I have been thinking more on how to dig up this attachment to rupa. I see my problem: Even if I know what a belonging is, a 4e object, I cling to it because I think I need it for my future fantasy. The parallel is a plane ticket — I know it’s just paper, but I cling to it because I desire the trip. I desire the future I imagine and that ticket is a critical tool to achieve that future, to have fun on that trip.

I have already tried to attack this belief from multiple angles: Just cuz you have a ticket Alana, it doesn’t mean you can go on the trip – look what happed when you had a ticket to go on retreat but got Covid and couldn’t attend.”  Or,  “you can go even without a ticket Alana, the train station is across the street”. Or, “How many time Alana have you gotten a ticket, taken a trip and had it be a total disappointment?” I even tried reasoning that the trip I imagine is just more of the same daily life, after all, what is over there is what is over here; trip after trip I have observed that in Japan, or Italy or Israel, there is need, work, stress, impermanence. Still, none of this self-talk is working, my heart is still attached to the ticket.

I tried another tactic: Sookie(yes, back to True Bloods) clings to Bill. Why? He is the ticket to the future she always wanted — a normal domestic life, a partner. Because she can’t read his thoughts, he is able to fil the hole in her heart, take on the leading lover role in her domestic future fantasy. She already had the fantasy. Then, meeting Bill, she ‘minifies’ him, clings to him, she sticks him in the partner shaped hole in her heart and adjusts the details of her fantasy to be Bill-centric.

So of course, she needs Bill to get that future, she literally designs the future, or at least tweaks all the details of the pre-existing future lover fantasy, around him. Somehow, this softens the body as ticket issue for me a little. I see the dynamics of how a body, a ticket, is not some a priori attachment, instead any particular body/ticket is just the object I plug into the fantasy that preexisted and paint some details around it. As I do, the painting, the detailifying, I claim the body/ticket, become attached, lay meaning and samutti upon the thing. In truth, each ticket, each body, is interchangeable, when this one is used-up, I will keep seeking and claiming a new one so that I can keep taking these ‘fun’ lives/trips.

I consider how Eric is my Bill. The type of relationship we have – so close, partners in everything, constant companions that face the world together -- is already my fantasy, it pre-exists Eric, I was just looking for a leading lover to fill the role. Then, I met Eric. He and I naturally fell into lockstep with one another, and so I placed him in the hole in my heart. He was acceptable, so I claimed him to forward my future fantasies. In so doing, the fantasy  took on an Eric shape, an Eric hue.  

The issue is twofold: The first is that Eric, who I think is so special, who I cling to so tightly, actually is not. He is in fact one in a string of folks –in this life and in past ones – that I have claimed, and lost, as I try to use them to fulfill my dreams.

The second is I really am setting myself up for sorrow by naming, claiming, clinging to this ingredient, this particular prop that I attach to in service of my fantasy. By saying to myself, “that person/thing there is my ticket” I have now invested in, become hooked by, a changeable object that I don’t control and will definitely lose. Who creates my sorrow other than me? And why? For some arbitrary fantasy of my own making. For the contours, the props, the leading players, the interchangeable bodies and lovers and tickets that I convince myself I ‘need’ mostly based on the fact they were there and I believed I could claim them, use them, in the first place.

The truth is, if the fantasy calls for a partner, shouldn’t any partner do? If the trip calls for a car shouldn’t any car do? If I need a body, shouldn’t anybody do? And if I saw this really, that none of these are special or unique, would I claim them as mine, as who I am?

But I don’t see that, instead I look at every detail about how the snowflakes I love, I call my own, are incredibly special, rather than see that they all share the fundamental nature of snow.  The reason why is that I can’t really build a fantasy that way.  I need to personalize, to make it unique.  Not all dresses will work, I like the one with the frills that reflect who I think I am. Not every body will work, or is ideal, I need the one with details I think reflect me. That I think will advantage me. And if I can’t have that body, if karma prevents it, then I at least need to pay attention to the details of the body I have, zoom in on features I think are different –like a snowflake’s crystalline structure. There is no identity in sameness. I need details, differences, that uphold that I’m unique. That seem specific to the Alana I curate. 

What is more is that I can’t abide by a fantasy in which I don’t control the object. In which I have no say in its preservation. Its direction. In which I can’t depend on it. I know this, so I claim object in the hope my claim means they will act as I see fit. Or maybe I claim and as a result assume the object will act as I see fit. Or more likely there is a cycle, a pre-existing delusion the object will act as I see fit and a claim that reinforces this view. Regardless of the order one key  truth is the same — each object is like every other one. Interchangeable. It hurts to admit it, puts a chink in my story, introduces a whole lot of ‘risk’ I am not comfortable with. But, regardless of my claim, my body and some other body are exactly the same 4e object. My claim exists only in my head. The nature of the object exists in the object.