Alana's Dharma Blog

Eric and I were traveling in Japan over the 2018/2019 holidays and we decided to spend a few days in Naoshima, an island in the Seto Sea famous for its many museums and art instillations. Eric and I went into an instillation, Backside of the Moon, by the artist James Turrell and the piece absolutely blew me away. Spoiler alert here: I am about to describe he piece, so if you had big plans to travel to Naoshima to see this work, you may want to skip this blog. Otherwise…proceed at your own risk:

The instillation is open, by appointment, for 15 minute slots. When your time arrives, you and a group of around 10 people are escorted inside a room that is pitch black. The docent announces there is a bench directly behind you and you are instructed to step backwards and sort of grope your way onto the seat. Then, you wait. In total, pitch darkness, you sit and do nothing at all. Minutes ticked and ever so slowly, I thought I saw a bit of a flash in front of me. More time and more and more, a bit of light appeared. Gradually the light brightened and grew until I could see a large illuminated square directly in front of me. Eventually, the docent returned to the room and instructed us all to walk toward the square, and we could all see, and proceed to, the light in front of us. Then, the docent explained we have been in the same room for 15 minutes and nothing in the room had changed. No light was turned on, no curtain pulled. What had changed was us, the viewers, our eyes had adjusted to the room and come to see the faint light that was there all along. Pweefff –that is the sound of my little mind totally blown…

After I left the exhibit, my first though was really that the piece is a perfect ubai — a parallel — for dhamma practice: This world doesn’t change, but us practitioners adjust our view, and slowly we see this world for what it is, for what it always has been: A world that is inconstant and stressful.

What is more is that I don’t expect change, I don’t always see it coming, because circumstances, and form, can shift at a creeping pace, but in the end the magnitude of change can be seen, just like the square of light at the back of the room. We mistake barely perceptible change for permanence and then face a huge –often heartbreaking — shocker when what we know and love changes in an undeniable way.

Additionally, I tend to look outward for change: I know that everything in this world continually shifts, but I rarely look inward to see how this common condition (duhh, it is called a common condition for a reason) applies to me. I don’t internalize change, but 15 minutes in a dark room was all it took for me to change. My rupa, my eyes, adjusted. My nama adjusts all the time too –it makes me see that even if I had a perfect, mythical, world, where nothing changes at all, I couldn’t hope to find satisfaction in it because I change. What I am used to changes. What I see and therefore what I want and what I imagine changes.

This particular art piece has stayed with me over the years. Over and over it comes-up in my practice as the perfect illustration for some topic I am considering, so I am sure you will see it again.

I will give a little further spoiler about this piece:

About a year later, this piece was an essential data point I used when I was trying to learn about and understand rupa. I had been deeply considering why all human rupa wasn’t the same and it was thinking back to this exhibit that made me realize that my own rupa body interacts with the rupa environment — that what I am exposed to and used to effects my form. That many of the physically based differences between humans — tastes, strength, fitness ability — arises not because of “specialness” but because all rupa form is subject to the same rules: It adjusts and shifts in reaction to other rupa in itself and in its environment.

Last night I was in bed in my Manhattan loft fuming  — the neighbors had lit an illegal fire, in a condemned chimney, and smoke was pouring into my apartment. For me, this type of situation is my worst fear, a reflection of my greatest sense of injustice; people being inconsiderate and breaking the rules, resulting in an affront to my personal safety.

This situation felt particularly affronting because it is on the tail of my asthma flare due to recently being caught breathing wildfire air on my last trip to SF. The smell of smoke in my apartment was a flashback to the panicking feeling I had as smoke filled the air in SF, and my breathing became labored, just a few weeks ago.

This sense of dread that I could stop breathing, fear that the situation wouldn’t be rectified, indignation at the neighbors’ blatant disregard for the rules…it triggered several contemplations, but here I’ll share just one about making SF ‘un-mine’:

The recent fires in CA have already made me really rethink any goal/fantasy to go back West when Eric and I retire. I have a respiratory disease and the fires are getting worse each year. But I noticed it hasn’t just effected my long-term fantasy; I don’t even feel like going back for work or visits in the short term either. The idea of more back and forth is exhausting, the time away from Eric, feeling unsettled in my life. This past time I was on the East Coast (right after the fires) I started thinking maybe I hadn’t given Greenwich a fair chance, maybe I could build a better life in Connecticut after all.

Laying in a smoky house, fear and anger making my focus extra sharp, I realized what has changed: SF isn’t mine anymore. When I said it in my head, my heart knew for sure it was true. And though practice has taught my mind to try and refuse my belongings and my identities before, this has to be the first time my heart really really felt it as well.

When I started poking around to see what has changed, I realized the biggest thing is my imagination that I have a certain future in SF (or Cali, or anywhere out in the West Coast fire country), that it can be my “forever home”. I just can’t reconcile the fires/air quality with a belief that I can mold both the home, and the home-shaped void in my heart, to fit each other. Without this sense of hope and permanence, my heart rejects the West Coast, I am ready to move on.

Before, I looked at the city, and my situation, with such soft eyes. Sure, I saw the needles on the streets, the cost of living, the strain of going back and forth, but these things were worth it. I also saw the city changing, the people, the places, the weather even, but it was still similar enough, familiar enough that I could literally, watch my imagination fill-in the gaps, smooth over the changes by focusing on the familiar. Now, in the wake of disillusionment, I feel the weight of the commitments I have made, my duties, that keep me bound to travel to SF, for right now, so much more strongly.

It really stuns me, I have spent so much energy and desire fixated on how to leave NY and go back to the West Coast: Seattle, Portland, Denver, Cali, pushing Eric into countless job interviews at companies in all these places, so that I could align my heart home with my full time home. So I could align my location with my identity: A West Coast Gal. But 1 new piece of information is all it took to kill this hope.

Recently I sent a whole bunch of clothing to consign and before I did I assessed the “story of impermanence that each item tells”; there was a whole category of items that I was disposing of because I got new information –down is warmer than wool, I have a nickle allergy, silk is too hard to clean, etc. It dawned on me that I am constantly getting new information and with it my needs and wants are also constantly changing. In other words, there is literally no end to my desire and there is also no possible way that I can satisfy it. I am on an endless treadmill!

My big question now is how do I get off the treadmill? As I started divorcing myself from Fire Country, new imaginary homes began to stew in my brain. Maybe CT is a forever home, maybe Vermont is the perfect place to retire.  And so the treadmill keeps rolling…

Of course, this isn’t the first time  I have unmade something as mine: Once the ugliness or untenability of something hits my heart, disillusionment sets-in. Just take my still smoke filled NY Loft for example: This thing was ‘un-mined’ almost as soon as I bought it. Like the West Coast, there was an evolution in my understanding that I didn’t control the place (too small, lot line window, noise, maintenance issues and ultimately a city I hate), I can’t shape it to my imagination. I can’t force it to bend to my will. I bought it because I thought it was one thing, a cozy new nest for Eric and I to build an exciting life, and it quickly became a massive failure and financial mistake. Now it is up for sale, us hoping to cut our losses.

Once an object strays too far from my imagination of what it is/will do/will make me, I purge it from my identity. Even if, like the NY loft, it remains with me physically, it is gone from my heart. Once my heart, my sense of self, strays too far from what I imagine an object to be, like countless fashion looks I have cycled through and left behind, I purge it from my belongings. If all it takes is a change of object or a change of heart to make something not mine, how can I believe it was ever really mine to begin with? I cling so tightly, endure so much suffering in the name of that clinging, to things I will eventually let go of –by choice or force. I suffer not even for the objects, but for some duration where I can fool myself into thinking they are mine.

It was November 2018 and I had managed, by coincidence, to escape smoke from the fires raging in Northern California by a single day. My flight back to New York from an important event I had been working out in San Francisco departed early in the morning, by afternoon fires had created all kinds of delays and cancelations. Smoke filled the skies of San Francisco, air quality went to the danger zone, friends were texting me pictures of orange and black skies, complaining it was impossible to breathe.  A part of me felt relief that my asthmatic self hadn’t been caught in the fires. But another part of me felt ‘survivor’s guilt’; as the fires raged on, I started feeling bad that I had escaped when I had so many friends and co-workers stuck and suffering.

A few days later, I went to have coffee with a friend in NY and told her of my guilt. In my mind, my guilt was a sign of my compassion, my deep empathy for friends. So, you can imagine my surprise when my coffee companion told me to get over myself and quit being so egotistical. “Egotistical, WTF?” I thought. “Everyone finds their own way” she explained.

After we talked, I thought more about what she said: Everyone does find  their own way, i.e. each person has their own karma. As I wondered and worried about why everyone else couldn’t just leave, or find a way to be spared, what I was really doing was wondering why everyone wasn’t just like me. I was assuming everyone would be as effected as me. Everyone would have priorities like me. Everyone would  have the same causes and effects as me. I was being egotistical, missing the differences that exist amongst people who are, well, not me.

But, in my self-centered assumptions, I was making a more subtle , but equally egotistical error — I was missing the sameness between me and everyone else. This time, I may have been spared suffering. This time, I watched from afar as the skies turned black, and with distance felt pity mixed with superiority: I was spared after all. But what about times before and times after? In one instant, one situation, I can count myself advantaged –my karma allowed escape; but like everyone, I am subject to my karma, my turn at suffering has happened before and it inevitably will again.

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.