Alana's Dharma Blog

Mar Neecha’s Reply to my reflections on Sammuti: 

The idea is, sammuti starts out arbitrary and then we build on that arbitrary until it feels permanent. Where initially we recognize the arbitrary nature of sammuti, after growing used to it, it becomes real and permanent for us. So much so that after we are removed from the situation we persist in seeing things according to that sammuti. Even being told or seeing for ourselves how something has completely changed doesn’t change how we view it in our minds. Because we feed off of that sammuti. It gives us identity.  It gives us worth. Not universal, but subjective. And even in our subjective view of that sammuti, we are inconsistent – bending our own rules to please ourselves.

As long as it is sammuti, as long as it isn’t a universally accepted notion, it cannot be true.

And once you’ve supposed something to be sammuti, what is “wrong” in terms of that sammuti or “right” in terms of that sammuti – if not just another sammuti concept?  Aka meaningless?

If we can see through this sammuti, we will see its flimsy nature, and all the Tuk Tok Pie it causes us. And we will accept that there is nothing pleasing or attractive in this world. Only suffering.

Alana’s Reply –The Initial Question of How Everything Could Be Suffering:

I have given it some thought and I think I understand, all save the last line which I am struggling with a bit. So I am just going to ask — what is the bridge that gets you from the flimsy nature of sammuti and the suffering it causes (which is obvious to me when I think about my own sammuti for mother and partner) to the nothing pleasing in the world, everything suffering

I see this statement a lot actually — ‘everything only suffering’ and I balk at it because it doesn’t exactly feel true; probably because I also see pleasure in the world — it exists, it is what we are born for, it certainly seems real. It is just that it comes along with suffering, no way outta that. I always sorta figured practice was about laying down both.

Little personal example I have long thought of as a parallel to practice.. When I was young, I used to do ecstasy with my friends — it was a blast for a few hours, that was undeniable, but the lows afterwards were horrible, just days of depression. The reason is simple, the very thing that makes the drug fun — it flooding your brain with dopamine and serotonin –means your stores of these essential brain chemicals are  used up and it takes days to replenish them. You are miserable until the replenishment happens.  One morning, after a fun night on drugs, I woke up so deeply depressed, and in that moment I decide “not fucking worth it.” And that was the end of my ecstasy use — it’s not that it was ‘all suffering’ it was just that it was a shit ton of suffering for a few hours of pleasure and the math didn’t make sense to me. Never was I even the slightest bit tempted again.

So maybe that is what it is and ‘everything is suffering’ is just short hand for ‘ no possible way to disaggregate suffering and pleasure so either pick them both or leave them both behind’. That I totally get. Or maybe there is something I am missing? Some self deception so deep it makes what is  unpleasurable a delight?

On another note, Eric got a CT scan yesterday; no sign of cancer, lots of kidney stones. It’s a relief of course, but it is sorta funny — it’s bad news, he likely needs surgery, but it sure seems like great news because it could be so much worse …ah, maybe that is the trick to seeing everything as suffering, when less bad turns into awesome…

OK, I was so going to quit while I was ahead, but one more observation is in order: WHY it is that things in this world won’t just follow my rules/expectation/concepts of what they are; man, I am  like a whiny child that can’t be mollified with a ‘just because’. “But why, but why, but why”… anyway, re-enter the snowflake.

Many years ago, I was at my favorite hot springs resort, on a Wednesday. Out of the blue, the distinct odor of shit came wafting my way, before long a riot of smell and loud sound was seriously cramping my vacation style. Turns out that every Wed. is the day they cleaned out the septic tank of my little paradise. And in just a few moments time, my great escape flipped into a place I was desperate to escape.

At the time, I considered the great lessons of impermanence and suffering that this little event could elucidate. Now though I understand so much more — there is a reason, a cause, a why, that my own prior ignorance of, my own wish it weren’t so, simply can’t trump.  A resort is a place many humans gather, they stay, eat, sleep and therefore shit. Of course the damn place, in the middle of the woods, unconnected to a city sewer has a septic tank. And of course it needs to be cleaned –how long would it be a successful hot spring bath if folks were literally bathing in shit. And, Wed, being the least busy day –furthest from the weekend — was the perfect time to clean the tank. No matter that I was there trying to enjoy the baths.

The thing is, once I understand the why, at least in this case, I wouldn’t really even want it another way. OCD Alana definitely doesn’t want to be taking shit baths.

Back during my initial rupa ruminations, we were back and forth on line, and you asked me something: ” Have you considered that this instability that you are adverse to might be part of the overall stability of the larger system?…And the world IS predictable in its way… only we dont understand or see the world’s rules because we are so focused on our own…because we think we are the world.” Yah, what she said ;).

Which maybe all does bring me just a little closer to an answer on why I am so easily deluded by sammuti — because I want to be. Because for all the suffering it causes me, it has a hidden benefit: It is a projection onto reality that lets me believe that reality is predictable and stable and subject to my rules. Now if only it worked…

In his Autobiography  LP Thoon explains, “The term moha, or delusion, is the mind that is deluded by sammuti (supposed form). Avijjā, or ignorance, is ignorance of these sammuti (supposed form).” this one line — and his explanation that sammutti operates hand-in-hand with the 4^th aggregate of immagination —  has really been weighing on me. It makes some sense though; for our imaginations to function, to fabricate imaginary futures, imaginary belongings, and imaginary identity — imaginary stillness in an actually ever-shifting world —  we need form to peg our concepts to. I need an Eric to peg my concept of partner to, and I need a Platonic Partner to peg my abstract ideals and imaginings of what a happy, meaningful, fulfilled life with some partner will be like.

As part of that larger, more systematic, consideration of sammuti, I did go back and plug-in my Ubai of bubbles and it proved to be deeply revealing: What we call a bubble arises when 4es come together in a bubble-y shape. There is a duration, where it maintains that shape that we continue to call it bubble –it has the sammuti of bubble. And then, the elements disaggregate and we can no longer credible call the thing a bubble, quite literally the sammuti bursts. The truth is, even when the bubble has its basic bubble shape, it is continually shifting and changing and sliding over itself. It isn’t really the same object from one instant to the next, it is just close enough –contiguous enough –that our minds can still it, fix it, with the name ‘bubble.’

Of course, bubble is a simple and straight forward thing. Most sammuti –mother, partner — are more complex, heaped with additional meaning and expectation. But mechanistically, they are the same: I want to fix things — make them still — hold them in a state I like, with characteristics that I like, even though they are ever-changing, multi valiant, arising/ceasing based on causes and acting in accord with those causes. Both the physical form of Mom, and Eric change, and their traits/characteristics (manifested through behaviors/actions that are physical), change and move outside my fixed supposition of what they should be.  Both sets of changes –when they get far enough outside of my standards of acceptable — are daggers through my heart. And let me tell you something, a sick, cancer ridden, dying Eric that is waaayyyy outside my standard of acceptable.

Why? Well, obviously, because I love him, because I have pegged the meaning of my life, and the future I imagine, to him as an embodiment of my Platonic Partner ideal. Seriously, I draw a big ole blank when I try and imagine a future without him: Proof that #4 and sammuti are peas in a pod.

What then does it precisely mean that the mind is deluded by sammuti? That ignorance is ignorance of sammuti? Stay tuned, because I am not ready to conclude yet, clearly this is some pretty nuanced shit. But –when I think of the delta between what Eric is, and how I view him, I can’t help but observe that the same exact mechanics are at work with Alana — a continually shifting heap of happenings and a form, that I clobber onto and use to try and fix, to define and hold onto. Ugh shifting sands (nama), set upon more slowly shifting sands (rupa), that I try to thingify… which brings me to the observation that  Atta has gotta be just one more glorified sammuti, and clearly that lil ole’ misconception there is at the heart of my super-delusion.

Anyway, to sorta end (more like till next time) this email where I began, there is suffering. Years ago, I asked Mae Yo the relationship between impermanence and suffering. Her reply, “suffering comes from something stopping..it’s anything that you need to tolerate. impermanence is continuous movement, not stopping. suffering is like you want it to stop but it moves. it’s putting a stick in the water and causing ripples.” Back then, the response was totally impenetrable. Frankly, it is still somewhat impenetrable, but one part is so very very clear: Through samutti, I am always trying to stop what keeps moving, and man oh man do I suffer every time that fucking stick fails to stop the river.

And so, my life is literally on a loop of dissatisfaction — I want things to be what they are not — I want to freeze them and hold onto the concepts I have supposed them to be. I either try and force shit to fit my concept (like my mom), or I endlessly chase down objects that, at least momentarily, align with my belief of what they ‘should’ be. And when those objects show themselves to be what they are, not what I want — sometimes through the inescapables of aging, disease and death –I am devastated. No object is what I think it is. No object is what my concept of it is.