, Dear Reader, to go back and re-read the Killing the Fear blog here.

After I saw fear wasn’t fixed/didn’t live in a situation, I was able to conquer it by realizing 2 things:

1. Just because I am going to die, it does’t mean I have to constantly worry about it: Death happens when the conditions for death arise, my fear and worry are totally irrelevant in this process.
2. There is no necessary relationship between what I feared and what actually happened. There were times I was afraid and sure enough something bad happened; times I was unafraid and yet something bad happened; times I was afraid and  nothing bad happened and times I was unafraid and nothing bad happened.

With my friend and my french fries I had already come to see that just because my stuff is finite it doesn’t mean I have to constantly worry about not having enough. After all, both the objects and my desires are impermanent. So what remains to be investigated is whether or not there is a necessary relationship between desiring something and getting something. And furthermore what is the relationship between getting an object and an outcome. Do the objects always lead to good outcomes? Do they do for me what I want them to do? If so, for how long and in what circumstances?

I desire and I get something: I have countless examples that fall into this quadrant. I wanted my house and I got it. I wanted purses and clothes and I got those too. I wanted Eric as a husband, I wanted my job after my interview, I wanted to learn to do yoga … I got all that I wanted on these fronts.

I don’t desire and I get something: When I was a kid, my dad brought me home stamps and we started collecting together. It was my Dad’s desire, not mine, and yet I ended up with the collection. My house is in fact filled with gifts from friends and family, things I never wanted, never asked for, never sought or prepared for and yet I have them.

I desire and I don’t get something: in other words, desire doesn’t get me what I want/need:  When I was a kid there was this doll that I wanted so badly. Hanukkah was coming up and I told my Mom. I begged, I pointed-out all the other kid’s dolls when we visited them, hoping that I would get that doll as a gift. But for all my efforts, I never did get that doll. My Mom decided to buy me something else instead.

I don’t desire and I don’t get something: I walk through the mall everyday window shopping, looking at hundreds of outfits that I don’t want and so I never go and buy them.  

Sometimes I don’t get what I want and I am fine: There was this jacket I was obsessed with when I was in college. It was expensive, but I wanted it so badly. I want back to the store and visited it over and over, but I never did buy it. Even without the jacket I survived. Other clothes kept me warm. Other outfits had me strutin in style. I didn’t get what I wanted but was totally fine.

Sometimes I get something I want, but it comes with consequences: I got the sweetest pair of LV heels, perfect patent leather with flower studs. Oh I loved them so so much. But, one day, I stepped out of the car wearing them and crack, I fractured my toe. Months later it had’t healed and the podiatrist told me it likely never would: not enough blood flow to fully heal such a small bone in the foot. Now, for the rest of my life I can’t wear heels, I have to be careful how and where I walk, I have to modify my exercises. They were perfect little shoes, but they came with a terrible peril.

Sometimes I get what I want but does that mean it does what I think it does?

• My shawl didn’t keep me a Tibetan Buddhist
• My Porsche didn’t exactly make me feel awesome and chic while on retreat
• I believed my wedding ring was a sign of my strong marriage, I lost the ring but the marriage survived just fine
• No princess outfit ever made me a princess and no white(ish) pants made me feel like a good pure Buddhist
• My z cavaricci jeans never did make me popular

It all comes back to the dentist and the green purse

Once upon a time I went to a super mean dentist who abused me. So for years and years I feared going to the dentist. Long after the og meany was dead and gone I refused dental treatment out of fear the big baddies would get me. But when I realized that things changed: new dentist, new alana, new technology, new circumstances, I bucked it up and went for a root canal and guess what it wasn’t so bad. A key piece of evidence that ultimately helped me get over paralyzing fear rooted in the wrong view that what had been before/ what I believed would be = to reality.

I had one green purse and it ‘worked’ for me. I got a few complements, Eric began to associate me with it, it carried my stuff and I was happy so the idea of what the bag would do for me was born and with it came desire. Desire to have that bag, to preserve it and replace it with a like one should the need arise.Like with fear, want  was rooted in the view that what I had been before/what I imagined it would be = to reality. But circumstances changed, my body changed, my wardrobe changed, my carrying needs changed and so I ended up with a stock pile of bags I no longer wanted/needed.  If I keep building evidence for greed like I did with fear I will have a way to uproot it.

I spent much of the 2017 retreat racking my brain for evidence about myself and this world that might be found in my objects. Finally one object, another article of clothes popped into my mind — a special shawl that was worn by members of my Tibetan Buddhist community when we practiced. I remember when I got that shawl, I was so proud to put it on, so excited to go to the temple to pray wearing it, proving that I was a ‘real member’ of the community, a real practitioner that I fit-in and belonged. But as I began to sour on Tibetan Buddhism, as I began to question my faith, I suddenly didn’t want to wear that shawl anymore. I remember going to a practice and putting it on and feeling embarrassed to be seen in it, like a fraud, like I was trapped as a member of a group I so deeply wanted out of. In my mind, the shawl went from being my badge of honor to my badge of shame in just a few short months but, the actual physical scarf didn’t change at all.

Suddenly it dawned on me, if there was some necessary relationship between the actual scarf (rupa) and my beliefs about the scarf (imagination) then shouldn’t a change in one necessitate a change in the other? If my identity as a good Tibetan Buddhist lived inside the scarf than as long as there was a scarf shouldn’t I have felt like, been, a good Tibetan Buddhist?  Instead I had a physically unchanged scarf, but a totally new imagination of what the scarf did, and what identity I as a scarf wearer had. Shit, between the awesome/not so awesome Porsche and now this scarf, I realized it is quite possible my stuff doesn’t actually do what I think it does at all…

All of this took my mind back to a long long time ago when I realized something else — my faithful frenemy fear — also didn’t quite do what I thought it did (for a little refresher on a scary yoga pose, a deep breath and my seeing fear didn’t live in situations or work to keep me safe see the contemplation here). Mae Yo and Neecha are always telling me to use the same techniques over and over again. So I though maybe I can use the same techniques I used to help eliminate my crazy fear/paranoia to address my greed for my objects. Stay tuned for next week’s exercise on how to use my past success contemplating fear to help me consider greed.

Normally, I love my 911 Porsche convertible. I like to drop the top, cruise to all the fancy neighborhoods in NorCal and imagine people’s jaws dropping as my sexy self, in sleek sunhat and black dress, rolls by rockin out to my favorite tunes. In my mind, the car shows I have made it. It shows I am wealthy and sexy, chic and sleek. It is the ultimate accessory to the successful, vibrant 30-something Alana I like to imagine myself to be myself to be. Except…

The time for the 2017 KPY retreat rolled around and suddenly I realized, with deep embarrassment, I was going to have to drive the Porsche up to the mountain. You see, sleek sexy Alana got rid of her other car so if I wanted to go on retreat, the Porsche was my only ride. Suddenly I felt self conscious. Typically I fantasize the looks I get in the car to be nods of approval, but when I thought about driving up to a Buddhist retreat in something so flashy, ugh suddenly the looks I imagined were of disgust and judgment. I mean really, isn’t it inappropriate? We are all here to contemplate on escaping worldly attachment and I am showing-off my great worldly status and attainment.

The truth is, there are plenty of times I feel self conscious in my car.  I drive through bad neighborhoods quickly, slumping in my seat, praying the gas gauge doesn’t force me to stop in the Tenderloin for gas. I duck into my car after work events hoping donors don’t see me getting into something so expensive lest they think my nonprofit is squandering their donations with fat employee paychecks. I park around the corner when my family comes to town since I don’t want anyone getting any ideas that I am the rich family member they should be asking for financial help. But, once each situation passes, I quickly forget about it. I go back to believing the car does for me exactly what I want it to do — being the perfect accessory for the Barbie fantasy life I am playing-out in my head.

But if I can’t even get my toys to tell me a consistent story all the time, isn’t it evidence that maybe my story isn’t completely correct? I am so easily lulled by my own fairy tales I ignore the Grimm side at my own peril. My wants for fancy cars and outfits and accessories will be as endless as the ability of my imagination to come-up with ever evolving stories for Alana, this lifetime’s star character. But, there is clearly a dark behind the scenes part of this plot filled with embarrassment and danger and the costs and work of acquiring all the  props I need to tell my tales. It is time to stop forgetting and ignoring so that at least this storyteller can tell a more complete and realistic tale.