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Month: June 2021

The Genes Don’t Lie

The Genes Don’t Lie

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I saw a super old guy on the street, using a walker, hunched over, just trying to make it to the other side, but moving so so so slowly. His family was trying to help, speaking encouragement, but the guy was taking unbearably long… I started thinking, “That could be me one day. It was my Grandma Rose after all. What makes me think I’m special, that I am exempt from such a fate, from the fate of aging and death in general?”
I share my grandmas gene’s, my dad’s too — both dead — clearly those wont keep me ‘safe’ from death. Is it that I feel like it hasn’t happened to me yet, so it won’t happen at all? To that point, plenty of things haven’t happened before in my life and then they do –I had never moved away from Miami till I did, never had a job till my first one, never lost a parent till my dad died, etc. First times happen all the time in life, something not having happened yet offers no surety or security that it won’t happen in the future.
Plus, its not exactly true that I haven’t started the march towards dying yet. I am already aging, that is clear, I already show signs of decay: I have a tooth in my mouth right now that is killing me, it is decayed, worn and cracked from use over time. That tooth is painful proof of aging. If I saw a ball speeding down an incline,  I wouldn’t say that, because it is only halfway down the hill, but not at the bottom yet, it won’t ever reach the bottom at all; that would be crazy. In fact, I’d say the opposite, “the ball, uninterrupted, will definitely continue to fall, the way all things in nature subject to gravity do.” Isn’t the law of impermanence, change, decay and degradation, a law even surer than the law of gravity?  The rest of this body will definitely decay the way the tooth is decaying right now,  the way the cancer riddled body of my dad decayed, and the way the heart of my  grandma, that finally couldn’t pump any longer, decayed.
Perhaps I don’t really understand and internalize this truth of my mortality because I think I am special, loved and therefore protected. Isn’t a sense of safety, and a belief in my own exceptionalism, what I have looked to countless friends and loved ones to confirm for me? But here is the problem: I loved my dad beyond words. He was my person, my sun and moon. No one was greater or more special in my eyes than my father. That love broke my heart when my dad died, but it surely did nothing to save my dad, to exempt him from illness and death. Eric loved me so much, he stood by helpless to either save my father or to space me, his beloved, the pain of such a profound loss. If I couldn’t save my father and ERic can’t save me, there is no one in the world that can save or be saved from sickness and death.
Is it the fact I think I control my body better than others? I am more more fit, more disciplined? But what about that actor from Spartacus –he was fit beyond belief, beautiful, talented, just beginning to peak in his career — dead of a rare cancer at 40. Is it that I’m a “better person”? LP Thoon died, Mae Yo was in an accident — whatever my definition of “good person” is, don’t those two top the chart?  And even moments of my life I have felt  “I’m at my best”,  like before we left Cali, I wasn’t spared the pain and loss of moving. Is it money? I just visited the cemetery where Leona Helmsley’s mausoleum is — all her wealth bough her fine marble and stained glass, but it didn’t make her any less dead . Plus the tooth tells it all: I work hard to brush and floss and care for my teeth. I don’t skimp, using my money to pay for the best dentists and treatments. Has effort or attitude or wealth saved my teeth?
The truth is, the reason I don’t truly understand the fate before me is that I choose to ignore it. Despite endless, daily, evidence from others, the world, even my own body, I  just look away. I count my tooth as an exception to my general invincibility, once pulled it is forgotten. But forget or not, ignore or not, it doesn’t change the truth; this body will age until death just as surly as a ball falling will fall till it hits the ground.
Uninvited Guests

Uninvited Guests

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Eric and I were in Japan over the holidays and my cousins needed a place to stay while they visited some family in the North East, so of course we offered to have them stay in our  apartment. When we got home, they were long gone, but the house was a complete mess. They had left behind jewelry and hairbands, there were sticky patches and crumbs on the floor, it was clear based on beds and blankets, that my cousins had brought along several uninvited guests. I felt so overwhelmed at the cleaning I needed to do, uncomfortable that my space was so dirty, I felt out of control, violated, that folks I didn’t know, hadn’t invited, had clearly been sleeping in my house.
As I tried to calm myself, it dawned on me:  The reason the place is such a mess, the reason there are other people’s belongings everywhere, the reason there were uninvited guests is quite simple –this house is not my own. If it were mine it wouldn’t be in a state I find so undesirable. If it were mine it wouldn’t, it couldn’t, contain items that were unwanted. Most of all though, if it were mine, how would it be possible for some rando, an uninvited stranger, to come along and use the house as they see fit? Something that anyone can use can’t possibly be uniquely mine.
I was angry with my cousins because they forced me to confront a reality I did not want to see, namely that I don’t own or control what I consider to be my own. I find other people’s invasions, their mess, so upsetting  because its in a space I somehow expect to be conforming to my will; in its conformity I find comfort and when it doesn’t conform my skin crawls. After all, if I can’t even be a master of what happens in my own home, what hope do I have to control my life and fate in the big wide world?
That last point really hit home, and I put the matter behind me. Until…
A few weeks later I was scheduled for dinner with a friend and she insisted on meeting me at my place beforehand because she wanted to see it. I thought it was a little odd when she started peeking in closets and opening closed doors, but she is someone with pretty low personal boundaries so I put it out of my mind quickly. After dinner, we were chatting and she invited herself to move in with me. She decided it would be a perfect plan as she works a lot, and Eric and I travel a lot, so no one would be around too much. Suddenly, I realize why she had been eyeing closets, like they were already hers, my head nearly popped off from anger. How can she just roll in and assert what is mine is/should be hers? Of course, like with my cousins, the answer was pretty plain: It isn’t actually mine at all.
But this time, I realized it was more than that. This time I realized the emotion I was feeling wasn’t just out of control, it was the feeling of being violated, of being disrespected.   After all, there are plenty of times I an happy to share what is mine –to make it unmine — when I take in friends in need, or lend what is precious to me. But when I do, I do it on my terms, I use what is mine as a symbol of my goodness and generosity. In the case of both my cousins and my friend, I saw their treatments of a  my space  as a medium/conduit for disrespecting me, for undervaluing the work I have put into  earning and  acquiring my belongings. In other words, it is someone else using what is mine as a symbol of my inferiority.
But here is the thing. Is a house a conduit for anything? Can it have some symbolic meaning in and of itself, outside of what I ascribe it? If it could, wouldn’t it always have the same meaning? How has the NY loft’s meaning changed so much — from the cozy nest from which to launch our NY adventure, to the massive mistake that proves my poor judgment?
Years ago, Mae Yo would frequently ask me, “what does Rupa do to humans?” But now, I  am starting to ask myself a different question: “What do I do to Rupa, how does my my imagination twist it and  transforms it into something other than what it is?”
No Refuge in Being Right

No Refuge in Being Right

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I was reading the news this morning and saw an article about 800 immigrants  who traveled vast distances to respond to a court summons that ended up being fake. ICE issued them as part of a tactic to circumvent people’s legal right to a court hearing to seek asylum. My heart ached for these people, many poor, spending time, money, missing work, all to show up to a fake court date. I thought to myself, “they did nothing wrong, they followed the rules, but through no fault of their own they were screwed.”

This line of thinking is a common theme for me –people who do everything “correctly” (according to Alana), don’t “deserve” to fall victim to bad stuff. In my mind, crossing all your Is and dotting all your Ts should somehow protect you from being a victim. I get deeply upset when this simply is not the case. But in truth, the idea that “right = safe” is a permanent view that really isn’t born out in the world.  In fact, it isn’t even born out in my own experiences….

Flash back just 2 weeks ago, I get a jury summons with a red sentence at the top telling me I had to appear on a date I was already scheduled to be in Miami, because I was  delinquent from my last summons. I freaked out. I had absolutely responded to the last summons with proof I had a valid reason for an extension. Letter in hand, I began to shake, I felt so helpless, afraid;  I had to choose between being found in contempt of court or disappointing my family by not attending a visit I had long before promised. I spent days trying to get through to a court clerk to explain the situation, but the number was always busy. I spent nights unable to sleep because I was so worried. Worried about my situation, but even more worried about what my situation meant: Even if I do everything right, everything I am supposed to do, I am vulnerable.
Ultimately I was able to reach a clerk who gave me a postponement; apparently, the documentation I had sent in had been received, but misfiled by the court office because of an old computer system.
That was all it took, an old computer system, to put me in jeopardy.  In my mind, it is unfair, unjust, not right. But for all my protests, that is the way the world works — things I think are unjust are happening all the time. In this world, I have no protection from broken computer systems, broken political systems and all other manner of situations that I deem as unfair, and unexpected because they fail my right = safe proof.  There is no refuge in being right, because this world offers no worldly refuge at all.
Backside of The Moon

Backside of The Moon

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Eric and I were traveling in Japan over the 2018/2019 holidays and we decided to spend a few days in Naoshima, an island in the Seto Sea famous for its many museums and art instillations. Eric and I went into an instillation, Backside of the Moon, by the artist James Turrell and the piece absolutely blew me away. Spoiler alert here: I am about to describe he piece, so if you had big plans to travel to Naoshima to see this work, you may want to skip this blog. Otherwise…proceed at your own risk:

The instillation is open, by appointment, for 15 minute slots. When your time arrives, you and a group of around 10 people are escorted inside a room that is pitch black. The docent announces there is a bench directly behind you and you are instructed to step backwards and sort of grope your way onto the seat. Then, you wait. In total, pitch darkness, you sit and do nothing at all. Minutes ticked and ever so slowly, I thought I saw a bit of a flash in front of me. More time and more and more, a bit of light appeared. Gradually the light brightened and grew until I could see a large illuminated square directly in front of me. Eventually, the docent returned to the room and instructed us all to walk toward the square, and we could all see, and proceed to, the light in front of us. Then, the docent explained we have been in the same room for 15 minutes and nothing in the room had changed. No light was turned on, no curtain pulled. What had changed was us, the viewers, our eyes had adjusted to the room and come to see the faint light that was there all along. Pweefff –that is the sound of my little mind totally blown…

After I left the exhibit, my first though was really that the piece is a perfect ubai — a parallel — for dhamma practice: This world doesn’t change, but us practitioners adjust our view, and slowly we see this world for what it is, for what it always has been: A world that is inconstant and stressful.

What is more is that I don’t expect change, I don’t always see it coming, because circumstances, and form, can shift at a creeping pace, but in the end the magnitude of change can be seen, just like the square of light at the back of the room. We mistake barely perceptible change for permanence and then face a huge –often heartbreaking — shocker when what we know and love changes in an undeniable way.

Additionally, I tend to look outward for change: I know that everything in this world continually shifts, but I rarely look inward to see how this common condition (duhh, it is called a common condition for a reason) applies to me. I don’t internalize change, but 15 minutes in a dark room was all it took for me to change. My rupa, my eyes, adjusted. My nama adjusts all the time too –it makes me see that even if I had a perfect, mythical, world, where nothing changes at all, I couldn’t hope to find satisfaction in it because I change. What I am used to changes. What I see and therefore what I want and what I imagine changes.

This particular art piece has stayed with me over the years. Over and over it comes-up in my practice as the perfect illustration for some topic I am considering, so I am sure you will see it again.

I will give a little further spoiler about this piece:

About a year later, this piece was an essential data point I used when I was trying to learn about and understand rupa. I had been deeply considering why all human rupa wasn’t the same and it was thinking back to this exhibit that made me realize that my own rupa body interacts with the rupa environment — that what I am exposed to and used to effects my form. That many of the physically based differences between humans — tastes, strength, fitness ability — arises not because of “specialness” but because all rupa form is subject to the same rules: It adjusts and shifts in reaction to other rupa in itself and in its environment.

 

 

 

 

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