Alana's Dharma Blog

Eric and I were watching one of those reality home building shows today; a couple had worked hard, had long and successful careers, and were now building their dream home, on their dream plot of land.

Only the land they chose was the top of a cliff, overhanging the ocean, with sandy earth that was sliding away. When the engineer came to make a first assessment, he told them the dangers and difficulties of building there – the erosion was so pervasive, extreme measures would need to be taken to keep it at bay, and even then, the house was unlikely to make it more than a few decades before sliding into the ocean.

Knowing the dangers, knowing the effort, knowing the risk, the couple chose to build anyway: This was the spot they imagined spending their golden years, a place they had vacationed many times, that they had built their fantasy retirement around. They simply couldn’t give it up, they figured it would remain standing till at least the end of their lives. And so, the house building project began. Afterall, from imagination springs hope eternal.

The trials and tribulations were countless. First, a special sea wall had to be built out of huge boulders to keep the erosion at bay – only the first big storm threatened to sweep away the wall, and the couple had to go out in the storm and try to secure the boulders with netting.  Then there were issues getting government permits for the home and lawyers had to get involved. Then there were issues getting building materials up the cliff and a new road had to be built. The costs became so high that the husband had to return to work in order to afford completing the home. Only work was in the city hours away, so the commute was unsustainable, and the husband decided to build his own business, from scratch, so he could work from home. Then there were fights between husband and wife about materials and layout and design. All this before a house was even built.

All that stress for a house. As I watched them build, heard their story, all I could think is, “not fucking worth it.” For 50 minutes, of the hour-long show, I just kept muttering under my breath, “So, so, so not worth it. They are being idiots.”

But then, in the end, they showed the home all done and it was stunningly beautiful. The narrator asked the couple if the years of stress building it had been worth it, and without hesitation they said “yes.” Even I, suddenly forgetting the last 50 minutes worth of vicarious stress, thought “Yes! Worth it.” Suddenly something I had been contemplating for years became very clear to me – THIS IS HOW DESIRE FOOLS ME.

Years ago, I had been flipping through a calendar from the Wat with quotes from LP Thoon. One of them had really haunted me; I can’t remember word for word, but the sentiment was, “can you identify how desire fools you?”

As this finished, beautiful house, flashed across my TV, I saw I was tempted by a single moment in time. My mind seized upon that glorious, peak house moment, and the siren song of desire drowned out all the thoughts of the eroding coastline, or the struggles to build, or the coming out of retirement, or the stress of potentially losing the home in old age, or its final future resting place at the bottom of the sea.

Desire tricks me through the dark powers of my imagination. My imagination, that clings to/hopes for a still picture, a particular moment in time. An imagination that lulls me into forgetting the past, and ignoring the future, with the false promise of achieving that peak moment, and keeping it forever, or at least for a duration that satisfies me. An imagination, that minimizes suffering; or makes me think, “I am special, I can magically avoid the suffering I watch others endure”; or that, even if I can’t avoid suffering altogether, it will be measured, on my terms, an acceptable and ‘fair’ trade-off for that beautiful, perfect peak.

I, a slave to my desires, cycle through nightmares of effort, stress, risk and loss hoping to achieve, and hold onto, my dreams. Ignoring the reality of a world were everything, always, changes.

This post shares some highlights of a daily, self-assigned, homework exercise to explore the role of imagination in my day-to-day life. This blog is a direct continuation of the previous 2 posts; if you haven’t already done so, please head back and read those before proceeding.

• I was sitting in a park today and there was a free concert preformed by an Orthodox Jewish band. They were singing in Hebrew, songs I knew so well from my childhood. As I tapped my feet and sang along, I realized as a kid, I just assumed I would grow-up and continued to practice Judaism. My family was Jewish, our community Jewish, there were no other conceivable options. It made me see so clearly that my today reality –of being a devout Buddhist, practicing with a Buddhist community – was outside the scope of anything young child Alana could have imagined, and yet it is what happened.

• Eric and I were talking about our fantasy retirement: at least two homes, continual travel, country/city, etc. I am always imagining a life on the move, exploring, being in different places. But the reality is, I already have that in my life – back and forth to SF, having moved 7 times, lots of travel — and it hasn’t made me feel truly satisfied. I always move, trips end, I always look for more. Why do I let my imagination keep tricking me into believing the next thing will be different? That this ‘on-the-move’ retirement plan we work so hard for is going to make us happy, when the on-the -move life we have had so far has failed to do so, at least in any enduring way.

• An old childhood friend called me out of the blue today. She needed money, she was homeless, about to get kicked out of her hotel. Her parents had told me she had fallen on hard times, but it was still a shock to hear from her. When we were young, she was my hero, she was so popular, so mature, when we would play make-believe about the jobs and lives we would have when we grew-up, I believed her when she acted out teacher, or doctor, or pilot. None of those games were sufficient to turn her into the jobs we fantasized about, and none of the games ever predicted her grown-up reality — drug addict, dropout, homeless. Reality doesn’t conform to our imagination. Nor does our imagination predict reality.

• Every year –for over a decade – our office holiday party had been at the Marriot. This year though, it changed to a restaurant down the block. I got the invite, I knew it had changed, I had it in my calendar for a month. But every time I thought of the party, I kept imagining the upcoming party, I kept imaging the backdrop of the Marriot. Today, when I walked over to the party, I started walking towards to the Marriot before changing course to the restaurant. Even though I knew, I had the raw facts, my memory kept feeding my imagination with old data.

• I am in Japan, our trip was going so well so far. After stress and worry that things wouldn’t go as planned, I had started to convince myself it was smooth sailing. Then we got lost –taking the wrong train 4 hours in the wrong direction before having to about face. I was so stressed: I wanted to arrive at our next stop early to see the town, as we only have one night there. Had our trip gone bad from the start, I wouldn’t have been so upset, I would have expected it. But a few days of bliss left me unprepared, extra pained because I imagined only up and not down. What is more is when we finally did get to town, it was nothing but a bus station, a store and a small shrine. There was nothing to see –I stressed so hard, not for what I was missing, but for what I imagined I was missing. If I had known, I would have taken a later train and enjoyed the last city more.

• I walked into a fancy store today, expecting to be greeted immediately – after all, this was a high end luxury shop. But the employees just kept working, ignoring me. I made it all the way upstairs, walked around, still no greeting. I was offended, angry, didn’t they know I am important, I have money to spend, I walked out without buying anything. As I continued on to the next shop, a lower-end place, I realized I didn’t have the same expectation of service since it isn’t a luxury brand. My annoyance and offence arose not based on the service, but on my imagination of how I would be treated in a certain circumstance and my disappointment/ imagination of what it meant about me that I wasn’t.

• I was sitting in the onsen (hot bath) tonight and watching the steam rise. There was something my dad always used to say that came to mind. He said, “life is like smoke, smoke is an illusion.” But I see smoke, or steam in this case, is not an illusion, it’s just insubstantial. It blows with the winds, changes shape and then fades away. That is what life is like, shifting and insubstantial. And yet, I long for it. I cling to it. Why? I came on this trip to Japan because the last time I was here I had fun. I loved it. I assumed this time would be the same, I assumed I could hold on, repeat, find satisfaction. In truth, much has been different than my last trip to Japan; some parts fun, others not so much. I am born in much the same way as I decided on this trip: I see the wind blowing the direction I want to go and I imagine it will be like I want, like my past experiences, or my future hopes. I think it comes down to just me and my desires. But all it takes is a gust the other way, like a move from SF to NY, and it isn’t fun anymore. Its continual shifts through states I like and those I want until dissolution. My imagination of what it is and what it will be is the reason I take the plunge.

A final note on my process and concluding: I want to add a note here that, clearly these collection of thought/ daily exercise blogs don’t have a conclusion. In proceeding blogs you will doubtlessly see the fruits of these exercises fueling synthesis and conclusion. In fact, these little daily drips sometimes come back, even years later, and help hit a point home for me. I know concluding is a critical (and deeply ongoing) part of practice – a part that gets captured in many of my blog entries – but my conclusions often follow from a slow and steady collection of evidence. That is the phase of practice these particular ‘daily exercise’ blogs offer a glips into.

This post  shares some highlights of a daily, self-assigned, homework exercise to explore the role of imagination in my day-to-day life. This blog is  a direct continuation of the previous post, The Tyranny of Imagination; if you haven’t already done so, please head back and read it before proceeding.

• I was planning a little weekend getaway with Eric. I thought to myself, this is what I think my retirement/perfect future with Eric is going to look like — continual travel, moving around, staying in hotels and Air b&bs, exploring the world. In fact, this is what we work and struggle so hard for today. It is a fine fantasy when my asthma is in a good place. But last night, I woke-up unable to breathe. It was a reminder of all the times I have woken in musty, moldy, allergen-ridden hotel rooms gasping for breath. And, as I age, my asthma keeps getting worse: How do I really expect this imaginary future to unfold and, if it does, how pleasant will it actually be in light of my health?

• The dentist talked me into crowing a cracked tooth to protect it from further damage. Now, a few weeks later, it seems like the crown has made the tooth worse and now I will need a root canal. I imagined my intervention would ‘fix’ my tooth, but instead it made it worse.

• The fires were raging up in NorCal and a co-worker had lost his home. As I lay in bed, I thought to myself that, “tomorrow, I will invite him to stay with me till he gets on his feet.” I fell asleep congratulating myself on being such a ‘good alana’, taking someone in. I imagined the kudos from friends and acquaintances, the loyalty won by this co-worker. When I called him in the morning to invite him to stay with me, I learned another co-worker had already taken him in, marking the death of good hostess alana in just one night.

• Eric and I went for a walk in the neighborhood. We were bored, not expecting much from the day. But we stumbled on a small museum and went in to find an amazing art exhibit. It was such a great day even though we hadn’t planned it.

• Yesterday I went to Neiman Marcus because I have a gift card to spend. I walked through the aisles of fancy clothes, fantasizing myself in each dress, imagining the message such- and-such a pattern, or color, or cut would tell the world about me. Like a piece of fabric can force people to think of me in a particular way. Mostly, I love the fancy shit –the Goyard and Prada and Guccis of the world. At least when I want people to think I am rich, pulled-together, fashionable and buttoned-up. But then, at other times, I fear giving off that vibe: at work, at the Wat. All I want is for people love and accept me, clothes are just a tool. But if I anticipate the same exact outfit to will cause me to be accepted in some circumstances and rejected in others, can that outfit really make me loved or accepted or protected; after all, circumstances, people, fashion, clothes, me, are constantly changing. Why imagine a single object to be my eternal ticket to adoration?

• On some level, I think Eric and I had imagined we would make it back to the West Coast one day: Cali, Portland or Seattle maybe, that would be the place we ultimately retired. But this latest round of fires blew up that plan: Asthma + 6 month long fire seasons is not a winning combo. Now, the dream is dead long before it was ever born out in reality.

• I was sore from yesterday’s workout, so I wanted something easy today. I decided to go to a class that is usually pretty tame. But, for the first time ever, the teacher decided to do a “deck of cards workout”. Each suit has a different exercise: squats for hearts, pushups for spades, etc, and the face number is how many to do. The workout is totally random, it depends on the cards each student pulls. Totally contrary to my hopes and expectations, I pulled the hardest cards, doing a workout from which I almost collapsed.

• Eric and I decided on a last-minute trip to Vermont today. We love VT, and on the drive-up, in the aftermath of loosing our West Cost retirement plan to fires, we started talking about moving to VT. We started sowing the seeds of a new plan, a new fantasy, with out ever reflecting that the last one cost us pain to plan for, pain to loose, and never even an ounce of joy given its failure to come true. I watched how even just fantasizing caused tension ( he wants rural and I want city) and stress (could we afford VT’s exorbitant tax rate). Fantasy about the future cuts both ways. There is hope, but also dread and whatever the outcome, there is work and stress trying to force the one we want to come about. All for something that can latterly go up in smoke in an instant.

• Eric and I signed-up for a late night, lantern lit, guided tour of the famous Sleepy Hollow cemetery. It sounded like a fun way to celebrate Halloween. Only it was freezing, raining, the lanterns were putting out kerosene fumes that made me gag and the tour was unbelievably boring. I had been so excited, but ultimately I wish we had stayed home.

• I seriously hate NY. I think the worst of the city and everyone in it. Soooooo, when I forgot my purse on the train in from Greenwich, I was absolutely certain the purse was gone fr good. I had no hope. No expectation that it would be salvageable and I was already imagining the process of canceling my cards and getting a new ID. As a formality, just to be responsible, I went down to the train station lost and found to inquire if some mythical being –the kind NYer – had turned in my bag. Sure enough, it was there in lost and found. Ever Credit card, every cent still intact. Pretty lucky NY isn’t as bad as I imagined in this case huh?

One of my coworkers has a dog, named Pizza, whose frequent trips to the office are a delight for everyone — he is so cute and loving, always ready to play and help take the edge off a stressful workday.  Pizza is my doggie ideal; a fluffy little Schnauzer mix, that is more fur than dog. Until, one day, when he wasn’t…

One morning, I heard the jingle of Pizza’s leash and went out to the hall to greet him. I met what looked like a totally different dog:  Pizza had been to the groomer the evening before, and today he was fluff free, looking nearly half his old size. He trotted over for a morning treat and suddenly I realized, I’m just not as excited to see him. I thought to myself, “It is just hair, it will grow back, it is not like the dog or his personality have changed.”  But, I couldn’t deny the truth in my heart, less fluffy = less doggie appeal.

Dear Reader – this blog is a direct continuation of the preceding blog, Goodbye Goyard Part 1. If you have not yet read that post then please go back and read it before you start on this next entry. 

I am looking around myself at all these items I have laid out to consign, each one telling me a truth about myself and about this world. A part of me so desperately wants to hang on to many of these items, a purse I may ‘need’ later, a pair of shoes just-in-case they are the perfect match to an outfit I don’t even own yet. I want to keep items because they are expensive, precious, because they have special meaning to me.

But most of these items I have chosen to consign have been unused for a while; these items are a ‘tell,’ they expose the fact that I really have no idea what the future will hold, what I will need (otherwise would I have bought a bunch of expensive shit I barely used?).  And besides, I have already learned that even the largest collection of objects doesn’t insure I will have what I need when I need it; I had a closet full of dresses and I didn’t have a single gown when I needed it for a work event. A house full of stuff, and not a single object could free me of feeling trapped when I moved to New York (actually objects -namely a new house I hated and money from my husband’s job made are what keep me trapped), or of feeling despair when I lost my father. 

• There are 3 brand new green purses, with tags still attached, sitting on the floor. Each one is identical to a purse I had in the past, that I loved and wore regularly. As the original bag showed wear, I began to worry about whether in the future I would be able to find that same bag again. So I stock piled a bunch of the same bags bought while still in season and stored in my closet for later use. I bought these bags to make me prepared. But, if they really did prepare me for a future, wouldn’t they have been worn as part of that future? The were not. My bag preference changed .So these three new green purses are showing their true colors — they are powerless to do what I thought they would do. They are powerless to make me a fashionable, ever prepared, woman.

• Then there is the fur coat I had bought the thing when we first considered moving to NY . I had an image in my mind of what a fashionable, NY winter style would be, and it definitely involved mink.  By the time I actually did move to NY, I had learned a few things: 1) a down jacket is warmer, easier to clean and way   more comfortable. As fashionable as fur may be, winter requires function as well. 2) I fucking hate NY. I can barely stand being outside long enough to get cold. Who needs to peacock around in a fur coat when they are miserable and crushingly depressed?  So this coat sure as hell didn’t prepare me for NY, otherwise it would have whispered to me “don’t fucking go!!!”

• A $400 orange sun hat from a little known fashion brand. I remember when I bought it imaging that it would make me so chic on trips to Miami or Hawaii, but its brim is so big I literally can’t see to walk around in it. Tripping over your own feet is not very chic…

I was so enamored with my imagination of what these objects did that I ignored impermanence — would I even need them and what are the 2 sides?

These objects tell me about how piss poor my powers of prediction are. They show me that with new facts new needs arise. With new needs, new objects are sought out. But aren’t there always going to be new facts? That is part of what my daily impermanence contemplation has been telling me.  So am I just going to keep rotating through new items endlessly? Living to acquire and then dispose of stuff as the inevitably new patterns arise?

My body changes, my clothes are always aging and changing too. Its just that it often happens so slowly and subtly I don’t notice for a while. My hope is born out of duration, that I can look sexy for at least some time, that this object will help me do it. But if I really think about it, the hope itself is based on my turning a bling eye to the change that is always occurring. The heart belt is proof that there was a phase before and there will be one after. The only question is am  I willing to keep cycling through these phases? Are they worth it?

Dear Reader, I am republishing  putting this blog, which originally ‘aired’ back in Nov 2018, to put it into chronological sequence. I hope the redux, in its original context, provides additional insight.

 I was thinking about the upcoming Kathina ceremony, an important holiday in the Buddhist tradition, and decided I really wanted to make an offering to the temple – to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha – that means something special to me. It’s hard to explain, but I felt like money alone simply wouldn’t do. Sometimes, when I give money it feels like donating food when I am full; I wanted this gift to feel like donating when I’m still a little hungry.  I wanted it to be a bit of a sacrifice, a bit of a stretch, I wanted to feel like I was really giving something of personal value. 

A few years ago, my husband bought me the purse of my dreams, a cute but classic bag from Goyard. The truth is, I never really used it a lot, it seemed so precious I feared damaging it. Plus, my style had changed and it really wasn’t something that felt like it fit. Still, it sat in my closet, a ‘just-in-case’ item with too much sentimental value to part with –the perfect offering. I called the consignment store and told them I had something to sell, the proceeds of which I plan to donate to the temple.  

The more I thought about it, the more items I decided I wanted to part ways with: A Burberry skirt, Chanel shoes, an Etro jacket, LV coat, that adorable Chloe belt with a pixie on it… By the time I had really gone through my closet I had a pile of 50 items on the floor ready to sell and then donate the proceeds to the temple.  

Now, lets be clear, this is not the blog where I tell you I have become and ascetic; rest assured, there are still a number of lovely Louis Vuitton bags living in my closet. And yet, as I looked at each item I own, my mind went through an exercise of weighing its use, value and meaning to me now versus the value of using that object to benefit the dharma, to make merit and to grow my own practice. Time will tell how this act, how the thoughts it stirred-up, take shape. But, in the next blog, I simply want to share the contemplation that occurred to me as I laid all my items on the floor and dedicated the merit of the offering before the consignment store came to haul everything away…till next week…

Dear Reader, the next few blogs are reduxes — blogs which originally ‘aired’ back in fall 2018 which I am  put it into chronological sequence. I hope these reduxes, in their original context, provide additional insight.

I was recently in Boston and took a guided tour of the Black Heritage Trail, a path that links more than 15 pre-Civil War sites important in African-American history; the stories of American abolitionists (folks who fought for the elimination of slavery) were a central theme of this tour.

I was totally captivated as the tour guide began sharing the story of a husband and wife — Ellen and William Craft — who through cunning, disguise and luck were able to escape slavery and flee to freedom in Boston. The story however was just as captivating to folks back in the 1800s, when press got wind of the Craft’s amazing escape, they started printing it in newspapers. When their old slave master, in Georgia, got a hold of a paper with their story in it, he decide to send slave hunters to Boston to capture his famous slaves and return them to him. And so we, as a tour group, stood at site of the famous showdown between William Craft and a group of abolitionists versus the slave hunters…( you will need to go to Wikipedia for the rest of the Craft’s tale, I have my own to tell here).

It got me thinking…the slave owner clearly thought the Crafts belonged to him, that they were his property. Obviously though, with my modern sensibilities, that seems crazy – you can’t own another person. The Crafts also thought their life belonged to them, but, did their circumstances really bear that out? These are folks who were born into slavery, who spent most of their life forced to do the will of others. Then, after a brief time of freedom, they again found themselves forced to fight ( and ultimately flee). Can I really say that people whose every action is dictated by someone or something else are free? Do they ‘belong’ to themselves?

The tour went on and my thoughts did too, till about 2 weeks later. I had wanted a new phone, something durable with a long battery life, and after weeks of research decided on just the phone; I dragged Eric to the AT&T store to both buy the new device and to switch carriers (Verizon, my old carrier, did not stock the phone).  The phone worked fine when we walked out of the store at 9 PM. The next morning though we had no service. Fuck Fuck Fuck! I was in a panic. I had made a huge change, spent a bunch of money, and now I had a phone that didn’t get reception in my house. My stress level was through the roof, so much for controlling my phone…all that research, a provider switch, and here I was with a piece of crap that didn’t actually make calls in my house. Fortunately, an email tipped me off to the problem, I had put a wrong number on the application form. It was, after all that stress, a matter of a short call to AT&T to get the line up and running. Whew.

I took one brief sigh of relief before I realized I was running late for my workout. I ran out the door, again stressed and toughed it through a killer boot camp class. Without even time to shower, I had to run again…I had an appointment to get my car serviced. It was off to the mechanic.

It was already noon, before I was in a loaner car, on the way home. Suddenly it dawned on me: I have spent almost every minute since I woke, plus a ton of stress, in service of my belongings. First I stressed about, then serviced the new phone. Then I sweated it our while I serviced my body. Then I scurried along to bring the car in for service. When I got home, the first thing on my list: laundry in service of my clothes.

I think I own these objects, I control them, I use them. But, like the Crafts, my life is a continual reaction to these things. Am I free? Do they belong to me? Because, it really is starting to seem like I am a slave to my objects.

“Fine”, I think to myself, “I spend time, energy, care for these belongings, that is a price I am willing to pay, for something reliable. For something consistent, for something I can count on”. But hold on a moment there: Are these objects really being consistent, reliable? The phone needed attention because it wasn’t working. The body needed a workout because at my age, its 2 weeks of sedentary living to flabby. The car needed a service because without oil it just doesn’t run. My day was, as it was, precisely because all these objects fail. They decay, they break, they are –yup, you got it—subject to impermanence.

Plus, if I am really being honest with myself, the care I put into these objects the concern, the jaw-breaking stress, is not just for the objects and their obvious functions, it is just as much (maybe more) for the object’s secret function – what I believe they do to care for and feed myself.  The phone is not just a phone after all, it is a safety blanket that bestows me with knowledge, keeps me from getting lost, from being alone, it is my invincibility shield in a lonely dangerous and confusing world; right up until my GPS fails, like it did the other day, and I end up in the ghetto.  The car is a status symbol, showing my wealth and my sensible decision making (it’s a nice subtle BMW X1, not a Porsche after all); right up till my brother Jew shames be for driving a BMW, a company that supported the Nazis.  The fit, shapely body proves I am in control, of myself and of my life; right up till too much green coffee extract has me peeing myself.

At the heart of it, what I want most deeply, what I delude myself into thinking I am special enough to achieve one day —  if I just push, work, act good, upright, moral, and muscle hard enough, — is a little garden-like world where everything is perfectly manicured, in bloom, beautiful and fragrant and just to my liking, always. In my mind my objects are my spades and hoes, tools to help me build my little garden.

But, any of you guys who have gardened before know, gardens take a ton of work, and there is always something dying, rotting, stinking, it is never the imaginary refuge I think, I hope, to build.

Back during the times of slavery in this country, slave holders used to say that “slaves are content with their servitude”. So what about me, am I content? Do I want freedom or will I strengthen the chains of my bondage with lies about my stuff, myself and this world? I for one am vigilantly taking note of all the times, ways, I’m a slave to my objects. I am watching my servitude, seeing how many hours of each day it consumes. Here is to hoping this path winds its way to freedom ASAP.

My friend was antsy to travel, but after asking everyone in our social circle, she couldn’t find anyone who would agree to be her travel partner. Finally, she asked me. She expressed her longing to see the world, and her disappointment that since her divorce, she had no one to join her.  She told me of her deep desire to spend time with me, to feel connected. She was so earnest, so desperate — I didn’t want to go, I worried that our relationship might come under strain (it has been strained in the past), I worried we would fight and someone could get hurt, but, against my better judgment, I ultimately agreed. I wanted to make my friend happy, I wanted her to feel satisfied. I wanted to be the hero –the good friend– that made my friend’s wishes come true.

I carefully planned out the trip. I planned activities around her interests, I planned food around her vegan diet, I ran the whole thing by her before any arrangements were finalized, she said she was happy, excited, at least until the trip actually arrived. Then, the unhappiness set-in. She wanted more –more food options, more activities, more time with me and, most of all, she wanted me to enjoy the same things she enjoyed, even though I just didn’t.  I had planned all this to satisfy her, but she was still hungry. I felt like a failure. A disappointment. And when the scolding and fighting got fierce, I felt like the anti-hero, who had stumbled (eyes wide open mind you) into a situation where everyone was getting burnt.

But, as the trip wore on, I started to notice  more and more ways my friend wanted more. She ate and ate, but even after desert, she still wanted more. She would run us ragged all day, but still wanted to hit a club at night, even as she fell asleep in the Uber on the way. She stayed at every museum till closing time and complained when the staff kicked us out. She tried to find new hiking trails when paths ended, thinking there were still more trees in the park to explore.

For years, my relationship with this friend was strained because we got into the same pattern again and again –I wanted to prove I was a good friend by making her happy. She was generally unsatisfied with my efforts, or her satisfaction was fleeting, and she wanted more. I felt exhausted. Like a failure. But instead of just walk away, I tried to prove my worth by scheming a new plan to make her happy. All the while both of us chaffed, and fought as this pattern played out.  Suddenly it dawned on me that my friend’s insatiability was it’s own pattern, that it didn’t necessarily have to do with me (not saying at times I didn’t contribute, just that I was not the ultimate cause).

A T-shirt I had seen years ago popped into my head: It was the image of a little hummingbird  with a thought bubble that read, “Things will be different when I learn to breathe fire”.  Eric and I joked that that little hummingbird was my ‘totem animal’, that it captured my personality to a T. I am always striving, always trying to force the world to my will. I want to fix things –my friend’s unhappiness, the filth of NY, the exploitation of animals for food, the aging of my body, my failure to be a ‘good’ alana all the time, people’s rudeness and carelessness, injustice in this world — and with just a little more effort, time, a new hack or skill, somehow I am going to make it different. That is me, a special little hummingbird just practicing and trying and waiting for the day I can breathe fire, change all the things I hate in this world.

Everything in this world that happens, happens in accord with the rules of the world. Everything has a cause. But I want things to follow my rules, not their causes. I want ‘fixes’ without understanding causes, without without understanding the nature /rules of the world upon which all causes are based (impermanence, no self, suffering).  I want to make a friend satisfied, when the cause of her dissatisfaction lies in her. When dissatisfaction is a tenant of this world’s suffering. I want to fix it to prove myself, to be a true friend, to be the hero, to be the master of this world, and in the process, I suffer –I plan, I scheme, I try, I work, I get angry, I feel hurt — I hurt others (that I care about deeply, like my friend), and I create new cycles of debt and consequence as I play out the drama of ‘Alana The Great Fixer’.  But are hummingbirds ever going to learn to breathe fire? The shirt is funny because everyone knows its impossible. Why on earth do I think I have a better shot at success than that little hummingbird?

A note on timing: The next few blogs are from contemplations that took place during the 2018 Vassa Period. In other words, they are interspersed in time with the ‘fact finding’ activities posted in the previous blog section. In a few, you can clearly see the influence of my ongoing activities exploring impermanence, control and my sense of specialness.

Yesterday a friend told me that a mutual acquaintance of ours, Jill, had at long last found a job after looking for many months. The job was in China and my friend pointed out that, in the end, Jill had to leave the country to find a new job because her reputation here was so tarnished. I thought to myself, “duh, Jill should have known better.” I mean really, Jill was caught doing lines of cocaine in the work bathroom, of course her reputation was ruined.

This morning, I was walking to work and I passed a homeless woman on the street, belligerently asking for money. I thought I’m not giving to this woman –she is belligerent. Besides, whatever she did to get out here, she should have known better.

This idea, of ‘should have known better’, it is the finest jewel in my crown of special. The reason I am not Jill (with her drug problem), or homeless, or that rape victim on NPR (getting into a car with a strange drug dealer) is that I know better. I make better life decisions… But do I?

I thought of Ongalimala again —  killing 999 people, I mean shouldn’t he have known better? And can I really say I know better than him? A guy who had the karma to actually encounter the Buddha and become enlightened?

• Did I know better when I agreed to take a 5-day trip with my friend , with whom I regularly struggle to spend a single afternoon with before a fight ensues? Sort of. I could have deduced that based on her personality, and mine, the trip would cause us both suffering. But I wanted to satisfy her wish to travel and spend time together. In truth, I had a wrong view, at the time I planned the trip, I didn’t yet understand. It was only after the trip, that began to contemplate on my own deep seeded need to prove that I am a ‘good friend’ by satisfying my friend’s desires. On the trip, I saw evidence of just how hard it is to make my friend happy, how insatiable she is –over and over she wanted more time at the museum, more restaurant choices, more tours, more, more, more. That trait, the need for more, lives in her, it is not something I can change. It is not something I can fix because it is not broken. By making my own goodness (in my mind) contingent on ‘fixing’ my friend, by making her satisfied, I set myself up for failure. I went on the trip to be the ‘hero’, to prove the identity of good friend, and ended up feeling like a both a victim to my friend’s anger, and a villain who snapped at her in return.  So did I know better? Sorta, but I had my reasons for going anyway.

• Did I know better when I was in college and I came mighty close to crossing the line of cheating? Close, but not quite. Sort of. I could have understood I live in a society and I am subject to its norms on relationships and cheating. But in truth, I really didn’t understand that morality, right and wrong, wasn’t governed by me — by the rules I imagined and the lines I thought were appropriate. Back then, my view was different, before practice helped me to internalize and consider issues from multiple perspectives, I never stopped to question my own perspective; I assumed it was right by default.  How could I have understood that my arbitrary line, of what is good behavior versus bad behavior in a relationship, wasn’t the governing force of whether I caused suffering/harm to others or myself?

• Did I know better when I used use-and-dump all those friends and lovers who in my mind I was just having a good time with? People to hang with, go out with, sleep with, but not really commit to in a meaningful way. Sort of — I could have thought about the golden rule, or put myself in their shoes. But in truth, back then I really didn’t understand everyone didn’t view relationships the way I did. How could I have known I would hurt these people when my only rubric for something pain-worthy was myself, and the short flings didn’t bother me at all.

•  Did I know better when I moved to NY, when I up-ended a life I enjoyed in SF for a place that ultimately left me miserable? Sort of. Before I moved to NY, on a visit, I noticed the noise, the meanness, the  filth, I could have guessed it would be a very difficult place for me to live and be happy.  But I thought I could be the master of my world — some how make arrangements to build my own little bubble in Manhattan where I was comfortable and safe. I thought I could bring my chill-easy -going- Cali girl attitude with me where ever I went, that I somehow possessed a capacity for deep inner peace that lived in me always. The irony is, as a long-time practioner,  I already understood ‘wrong views’ , I could have more carefully examined my beliefs before I left. I could have seen that I don’t control either the world, or even my ‘inner life’. That I am not master of any universe. It may have changed things. But really, I believed the power to change my environment and my feelings was in me.. So how could I have really known I wasn’t going to be OK in NY?

What is more, is this problem isn’t even isolated to me. Its pretty universal, After all, everything that has a good side has a bad side. Unintended consequences arise (always) because we don’t know all the info/ the full costs of something.   If I zoom out from my own life a bit, I can find so many examples: Uber has ruined driving in SF with traffic and aggression. But back when it started it seemed to solve a huge transport problem in the city. The community embraced it because we didn’t know better, we didn’t see how it would hurt the city. Air B and B is the same, with its convenience but also driving up rents. Legal guns, to protect white folks for Black Panthers and now everyone is a potential shooting victim. Plastic bags and straws and slash and burn agriculture…there are always unforeseen consequences.

So, back to me here… A friend, Ruby, came over, with an eye infection, talking about how she refused to get glasses and/or change to daily wear lenses. She said she had her routine and wasn’t going to change it, even as she suffered the pain and risk of further eye damage from an infection. I chastised her. I told her all contact wearers need glasses for just such an occasion, and that the perils of extended wear lenses are real. I told her the ease of dailies (1 day contact lenses). In my mind I’m thinking, I know better, my eyes are safe. But here is the thing, I just changed to daily wear 1 year ago. After an ophthalmologist scared me away from daily wear. After eye allergies had me so uncomfortable/vision so fuzzy, that I worried about my eyes and how frail they really can be. What is more, I used to not even have glasses. Again, it was an infection that got me to get a modern pair. It was my own experience having to run around blind without lenses. I am so critical of Ruby. I think I am so much better, safer, but literally 1 year ago I was more like her than like today’s me now.

A long time ago, Mae Yo answered a Q and A (its not one that ever managed to get published). It talked about someone who did something they regret as a teenager, about the guilt they feel. Mae Yo pointed out that, at the time, with the info they had, they did their best, made the best decision they could. That their adult self knows better, would do it differently now is sort of beyond the pale. This has been a comment that has stayed with me for years. Lately I see all the times I didn’t know better and now I do. Each time, I had my reasons, and they all basically boil down to not a taking a broad enough perspective, to thinking the world was going to revolve around me, my beliefs and biddings. But this is not how the world works, and my blindness to that fact leaves me exposed to the consequences of every fumbled act. If Jill should have known better, than Alana should too. Or maybe, a better framing is that as long as we act in blindness there really is no way to ‘know better’. I am not special, I just fumble in different ways, at different times, and the consequences bear fruit in different ways at different times.

Dear Reader, below I have shared Mae Neecha’s reply and suggestions to my email to her about my contemplations form the 2018 retreat. If you have not already done so, please go back and read the last 2 blog entries that share my original email to her.

Dear Reader, this blog is a direct continuation of the previous, if you have not already done so please go back and read Part 1.

Where I am planning to go/have already begun going from here:

That all basically covers the contours of the great retreat contemplation. I was talking to LP Nut about some of this and he offered a suggestion. He said, I should see there are many mes in my mind, skillful and unskillful and I needed to confront the unskillful ones with the Truth. I know, I know, I have heard the same idea over and over, but somehow, this time, it really hit home. Now I feel like boldly speaking truth to my lies is my mission of utmost importance.

Tactically, the direction that is taking is 5 fold:

1. Proving I don’t control and my body/stuff –I clearly see that essentially, my body and stuff – because they are both subject to rules of rupa — are fundamentally the same ( at least for the purposes of this exercise). My car, and my skin and bones suit, each operate according to their factors, their abilities, changing with time/circumstances and environment. Neither body or car operate the same at 25 degrees as at 100 degrees, they are both limited in their function by what they are physically designed to do, subject to break, subject to change, etc. So I am just trying to mentally catch as many instances I can that prove I don’t control them.

I have had some luck actually getting a few of these to hit my heart. I was at the hotsprings and there was loud construction harshing my mellow. I thought to myself, if I control my body, why can’t I just stop hearing this annoying sound, why don’t my ears auto filter stuff I don’t like? I pressed and pressed and finally said it, my body doesn’t belong to me! In a few instances I am going on to step #2

2. Digging more deeply into the rules that govern the world (mostly Rupa, a little everything else) – For some of my I don’t control body/stuff observations, I am digging a little deeper to try and see some of the factors involved in a change, a decay, a limitation of my control (damn those ears that hear all sounds they can hear and not just the ones I want). So, like with my body and puberty (or the raging yeast infection I have right now), there are clearly physical conditions (hormones, vaginal PH, etc) that must be ripe for any change to occur and there are factors that must be present (having a female body, having a vagina), that are innate in the objects, that precipitate a change. I know, even for something as simple as a rash under my wedding ring, or a yeast infection, I can’t possibly see all the ingredients at work in creating the effect, but it is clear that cause and effect are real. They are understandable as such. I can’t shake the craving to understand cause and effect (then and now) further.

3. Does my body/stuff even do what I think it does? I started thinking about my old houses, my old apartments and how I feel differently about them though all served their function of sheltering me. Or the fact that, legally, technically, I own the NY place, but I hate it, I don’t think of it as mine at all, I crave the day when, practically, I can be rid of it.  Then I moved on to the Porsche, sold before I moved, and sold with great disappointment in the selling process and price. Long and short (thought this is its own very detailed contemplation) I saw that I thought that car showed I was rich, classy, fun, awesome in someway, but when I sold it for pennies on the dollar I bought it for I felt a fool, I felt like my car deceived me (I know, I deceived myself). But it begs the question, does the car do what I thought it did for me (even less so now that I don’t own or drive it anymore)? The house? I’m just starting to make-out that there are car and house ( and husband and father and body, etc.) shaped holes in my heart. My #4 creates the holes and when something comes close enough to fitting the particular shaped hole my #4 has imagined, #4 grabs that thing and stuffs it in the hole — it makes it mine. But since nothing stays the same shape (i.e everything dies and decays and changes), the hole will eventually come unfilled and my heart gets broken every time.

4. Prove I am not special in 3 parts: A few weeks before retreat I was listing to NPR news podcast and story came on about a woman who had been raped. As the story unfolds, I think how I’m not like the victim; she got in the car with a stranger, a drug dealer, looking for a fix. Stupid right, I’m better than her, I’m safe. Next news article, bombings in Yemen, but I don’t live in some war-torn place, I’m better, safer. A few more stories before I notice the game my mind is playing with me: ‘proving’ I am special, different than people who suffer misfortune, I am safe. Needless to say, this does not serve me as a practioner and makes all my internalizations limited in their impact so a fix in 3 parts:

• Case by case, when I put up the shield of special, I am challenging it with facts, truth. For the rape victim: I have done plenty of drugs in my life and, as a teen, I got into cars with plenty of strangers…frankly, the only reason I wasn’t raped is that the many rando guys I ran off with were not inclined to rape me at that time, or the circumstances for some other reason were not conducive/ripe…I opened-up plenty of opportunity. Not special. I may not live in war torn Yemen, but I was in NY during 9-11 and now I live a few blocks from the trade center. Not special. Etc.

• Even if I am ‘special’ does it keep me safe? The other day, I was (I thought) driving perfectly well. Then I heard a honk. I realized even if I was being a perfect driver (i.e being special through the power of my awesomeness, in driving in this case) I wasn’t protected from honks. I may have been the target, or I may have just been in the vicinity of someone else getting honked at. But, shootings are much the same, you can be a target or a rando in the line of fire. My definitions of special (good driving, good decision making about random men, good luck in where I live) don’t do anything to actually keep me safe.

• Which brings me back to…cause and effect: My being a victim of rape, bombings, honking or shootings, follows the same rules as everything else: It arises based on factors coming together, factors of the environment, the people in it, of myself and my own actions/proclivities and karma. To the best of my ability I am trying to flesh-out cause and effect, arising and ceasing, now and then, so that I can kill this special nonsense once and for all.

5. Thinking about duration –I heard news the other day that my ex boyfriend’s wife just died, suddenly, young, of a heart attack. It really struck me, the difference between her and I – duration. A long time ago Mae Yo told me to think about duration; I am like that super slow kid in the class that has a 5 minute lagtime before catching the punchline of the joke…finally, I see why I need to really consider this further.  Some girls begin menstruating earlier, some later, but all girls (who live long enough and have a healthy reproductive system) eventually succumb.

Final Thoughts

My ex boyfriend and I have stayed friends over the years, so I reached-out to him to offer my condolences and support at the loss of his wife. This is someone I once loved deeply, I am still fond of, if there was anything at all I could do to ease his suffering I would, of course I would. But I see so clearly I can’t. His pain arises in his heart, its where it will cease.  Then I started thinking, I love myself 1000 times more than I loved him and it is in my power to ease my own pain…suddenly I have so much conviction to stop, stop the fucking delusion that is so obviously the seed  of my suffering, of my becoming.

I was in bed the other night, recapping all the ways the day proved I don’t control my body and then I had a further thought (many actually, but this is condensed)…Back when I had been in NY only a few months, I was devastatingly depressed, I felt so so terribly trapped. The thing is, I had all the merits I would think would give me control, would allow me to get unbound. I had plenty of money, Eric’s support, a family and some real friends who would give me shelter or assistance, I have an education, I’m at the peak of my career with great references and experience. It should have been simple, just me exerting my will, but I was frozen. I couldn’t move, or make a change, or escape, not until the circumstances for such movement where ripe. Even if I don’t control my crap, my body, my peeps, I feel like I should control my own life, like my life is mine, but that early NY experience made it so clear that it is not…

The thing is, I would never drive a car I knew I had no control over, the brake lines cut, the steering wheel broken. I would never take a pill a rando gave me on the street if I had no idea what it was/effects. The idea of such things is ridiculous…so why the hell do I keep pushing for new rebirths, in bodies I don’t control, in lives I don’t control? Delusion is totally not my friend…

Dear Reader, here we have the contents of an email I sent to Mae Neecha rehashing my contemplations during, and just following, the 2018 retreat. This is looooonnnggggg, and made longer by a rather generously portioned ‘later day note’, so I will divide it into 2 blogs.

A little background:

LP Anan was telling stories about the Buddha’s wife and before he really got started he said something that set me off – Siddhartha abandoned his family just after the birth of his son. I caught that judgey voice in my head instantly, “abandoning your infant is sorta a dick move.” “Uggh, come on Alana, judging the soon-to-be-Buddha…I’m riding my high horse but he is already enlightened, so who gets the last laugh here?”

Rewind a little…the night before LP Nut had been talking about Angulimala’s enlightenment and that teaching popped back into my head.  As always when I hear that story, I had found myself wondering how exactly a mass murderer (another pretty dick move), who had tried to kill the Buddha, heard the words “I have stopped, it is you who keeps going” and became enlightened. As I re-read. I mean what does that even mean?

Something between what LP Nut actually said and what I realized upon hearing it started gnawing at me: It was that Angulimala saw that he couldn’t change the past. His murdering arose based on specific factors and circumstances (the karma from when he was a giant turtle, the bidding of his teacher and countless other things I will never have a way of knowing) and, in light of those, it couldn’t have been different than it was. But, those circumstances/factors were done, new ones had already emerged. He was a person who murdered and then he stopped.  Like a bolt of lightning it hit me with such crazy clarity: That was then and this is now.

[Present day note 12-2-2020 I have recently revisited the Angulimala story and the stories of his past births. I do want to add a few points here: The first is that he was not enlightened instantly upon meeting the Buddha, that came later. But he did see the truth of the path and put his old life behind him; I think the core learnings from this old contemplation — that what is to come is different than what was before, that factors and circumstances change, and that we can too – are still applicable. In fact, more than ever, I see that the promise of salvation, escape from suffering, that Buddhism offers hinges upon the reality that everything changes. That by changing our views, and deeply understanding the changeability and consequence inherent in the world, we can end the habits/repeated mistakes/wrong views that bind us to the cycle of rebirth.

My recent re-readings have also brought to my attention a number of prior rebirth stories in which pre- Angulimalas were a human eating ogre and then a king turned cannibal. In both of those lives, he killed and ate people and then he was persuaded by the Bodhisattva to turn away from killing. Which is to say that just as past factors and circumstances shaped Angulimala the murder, they also shaped an Angulimala primed for wisdom and the ability to see the truth of the path.  From this I reflect that though new factors and circumstance are always shaping us, and allowing us freedom to change, we are also shaped by our past tendencies. If everything that arises does so based on a cause, then cause for our enlightenment – the work we do to plan, prepare, acquire the right tools, skills and knowledge for our escape – must also have been put in place if we hope to be successful leaving this world’s cycle.

Upon reviewing, now, it seems my past contemplation told half the story really well, but was incomplete. Nonetheless, this blog is a recap of my path, and it is a one-step-at-a-time sorta thing, so without further ado, back to the original contemplation we go.]

That was then and this is now (more commonly called arising and ceasing; but that was then and this is now was the lightbulb phrase for me):

I remembered a long time ago, I asked Mae Yo about the relationship between impermanence and suffering. She replied, “suffering comes from something stopping, impermanence is movement. Suffering is like you want it to stop but it moves. Its like putting a stick in the water and causing ripples.” For years, I have had no friggin clue what this meant. But, now I see: That was then and this is now (arising and ceasing).

Then: Angulimala was playing the role of murder based on all the factors/circumstances that made him murder. Now he stopped because new factors/circumstances had arisen. Then Siddhartha was in the role of a householder and Now he was in the role of a renunciant. Neither were ever a fixed thing, both were dependent on factors/circumstances. They saw it (duh, enlightenment and all) but I thrust a stick in the water, I got stuck on a fixed idea of “father” or “murderer.” I took a snapshot of 1 moment’s Siddhartha, 1 moment’s Angulimala and so I suffer when these aren’t fixed, I am perplexed by how someone could be a murderer and then an Arahant. And worse, because I let myself get fooled by the rupa, the form of an Angulimala who I couldn’t see change from then to now, I am like the asshole villager throwing stones at an Arahant, judging the soon-to-be Buddha as a dick.

Bringing it back to me:

I basically started pounding out examples of that was then and this is now in my own life, in my own body. Finally I hit on one that was so clear: When I started noticing the effects of puberty — boobs, hips — I was devastated. I cried and cried, I was so embarrassed I refused to leave the house, to see my friends, decades later and I still remember the pain so clearly. I didn’t want my body to change, I wanted the beanpole figure I had for as long as I remembered; that was my body. This new curvy thing I saw in the mirror was ugly, contorted, fat, it was unrecognizable. I suffered because I didn’t understand that was then and this is now.

I was born a girl, the seeds of a female form, of puberty and menstruation, were always there, just waiting to be germinated, to be triggered. I don’t know the exact thing/ mix that threw my body over the puberty edge — diet, sleep, genetics, hormones, environmental chemicals. But I do know that before (then) my shape was based on a certain set of circumstances/factors (diet, genetics, activity, etc.) and when those new factors and hormones kicked in (now) the only possible result was the figure change that ensued.

It is like rupa (and probably everything else, but I haven’t thought about it as hard) has rules. Rules of rupa, and even for my own body, all the desire and discipline can’t change the rules. When the conditions for a change of form (like puberty) have been reached, the change will happen. Before that point, it won’t happen (i.e. that was then and this is now). When the conditions for sunspots, sagging boobs, grey hairs have been reached, I get sunspots, saggy boobs and grey hairs. Before there are none of these things, just the seed, the propensity for decay/change that lives in each object (that would definitely be a rule of rupa).

My suffering arises based on a cause (I feel like I have heard this one before…)

You are getting the very condensed version of this contemplation, but after hours of just looking at how many times my life has shown me that there is then and there is now (i.e. arising and ceasing or cause and effect), they each have a cause and couldn’t have been other than what they are/were based on those causes, I realized something…

I was on the topic of how I used to fear the dentist: I worried that my new experiences (now) would be like the abuse I suffered at the hands of my childhood dentist (then). The Rupa  “proved” it, that chair, the drill, the chemical smells… It was only when I considered all the ways that that was then and this is now (different dentist, adult Alana versus kid Alana, different technology, different pain tolerance, etc.) was I brave enough to go get my teeth taken care of. I saw that all of my fear, my worry, its based on not understanding that was then and this is now.  In fact, all my standards and judgments (like of the Buddha and Angulimala), my guilt, anger, hate, my fucking desire…basically, all of my suffering, arises because I don’t understand then and now. Or, I suppose (and will get back to in a sec.) that what will be will be.

This NY life shit is still raw, so I started thinking about it more carefully. Though there are a ton of things I don’t like about NY, one thing really hurt me more than others: I felt like chill, sweet, expansive, laidback, considerate SF Alana was under attack. The Alana that had served me so well for so long, that I identified with and wanted to be, simply couldn’t survive in NY. You can’t walk slow and chill in Midtown or you will get runover. You can’t take time for niceties in a coffee shop or the person in line behind you will claw your eyes out. I started to hate the place, the people,  in order to protect myself from becoming a ‘New Yorker’ –because hate is such an effective way to avoid becoming something 😉 (I wonder if I can just hate getting fat or old and avoid it all together…). But the thing is, all that angst and hate, its because I didn’t see the simple truth that that was then, an SF Alana shaped by SF circumstances to be appropriate in an SF environment. But this is now, new environment, new New York circumstances, new me.

What will be will be:

From that was then and this is now, my mind made a leap that felt logical to me: What will be will be.

I think about my fantasies(‘plans’) for the future: I imagine Eric and I retired, in a lovely mid-sized town, or maybe with a city place and a country place, traveling, being together all the time. I think about the dog (a goldendoodle) and the long walks we will all take on the beach. I think about koi pond and the flower garden that will be in my yard…you get the point.

But…here is the thing, before I moved to NY, I imagined it would be a fun new adventure. I would get to be a sleek, sophisticated Manhattanite, going to shows and gallery openings, meeting the coolest, most interesting peeps, etc…That is not my Manhattan experience. And the reason is 1000% clear — what I want, what I imagine, is totally not the determinant of what actually will be. Instead, what will be (just like then and now) is shaped by factors and conditions way beyond my control. It has rules that govern it.

Manhattan may be a lot of things, but with 8 million people on a small island (1 of many factors), it is loud, it is crowded (result). And, with all the competition for resources, for fame, recognition, etc.(1 of many factors) it is fast and aggressive (result). And Alana (at least the Alana that moved to NY) seriously hates loud, crowded, fast and aggressive. Since my happiness depends on being in an environment I like and, at least at this moment in time Manhattan is an environment I dislike, it is not ( and couldn’t have been based on the factors at play) a “fun adventure”, no matter how hard my #4 worked to make it that way ahead of time.

Stay tuned: Next blog will be where I plan to take my contemplations from: