Alana's Dharma Blog

A few days after the contemplations in the preceding blog later I was thinking further on this idea of ‘as I see fit’ and more broadly on the way I come to the conclusion that something is mine. What is the evidence I use, and what it is I am trying to accomplish, with all this mineness?

Of course, in one way, there is just the basic: I like what I like and I want to claim and keep what I find pleasurable. But my claims often run much deeper than that, I often claim stuff not because I want it to help make the world as I see fit, I want it to help make me –my identity—as I see fit.

Objects like cloths and decor, these are things I lean on to make ‘my environment’ as I see fit. To help me segment the world into all that stuff outside that is beyond my care and control, and those spaces like my home and my body that I claim as mine.

Deeper still though is the objects that I depend on to make myself, my identity, as I see fit. I had started thinking about my cat, Tara, a stray I ‘rescued’ when she walked into my home and wouldn’t leave. At the time, I thought I was doing her a favor, turning a street cat into a house cat. I had taken her to the vet, learned she was diabetic, I couldn’t just let her roam outside, eat anything she wanted and not be home for insulin shots every 12 hours. But that cat used to howl at the door, was clearly agitated inside, didn’t even live much longer since it turned out the diabetes was a result of swift moving pancreatic cancer. She lived her last days locked-up crying for the outdoors.

Now when I reflect on it, I realize I had used that cat to confirm myself, to prove how compassionate I was taking in a stray. Keeping her ‘safe’, was really my way of using her to make me as I see fit.  It never dawned on me to think about the cat and her needs at all, I was too busy using her for my own identity building needs. Taking in strays is perfect proof of compassionate alanas.  Once she walked into my home, she became part of my family and like the mothers and husbands in that tribe that circumcised girls, I was impervious to the karmic consequences, the harms caused by my claim.

How could I not be? The ‘mineness’ of this stray cat, that I randomly adopted, that shortly thereafter died, that clearly didn’t agree with the lifestyle I saw as fit for her, was so obvious to me I never even questioned it. Even though, as I write, the absurdity of this clear-as-day-claim becomes more and more obvious. Alas, I am blinded by conventions, by sammuti, that I hold as gospel truth.  

I was watching an episode of True Bloods, there is a scene Tommy’s mom tells Tommy that his newly found brother Sam (who was given up for adoption before Tommy was born) may be blood, but he is not family. Of course, on some level, I understood what she was saying right away. Sam, a virtual stranger, is not his, at least not the same way as his mom and dad, who raised him his whole life are. But thinking more about it, I started wondering what it really meant. What do we mean by mine: Are there firm and fixed criteria –like the time spent with someone/ something, the signing of contracts, the exchange of currency, simply never knowing it to have been a different way? What is at the heart of this claim besides our own self-interest and self-delusion?

Maybe it is that mine, my clothes, my family, are the things I can depended on. Of course that’s not true at all: Tommy’s parents were not dependable; they gave up one son to adoption and regularly neglected the other one. I mean honestly, even an amazing parent like my dad, or a partner like Eric –the best most dotting family members – can just die and not be there when you need them. Just because we claim something it doesn’t mean it is dependable.

Tommy ‘s parents actually pimp him out; they force him into illegal fights for money. They do this, despite the pain and the dangers, because he belongs to them and they can use him as they see fit. Despite this, Tommy stays with them, earns money for the family, so it can’t be that ‘mine’ is what acts in my interest, or treats me well.

So why does Tommy stay with those parents? Because those parents make him see himself, his identity, “good son” as he sees fit. He takes care of them because despite how terrible they have been to him, they are his parents, his responsibility, they are his burden to bear, this is the sammuti Tommy is convinced by. In the end,  the state of his parent, their happiness/safety/opinions/etc. reflect on how he sees himself, how he truly believes the world to be,  so he continues heading to the fighting ring to support them.

As a child my mother abused and neglected me. As a young adult, she tried to sabotage my reputation and relationships. As I aged, she was a source of stress and strain. Still, I have dutifully stayed engaged with her, suffering her vocal dissatisfaction at my many shortcomings, at the fact that what I do is rarely enough to satisfy her. I strive to be a good daughter, I ache when over and over I am given the feedback my efforts are not enough.  And because of her nature, her hunger, she regularly lets me know they are not enough. Why do I stay in this dynamic? Because she is my mom, my responsibility, being a good daughter is the identity I see as fit. I stay because in my mind I am tethered to her, she has been with me since birth, she is the only mother I know, and mother/daughter means something to me .

I think, to some degree, proximity, what we are used to, fools us. Sam after all is less family to Tommy than his parents are, but the biological connection is the same. The identity, the mineness, is forged at least in part by familiarity, by what someone already believes is true. I remember this family, we have been together X number of years, clearly they are my family (duhhh), so they are more mine, more significant than a new brother. Just the fact that I am used to these people, these relationships, I take then a fact, makes them more potent somehow.

Mae Neecha talks about this dynamic her autobiography — its not that what we are used to is better, it’s just the very act of being used to it makes it preferable for us. Makes it comfortable. Sheer proximity, time with something, it begins to fool me into thinking ‘mine’. It begins to become incorporated into my imaginary future. I begin to identify with it, can’t see life without it. Become worried about it, overly concerned, obsessed with preserving –it is a part of my story now, the future I want for myself. Fooled. Just like the sign at the spa ‘fooled’ me into believing reality was, was supposed to be a certain way –silent. I read signs of all over the place – my name is on the deed, I paid for this, I was born of this womb, I can sense the pain and pleasure in this body, I had a wedding ceremony — as proof that shit is mine. Will act as I see fit. So many signs, all equally meaningless because in the end, no ‘sign’ subverts the nature of each claimed object to shift according to its causes and conditions, decay, break, die.

I was reading Mae Yo’s autobiography. I got to a section where she talks about a story she had read about a girl, raised in a traditional community in Africa, that was taken by her mother to be circumcised when she hit puberty. Mae Yo considered the suffering, risks, and perils of enforcing this practice and observed that the mothers in that community must view the daughters as belonging to them otherwise they would not bring them in for such a procedure. The men in the community must view the women as their own otherwise they would not require them to receive such a procedure. Without viewing another person as a belonging, making young girls undergo circumcision would not be an accepted custom in this community, or anywhere in the world. Mae Yo saw the harmful consequences that can come from claiming something as ‘mine’.  

After I read this, it made me think about a new definition of ownership — having a right to something. I thought even harder and the idea of ” acting as I see fit”,  “as you see fit” leapt into my head and I started considering it further as a way to define ‘mine’. 

Why would my mom treat me as she does, often scolding and criticizing? She thinks I am hers, she can treat me as she does, and expect my actions to be as she does, because that is what she sees as fit. And myself, why do I expect Eric to treat me well even when I am cold or harsh to him? Why do I think I can take my anger and frustration out on him? Because he is mine and I can treat him as I see fit. And why do people war over territory? It is theirs, they can have it and use it as they see fit. It makes sense someone will fight over land they think belongs to them, in their mind the claim means by right they should be able to use it as they see fit.

But what’s the truth? I don’t act as my mom sees fit, if I did there would be no need for scolding. That I act in accord with my own karma, not her wishes proves I do not belong to her. And when she treats me as she sees fit, scolding and punishing, the fact that my rection can be retaliating, or not talking, or any other response that she doesn’t see as fit, is further proof I can’t belong to her. I don’t act as she sees fit and when she acts as she sees fit it elicits a reaction she doesn’t see as fit.

And if I act as I see fit, being short or cold, with Eric, he gets angry. If he were mine, he would not be angered by my treating him as I desire and see fit. In fact, acting as I see fit, all the time, with regard to Eric, opens up the risk he will leave me. A person that can leave, based on their wishes and desires, without regard to my own, is not mine.

And why am I unhappy with Eric’s actions sometimes, why don’t we always agree? It is because what I see as fit does not drive his beliefs or behaviors. Just like what my mom sees as fit for a daughter doesn’t drive my behavior. My mom holds a view that because she acted in accord with her beliefs on what makes a good mother, I would act in accord with what she thinks is appropriate for a good daughter.  But why believe this? It is not how things work, everyone, and everything, act in accord with their own causes and conditions, not in accord with what we see as fit.

I thought about nature — do leaves just stay with trees even if the trees were to see it as fit? Can planets travel whatever path they want independent of orbits and gravitational pulls? No –these things are bound by circumstance. By rules. What in nature gets to act as it sees fit? Gets to use as it sees fit? Gets to fordge a future, ahead, as it sees fit? Nothing.

I have this house in Montreal — can I use it as I see fit? No, I am on a time limit, bound to follow immigration laws as to how long my visa is good for. Doesn’t the roof of that house  leak? Hasn’t the place gotten moldy, flooded MANY TIMES? This is decisively not how I see it fit for my own house to act. But over and over, ‘my’ shit shows me that it doesn’t behave as I see fit. That is literally not what it is. And yet, I get so excited, happy, on those limited occasions shit feeds my delusions. Seems to confirm that this world will act as I see fit. Sometimes in between floods…

Why did I feel so delighted when my old Greenwich apartment was decorated to my taste? I felt happy because I felt confirmed, like the house, my space, would act as if I see fit. But in the end, the construction project across from that house made me super sick, so much so I had to break my lease early, at a fee, so that I could move out. So did a nice decor really prove my mastery over my space? No amount of decorating was able to overcome the reality of a home that failed to act as I see fit. That couldn’t even perform the primary function of a home – providing safe shelter – on terms that was healthy for my body.

I feel about my clothes the way I do about my decor. That they will make this body look as I see fit. A beautifully adorned body that will represent, affirm, myself. A face that has been made-up with make-up, plumped-up with fillers, further forwarding the image that I see as fit for this body, my body, to have. The problem is the clothes, that get dirty and worn, don’t act as I see fit. The face, that needs make-up to cover brown spots, that had to rely on fillers to begin with, doesn’t look as I see fit. And no matter how dewy my skin, or sharp my outfit, I can leave my house for a night out and catch covid, because this body I decorate, I claim, I try and force into shapes and states that I see fit does not, ultimately give a damn about what I see as fit. Like my husband, the body can get sick, get dead, leave me at any time.

Actually, I used to workout this body continually –yoga, circus training, Zumba, CrossFit, Pilates  — hours a day trying to force the body into states of strength and tone to ‘prove’ I was on top and in control in this world. Right up until long covid laid me low, barely able to get off the couch, at which point I had a body that was the opposite of fit. The opposite of what I saw as fit. A body that I sure wasn’t on top and in control of. Why did I think I could use such a thing to prove I was on top and in control of this world?

I get so hung up on ‘needing this body’ because in my mind it is the ticket to the trip, the life, I want to go on. But the thing is, it’s not a thing that acts as I see fit, so how is it going to create a future that is as I see fit? In truth the body and the future are the same – things shaped by causes and conditions, not bound to my rules, preferences or desires. Nothing needs to act as I see fit.

Its not just me either, this is the way of the world, it has nothing to do with me. The first time I went to the spa, there were a bunch of folks talking loudly, right in front of the large signs that read “SILENCE!”.  The signs said what it ‘should be’, that is what the spa owners saw as fit for their business. But clearly neither owners nor signs dictate patron behavior. And what is more, as I started going to the spa with frequency, I saw that the noise level was conditional, changing by the day, the time of day, the season, the folks there. Sometimes, there really was silence, but the spa owners didn’t force it to be so, it’s just that the conditions were ripe.   

That there is the core problem, there are sometimeses that we all use to feed our delusion. The mom in Mae Yo’s story was in fact able to have her daughter circumcised, the conditions allowed. But before the girl could marry, she ran away, proving she was not bound by her mom’s views of fitness. Proving she was not bound to her mother at all.  What is not bound to us, what doesn’t act as we see fit, what ticks along according to its own karma, that is not ours no matter how incessantly and loudly we shout our claims to a totally disinterested universe.

On the tale of considering the shifting meaning in rupa, I started considering where exactly my sense of identity comes from anyway. In Buddhism the answer is given to us practitioners to back solve for: The 5 clinging aggregates. Below are some of my contemplations on this topic from the time:

Being a cause isn’t proof of self: I have often reflected that I use being as cause of something, whether it is baking a cake, getting ripped, or writing an award-winning essay, as an ego puff, proof of who and what I am. But, by that logic, effects are just the bitches of their cause. Born of, powned, driven and defined by their cause. The problem is: What cause is there that isn’t also an effect?

I tried to give this consideration more structure in my mind by using an example, a tree: A seed causes a tree to become. But then the seed is gone, so what is the cause of a tree to be sustained? Itself. The particular arrangement of rupa that is a tree causes its own sustainment –the roots draw nutrient from the soil, the leaves photosynthesize energy from the sun, the sap moves the nutrients around the tree.

And what is the cause of its cessation? That too is in the tree: The breakdown of the tree state elements, the way 4es shift and destabilize as they interact with themselves and the environment. That is the cause of the tree’s cessation. It’s so clear with the tree, this is all in rupa. So isn’t my body the same? The elements of my parents cause the body. Then the arrangement of the body itself sustains it, and the cessation arises when the elements shift out of a state that maintains a body shape. What is the cause of my ability to utilize the body? The duration and terms of usability? That is my karma. My actions past and present. 

I think of an apartment for further clarity: What is the cause of getting to utilize the apartment? I sign a contract. Of my continued occupancy? I pay the rent. Paying the rent is a now thing, but having the resources to pay the rent, that is longer term. The apartment can burn, and I no longer can use it–it departs me. But I can also be evicted, I depart the apartment.

Even with the body, it seems like it is always the body departing me that ends its use. But isn’t there a vegetative state? The body ticks along –sustained by elements, but I am evicted, my karma is such that I can no longer use it. In reality, I can no longer use the body as I see fit even while I am here and conscious. Can I work out the way I used to with this busted hip? Can I sit in a moldy room given the immune disease I have? Always the body is showing me that I don’t drive. I use, in accord with the body’s terms and conditions. Terms and conditions enforced by rupa, dictated by karma, that are the nature of the object, and the aggregates, themselves.

What is circumstantial, conditional, can’t be self: I was also thinking about how what is circumstantial can’t be self. A while back, I had contemplated on the fact that my view, that a fit body = identity of someone with self-control, was incorrect. For more on that contemplation check out this blog. The first step is to see that a fit body is circumstantial, its conditional. Its fitter at different ages for example –the same activity level at different ages yields different body shapes. That already shows that it can’t prove who I am, it can’t prove my willpower.

The same willpower can after all yield different results. What is more is the idea that a fit body was going to prove this abstract trait –willpower — was an arbitrary selection by me. I could have chosen taking up an instrument, getting a PhD, any number of things that take diligence and effort. I chose fitness because I was already precluded to it. In other words, this choice was conditional too, based on my sanna and sankhara, my predisposition, the resources available to me, etc. Furthermore, even the trait I wanted to prove –willpower– that too is arbitrary. Why choose that to represent ‘myself’? Its conditional, its circumstantial; again 3s and 4s dictated that I chose to identify with that trait. My past experiences with fitness made me think it was utilitous and admirable.

 I tried to back it up further –How is the building of identity itself –not just the particular traits also circumstantial? This was harder –but I realized I need to go the other way: To build the identity I need circumstances that dictate the specifics of what I want to be, the characteristics I want to have –like willpowered. And I also need the circumstances, in rupa, that I think allow me to prove and assume those traits. Afterall, what is an identity without traits? What would I be? And don’t I come into a rupa world specifically because I think the rupa world is necessary to prove and build who I think I am?

Anyway, I already know the answer –what I mistake as identity is just the shifting aggregates. Which by definition shift based on causes and conditions. Which therefore are also conditional. I don’t need to fully understand what the self is to know that is true.

Curation is a silly way to prove self: I also got to thinking about building a wardrobe. How I don’t identify with any one article of clothes, but the wardrobe –that I imagine I curated. When I almost lost that wardrobe in a move, I was crushed, afraid to lose such an integral part of what is mine and makes me who I am. But how could a collection of the same 4es be different that a single 4e dress? Why would one build my identity when the other doesn’t? Isn’t body part versus body the same logic? Isn’t a trait versus many traits the same? One moment, one situation, versus the collections of curated moments and situations I commit to sanna?

Something about collecting, curating — the whole, even though it is a continually shifting whole– is where I imagine myself to lie. Of course, the wardrobe is also circumstantial –what pieces I have access to, my budget, style dictated by body type, age, influences. How can that really reflect who I am? It just at any moment reflects the influences and allowables. If it could have been something else. I it was (sexy librarian, hippy), if it will be again, then how is it who I am?

Getting the future I dream of isn’t self: I thought too about Clementine from Westworld. I, like her, live for the dream of tomorrow. She suffers whoring because she imagines one day a quiet life on her own farm, that she can afford with her whore proceeds. Of course –she lives in Westworld, we already know she will never get that farm. That is not what Westworld allows. I was so stuck on the fact that sure, I can be like Clem and end up never getting what I hope for. But I also have the chance to get what I want. To realize dreams and goals. Afterall, we ca set in place causes and conditions, we can build karma.

 So in my mind, my situation was different. Now though, when I think about the future I live for. The story I am so attached to. The story I imagine I need this body to achieve, even if I do achieve it, am I happy? Am I satisfied? I

 Just look at Eric and I living the travel/retirement ‘dream’ that is so fucking stressful. Do I want the dream for itself? No I want it because I think it will make me satisfied. Sukkha. But is this world any different than Westworld? Is sukkah something to be found here, whether the future looks closer or further away from my dreams? What is stressful, what doesn’t satisfy, it can’t be me or who I am. It can’t prove me or who I am. It just proves the nature of the world –dukkha, meaningless. The whole thing about thinking there is a self, that there is a me and mine, is that  it requires objects, and the world, to behave according to my rules rather than their own. And ais certainly not in accord with my rules and wishes.