Alana's Dharma Blog

The Story

My husband’s boss up and quits — it wasn’t exactly unexpected, she had been unhappy for a while.  But what was unexpected was that my husband wasn’t immediately promoted to her position; he was the most qualified, had been groomed to be her successor, it was, we thought, ‘in the bag’. Only, it wasn’t ‘in the bag’, and now my husband and I started to stress about his career and what came next.  Not getting the big boss job felt like a career set-back, plus someone new was likely to come-in and fire/demote all the senior staff so they could bring in their own people. Either way, it wasn’t looking good for my husband. This was bad…

Or was it? Dharma practitioner Alana started to contemplate on impermanence. I recalled my jury duty story, a time when I was so happy about an outcome until a little later when that same outcome made me sad — there is impermanence in my desires.

I thought about my last trip to the GYN: all year, I feel fine, so I don’t worry — I have the wrong view that since I was healthy before, since I feel healthy now, it will always be the case. But when I am in the Dr’s office, waiting for my exam, my mind fills with the threats of cancer and disease and troubling test results. But the truth is if the Doc finds something today it was likely there yesterday too, I just didn’t know it yet — there is impermanence in my body, my life, I am just not always aware of it.

Which brings me back to my husband and his job — we thought he would be promoted,  for sure. But whether we are aware or unaware of the uncertainty –aka impermanence — of his job, it was always there. We were upset simply because we were seeing what was always there for the first time.  The thing is, this uncertainty that surprised us when my husband didn’t get promoted can just as easily surprise us again and a different, possibly better way down the road. Or, the situation can stay the same, but our desires can change and we can be happy with this non-promoted outcome that seems so devastating right now. Likeliest of all really is that the two-sided nature of reality shows its face and we get an outcome that we see as good in some ways and bad in others.

Wandering around a cute little town in Napa, starving, my yelp app navigated me to what looked like the perfect lunch spot, a restaurant called Ad Hoc. I walked up the front steps  to peek out the menu and I saw a huge sign above the door that read, ” Ad Hoc — for the temporary relief of hunger”.

After lunch, once my hunger was temporarily relieved, I started thinking more about that sign…here I was in a fancy foodie town,  feasting on fancy foodie food and its so easy to forget exactly what food is actually for: the temporary relief of hunger. And yet, in my delusion, I often think it is so much more…

When I sashay down the aisles at Whole Foods, I feel like I belong in its foodie paradise. When others mispronounce food names –gyro, acai, poke — I silently pat myself on the back for being ‘in the know’. When Eric cooks a gourmet meal for a crowd, I beam with pride to have such a gourmond husband. For me, food is about feeding my identity as much as it is about feeding my body.

The problem is, can food actually make me a thing? When I tried my hardest to eat healthy my blood work kept coming back with high blood sugar –food didn’t make me a healthy person. When I was a vegetarian I made my whole family slaves to my dietary ‘needs’ — food didn’t make me compassionate. When I ate all the fancy restaurants in town did it make me fancy? How can a physical object I use for a brief moment in time imbue me with an abstract quality, an identity? After all, when I look under the burger bun, under the lettuce, tomato, meat paddy, I just don’t see ‘foodie identity’ lurking in any particular ingredient.

I was sitting on the beach in Maui, surveying all the stuff I had brought along on my sun and surf outing: sandals- mine, hat -mine, kindle – mine, beach chair – borrowed, beach towel-borrowed, beach games -borrowed. All these objects –mine and borrowed — just jumbled together, it made me start thinking what exactly is the difference between the two? I know, I know, in a conventional sense the mine stuff comes back home to SF, the borrowed stuff stays at the Maui beach rental. But in a dhamma sense, why do I feel so differently about these two categories of objects? Aren’t they essentially the same? After all, they are both just sets of rupa objects, living in a rupa world.

In this weeks blog I will share notes from an exercise I did exploring how I might apply the technique I successfully used to kill my obsessive fear to greed/desire for my belongings. Since this draws directly on my past contemplation it will be helpful to you, Dear Reader, to go back and re-read the Killing the Fear blog here.

After I saw fear wasn’t fixed/didn’t live in a situation, I was able to conquer it by realizing 2 things:

1. Just because I am going to die, it does’t mean I have to constantly worry about it: Death happens when the conditions for death arise, my fear and worry are totally irrelevant in this process.
2. There is no necessary relationship between what I feared and what actually happened. There were times I was afraid and sure enough something bad happened; times I was unafraid and yet something bad happened; times I was afraid and  nothing bad happened and times I was unafraid and nothing bad happened.

With my friend and my french fries I had already come to see that just because my stuff is finite it doesn’t mean I have to constantly worry about not having enough. After all, both the objects and my desires are impermanent. So what remains to be investigated is whether or not there is a necessary relationship between desiring something and getting something. And furthermore what is the relationship between getting an object and an outcome. Do the objects always lead to good outcomes? Do they do for me what I want them to do? If so, for how long and in what circumstances?

I desire and I get something: I have countless examples that fall into this quadrant. I wanted my house and I got it. I wanted purses and clothes and I got those too. I wanted Eric as a husband, I wanted my job after my interview, I wanted to learn to do yoga … I got all that I wanted on these fronts.

I don’t desire and I get something: When I was a kid, my dad brought me home stamps and we started collecting together. It was my Dad’s desire, not mine, and yet I ended up with the collection. My house is in fact filled with gifts from friends and family, things I never wanted, never asked for, never sought or prepared for and yet I have them.

I desire and I don’t get something: in other words, desire doesn’t get me what I want/need:  When I was a kid there was this doll that I wanted so badly. Hanukkah was coming up and I told my Mom. I begged, I pointed-out all the other kid’s dolls when we visited them, hoping that I would get that doll as a gift. But for all my efforts, I never did get that doll. My Mom decided to buy me something else instead.

I don’t desire and I don’t get something: I walk through the mall everyday window shopping, looking at hundreds of outfits that I don’t want and so I never go and buy them.  

Sometimes I don’t get what I want and I am fine: There was this jacket I was obsessed with when I was in college. It was expensive, but I wanted it so badly. I want back to the store and visited it over and over, but I never did buy it. Even without the jacket I survived. Other clothes kept me warm. Other outfits had me strutin in style. I didn’t get what I wanted but was totally fine.

Sometimes I get something I want, but it comes with consequences: I got the sweetest pair of LV heels, perfect patent leather with flower studs. Oh I loved them so so much. But, one day, I stepped out of the car wearing them and crack, I fractured my toe. Months later it had’t healed and the podiatrist told me it likely never would: not enough blood flow to fully heal such a small bone in the foot. Now, for the rest of my life I can’t wear heels, I have to be careful how and where I walk, I have to modify my exercises. They were perfect little shoes, but they came with a terrible peril.

Sometimes I get what I want but does that mean it does what I think it does?

• My shawl didn’t keep me a Tibetan Buddhist
• My Porsche didn’t exactly make me feel awesome and chic while on retreat
• I believed my wedding ring was a sign of my strong marriage, I lost the ring but the marriage survived just fine
• No princess outfit ever made me a princess and no white(ish) pants made me feel like a good pure Buddhist
• My z cavaricci jeans never did make me popular

It all comes back to the dentist and the green purse

Once upon a time I went to a super mean dentist who abused me. So for years and years I feared going to the dentist. Long after the og meany was dead and gone I refused dental treatment out of fear the big baddies would get me. But when I realized that things changed: new dentist, new alana, new technology, new circumstances, I bucked it up and went for a root canal and guess what it wasn’t so bad. A key piece of evidence that ultimately helped me get over paralyzing fear rooted in the wrong view that what had been before/ what I believed would be = to reality.

I had one green purse and it ‘worked’ for me. I got a few complements, Eric began to associate me with it, it carried my stuff and I was happy so the idea of what the bag would do for me was born and with it came desire. Desire to have that bag, to preserve it and replace it with a like one should the need arise.Like with fear, want  was rooted in the view that what I had been before/what I imagined it would be = to reality. But circumstances changed, my body changed, my wardrobe changed, my carrying needs changed and so I ended up with a stock pile of bags I no longer wanted/needed.  If I keep building evidence for greed like I did with fear I will have a way to uproot it.

I spent much of the 2017 retreat racking my brain for evidence about myself and this world that might be found in my objects. Finally one object, another article of clothes popped into my mind — a special shawl that was worn by members of my Tibetan Buddhist community when we practiced. I remember when I got that shawl, I was so proud to put it on, so excited to go to the temple to pray wearing it, proving that I was a ‘real member’ of the community, a real practitioner that I fit-in and belonged. But as I began to sour on Tibetan Buddhism, as I began to question my faith, I suddenly didn’t want to wear that shawl anymore. I remember going to a practice and putting it on and feeling embarrassed to be seen in it, like a fraud, like I was trapped as a member of a group I so deeply wanted out of. In my mind, the shawl went from being my badge of honor to my badge of shame in just a few short months but, the actual physical scarf didn’t change at all.

Suddenly it dawned on me, if there was some necessary relationship between the actual scarf (rupa) and my beliefs about the scarf (imagination) then shouldn’t a change in one necessitate a change in the other? If my identity as a good Tibetan Buddhist lived inside the scarf than as long as there was a scarf shouldn’t I have felt like, been, a good Tibetan Buddhist?  Instead I had a physically unchanged scarf, but a totally new imagination of what the scarf did, and what identity I as a scarf wearer had. Shit, between the awesome/not so awesome Porsche and now this scarf, I realized it is quite possible my stuff doesn’t actually do what I think it does at all…

All of this took my mind back to a long long time ago when I realized something else — my faithful frenemy fear — also didn’t quite do what I thought it did (for a little refresher on a scary yoga pose, a deep breath and my seeing fear didn’t live in situations or work to keep me safe see the contemplation here). Mae Yo and Neecha are always telling me to use the same techniques over and over again. So I though maybe I can use the same techniques I used to help eliminate my crazy fear/paranoia to address my greed for my objects. Stay tuned for next week’s exercise on how to use my past success contemplating fear to help me consider greed.

Normally, I love my 911 Porsche convertible. I like to drop the top, cruise to all the fancy neighborhoods in NorCal and imagine people’s jaws dropping as my sexy self, in sleek sunhat and black dress, rolls by rockin out to my favorite tunes. In my mind, the car shows I have made it. It shows I am wealthy and sexy, chic and sleek. It is the ultimate accessory to the successful, vibrant 30-something Alana I like to imagine myself to be myself to be. Except…

The time for the 2017 KPY retreat rolled around and suddenly I realized, with deep embarrassment, I was going to have to drive the Porsche up to the mountain. You see, sleek sexy Alana got rid of her other car so if I wanted to go on retreat, the Porsche was my only ride. Suddenly I felt self conscious. Typically I fantasize the looks I get in the car to be nods of approval, but when I thought about driving up to a Buddhist retreat in something so flashy, ugh suddenly the looks I imagined were of disgust and judgment. I mean really, isn’t it inappropriate? We are all here to contemplate on escaping worldly attachment and I am showing-off my great worldly status and attainment.

The truth is, there are plenty of times I feel self conscious in my car.  I drive through bad neighborhoods quickly, slumping in my seat, praying the gas gauge doesn’t force me to stop in the Tenderloin for gas. I duck into my car after work events hoping donors don’t see me getting into something so expensive lest they think my nonprofit is squandering their donations with fat employee paychecks. I park around the corner when my family comes to town since I don’t want anyone getting any ideas that I am the rich family member they should be asking for financial help. But, once each situation passes, I quickly forget about it. I go back to believing the car does for me exactly what I want it to do — being the perfect accessory for the Barbie fantasy life I am playing-out in my head.

But if I can’t even get my toys to tell me a consistent story all the time, isn’t it evidence that maybe my story isn’t completely correct? I am so easily lulled by my own fairy tales I ignore the Grimm side at my own peril. My wants for fancy cars and outfits and accessories will be as endless as the ability of my imagination to come-up with ever evolving stories for Alana, this lifetime’s star character. But, there is clearly a dark behind the scenes part of this plot filled with embarrassment and danger and the costs and work of acquiring all the  props I need to tell my tales. It is time to stop forgetting and ignoring so that at least this storyteller can tell a more complete and realistic tale.

I was on the 2017 KPY retreat and I suddenly remembered how, as a kid I used to love to play with Barbie dolls: I would come-up with a story line — Barbie the doctor who saves lives, Barbie on beach vacation, Barbie the princess going to a ball to meet her prince — and then I would dress-up the Barbie dolls to fit the story, to become the characters. Each article of clothing I put on a doll was significant, each item and accessory was essential to my tale. When the story was over, I would undress the Barbies to put them away; naked they were uninteresting to me, each doll the same as the next.  Of course, like most kids, I hit an age where Barbies no longer appealed to me and the dolls went into the give away pile with a bunch of other toys.

Now though, I realize I never really did grow out of playing Barbie, its just that as I got older, I became the doll. I look back on my life and see distinct phases, distinct identities, distinct Alanas, all made ‘real’ by the clothes. 

• In college I had all my torn jeans and hippy shirts, I was a free love, liberal Alana trying to fit in and hide my true ‘trust fund hippy’ identity
• Once I graduated and got my first job it was all sacks and cardigans, a sexy librarian look for this young career woman
• After moving to Cali I had to ditch the conservative Texas look to fit-in, so it was all hipster tees and logo sweats to fit in with the new chill California Vibe.
• Until of course I started noticing my body changing, looking older, rounder, saggier and I knew it was time for a refresh so it was boots to make me badass and skirts to make me sexy, but age appropriate, to combat the loss of youth
• As I got wealthier, the clothes got fancier and it was all about the purses and shoes and jewelry to show my financial success
• But then the effort of it all became overwhelming so in with the simple black dress wardrobe for a chic but sensible Alana

With each new phase, the old clothes ended-up in the give away pile. Easy as pie, I never needed to give it a second thought. Some clothed had grown too worn. Some I had been so afraid to ruin by wearing, so almost new they went into the give away pile. Some clothes stopped fitting my body, others were back-up purses and shoes, that I never got around to; just-in case items where the case to wear them never arose before my new style was born. Each item I once saw as precious, as essential to fulfilling my identity as someone who fit in and had desirable qualities (like smart, sexy, bad-ass, sensible), all so easily discarded and replaced. I realize, that just like Barbie dolls, Alana without her belongings is boring, hard to create a story for, my imagination (#4) needs my stuff. Now suddenly, I saw so clearly why Mae Yo always said to use self belonging to get at self.

The Home Owners Association fees at my friend’s condo went way way up and she and her husband could no longer afford to live there. She knew she needed to sell, sooner rather than later, but she absolutely refused to consider a listing price less than $X00K. The reason: $X00K is what she believed she would need to buy a new house in cash, in a new neighborhood where she liked the school district, that had at least 3 bedrooms and that was less then 5 miles from her office. Mind you, my friend doesn’t actually have kids yet, but she and her husband were thinking about it. Also, her company was considering relocation; they would know in about a year if the offices would move.  Finally, because of some old credit issues, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t qualify for a loan, though she didn’t actually call any lenders to ask. Her realtor wanted her to be flexible, to let him price based on other recent sales in the neighborhood and to be open to whatever offer came-in, but she refused.

As I’m listening to my friend tell me all this, I am thinking, ” she is crazy!”; she has a real problem right now, she can’t afford her house, and is letting a set of arbitrary conditions, about a future possible scenario, get in the way of her solving her current issue. I tried to point-out that there were really a lot of unknowns in her ‘new house scenario’; what with the not actually having a new property in mind yet, not having kids yet, that schools are constantly changing, credit worthiness changes over time and based on lenders, the fact that housing markets go up and down, the option of renting for a while versus buying, job moving, etc. But she held firm — in her imagination, $X00k was the number she needed to sell this house for to keep her future housing options open. That amount would cover the most expensive option she might want, in the most expensive neighborhood she might want, so it was safe. It was what she needed.

• I know that it is possible I can prepare and then have what I need
• I know that it is possible that I don’t prepare and I then don’t have what I need
• I have spent time accumulating evidence that it is possible I  prepare and still don’t have what I need (like clothes for funerals and gala and interviews) and I am starting to believe
• But for years I have taken for granted a basic ‘fact’ — If I don’t prepare there is no chance in hell that I will be ok, that I will have what I need.

This is my control monster, rearing its hydra head in a fun new way. But just the other night I walked down to a new restaurant in my hood for a bite. I was shocked by how packed it was, sorry I didn’t make a reservation, but I went in to ask about a table anyway. The hostess told me I had come at just the right time: It was 9:15 and they consider reservations no show after 15 min, so I got the table for someone who had 9:00 reservations , who had prepared, but didn’t come. Here I was, unprepared but still OK. Its a start, something I am being mindful to notice, to collect evidence on. I need to train myself to understand this quadrant of possibilities, otherwise I will never let go of preparing no matter what the cost.

We had a meeting at work to talk through a multi-team project, but I was feeling a little philosophical and started talking about a ‘big picture’ problem I hoped the project might solve — poor communication in my workplace.  I gave around 3 examples to illustrate my ‘poor communications’ point, one of which involved a mistake by the Marketing Team, made months ago,  communicating survey results. I left the meeting feeling like I had brilliantly ‘illuminated’ everyone. The next day however, the response from my co workers told a different story…

The Marketing Director came to my office super ticked-off: She did not think we had a ‘communication problem’ and felt like I kept ganging up on her over 1 mistake the team made months ago.  Next came my boss, who sat me down for a stern conversation about how lately I had been moody, aggressive, eager to highlight institutional problems and offer ‘solutions’. My boss said she didn’t know what was wrong with me, what had changed; but as she talked, I started to digest her words and see quite clearly what was up, i.e., what my wrong views were that were leading to some really ugly behavior…

So, a little background: My organization was searching for a new Executive Director to replace the woman who started the place almost 40 years ago. The process, from my perspective, felt very closed door, hush-hush. As Trustees and select staff were busy formulating a plan and interviewing candidates, I felt left out. Here I was, an employee of 8 years, so dedicated and hard working, but no one was filling me in on the process. No one wanted my opinion. I feared that everyone was looking at me and thinking, “useless little Alana” (wrong view call-out: if they thought I was smart/useful/valuable they would have asked my opinion). So I was overcompensating, trying to give my opinion on anything I could, trying to be heard, to prove I can solve problems, I can help, I am valuable.

Ughh,  my ugly little me monster was rearing its head again; this time it wasn’t about my family or friends, it was amount my job. I thought something totally not about me — picking a new director — was about me because I believed the job, the organization was mine. After all,  in my own opinion, by my own definition, I had been a good employee for so long so it was only logical that I deserved to be part of picking a new leader. But, is a job really ‘mine’? Does it need to act as I expect? Is there a treatment I deserve in that job no matter what I do or no matter the circumstances? A job is just like ‘my peeps’, it is not bound by my demands or needs or expectations. This is not about me at all.

Fun little bonus fact, just for extra evidence — picking a new executive isn’t even part of my job description, it is a role that falls to the Board. According to the Organization Charter they have a right to go about it anyway they see fit.

But wait, there is more…Haven’t I already considered the topic of valuable before? Is it something I can own/be? Is a behavior, like being a problem solver, valuable in every situation? Is it going to have the effect of making people appreciate me and think I am smart and useful to be around? It turns out, this story answers all my questions for me — I was so busy trying to to prove my value as a problem solver I was creating new problems, angering co-workers, troubling my boss and generally having the totally opposite effect of what I was going for.

Fun little bonus fact, just for extra evidence — I have pages of examples in my notebook that no ‘solution’ is 100% roses. ‘Solutions’, all actions, have a positive and negative side — being a ‘problem solver’ is really the same as being a’problem creator’.

Deeper still, I had an unspoken assumption to all of this, that my involvement in picking a leader would yield a good outcome. Now, as I sit in NY writing this old story, still so sad I ever left Cali, I know for sure that my decisions –my imagination of what will yield a good outcome — sure as hell don’t guarantee a good future. In my mind, if I wasn’t involved in picking, we could end up with a bad leader who would ruin the organization and if we had to fold, well what then, because so much of my sense of value, worth, was tied to my job at my organization.

Underlying all of this was one of my oldest wrong view tendencies, going way way back to the Homeless Alana story: A chain reaction in my head that got me from point A to point Z, for sure. In this case I believed that without my involvement a bad leader would be picked and if the bad leader was picked the organization would fold and if the organization folded I would be lost because my ultimate value as a person was tied to my job.  If you take each of these in turn, they are singular wrong views and then when they get combined whooh, there is a doozie; a wrong view so grim, a threat and an Alana-as-employee-self that both felt so real, that I was acting like a total $%*& to the people and organization I was trying to ‘save’.

I was out to dinner with a friend and when the waiter came to take our order, my friend invited me to go first. “I’ll take a salad and a side of fries” I said. My friend proceeded to order her meal, but –wah wah wah — she did not order fries. “Fuck” I thought, “I can’t believe she didn’t order fries, she loves fries and now she is totally going to hoover down mine.”

Sure enough, no sooner had my fries hit the table then my friend’s greasy paws were all up in my plate. I seethed (silently of course). But, as we both were eating, something happened — I got full. Half a basket of still warm, golden, fries were staring-up at me, begging to be scarfed, but I seriously couldn’t eat another bite. And then it hit me, the wrong view: Just because a resource is finite it doesn’t mean I won’t have enough.  

I had considered before that my items change and depart, that they are not in my control, but still, my heart so deeply believed that what I want is what I want, permanent, period. But the truth is that my needs and wants fluctuate as much as my items do, they are not permanent, they are not infinite. Luckily, greed — this quality that seems so stubbornly stuck in my heart that it can’t even take a night off for me to enjoy a date with  a friend — has its own kryptonite; thank you wisdom, for coming to join the meal.

After a stressful day at the office I decided to stop by my favorite thrift shop on the way home for  a little ‘retail therapy’. I found myself walking down the aisle, looking at each frilly, fancy, colourful dress and thinking to myself, “Will this one preserve me?” “Will this one make me stay young? Return my lost beauty? Make me thin?”  

I watched how my imagination went to work conjuring images of the party I would wear the dress to, the comments from friends,  the shoes that would match, the ‘look’ I was going to capture wearing that dress. I consider how my memory works to draw me to specific brands that have fit in the past, to particular colors and cuts. These clothes, they are tools my mind (my imagination) uses to sell a lie — the lie that I can preserve and control my body, my self.

But If I pay attention, these clothes actually tell the truth… I bring 4 items into the dressing room: Two make me look fat, one makes me look like a frumpy old woman. One item, just one skirt, I can work with (as long as I wear a long shirt with it  because it doesn’t zip it all the way up). How in the hell does my mind use those fitting room statistics and conclude I am in control? I can’t make the items fit me. I can’t make my body fit the items. Instead of preserving me, making me pretty and thin, these items and their not quite zipping zippers, are proof I have gotten fat, lost my figure, gotten old.

These items are bullying and mocking  me and yet I still want them. Tomorrow, when I think of this shopping trip, I will remember it as great fun not a great humiliation. I will look at the new, not-quite-zipping skirt and think –success –something to make me look cute, something the preserve the image I have so carefully crafted. Again, I will ignore the obvious: How can an impermanent skirt, one already starting to unravel around the over stretched zipper, give me the power to permanently preserve?

I decide to head back out to the aisles and see if I can find a long shirt to match that non-zipping skirt. I see a woman browsing ahead of me and feel myself getting anxious and antsy — what if she gets to my perfect long shirt first? As I am maneuvering to get ahead of her, I realize this — wanting/defending what is ‘mine’ — is how wars over belongings get started.

Here is the thing though, my wedding dress has been specially dry cleaned and packed away in my closet. The dress is preserved, but I am too fat and saggy to wear it anymore. Why am I pushing and shoving to find a perfect shirt that, like my wedding dress, will fail to preserve me?  Why am I so easily lulled by ignorance and greed when even a dress knows better?

As I was reviewing past notes, I came across a teaching from LP Thoon that had always really moved me — it is a story in which he instructs a man named Singh on a specific set of contemplations/questions that ultimately result in Singh becoming a Stream Enterer. After re-reading the story, I had a new set of insights on the way my objects cause me suffering. Those insights are presented in the blog below. For those of you who want a recap of the Singh teaching beforehand you can find it in the blog Get Your Grimey Hands off My Teacup.

For a while now I have considered the suffering it takes to acquire an object, to maintain it and then the sorrow I feel when I lose it. But now I see that there is a deeper layer of suffering that lies in my obsession with my objects — my objects force me to come back for them, they continually reignite the cycle of acquisition and loss. My objects are the seeds for my rebirth.

Take my purses for example. I didn’t used to be a purse girl, I used to get by carrying stuff in a backpack, a tote or just my hands. But then I started getting fancier, richer, dressing better, becoming a fashionista, and for a fashionista, carrying my crap around in a recycled grocery bag just wouldn’t do. So I bought a purse, a nice designer one. I worked to find just the right purse (suffering of acquiring); I obsessed over keeping it nice, storing it right, getting it repaired and resealed and never letting it touch the ground (suffering of maintaining); and  when it finally did wear out I was super sad (suffering of loss). And maybe, just maybe, if it all stopped there I would say it was worth the effort, worth the loss to enjoy that purse for a time. But, it didn’t end there…

Enter the deeper layer of suffering; that broken worn-out purse forced me right back to the mall to buy a new one. Now that I was a purse girl, I couldn’t imagine going back, becoming less, so I had to replace the bag with a new one that was at least as nice or better. And when I couldn’t find just what I was looking for I went on a quest, an internet scavenger hunt to replace the bag –to buy as many more as I could– so that I was prepared, that I could do better, the next time it broke.

I think I am in control of my objects. I think I pick out the purse, I manage the bank account, I own the house. But the truth is my shit bullies me. It forces me, it pushes me, it moves me around like a chess piece.  Is this seriously how I want to live? My stuff is like an abusive relationship. I want to think that if a person tried to control me, constantly making demands of me, not loving me back, I would dump them. But then I thought about my ex — Thomas…  

Thomas was super hot, super funny, super likable and super smart. He also, often, treated me like shit. No he didn’t beat me, or yell at me, but he did belittled me, ignore me, toss me aside when it was convenient for him. So why did I stay with him for so long? It seems to me there were 2 main reasons: 1) I built an identity as his girlfriend —  had become his girlfriend, I defined myself in relation to him, I wasn’t as pretty or as funny or as smart as him, but by having him on my arm I could prove my worth, my value, I could own his  good qualities as my very own. What would everyone think if we broke-up? How would it reflect on me if I couldn’t keep a guy like that around?What kind of woman/girlfriend would I be if I just broke it off? 2) I imagined things would get better in the future. I thought that I could change, I could make him change, if I just exerted enough control it would be perfect.

It seems though that the very same delusions that kept me tied to Thomas shape my expectations for, and attachment to, my objects.

1: Objects Build Identity — That purse was the cherry on top of my fashionista identity. All together, each dress, shoe, belt, purse makes me buttoned-up, in control of my image, in control of how others view and judge me. Sure I have never been perfectly skinny, perfectly beautiful, but when I walk into a room with that purse on my arm it proves my worth, my value, I can own its beauty and status as my own.  If suddenly I went back to wearing grocery bags what would people think of me then? How much of a loser would I look like, to let my image slip, to become so careless and junkie? But does a purse really do all that I imagine? There have already been contemplations of black boots,  pink skirts and green purses — none can control other people’s thoughts, none can make me a thing when these very things go and fade.

Back when I was a kid, right through my finishing grad school, my father paid for everything. He was rich and I never wanted for anything; his money made me feel like I had financial cushion, like I was safe. But after I graduated my dad cut me off. I had been rich but was suddenly poor. If the money  were really mine, if I could own its qualities, how could I go from rich to poor?

In fact, sometime my objects, which I think are busy making me what I want to be are actually having the opposite effect. Remember my mooching friends Sandy and Blake? I want so badly to be a good friend, a good person, but my desire to protect my bank account made me a selfish friend. When my clothes don’t fit I look in the mirror and am reminded of my lack of control, of my failings to discipline my body, to manage my life. And let us not forget that time my pants split and a big gaping hole in my ass made me the least fashionable person in the room. And so, its back to the mall I go for new pants, new clothes, new purses, which brings me to…

2: Things Will be Better in The Future — Yes, I know that purse wore-out, but that is why I bought 6 more just like it. So next time I am prepared, next time will beat the purse reaper. The future, through the sheer force of my will, will be different. But it never seems to work because with each purse that wears or dress that gets too tight I am forced right back to the mall, not just to buy another object, but to reassert the control that object going and breaking cost me.

Ultimately, I did  break-up with Thomas. I was just tired of loving someone who didn’t seem to love me back, who couldn’t fulfill my needs, who let me down everytime. Phra Ajan Daeng once warned me: All the objects in this world I am so obsessed with aren’t obsessed with me back. So why do I keep on loving them when they hurt me, when they bully, and push and abuse?

As I started the process of organizing my thoughts, my notes and my stories to write this blog, something became abundantly clear: My practice is a path, it has a particular progression to it.

I suppose, on some level, I always understood that practice wasn’t just a random series of flashes from the darkness. But, it wasn’t until I started to really outline the first chapters of this blog that I saw that new stories built on old stories, new skills and tools built off the ability to use old ones. Crazy… it’s like cause and effect are real and they are playing out in my Dharma practice!! It was this insight, that practice builds on itself, that dove me to create the blog you are reading now — a more-or-less linear series of entries that capture the progression of my practice, that paint an ongoing story about what it means for me to walk this path.

This insight about the linear-ish nature of my practice was also a real confidence booster for me:  For years I fretted over what would happen if my practice “went off the rails”, If Mae Yo wasn’t there anymore to guide me, if I got so lost I couldn’t see my way out (see the blog Mae Yo Q and A). Mae Yo told me I had to be self reliant, that I already was self reliant, that I just needed to keep relying on myself the same way I had up to this point in my practice. I smiled and nodded at her wisdom and then silently kept panicking.

But with this blog, the evidence was laid out plain to see — I had in fact slowly and steadily built up understanding, used old conclusions as scaffolding for what came later.  Shortly after I started this blog I was speaking with Mae Yo and she told me I had all that I needed already in order to figure out how to get myself free. Finally, I believed her. For better or worse, no one can free me but myself…here’s to self reliance.

Once I had decided to become a Dharma Blogger, I faced an interesting question: What the heck was I going to write about? I started by going back through my very first notebook: reviewing, rehashing, rewriting old stories to turn them into blogs. As I immersed myself in all the old stuff, something crazy happened, I started powerfully seeing so much new stuff in all my old stories; it was like my practice was supercharged, like I was looking at everything I thought I understood with new, fresh eyes.

This next chapter is going to share some of the insights that came-up for me as I prepared the outline and the earliest entries of this blog. As you will soon see Dear Reader, one topic in particular that took on a great deal more clarity when I began to write this blog is Rupa.

Mae Yo always told me to think about Rupa (form); it is after all the foundation of birth in this realm, the starting point for every problem, and a clear understanding of it is the key to attaining the first level of enlightenment. In the early days of my practice I really did try, as instructed, to consider Rupa in each of my stores. Unfortunately, I kinda sucked at it. As I went back to the oldest stores and the oldest instructions I was given by Mae Yo, I was lead right back to Rupa again, this time finding a clarity I simply didn’t have before.

So, as you peak into the earliest days of my life as a Dharma Blogger, be on the look-out for my own personal come-back kids…all those old themes taking on a brand new beginning.