Alana's Dharma Blog

So Dear Reader, as a re-cap, we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled program and interrupting this nice, orderly, temporally linear(ish) blog about my practice with an intrusion from the present day…. inspired by the filth, noise, overcrowding and rudeness of NYC…I bring you part four in my blog about hate.  Last week, we left off with a real shift, a lightening of my hate load brought about by my seeing it for what it really is — a feeble, delusional, poorly functioning, attempt to hide my own ugliness by  distracting myself with the ugliness of others.. Somehow, just seeing hate for what it is took away the sting. This then will be the last instalment in my ‘Hate Interruption’, I will share just a few more follow-up thoughts directly from my notebook.

On Karma:

For the last year or so I have been caught by a simple paradox: Everyone reaps the fruit of their own karma, so I know moving to my own hellish NY arose from my karma. But, I just didn’t get-it — how did I end-up in a city filled with such ugly,  angry, vengeful, inconsiderate people? How did I come to occupy a ‘ hell’ for these types? Maybe karma is broken….

After my hate contemplation I understood: I sometimes behave in ugly, angry, inconsiderate people ways, I am one of  ‘those’ people too . My karma drew me here just like it drew all of ‘them’. Karma worked just as it should, my own delusion is what kept me from understanding the cause of my experiences.

On Alana the Avenging Angel:

In my mind, the violence I would bestow on the honkers and litterbugs and shovers was justice. It was punishment that they deserved and it was my job to make sure they got it. But, even if someone ‘deserves’ punishment, is it my role to dole it out? Is this how the world works; if there is an injustice done, Alana needs to be there to avenge it or else the law of karma will break and people won’t experience the effects of their actions?What does this really have to do with me anyway?

Clearly, at the heart, this is about me only because I make it about me. I have rules, standards, I create and then in my own mind I judge people according to them. Since they are mine alone, who else would enforce but me. But that is not really karma, karma is a universal law, the law of cause and effect, and it operates just fine without me.

And in so far as any ‘punishment’ is due to all the ugly, angry, vengeful, inconsiderate people out there (myself included), aren’t we already experiencing the some of the effect of our hating? I know the burning, searing pain in my heart that comes when anger and impatience arise, I am guessing the honkers and huffers and pushers and shovers feel the burn as well. Does Alana really need to do anything to help someone else have their moment of hell? The only one  my hate and my vengeful is ‘paying back’ is myself.

On Compassion:

When I get frustrated and speak harshly to Eric, I want to be forgiven. When I am inattentive to my mom and  Seth, I want them to give me a pass. When I am a neglectful student, I want my teachers to still teach and believe in me. When I am ugly, I want my friends to still support me. Each of these times, I want my loved ones, everyone really, to see these moments are not who I am. I want another shot, a redo. And, surprisingly, I so often get them. Despite so many flaws, I still have folks who love, care for, believe in and teach me.  

So why can’t I give a pass to the honkers and pushers and eyrolles and litterbugs? If I don’t believe my ugly moments are me, if I think I should get a pass, forgiveness, why am I so fast to want to punish these transgressors? Why do I think I am so special, so much more deserving?  In fact, doesn’t my harshness make me a little less ‘special’ and worthy in the end?

Final Thoughts:

So much of my energy is spent trying to confirm my goodness, i.e. the qualities I value. When it comes down to it, these are really just qualities  I  value because I have been taught them or they have been useful to me. My friends and family help affirm my goodness, my lovableness. My job affirms my usefulness and skill, my city (SF) affirms my chillness, my clothes and body affirm my beauty and in-controlness, my wealth affirms my safety. So much effort and does it work? If SF could really affirm my chill, how in the hell did I find myself Alana- Angry-Avenging-Angel of Fire and Doom?

So Dear Reader, as a re-cap, we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled program and interrupting this nice, orderly, temporally linear(ish) blog about my practice with an intrusion from the present day…. inspired by the filth, noise, overcrowding and rudeness of NYC…I bring you part three in my blog about hate. We left off last week with a moment of realization: Hate is not built into the situations where I feel hateful,  the seed of hate lies in my heart. So, the question DeJour is a repeat of last weeks question, asked again, with greater wisdom, as the starting place:

If it hurts so bad, why do I gotta be such a hater?

Once I saw it was me, myself, that was creating the hate, it was time to go back and re-ask, why oh why do I do this hating when it hurts soooo bad? What are the hidden benefits?  What is my self thinking?

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So, one of the problems of getting all out of order in this Interruption of Our Regularly Scheduled Program is we have skipped over a few big contemplations that serve as building blocks for this hate clarifying moment. So we do need a little pre/re-cap:

A while back I was contemplating a question: Why do I create a self anyway? What does it accomplish? I decided that my sense of self helps me sell a lie, smooth the narrative of this world over a bit, it whitewashes, chooses what  facts to include and which to ignore.  The self is like a storyteller, and it is usually telling stories where I am the hero…

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How is my storyteller self making me a hero this time?

I started thinking about those stories you hear sometimes — about gay people who are homophobic, black people who are racist; I feel like they must hate something in themselves to tell these types of stories. I live in this city, I am a New Yorker, but I hate New Yorkers. I am in the same boat. Maybe something I hate in myself is at the root of my hate for this city and its inhabitants.

I see this city, and its people, as rude, careless, inconsiderate, violent, vengeful, self absorbed. All those traits on clear display at just one traffic light, with 100,000 horns a’blaring. But what happens if I look inwards? If I internalize?

The truth is I am way worse than those honkers.  Honkers hurt strangers and passerbyers, for a fleeting moment, with their carelessness, inconsideration, violence, vengefulness and self absorption. I have been careless and inconsiderate with my flesh and blood (see blog about my brother or this one about my Mom ), family who feel the sting of my actions so acutely. I have been violent to neighbors (I once locked my nextdoor neighbor in a rabbit’s cage for trying to steal my brother as a playmate, blog to come) and vengeful with friends (see this story about Candy and our cycle of abuse), people who have cared for and supported me. I have been too self absorbed to see the pain of people in my own community (see this blog about a store owner in my old hood), shirked responsibility in the most intimate corners of my life (see blog about my ex lover).

This is my darkside, the Alana I don’t want to be, the stories I rather not tell myself. So I tuck these personal tidbits away and I do the easy stuff from day-to-day.  I act cool and friendly in shops, always give cars ahead the right of way, I never ever honk; self ignores the little nasties and builds ‘evidence’ of that sweet, kind, go lucky Alana, the hero I want to be.   Hero needs an anti hero, and who better than the pushers, honker, litterbugs, ya know all the stuff I’m not. They are the monsters — the careless, inconsiderate, violent, vengeful, self absorption fuckers out there. No need to look inside, to scratch the veneer off Hero Alana.

But this city puts a spotlights on those traits in myself, the dark ones I hate. When I am in SF, surrounded by warm, considerate, easy going people, it’s easy to be those things myself. That is the Alana I want, so I act the result, put myself in circumstances where I can be hero Alana. But here in NY, with  each shove, honk, sneer and eyeroll — each perceived slight —  my heart burns with thoughts of vengeance, destruction, and punishment. And as I imagine publicly whipping the the offender, it’s hard not to catch glimpses of carelessness, inconsideration, violence, vengefulness and self absorption in myself.

The mechanics are so simple really, how could I have hidden the truth from myself for so long? I create standards of hero-ish behaviors that flatter myself at the expense of others. But, my storytelling self needs more punch to sell the hero alana pitch. Enter hate, to really punctuate the difference between myself and the villains, to make sure I don’t become one of those villains myself. But, don’t my murder/whipping/fire from the sky fantasies prove I have become the villain? No, no, my mind, my self, can’t handle that story, so I add another dash of hate, it has worked before. Then I  add a pinch of delusion, that my rage is righteous, to protect the city, and others, I am a punishing angle not a violent, shoving thug…

As much as it hurts, hate’s deep, dark, hidden benefit is that is hides the truth about myself, of my own darkside that I don’t want to see. But, I do see. Like a bully that has been stood-up to, like a night light to illuminate the shadows, somehow with just a glimpse of the truth, my chest became lighter and I could literally feel the weight of my hate beginning to subside.

So is it over? Hate-filled alana dead and gone? I don’t know, really only time will tell. I still want to go home to SF, I still rather not live in NY, but the hate, for the moment anyway, seems to have lost its bite.  Afterall, even if I have a long way to go, I actually do want to be a ‘good person’, and in the cold, harsh, light of day, can I really believe being a hater is going to get me there?

So Dear Reader, as a re-cap, we are taking a break from our regularly scheduled program and interrupting this nice, orderly, temporally linear(ish) blog about my practice with an intrusion from the present day…. inspired by the filth, noise, overcrowding and rudeness of NYC…I bring you part two in my blog about hate. We left off last week exploring all the pain and suffering that comes with being a hater. So, the question DeJour:

If it hurts so bad, why do I  gotta be such a hater?

I’m going to give a shout-out to LP Nut. At the last retreat he gave me a new tool, a new question to ask myself to help me better penetrate my wrong views: If I know a belief  is grounded in a wrong perception already, if it causes me pain, why do I do it? What do I gain? And is that perceived gain actually real –i.e. do I get what I want from the wrong view I cling to? If so, to what degree and at what cost? Whats the data points that the view is helpful/true? Here we go…an insight into my stream of consciousness dharma practice…

1) I hate to protect my self: I need to draw a line in the sand, between things that I hate (that’s you fucking litterbugs) and me, my self-righteous self.  I am a woman of boundaries, of strong standards (see the last blog on this), there is right and there is wrong. To protect my values, my sense of self as a person who maintains those values, I hate. To ensure that I never accept the standards of NYC (the filth, honking, rudeness), I never become a New Yorker, I put up my magical shield of hate.

Where is this self I am so busy protecting? Is it homeless alana self or compassionate alana self? Is it SF alana self or NY alana self?  When I was vegetarian alana I had one set of moral standards and as meat eating alana I have another. So both self and standards changed. And…once I changed from vegi to meat eater shouldn’t old vegi Alana hate new meat-eater Alana?

What are the mechanics by which hate protects me anyway?  Perhaps it is like how I saw fear (see blog Killing the Crazy): Hate motivates certain protective actions, teaches me what to avoid and what to embrace. But, if it worked, how did I end up in a place I hate anyway? If hate really worked to protect me, surround me with things that I value, — why do I have to keep flying back to NYC and facing a place I hate — why don’t I live safely back in SF already? F-You Hate, you are doing a piss-poor job at  keeping me safe!

2) I hate to keep my body safe. At least hate can help keep my physical body safe right? To be a warning against things and people that might do me harm, Rupa (form) I have learned is dangerous.

But, here is the crazy thing, just the other day I read an article about how NYC is actually the safest city in the country. My belief, that all the things I hate here are a big warning sign to run for my life, is contrary to all actual evidence.

3) I hate to protect my karma. I seek to surround myself with good rupa (form), good people, good circumstance to prevent getting used to, learning to accept, lower states. But the hate, the anger, the standards I use to build my bubble world of ‘good’ are actually making me murderous (see the last blog for details). And  seriously, can I really prevent lower rebirths with hate? I don’t need a Buddhist book to tell me the answer to this one — if hate actually worked to keep me from hell states, from circumstances I find repulsive, I could leave NY for good. Trust me, I have enough hate in my heart, if it were the ticket to escaping my NY hell, I would be outta here already!

The Money Moment

I was deep in thought  when something happened, I notice that despite being on the streets of NY, with filth and blaring horns, I wasn’t feeling hateful. But, as I started thinking more about my hate of NY, that hate began to grow again in my heart. Just like with fear (again see the blog Killing the Crazy ), in that moment I saw the truth: Hate is not fixed, it can come and go, it is not built into the situations where I feel hateful.

I know I have said it 1000 times, I am the cause of my hate. But, for the first time since I moved to NY I finally got it. If the hate were outside me, built into a walk on the streets, I wouldn’t have had a moment of freedom from that hate. Moreover,  the fact that the outside circumstances remained the same, but my own thoughts turning to hate caused hate to arise point to the TRUTH: the seed of hate lies in my heart. A lightning strike only starts a fire when there is something on the ground to burn. All the lightning in the world, all the honking, all the filth, can only set my heat on fire if the the fuel is already there waiting to burn. Obvious right? I knew that already, but my heart only believed  after I watched lighting strike.

And so Dear Reader, with a moment of clarity, a penetrating understanding of the truth, it was time to play my favorite dharma game: Lets do the same thing over and over again — Stay tuned for next week’s blog  Why Ya Gotta Be Such a Hater? 2.0. Where I go back and ask myself the same question again: Since it is clearly me, why exactly do I do it?

Well Dear Reader, it is once again that time when we need to put some of our ‘Interruption In Our Regularly Scheduled Program” Blogs — entries that were written’ real time’ and out of the order of this orderly (ish) blog that tracks the progress of my practice since its inception — back into their chronological place. The next few entries will be about my big ah-ha moments surrounding the cause and costs of my hate for New York. 

It is funny, at the time I had these very powerful, very raw, contemplation, it felt like, BAM, they came from nowhere. I remember, just walking down the street and feeling like a ray of Dharma clarity had struck me from above. Now, with several years of time and distance between myself, and these very emotional contemplation, I see so much more clearly the progression of practice –of contemplation and understandings — that led me to these BAM-AH-HA moments. Perhaps you, Dear Reader, will see it too? The traces of my Bubble World understanding, the analysis of hidden costs and beliefs, the more nuanced rendition of rupa, that underpin these thoughts that ‘fell from the sky.’

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Hate Hurts Me and the People I Love: For any of you who have ever experienced all-consuming-rage-induced-murderous-hate, you know, it’s not really a walk in the park. Seriously, the feeling of burning hate is its own kind of suffering. I want to be a joyful person. I at least want to be a calm, content person. I want to be the person I feel like I am when I walk down the streets of San Fran, all chill and positive vibing, but this hatred is getting in the way.

And as I ball my fists and huff and puff at the driver who honks, my husband, standing next to me also feels my rage. He sees a hate-filled wife so different than the woman he loved  back in San Fran and he hurts. I grow short, raise my voice, lose my temper so easily when I am already so angry, and who else but the folks close to me, like Eric, is there to get the brunt of my attacks?

But I can’t help it … NY is filthy, loud, people are inconsiderate and self absorbed. I have standards, rules, for how cities and people in them should be. If a standard is failed, a condition of mine goes unmet, I don’t like it. When I encounter a beast like New York, which violates every one of my standards to the extreme, I have hate hate hate. Humm…maybe it’s my standards that cause hate not the city…maybe my standards hurt me and the people I love…

My Hate Inducing Standards are Risky Business: I have such tight standards, rules and a need for order, it bears asking the question –what happens when those standards don’t get met? What happens when Alana moves to NYC? Clearly, as we saw before, one unpleasant consequence is hate. But what risks come along with that?

When someone throws trash on the street (i.e. every 2 minutes) an image flashes in my mind of my murdering them by  tearing open their jugular. Of course,  I would never actually kill, of course, of course, right? But I have hurt people before — when they erode my happy world, fail my standards, take whats mine — as a kid I locked my neighbor in a rabbit cage because he took my little brother away from me as a playmate. I have left spiteful reviews on yelp,  thrown away valuable belongings of an ex, ‘accidentally’  elbowed or stepped on feet in a subway.

Each of these acts is different from murder in their degree or severity not in their nature or kind.  The cause, the hate/need to ‘defend’ myself, remains, and the risk of ‘karmic crime’ lurks with it. I am just waiting for a breach in standards big enough, a violation unforgivable enough, to turn my murder fantasy into reality. Where oh where did compassionate alana run off to?

But wait, there is more. These standards have perils on both sides. When someone is on the ‘wrong’ side of my standard I hate them, I want to punish them. But I use these same standards to shelter my own guilt, to cloak my wrong behaviors and call them  ‘right’ just because they fall on the ‘right’ side of my standards line. When I was in highschool, I had a ‘rule’, I would never mess around with someone else’s boyfriend. There was a guy I liked, already dating another girl, I didn’t ‘mess around’ with him, that would have been wrong. But I flirted, almosted, made him desire me so ultimately he broke-up with the other girl. Still, I did no wrong, I never broke my rule or my standard.  

The honking here is by far the worst offence in my mind. Honkers allow their frustration to drive them to hurt everyone around them, to wildly assault thousands of ears just because their commute takes an extra 2 minutes. I quietly seethe. I plot my imaginary revenge in  my head. That driver and I actually have a lot in common — anger and hate, frustration and broken expectations are what animate us both. But I am on the side of right. I am good, I keep it to myself. I don’t hurt thousands of people around me… I hurt just me, and the people I love, with my hate.

Arbitrary Standards: Clearly, not everyone hates Manhattan. If they did, this city would clear-out and I would finally have some peace and quiet. But alas, it is me. There is something in me that is ruffled by NY. Something about the rupa, the way the form of this place is arranged, that pushed my particular buttons. It violates my particular standards and rules. But here is the thing — these rules and standard are arbitrary. Why is making-out with someone else’s boyfriend wrong, but flirting is ok? Why is littering wrong but getting my stuff from Amazon, which over packages everything, ok? Why is hurting 1000s wrong but hurting 1 or 2 ok? Why is piles of trash on the sidewalk wrong but a messy underwear drawer ok?

In the end, I make my rules, based on what I value, and then I use them to  carve up the world and my own behaviors into rights and wrongs. But these rules, are not the rules that govern the world. If they were, Manhattan would be ¼ the size, sparkling clean, quiet enough to hear a pin drop. Shit as long as I’m at it, fluffy friendly dogs would roam the streets here just waiting to be pet…I make rules that will always be broken and then I suffer the hate, the perils, the misery when things are not the way I want. It begs a question, to be explored in next week’s blog — if it hurts so bad,  why do I gotta be such a hater?