Alana's Dharma Blog

A while back I had gone to visit a famous home in rural Connecticut called The Glass House. The home tour highlighted not just the architectural elements of the building, but shard the life story of Philip Johnson, the architect who built and lived there. Johnson spent part of his week at the house in Connecticut and part of his week in an apartment he owned in NY City. He always joked to friends that after 3 days at the Glass House he was tired of the country and needed the city, but after 4 days in Manhattan he was tired of the city and craved the country.

At first brush, it seemed to me that Johnson had ‘gamed life’ he had the perfect solution to restlessness, to boredom, to the limitations of just one place. Badass victory! This is what I want too –for years Eric and I have scrimped, saved, slaved, all for the 2 house solution: A little city, a little country. A winter place and a summer place. Action for me and peace and quiet for Eric. With two homes, we could have it all…badass victors who had pwn’d this life, this world, worked out solutions to all the limitations…

But I thought about it more, considered the question: Beyond the glitz and the glitter, what is really going on here? And I arrived to the conclusion that what a 2 home life really says is that neither place is satisfying, that both places are lacking, that in either place Johnson and I both find restlessness and discontent. That having something doesn’t mean my craving stops, in fact I just end up craving something more, something different.

So what is the nature of these places and homes? Their nature isn’t to satisfy, even if temporarily I enjoy them, their nature is dissatisfying. Or maybe it’s just my nature to always be dissatisfied. Either way, a temporary enjoyment of something doesn’t make it satisfying, just like temporary enjoyment of eating doesn’t make it not a burden.

Currently, Eric and I are staying at a lake house, a country place we are considering purchasing as a second property away from a new city home we recently bought in Miami. Just like Johnson, neither place alone satisfies, so I imagine going back and forth to be a better option. And truth is, maybe it is (in some ways) a better option, maybe it is less dissatisfying than being in one place alone. Just like moving from one position to another is sometimes less painful than holding still. But in either case, the ‘solution’ proves the problem, the discomfort innate in this world. On the scale of dukkha I constantly slide on, I find comfort in those moments of less painful, less burdened, less boring, less stressful. And those moments motivate me to try and seek more moments of less dukkha, rather than motivating me to get out of a world where everything is always just more or less dukkha. It dawned on me, maybe I am laboring towards the wrong ‘solution’.

Intellectually, I understand this. Yet, a big part of me still wants the lake house. That part of me wants the future I imagine my life will be with it. It wants what I view as an ‘easy/known’ solution to the problem of needing a place to go in Miami summers, a quiet place for Eric, a country getaway.
The lake house ‘solution’ arose from a problem: We needed a home and we chose Miami…too hot in the summer, too hectic for year-round life. I still really don’t know what to do –buy the house and be done? Hold out for something better?

I worry about the fact that a lake house bought today cuts off future options… Afterall, just the other day when I went to much-despised-Manhattan, I considered how much I enjoy a walkable city, how nice it would be to live in one (versus in Miami or the country where you have to drive everywhere).

I also worry about not buying the lake house today, will it be a future regret of the missed opportunity to have it, it is so lovely and peaceful after all…just the other day some other potential buyers came to visit, I felt jealous, worried I might loose out. Suffering, not just in having and not having, but even in the imagination of having and not having. That is what these objects are to me – the fodder to fuel dukka.

I am fasting again, day 3, I’m hungry of course, a bit weak. As I made my fast drink — put minimal energy into what I will consume for the day — I did think about how fast periods really are a break from the burden of needing to prepare food, decide what I will eat, planning the day around meals. Eating, as delicious as food is, as much as I enjoy it, is a burden, it is an obligation.

It’s so easy to miss because, duh, eating is normal, and also, more or less, pleasurable. But just because something is normal or pleasurable, it doesn’t mean it’s not a burden: This is the perfect example of something I wrote in my dukkha write-up: “A burden is a burden, even when you pick it up without noticing its burdensomeness, or are reluctant to put it down:”

This here is how the mistaken identity happens…Everything we take-up in this world really is a burden, as soon as we claim, we are obligated. We grasp at shit we imagine will benefit us, will give us the future or identity we desire, but in the moment of seizing we assume a burden, from the get go we are forced to exert effort into trying to keep something continually shifting, marching toward cessation, in the state that we want.

Once we claim something, we are weighed by our own imagination of obligation to it, to our beliefs about what our actions in relation to that object mean about us: I am not responsible for other people’s bodies they are not ‘mine’, but how much shame do I feel when my body gets fat? What dose the sagging drooping chubby figure in the mirror that say about ME?

Once we claim something we are also bound by convention, by the responsibilities that are foisted upon us by society: I may be ready to divorce my spouse, in my mind they are no longer mine, but I am still obligated to alimony payments. I may be ready to walk away from all the shit piled in my storage unit, but I still need to empty it, hire movers, find places to donate it, because I signed a contract and the storage facility holds me liable to deliver back an empty unit at the contract’s end.

Once we claim something, we contend with the expectation others have around our behavior, and the consequences of falling short of those expectations: Won’t a spouse or children I walk away from want to extract some vengeance for my neglect, even if in my own heart I have reconciled to them not really being mine?

It is so easy to be distracted by the “normal”, and by the moments we enjoy, by the conventions that we accept and that are foisted on us, so we don’t really see what things are. But even food, this body, the need to eat is a burden – something so basic and its basic nature is burdensomeness.

In fact, so much of my life is about trying to ‘fix’ things, responding to problems that arise, relieving my burden, mitigating the burdensomeness of my objects. Then, when I have some limited and momentary success getting shit to a state I want, I see it as victory, of some affirmation of self, power, control. I use it to fuel hope that I can find satisfaction in this world, that I can beat the house, control my destiny, be and become…

During the lockdown, my fridge broke. I had stockpiled so much food for just this emergency and I was so, so careful, I was afraid to have a repairman in my home. So with youtube, a toolbox and the ingenuity that can really only arise from need, I fixed the fridge on my own. I felt like such a badass – I can manage my things, protect myself, rise to the occasion. I am good enough, smart enough and doggonit people like me!

But is that really the message of a broken fridge? Look a little deeper and the “solution to problems” actually prove that the innate state of this would is problematic, at least from my standpoint (I.E. ever changing, ceasing, not holding states we want, not abiding by our hopes/rules/expectations/desires) . A broken fridge proves breakability is the nature of belongings. Needing to acquire ingredients, prepare and plan for meals, being forced by my body to eat, it doesn’t prove food is yummy, it proves needing to eat is a burden.

All this made me start considering that it would behoove me to consider –beyond the glitz and the glitter –what things really are. What do I mistake as delicious, desirable, delightful that is really burdensome, or breakable, or disappointingly fleeting?

I was thinking further on how states are annata. About how they are simply a momentary circumstance, a ‘shape’ arising based on causes and conditions. Shifting in accord with causes and conditions as well. But in the moment a state adheres – in the duration between arising and ceasing – the potential for clinging arises.

I get attached to states. I get attached to ice cream when it is cold, to this body when it is healthy, to a peach at perfect ripeness. Actually, as I think of it further, its not really the states I am attached to; I get attached to the characteristics that arise when 4es (intangibles are for another day) are in certain states.

Perhaps you, Dear Reader, will recall a reflection from the dukkha days: I bought a special dessert –with both hot and cold components –to give to my brother. I stressed as I drove home with it that it would get too hot and the ice cream would melt, or too cold and the toppings would lose their crisp. It really made me see the nature of the treat was not its state at a particular temperature, the nature of the treat was flux, but I stressed to try and keep it in a state I felt was ideal for deliciousness. I stressed at its very fluxalicious nature.

Now I see further that what I want, what I love, isn’t the state – it’s the characteristics, in this case of deliciousness, that a particular state imparts. There are qualities that arise during particular states, but they don’t inhere. Its not like that sweet treat IS DELICOUS. Or IS DELICOUSNESS. No the treat I bought was just a treat in a particular state, at a particular temperature, as soon as state shifts, the qualities change, as does the desirability of the treat.

I get attached to characteristics, I tend to imagine a clump, a state, as defined by its qualities. I use qualities/characteristics to identify something, mark it as special, desirable, mine. In the absence of traits identity is meaningless. This then is a double-edged sword, fleeting characteristics of fleeting states trigger craving in me, and I use these fleeting characteristics to deceive myself about the nature of object, as something special, unique, desire-worthy.

But all it takes is for a shift in state and then a subsequent shift in qualities occurs. Supposed identity of any object, and the supposed identity I believe it imparts on me, is gone in an instant. That is because nothing is intrinsically aggregated, or clumped together as Mae Yo says, it is just aggregated momentary into a named state. Then, what is aggregated disaggregates when the causes and conditions shift. In every state, in every phase of a state, there are always the seeds of disaggregation. Everything’s nature is to disaggregate. This is why everything is actually anatta.

In a video on Anatta, Mae Yo talked about a mango seed, how while it is still a seed it is not yet anatta, but when it is planted and becomes a tree then it is anatta. I was able to follow her description, but something about it troubled me…

The starting point of my practice had been impermanence – anicca – the first of the 3 common characteristics. With just a little consideration, it quickly became clear that everything was anicca, nothing was ever fixed or permanent.

The second common characteristic, dukkha, took a whole lot more contemplating. I had been so convinced that there was dukkha in the world, of course, but also sukkah. It wasn’t until my dukkha deep-dive (see the last chapter of this blog, ‘Everything is Dukkha’) that I was able to understand that everything is dukkha. Just more or less dukkha. The problem was that my mind created a blind spot, refused to see dukkha, even mistaking it at times for sukkah. But my wrong view, my misunderstanding, didn’t change the truth –everything is always dukkha.

Now, as I turn my attention to the last of the common characteristics, anatta, my impulse is that it must be the same as anicca and dukkha: Everything is always anatta. My task then is testing this theory, gathering evidence to prove (or disprove it). How can I start understanding this most tricky, slippery, subtle worldly condition? That was the task I decided to work on.

I though more about Mae Yo’s mango seed: How can I prove that even when it is in the seed state, the seed already has the nature of anatta? How do I understand anatta in terms of seeds, or any other rupa object?

I considered a past contemplation: Bubbles and anatta. I find the bubble to be the perfect physical illustration of anatta in rupa terms: The nature to pop is the nature of the bubble, it was always anatta. While it exists, it isn’t even one thing, it isn’t a solid ‘mountain’, it is a constantly shifting-changing-slipping-sliding over itself form, it’s never a fixed thingified thing. But we zoom in on the part that stays fixed, the vague dominess, a shape that allows us to assign it a fixed identity, to name it, to give it sammutti, a supposedly fixed form we call a bubble. The truth is, the bubble is always shifting as it marches along toward manifesting its nature of ultimate cessation, but the continuity of 1 aspect of its form is enough for us to call it bubble.

In fact, its actually somewhat arbitrary — bubble has many aspects after all — but we choose the outside shape, the thing that in rupa persists over time, to define and name that thing. Just as I use my body, the shape that persists over time, to define and name an Alana identity.

I watched Mae Yo’s video on Anatta again, this time with Eric: Eric said that what he understood was that things do clump into form, but there is nothing intrinsic, no identity in that form. It’s just a phase through which something passes.

His take really resonated with me. I can call something a chair, a house, an Alana. But those things have no inherent meaning or value, they are just temporary states through which the 4 elements (and in the case of an alana, the 5 aggregates) pass through before disintegration. A state is not an identity, it can’t be, it arises and ceases subject to causes and conditions. Where would a fixed identity lie in all that flux? How can I assign identity to something conditional? If its conditional it proves only the conditions that led to arising –conditions that shift, change, disappear — it can’t prove a master, a controller, a thing that exists beyond the process of causes and effects, arising and ceasing. When I really think about it, identity is kind of a stretch in the absence of both permanence and autonomy.

The problem is that I imagine there is identity in a state. Just the way I imagine there is sukkah in less dukkha. My imagination obscures the truth and the more permanent a state appears –the more solid, the longer it stands, the more easily I can imagine its fixedness — the more easily I can super impose identity. No self admits there are states, temporary clumps; the mango seed has a seed state, the bubble has a spherical state, in this lifetime my body facilitates and alana state. There is just no identity. No atta.