Alana's Dharma Blog

I was tossing and turning in bed, half asleep and half awake. Worrying. I want Eric and I to start building the Miami place, I want a real home, that we own, to call our own. I want a permanent place, where I imagine my future, so I can feel safe.

Eric rather wait to start building, he wants to be sure all the final payments from his former employer come-in as expected. He doesn’t see the threats I do – what happens if bird flu breaks-out? If my long covid comes back? If we hit financial distress and need to declare bankruptcy –FL protects homestead assets from creditors. Won’t we be better off with our own home then?

In my semi dream state I am saying to him I want a place that makes us safe. But then I woke more fully and remembered something Mae Neecha had asked me, “when have I ever been safe?”  I just want something that makes me ‘feel safe’. But does something actually make me safe?

Long ago, I got a jury summons and I did everything right responding, sending proof that I was not eligible at that time to serve. I felt in my heart I had followed the rules, sent the right paperwork, I was safe. Only to get a call later that I had been in violation. They said they never got my paperwork, or they lost it. Either way, I was so upset. I felt so vulnerable. I believed I had done everything right to guarantee safety, to avoid violations. But some issue with the mail, some clerical error beyond my control, was all it took put me in danger.

I have an arbitrary criteria, this set of 4 walls – not the ones elsewhere – they will make me safe. Keep me on the side of housed and not homeless. As long as I am there, no one can ‘get me’. It’s like kids playing hide and seek or tag –just designating over ‘this line in the sand ‘safe’. Touching this tree ‘safe’. It is just criteria of my own creation. It is a balm to what worries me, the particular obsession I have at this moment, over this thing or that. None of which are able to actually keep me safe.

I look at all the times I thought my home made me safe and in reality it made me the opposite –it put me at risk. My place in Greenwich was a safe haven from NY, till it poisoned me with the construction across the street. My apartment in SF was meant to be safe from becoming a NYer, but it put me at risk trying to figure out how to move out of it in the middle of covid. I bought the mami place to make me safe –from inflation, from not having a place to stash our wealth, only to now worry we will lose money on it as I bought it at such a market peak.

Where or what is safe in a world where situations and circumstances change all the time? How can I be safe when I don’t have control – not of my body, my home, my fate. I expend so much  work and stress worrying about securing safety , but when have I actually been safe?

I was at an event and there was a guy there who was coughing- sneezing- looking like hell- clearly sick. I was angry of course. I am thinking, “I hate him, I think he should burn in hell for knowingly exposing everyone around him to illness, just to go out and do something fun.” But even as I silently cursed this stranger, I turned my critical eye inwards and, of course, realized I have done the same thing…

It weighs on me quite heavily now, but when I was sick with covid, I had an original infection, then a rebound. After the initial illness, I test myself 2x with rapid tests and with a second negative, I went about my life mask free. Even after I started getting renewed symptoms, I wrote it off as allergies. Even though Eric had actually rebounded before me, I kept thinking, it can’t be me too, there can’t be two rebounds in one house. And so, feeling a little scratchy-throated and worn down, I went out to a performance and sat for hours, sans mask, exposing everyone around me to what, 1 day later I realized, was a covid rebound infection.

And that wasn’t even the first time recently I had done something like this…there was also the time I had strep and couldn’t quite get my head around it in time to avoid exposing my in-laws. Blog here.

Of course I don’t want to get other people sick. I DO CARE. If I had known I had covid again, or strep, I never would have exposed people. But clearly there is something wrong with me, with my view, otherwise it wouldn’t be such a struggle for me to see and accept when I am sick. Why believe, when symptoms so clearly point to the contrary, that I am exempt?  Aren’t I human? Don’t I have a 4-e body? Its nature is to get sick, to shift into states of harboring viruses and bacteria. Diseases that I can pass on.

Today I was thinking more about it, and I recalled a time when I insisted we go on a long-planned camping vacation even when Eric was super sick. Or a time I insisted I go camping with friends even when I was sick. The problem is I cling. I fixate on ideas of the future I planned for, so sick or not, the plan can’t change. I fixate on a state of this body, it was healthy before, tested negative for covid just a day ago, so it can’t be sick now.  I am, from Mae Yo’s powerful example, that person that tries to put a stick in the water –suffering –as the river flows by.

Circumstances have changed, reality flows, but I am stuck. It is me clinging to my imagination of how things are, and are going to be, even as reality – sickness, symptoms – are hitting me right in the face.  

And this level of delusion is, of course, not without consequence. How terrible do I feel about exposing others to covid at that performance? Now I carry guilt and fear of the karma I will need to pay back. How bad do I feel I dragged Eric on vacation while he felt terribly sick? It haunts me, an example of being a bad and selfish partner. How shitty did I feel camping in the woods with friends instead of being home in my bed when I was sick?

This same tendency is at the heart of so much of my suffering… Why do I work so hard to get the things I want?  Because I cling to the imagination of what it will be like to have them in the future. Why stress over losing what I have?  Because I cling to any joy or comfort I get from those things in the present. And why am I so angry at the guy who showed-up to an event sick? Because I cling to this body, stress over losing it because without it I don’t get any of the futures that that have imagined, that I fixate on.

But even as I curse the sick stranger, hope he reaps the suffering he sows, I am suffering too. Suffering because I can’t let go. And because I can’t let go, I have done the same exact thing as he did. If he belongs in hell, so do I. And doubtlessly, I will end up there again as long as my delusion, my fixation, is guiding my actions.

The other night Eric and I had another serious conversation, the upshot of which was I have not been being a good partner. He said something that really stung me, he asked if I was always so rough on him? Had he only now started to notice that he has more time  not working? He gave a simple example and as soon as I heard it, I saw he was right, I had been being rough on him:

 The example is we had gone out for a walk, it looked like it might rain, he expressed concern, but I told him not to worry. As we walked it turned to a light drizzle, he wanted to get somewhere with cover, but I pushed us to walk longer to get to exactly the brewery I wanted to go to, even after we had passed a few others where we could stop. Then when we left, and it was really coming down, I didn’t want to pay for an uber cancel fee, so even though we were caught in the rain, the uber further than he wanted to walk in the rain, I was hesitant to cancel it. Eric doesn’t like to get wet. He had said he wanted to stay dry several times. I ignored him. Why? Because getting wet is no big deal to me. I think he is being a pussy.

Since it getting wet isn’t important to me, I figure it’s not important at all. This is a pattern I have already observed in myself past, and it’s a wrong view that yields very ugly behavior. Still, I persist with it. The problem however is just because I don’t think something is important, it doesn’t mean it isn’t consequential — obviously, if I have angered Eric because of my trivializing /ignoring what is important to him, there are consequences. There is a fight, a strain on our relationship. The truth is, we have been here before, having the same sad, stressful conversation. Eric angry, me hearing him, knowing I did wrong, feeling like an asshole, a bad partner. I apologize, say I will try harder, but the truth has always been, I don’t know how to fix it. At least I didn’t until now…

I started thinking a bit about how this is actually the same issue I was having with my mom when I got angry she wasn’t being strict, to my standard, with her covid precautions when she came to visit me. What I at last saw was that each person has their own reasons for the level of precaution they take –their own health, their own information sources, their own politics, their own beliefs, their own risk tolerances, their own previous experiences with covid or disease, their own education levels — When I saw that, I realized there is no way everyone can have the same level of precaution, they all have their own unique causes and conditions going into the mix of determining their precaution level. If there is no reason anyone else would share my same covid precaution standards and practices, why should I expect it of my mother?

Mom is just like everyone else, each with their own causes and conditions coloring their risk tolerance and practices. It arbitrary to say just because she is my mom, she should follow my standards. My perception of her mineness is not one of the causes/conditions of her risk tolerance. When I saw this clearly, my anger at my mom just passed immediately. In fact, I was able to see that my mom, who doesn’t share my risk assessment of covid, was trying really hard to meet me on my terms. She had come to visit, she had masked the whole time. In this world, few people care enough to even bother trying, don’t I owe her gratitude for the effort, isn’t it worth appreciating on of the few people that would try to adapt to my level of crazy? With my mom, this was a turning point in our relationship. I no longer expected her to follow my standards, to meet my expectations of how she should be. The fuel for our long cycle of bickering was just gone. Since we have had a good relationship.

Back to Eric, I realized much like covid precautions, there is no reason why he should value the same things as me. No reason why what I find important and what he finds important should be the same. He, like everyone, has his own reasons –his own education, karma, family background, priorities, politics, visons, physical condition, goals, hobbies, friends, influences — that shape his values just as I have mine. There is no reason to expect that these should be the same. Its arbitrary to say that since he is my partner we must have shared values. I could just as easily say because the Dali Lama is the Dali Lama we should have shared values. Just fill-in any other person but ‘my’ partner/family/friend and its so clear this is nonsensical bullshit.

 These expectations that I have –these arbitrary assignments of who should be the same as me and who should be different –exist in my head alone. Are made up by me, do not reflect the real causes and conditions that shape one’s values. In fact, the partnership itself is arbitrary –any number of other people could have been my spouse — over lifetimes any number have been. Would I expect all of them also to share my values, especially across all time and subject?

When I let go of the expectation that he and I will have the same values, something else becomes pretty clear too — By dismissing his values, by belittling what he thinks is important  just because I feel it is unimportant,  I am actually failing pretty hard in my duty as a partner. Afterall, the role of partner is ego stroker in chief, that is the prime duty. Trivializing what he thinks is important basically does the opposite, it makes him feel small, unheard. Of course he is angry and hurt. Of course I feel like an asshole. I am. 

Back when I had considered dukka, I had an example of when I had to take on an employees responsibilities at work after he left: I saw that a job is a duty. A duty is a burden. And a burden is a burden even if you don’t see it as such when you pick it up. Even if you enjoy benefits from it. Even if you are reluctant to put it down. My problem –above and beyond being so self-centered as to believe that only the things I think are important are actually important – is that fundamentally, I have been seeing the relationship all wrong. I thought it was a fun, not a duty. I thought it was supposed to affirm me, the things I value and think are important. So of course, I didn’t know how to fix being an asshole to Eric, how could I when, at the end of the day, I thought he was supposed to agree with my sense of what is important, he was supposed to fluff me, validate me, and cater to me.

But in reality, is that his is a job? Even when I like my boss, I don’t expect that she exists to cater to me, I don’t think my important automatically is the same as hers and I sure don’t think it supersedes hers. My role is to meet her needs, to fulfill the duty I was hired for. To do otherwise endangers my position. So why would I treat my marriage – which has so much more importance to me than my job – any differently?

A few days later I considered it further. Eric actually took me on as a partner to have his ego stroked. Not to pander to me and stroke mine. He wants to be fluffed as important, and to him, I am important only in so far as I am able to do that. I look to him to confirm me, to make me feel special, but the behaviors of his I interpret are about me are only really about whether he is feeling himself being proven by the relationship. Its not actually about me at all.  And yet, by pretending it is, it should be, all I can confirm is I am being the asshole here.

The other night, I was having dinner with a dharma friend and she made a comment that really struck me, she said that trying to control is just atta. Intuitively, I felt like she was correct, but I decided to really consider her point, see if I could find examples, to better support and understand it.

A few days later, the electrician came to my house to do a little work and left a mess in his wake. He destroyed the house, moved furniture, left the rug disarrayed, trash and even nails everywhere. I was angry. I felt so violated. I got to thinking why I was so upset, especially because this kind of violation of my personal space has really ticked me off before.

For example: My in-laws had made a mess of our apartment, even inviting guests without our permission, when they came to stay a few years back, I was livid. A friend had invited herself to move in with me in at my new apartment after coming over to see it, I felt violated. I considered whether or not I could use Mae Neecha’s technique and distill the issue into a truth of nature, something elemental. As I weighed each of these examples I thought, “overtaking territory.”

Overtaking territory is of course something that happens in nature all of the time: Planets that have fixed orbits can be pulled off their course by a moon, or other celestial bodies issuing a gravitational pull, as they creep off their path, they move into other territory. A river overflowing overtakes the land. A landslide overtakes the land. Invasive plant species can overtake an ecosystem/environment. Magma flows from a volcano and overtakes the land. Its normal.

When the causes for overtaking are met, when there is excess movement of a planet, excess water in a river, excess heat in the volcano, excess earth for the mudslide, there is a shift to new territory. Why would I think that my home is different than anything out in the world? Why would I think it could be exempted from being overtaken when the circumstances are ripe?

I see that I want, desperately need, for my home to be special, exceptional. I can’t control, preserve, hold onto territory beyond its walls, that much is obvious, but in the narrow boarders I arbitrarily circumscribe — a home, a space, a body, a belonging, a relationship–I want, I actually believe it is possible, for things to be different. My belief that it is possible to control my belongings is in fact a central component of their mineness. Without this control, how could I expect these worldly, elemental items would conform to my desires and expectations?

Places that are mine are ‘supposed to’ conform to my expectations, reflect my beliefs, my aesthetic, my cleanliness standards, my sense of who I am and what I believe is important. Most importantly, these spaces are safe, a refuge from the dangers that lurk ‘out there’ in the world. But looking at the mess left by the electrician is glaring evidence this house isn’t mine at all. It will take on the shapes and arrangements that are dictated by this world, not those dictated by me, my rules, my expectation, my standards.

A while back, a show I was watching depicted a pretty graphic scene of rape, at the time, it had really struck me as deeply compelling evidence that this body isn’t mine. Afterall, it can be used, against my will, by anyone with the strength to overtake it. Isn’t rape just an invasion of territory?

In nature, territory is constantly overtaken. It’s normal. In fact, the only reason I see these phenomenon –rivers overflowing, magma spreading over land, etc. – as overtaking in the first place is that I have made an arbitrary demarcation: This here is the river, this here is the land. This here is the land, this here is the magma. I take a snapshot, a moment frozen in time when land or river is in a particular state and in my mind that state is WHAT IT IS. But my own example gives me evidence to the contrary…wasn’t all land once magma?

With ‘my belongings’ I have another arbitrarily chosen demarcation. I have what is in, mine, and what is out, not mine. Again, I ignore the evidence, ignore that what I claim and think of as mine/not mine are objects continually shifting between the 2 categories. 

With a body it is so hard to see it is arbitrary. I forget the time before I had it, deny the future when I will leave it. But with a home, it is a bit easier to see. I have had so many over the years of moving. And for each home, across different times, where I draw the boarders of my control, my mines, shifts and changes. I didn’t consider the yard mine, till I started gardening, then it reflected me, my labor and aesthetic. I stopped considering the apartment in CT mine after I was forced to move getting sick from the construction across the way, never mind that I still had months left on the lease. I stopped considering the NY apartment mine, even while I lived there, as soon as the fantasy of a NY happy adventure was popped by the reality of a loud, filthy, city that my apartment did little to shield me from.

In all cases, control and minification go hand-in-hand.  My home, my stuff, my body, these are territories where I can exert control. And I expect, I use, these things to reinforce my sense of control. It’s no wonder I was so upset by the electrician’s mess, it forced me to confront the basic truth that even my most intimate spaces do not obey me.

Anyone can overtake the territory I claim as my own at any time, the reason why is simple, I don’t control it. Without control, my space –my belongings –just act like everything else in nature, 4es, acting in accord with their causes and conditions. 

LP Thoon has said that anatta is that nothing belongs to us, everything is meaningless. How is it meaningless? It is not under my control, it doesn’t act as I see fit, what traits and qualities it has are dependent on the state of the object, and states are always in flux. What meaning I assign to objects exists only in my mind, not in the object. What is subject to its own causes to arise, sustain and cease, is by definition not subject to my control, it is conditional. And what is conditional can’t be mine, it can’t be about me, it can’t prove me, it can’t be who I am.