Alana's Dharma Blog

In my endless quest to be beautiful, I stumbled upon what I thought was the holy grail — Korean beauty products. Snail serums, vitamin C-masks, kojac sponges, oh my! I did so much research,  carefully scrutinized ingredient lists, read reviews: I knew, for sure, the green tea mask I picked-out was going to make me look like a 20 year old again.

1 week after I started using the mask though, I started getting these little white bumps all over my face. I knew something was wrong, but I already had a solution at home — green tea mask. Green tea after all is a potent antioxidant, so I started using the mask twice a day. The bumps got worse so I started cutting-out my old products, thinking I had developed a sudden allergy to a cream or a wash.

What in the heck was causing these bumps? It literally took weeks before I realized what you, Dear Reader, probably think is obvious — it was the green tea mask. Sure enough, after I stopped my skin soon cleared-up.  

But, all this begs a question: Why in the hell did it take me so long to figure-out that the green tea mask was causing the bumps?

I tend to think of myself as someone who is good with natural remedies. I am knowledgeable about healing herbs and other ingredients. Plus, I am a hell of a researcher, I can dig through data and sort fact from fiction. I knew green tea was a “good” ingredient with powerful anti-aging properties. My belief in what I thought I “knew” was so strong that I literally ignored evidence to the contrary even though it was written all over my face. I had a blind spot.

Everyone who drives knows exactly what a blind spot is — its a space that, because of your orientation or your perspective, you just can’t see. But, just because you can’t see something, it doesn’t mean there is nothing there!

This whole Peeking Over the Fence chapter is filled with stories about the lies I believe and truths I ignore: ‘Deserve’ protects me from poverty, smoking laws should follow my personal habits/preferences,  other people are at fault for my sexual misdeeds, my kitchen is always clean and my expectations are always going to be met. I am a special little tree, exempt from decay, free of from the 8 worldly conditions, on an always up-and-up trajectory getting richer and more beautiful by the day.   

The thing is, when in a car we all know we need to be mindful of blind spots because what you can’t see can cause you harm.Time to lead life a little more eyes-wide-open Alana, because my blind spots are going to come and bite me in the ass…or the face, as the case may be. 

It was that not fun time again; time to take my car in for servicing. Since the vehicle was under warranty, I had to go to a dealership and that left me with a tough choice to make — do I go to  the far away dealer in the South Bay where I had bought the car? Or, ugh, to those assholes in Brisbane, a dealership a good 1 hour closer, but damn their customer service sucks.

You see, I already ‘knew’ those Brisbane guys sucked; when we were test driving cars, we went to their dealership first, but they treated us like total crap, ignored us, were rude, and so we left, drove an hour south and bought our car from the South Bay dealer. Still, an hour is an hour, and so I begrudgingly emailed Brisbane for a service appointment. Shocker —  no one got back to me. It took 3 more emails, and a world of frustration, just to finalize a service date.

My heart was aflame with rage when I started thinking, “I need to go write a yelp review of these guys so I can give them exactly what they deserve.” I opened up my yelp account, but just before that Demon Revenge took over my typing fingers, I started to think…”Either these folks are really terrible business people or my situation was an exception. If they are terrible business people, do I really need to write a review? Other customers are likely to have a similar experience, they will stop going and the business will suffer without any help from me. Or, there are folks like me, that chose to go there for something other than good customer service, i.e. convenience, proximity, cost…In these cases, no review I write about customer service will sway them from going to this dealership.

On the other hand, if I was a one off, some exception..what’s the point of writing a review? If normally they are great they will have plenty of customers who return independent of what I say. Plus, I make mistakes sometimes too..I wouldn’t want folks judging my work, my abilities,  based on one mistake I made..why should I do that to others.

At the end of the day, service at the dealership isn’t about me at all. Writing a review, taking my revenge, is, at best, some super small factor in the dealership’s success/ failure anyway. The guilty party here is me: I let some car dealership (later day note: really myself disguised as the idea of this particular car dealership) plant a poison seed — vengeance — in my heart. And when that seed grows, I alone get stuck with its bitter karmic fruits.

Background: There was a period of time in which LP Anan was using Aesop’s Fables as a tool to encourage students to think about Dharma; fables are a great way to help people see 2 sides of a story, to internalize, to become critical in identifying main points and themes. The contemplation I am sharing here was not one of these specific fable-related exercises, but rather my thoughts after hearing a Buddhism class recording in which students were discussing The Story of the Ass and the Lapdog.

The story went something like this: A master had 2 animals, a donkey and a lapdog. The donkey worked hard for his master and was treated well, but not nearly as well as the beloved lapdog. The donkey looked at the lapdog and thought to himself, “I toil all day in the field, but that dog just stays home and plays…how is it the dog is treated and fed better than me.” So the donkey,  decides he will act like the dog in hopes of getting the same reward. When he returns home from the field that day, the donkey runs over to the master, jumps in his lap and begins making noise. The master, of course, is not amused and he beats the donkey off his lap.

In the class discussion, folks were almost universally inclined to call the ass the protagonist of the story, to sympathize with a beast of burden not getting his due. But when I heard the story my thoughts went elsewhere…

I couldn’t help but think of the hardships of life as a lapdog; the tremendous hidden costs. Lapdogs lack ‘useful skills’ so their life is wholly dependent on their master. After all, you can’t expect a little dog to go out in the field and make a living or for it to know ‘the ways of the world’ enough to live in the forest with the forest animals. As a being so dependent on their master, a little dog always needs to be vigilant; alert to the master’s needs and how to meet them. If the master wants to cuddle and play, the little dog has no choice but to cuddle and play. If the master wants to be alone, the little dog has no choice but to go elsewhere. A little dog knows its value is in its cuteness/ adorableness, so it  lives with constant pressure to stay adorable always — but in this world, everything is subject to decay — will the little dog still be loved and cared for when it is ugly and old, when it can’t run as fast or jump as high to play? Plus, folks tend to look at a lapdog as frivolous and pampered, not an animal to be taken seriously.

On the outside, it may look like a lapdog has a charmed life, but trust me, I know, lap dogs are not free. You see Dear Reader,  if I am to be totally honest, I am just like that lapdog. I have been cared for, pampered, my whole life. First by my father and then by my husband. Even beyond that, I have always looked for, and been able to attract, lovers and caregivers. Rather than honing ‘useful skills’ like cooking or cleaning or a decently paying vocation, I have honed beauty, sensuality, charm,  wit, and adaptability, as currency for care. Please, please don’t get me wrong I have had loving, sincere and wonderful relationships with my dad, my hubs, and so many other lovers and friends along the way. And yet, I can’t help but empathize with the lapdog in this story and its lovely, gilded, cage.

I suppose though, I also feel for the donkey. The donkey looks ‘over there’ to a different option, another life, and thinks, “that looks better, I want that over there.” Just like I do when I see something I want (like a new life in NYC), some other possibility, the donkey sets its intention and starts scheming for ways to become that dog. How many lifetimes will a donkey focus, work and train to become a dog? How many did it take me? In the end thought it seems we have both found the same thing…new suffering in a new life.  

This blog is a direct continuation of the last, Thoughts on Being Entitled Part 1, if you have not yet read that blog please go back and do so now before reading onward.  Thoughts on Being Entitled Part 1 was from an email I sent to Neecha, in this blog I will share her response and some of my further thoughts.

Neecha’s Response:  

It’s a crazy, complex cycle. I think that we carry a strong foundation of memory over from previous lifetimes, and we build upon it in each lifetime. There’s the whole nature vs nurture element, too. Some things we learn from our culture, our communities, those we admire. But we don’t pick up on all things. Our brand of personality is drawn towards certain things and repulsed by others, but not always. In this way, our identities are very complex, always changing. However, one thing tends to stay the same- we put ourselves first (even when it seems we are sacrificing, we are advancing the view that we are good or we are better than those who can’t make the sacrifice). We are obsessed with self preservation, whether it’s our perceived belongings and comfort, or the person we see ourselves as.

So what can we do about it? Identify the Tuk tok pie (suffering) inherent in the root personalities we are trying to preserve, dig up all the good and bad that stem from this personality, and don’t let it dictate how we live our lives anymore.

Alana’s Final Reply/Thoughts:

This topic keeps growing for me but I have a sense I’m on the right track. I notice that all my big ah-ha moments start when I see that the way I have been thinking about something is so illogical its just ridiculous…

Kinda like this:  All this judgement, which stems from me, is a way I try to give order and make sense of the world. It helps me feel safe because it means I can create rules, follow my own rules and therefore deserve a cookie at the end for being awesome (or I give myself a pass by changing the rules mid course, or I explain away all the times I get crap instead of cookies as random, or someone else’s fault, or stuff that needs a redo). This takes place only in my mind though totally removed from reality. In reality, things are sometimes “messier then acceptable” and the world keeps turning. People I deem unworthy get cookies and people I deem worthy get crap. There are actually rules that govern this world — the 3 characteristics and karma — and they really don’t need any interjection from me at all.

Meanwhile, as a result of all this story telling, I end up with a personality that is harsh and judgmental. The suffering is clear and honestly it’s not how I want to live anymore. It takes so much mental and emotional energy to constantly judge…it hurts me and it hurts my relationships. Plus, it’s the seed of vengeance; this idea that it’s somehow my job to uphold rules and order, it keeping me tethered to so much. Now thought I’m starting to see this for what it is, a trap that I can start trying to avoid by being aware of its mechanics, by noticing it and not just accepting it but thinking through when I feel harshness arise, by noticing the TTP.  

This post is from an email I sent to Neecha summing-up some of my thoughts on expectations/ standards/ entitlement. 

The Situation:

I overheard a donor asking my boss for a “favor”, which I thought was over the top, and my inside voice just said…”ugh, that donor is being such a &*%^. Just because they give a few thousand bucks, it doesn’t mean they deserve anything they want. They are acting so entitled.”

So I went out on my lunch break and started considering ‘entitled’. When I got out the door I was passed by someone smoking on the street and I thought yuk –people shouldn’t be allowed to smoke in public places, its a health hazard (in other words, I am entitled to breathe safely in public). Then it hit me, back when I used to smoke I thought I should be entitled to smoke everywhere, especially in public (because well duh..its public), it was my ‘civil right’. Somehow, over just a single issue, in one life, I have felt entitled both to smoke and to be free of smokers in public.

I act entitled all the time… so, 1) whats the wrong view (specifically over the concept of entitlement, rather than my interpretation of any particular behavior as entitled) 2) how do I sell myself the lie 3) why do I do it  4) whats the harm:

It’s not really TRUE true:

Smoking makes it perfectly clear that the acceptability of smoking (and the laws I think should be enacted) are based entirely on me, on what I want, and what I do. I pretend that they are permanent, coming from some absolute source on high, but in truth it’s just me and it changes based on what I want at any given time.

Dirty kitchen is in fact the same issue, though for dirty it is a matter of degree instead of a smoking allowed yes/no. I set the standards for where dirty begins and the standards actually change by circumstance. When I was younger, a pile of clothes on the floor would not have been dirty, but now I find it unacceptable. Even better, my “dirty kitchen” is less disgusting than someone else’s (because it’s mine..we’ll get back to this). The idea of dirty is impermanent but I superimpose my own judgement at any given instant and trick myself into believing it’s TRUE.

What are the mechanics–how do I sell myself an unTRUE truth?

In each case I create definitions and rules of what is acceptable in order to serve me. I base them off my own experiences and what I am used to (#3) and then imagine they are absolute (#4)…I use my imagination to forget that I was the one who created them in the first place (Question: Neecha –am I missing something here..any elaboration on my thoughts about the mechanics you can recommend?) . My definitions/standards justify my desires (a way desire tricks me) and my actions, making what I want/do (cleanliness, or smoking laws) entirely reasonable in my own mind (this is a weird feedback loop–I create the definitions and then judge reasonableness in light of the definitions I create. I draw evidence,selectively, from my own experiences and from what is culturally acceptable in order to further buttress the sense of reasonableness).

This brings me to the Why do I do this? This follows on a whole lot of previous contemplation, especially on the topic of self and self belonging, but in a nutshell it seems to be about preserving myself –either my sense of identity or my physical body.

I notice that none of the stories I tell myself, the rules I create around right/wrong, in this case entitled/untitled, come out of thin air. They all trace back to me..to how I want to see myself. To the stories I need to tell in order to protect me, preserve my sense of self and well being.

In the case of the donor request — something that has weighed on me a lot as I got a little more money was that I didn’t want to become a rich witch. I have met many of them (#3) and I never wanted to feel like money made me into someone “entitled”, which in this case I read into behavior that I see as inconsiderate.  So when the donor called with his request..I immediately thought I’m not that, I’m better than that. The story served to build my confidence that I had not turned into something I consider”bad”, a rich witch that I don’t want to be.

I have been thinking about panhandlers a lot lately too–I ask myself why I should give them change? Why they are entitled to it? Same thing with my old freniemy Sandy…why should I just let her mooch? When I dig deep though I see that I am someone who depends on others for financial support, I am someone who is “taken care of”. In this lifetime first by my Dad and then Eric…I’m guessing this goes back a bit further. I need to justify why I am worthy of care, entitled to support, why I have something better/more to offer than Sandy and the panhandlers. I need to use them, just like I did the donor, to be better, to justify my specialness.

To the issue of smoking and mess, I want to protect my physical self. Now that I have asthma, I don’t want to be near smoke so suddenly the rule is its a public health issue (before I had the identity of a cool smoker so I didn’t want any rule to infringe on my ability to look cool in public –so much for being considerate of all the nonsmokers around me). For mess, its really about what is safe..is it clean or is it disease-y (not that appearing clean/messy  always = health safe anyway). My own mess seems more known, something more under my control, so by my definition it is cleaner (safer) than the restaurant kitchen.

The more I think through stuff in this way, the more I feel sort of foolish..I get the sense that its so sad that I put so much effort, so much elaboration, into creating a sense of permanence, into preserving what I have, when its really impossible..its a no win. Still though… I persist. I still can’t fully convince myself that the efforts are totally futile, I take the evidence of limited control, some limited duration and I cling on to it.

My sense of self, the rules and standards I create just to keep it safe are so strong and tricky…but really, when I am judgmental, harsh, “throwing stones” outwards…its just me, the problem really isn’t out there at all…even just practically speaking, I’m not sure I’m even the me I want to be in cases like these.Then there is the cost…

The Cost:

As I have already elaborated before, the biggest one is that I commit so much energy to preserving this self that I get exactly what I want…more lives, more becoming and more suffering that comes along with it.

Moreover, there is a danger to building lies (like definitions of me-ness, absolutes of rules, judgments of what is right and wrong) and convincing myself of them. I keep thinking of the octopus frying clip LP Anan posted, all those folks grilling the animal alive. I think they tell themselves lies to make that behavior OK in their mind. What about me, what lies do I tell and what is the karma I create doing so (this is part of a much bigger topic I am working on–what techniques does desire use to convince me)?

For the examples just here, I know I don’t like judge-y people, folks who make arbitrary rules, so how much do others like me when I do it? I think I am entitled to certain things — like support from Eric and my parents — but then I act complacent, I don’t have appropriate gratitude. I risk the very relationships that I perceive as being a source of safety for me, which is ironic since the whole point of my story telling it to be safe and preserve.

I actually have concrete examples of this: Back when Eric and I started dating he spent hours in the kitchen making a special dessert for me. When he was done and I tried it my first comment was “the nuts aren’t chopped finely enough.” Ugh, it still breaks my heart that I was such a bitch — here is someone who spent so much time and effort to be kind to me and I could express only judgment rather than thanks.

Or I think that my Mom, who could have left me out in the elements to die, instead cared for me, fed me, vaccinated me and helped with my science fair projects. I spent years thinking that was normal, is was what I deserved — the minimum –so I was thankless. But, how many more births can I go getting cared for if I’m behaving thanklessly to my caregivers?

Plus, there is just my sense of discomfort that is self created…I feel ickey in the face of dirty, slighted at the thought of injustice. If I could just open up my definitions a little, reset those conditions, how much less could I suffer day-to-day?

I had been having a Line exchange with Neecha about how I am always trying to avoid ugliness and dirtiness in this world. About how I try to make the ugliness that does exist  ‘over there’, i.e. not in my life. I gave the example of restaurants: I always check health code scores before I eat out and I am unwilling to go someplace ‘dirty’. Even still, I don’t ever want to sit facing the kitchen. I am afraid to get a look inside and find a level of dirtiness I just can’t handle.

Neecha asked me a simple question: “Alana, is your own kitchen always perfectly clean?”

Since it’s obviously not, how exactly can I expect it from a restaurant? I started thinking about if I was getting what I expect out of my life. And, if I am not (since I am not) what it means. My  conclusion: My expectations about this world, about what I will get and what I can avoid, are wrong. Dirtiness is a state that quite simply can’t always be avoided, not in restaurants and not in my home.

As you, Dear Reader, already know, I love to travel. But part of traveling is the reality you never really know what you are going find at your destination.  Since I don’t know what I will get, since my expectations are sometimes wrong, doesn’t it follow that just going through my day-to-day life — even doing what I enjoy — I can’t really escape that ugliness and dirtiness that I keep trying to relegate to a place ‘over there’ behind the fence?

I had been thinking about this a bit  following my Line exchange with Neecha when I saw the most perfect — the most totally captain obvious– commercial ever. I will give the link below and let the commercial, which sums up my contemplations wayyyyyy better than words ever can, speak for itself. To this day, when I consider the topic of my expectations versus my reality, this little clip comes to top of mind.

Because I have totally booked this hotel before…https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7KY6/hotels-com-obvious-lies

I was walking down the street, a few days after New Years, and I saw tons of discarded Christmas trees on the curb. It occurred to me that just a few days ago, these trees were precious object. People went to a lot of work to buy their trees, hurl them home, set them up and lovingly decorate them. For a few weeks they were assigned such deep meaning — they were about family, celebration, traditions and joy.  Now, they are trash.

I couldn’t help but start thinking about my own body, it is something I work so hard to shape and decorate, with the workouts, the clothes, shoes and jewelry. I am just like a perfectly decorated Christmas tree. I give my body so much meaning — my body is me/ I am my body; my sense of self and this body of mine are totally intertwined.  But what happens when my season passes? What happens when, like all trees I rot, decay, break down?

The truth is a Christmas tree is just like every other tree in the forest. It is not special, it has no deep hidden meaning lurking inside it. Its value, its specialness, lives only in the mind of its owners and then only for a short time.

Growing up Jewish, I never had a Christmas tree of my own and I always have wondered why people would go through so much fuss over the thing.  And yet, look at how I struggle for the sake of my body just because I imagine it is somehow special and different than other peoples’ bodies. The time will come when this body will be trash. Is all the fuss over the thing really worth it?

I’m general, I do hate to ‘over-share’, but I’m afraid I have to kick-off this blog with a mighty personal detail about my life — I have irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). It’s a disease with no known cause, no cure, and a not-so-fun set of symptoms that include surprise attacks of uncontrollable diarrhea that always seem to come at the most inopportune times.

For example, when I’m walking through one of SF’s shadiest hoods (Tenderloin), already late for work, and that first, telltale, stabbing stomach pain strikes. Oh crap. Literally, oh crap the crap is coming… I run for the first open restaurant and beg to use the bathroom.

Alana: “Please, please please can I use your restroom, its an emergency.”

Waitress: “sorry customers only.”

Alana: “I promise I will buy something when I get out.”

Waitress: “No, you need to pay first, no credit cards by the way”

Ughhh, no time, no cash, I run out, and manage to stumble into the public library just in time. Whew, the crisis was averted, but I felt so slighted. I mean who denies someone something as simple as a bathroom in their time of need? That waitress had no compassion; I would never do something like that…but then my thought was interrupted by a homeless guy asking for change. Out loud I explain, “sorry I don’t have any cash on me.” In my head I am thinking, “what the hell did you do to deserve my money?”

To me, that homeless guy didn’t meet my criteria for a ‘hand-out.’ On some level, I looked at that guy and thought he got himself into his mess; he did something to deserve a life on the street.

But wait – dharma whammy – wasn’t I literally just in this situation 15 minutes ago? When I needed a bathroom, I thought it was something so simple, so basic, a small request. I thought I deserved it, I was entitled to it, I had a basic human need and I expected it to be understood and accommodated. But the restaurant had a standard, a criteria for use of the bathroom – you needed to be a customer, which I was not.

The restaurant standard seemed so arbitrary to me. The waitress so compassionless. But was my standard for a homeless guy  deserving a hand out any less arbitrary? Was I any more compassionate? I mean really, where did my own standard come from anyway? Dharma practice 101: When in doubt, a problem, a wrong view, an arbitrary standard must be coming from me.

Which got me thinking… I am someone who takes handouts all the time. First I was supported by my father and now by my husband.  But I can’t live with the fear of being someone who is needy, someone subject to a harsh life on the streets. To sleep at night, to feed my illusion of safety, I need a reason, a standard –an imaginary line in the sand– that makes me and my handouts different from, better than, that homeless man. So I conjure up this idea of ‘deserve’. I think of what a wonderful daughter and wife I am while I imagine the terrible things he must have done to land on the streets.  

But the truth is, that homeless guy and I had much more in common than I am comfortable admitting.  That man was at a low point in the ups and downs cycle of life (lives). But don’t I go through those same cycles? Wasn’t stabbing abdominal pain and the desperate need for a bathroom just such a low point? Wasn’t being denied the place to perform a basic bodily function with dignity pretty damn low?

I managed to escape my low pretty swiftly thanks to a public bathroom at the library. But does that mean I should forget? Ignore? Pretend that I am somehow better than that man— somehow magically exempt from the high/low cycle (8 worldly conditions) that affects everyone?  Do my imaginary standards really protect me from the conditions of this world? Just by not looking can I avoid what is over the fence? Is it my beliefs about deserve, or is it karma, that will ultimately determine what I get?

I had been contemplating a question from  LP Thoon for a few weeks — what techniques does  desire use to persuade me? — admittedly, I wasn’t making a whole lot of progress. Frustrated, looking for something else to contemplate, I ‘tuned-in’ to the KPY Facebook page and saw a post from LP Anan: It was a video of a group of people preparing a meal of grilled octopus, only the octopus was still alive as they were grilling it.  

A picture is worth 1000 words, so here is the video. Warning 1: The video is graphic. Warning 2: the rest of this post will not make a ton of sense unless you watch the video.

OK , if you are back from watching the video, perhaps you can understand — I  watched that video and I WAS HORRIFIED. I was so shocked, I was so upset, it literally jolted me right into one doozy of a dharma contemplation.  So, with all that set-up, here we go…

Thought #1 Why why why on earth would someone do this, what could make it worth torturing another living being. Answer: Desire. Hunger. It is persuading these people.They see the squid as a tool to accomplish their desire, the have no concern for its feelings, its pain. They don’t see the hurt the squid’s experiences and they are blind to the consequence for themselves.

Thought #2: Who the fuck would ever ever ever do something so deeply horrible as to grill a squid alive as it squirmed around a hot plate in pain? Answer: I have done this same thing before. No, to be clear, I have never grilled a squid alive, but I sure as hell have hurt others while I was blinded, tricked, persuaded by desire.

You see, back in the day, I was a player. I seduced countless lovers: men, women, friends and strangers. I was hungry. I desired affection, attention, affirmation, so I used people without concern for their feelings or pain.

There was one guy, I literally can’t even remember his name, but we spent a few months ‘dating’ at the end of my senior year of college.  To me, it was a fling, a way to pass time, to amuse myself, to feed my ego. But that guy fell in love with me, and when I got bored and threw him away, his pain was as real as the octopus’.

Which brings me to Thought #3, consequences:  If that octopus could sting or bite or shoot poison darts, folks likely wouldn’t be trying to cook it alive. But since the costs, the consequences, of that tasty torture aren’t  immediate, they are super easy to ignore. But, in the long run, what happens to people who are so callous to another’s life and suffering? What kind of positions do they put themselves in? What kind of people do they surround themselves with?

I was someone who manipulated people sexually, used them and left them.  In my mind there was no harm; and despite the high drama and hard work of my beleaguered love life, worth it to me. But now I’m starting to see a very dark side to such behavior… Do I want to be someone that breaks people’s hearts? Who wants to be friends with a person like that, who will want to be my next lover? Do I want to be someone that manipulates people? If I signal to my partner that its ok to manipulate, to be in a relationship with no regard for the other person, am I not setting myself up for someone to manipulate and use me right back?

There is always a reason, a justification that we tell ourselves to makes our actions OK: A squid is food, not human, it can be tortured. Those POWs, from the book I was reading, are enemy combatants, they can be worked to death. These people I used, they were adults, they consented to the sex, their feelings are on them so I did nothing wrong. But I am the one who is creating the justification and then I am the one using that justification as a benchmark  to judge my actions as right, moral, and acceptable. This is crazy circular logic and in it is the key to desire persuading me: I figure out what to tell myself to make my actions ok, how to live with them, how to ignore their impact on others (that is their fault, their problem) and on myself.  

But, though I try to  ignoring consequence, lie to myself about the okness of my actions, let desire blind me, truth has a tell — it has been more than a decade since I saw that forgotten named guy, and a video of a frying octopus was enough to stab my heart with the guilt of my actions and the sorrow I feel for the pain I caused. It looks like karma is catching-up with me despite all my crazy circular logic.

I was reading a book, The Narrow Road to the Deep North, about a group of WWII POWs who had been taken prisoner by the Japanese and forced to work hard labor in the jungle. They were tortured, beaten, starved — the details of their treatment were shocking to me; the fact that humans endure such horrors and that other humans inflict them…

Anyway, it was one of those books that really made my heart raw. I was reading it in the mall food court when I saw someone throw away half their order of fries. In the book, the characters are so hungry they eat anything: Twigs, leaves, egg shells, their own refuse — because of their condition they don’t waste anything. The guy in the food court though, he has enough, he is full, so he can easily waste. The contrast really hit me; I am used to living in a world where food can be tossed, where resources are abundant, where I have more than what I need. But there is also a world of starvation, a world where there is not enough, where people scrape to get by and many don’t survive. Actually, abundance and scarcity, over-fullness and starvation, they exist in the same world, affecting different people at different moments in time.  

My own life was at a period of relative scarcity. My husband was uncertain about his company’s future and his other job prospects so we were ‘livin lean.’ Before, when things had felt more secure, we didn’t really budget, we bought what we wanted, we didn’t worry about saving a lot. But in a the face of job uncertainty, we were being more careful, we weren’t being so wasteful. In just 1 year, my life had gone through a swing from flush to lean.

So why is it so hard for me to understand that the same mechanism that took me from ‘livin large’ to ‘livin lean’ is at work in the contrast between someone throwing away fries and someone starving — things change, circumstances change. The soldiers who became POWs in the book had a life beforehand, a life where they had enough food. But then, circumstances changed and they starved. To close my eyes, to refuse to look at the ‘downer’ side of the 8 worldly conditions, means I miss 50% of the world. It means I am going to be shocked and confused when my own downer times come. And nothing in this world causes greater suffering than ignorance –then shock and confusion at how things in this world, in my life, actually are and work.

A few years after my uncle had died of cancer my aunt began dating again. She met a guy she really liked, a fun companion and a good partner, and for around 2 years they were happy.  And then, in less than 2 minutes, it was over. She had gone-out on a short errand and returned to a crime scene — her boyfriend had committed suicide by shooting himself.

I felt utterly devastated for my aunt and I was utterly dumbfounded myself… this was not some random story in the paper, not something happening to that stranger over there. This was in my life, this was my family, this was tragedy so close to home.  

I spoke with my aunt, tried to find words of comfort in a situation impossible to find comfort in. As we spoke, a little voice in my head was whispering… When was she going to ‘recover’ from this? Would she be able to move-on, escape her sense of pain and guilt? Is it worth it — 2 years of happiness for how many years of pain?

Is this really what life offers us? Me? Mine? Is this really what I keep coming back for?

So I want to offer a  bit of a caveat, a prenote, before I launch into the first few blog posts in my “Peeking over the Fence Period”. You see, usually, the KPY method takes stuff external to ourselves and immediately internalizes. We put ourselves in the situation and run from there. But my Peeking Over the Fence period started off a little differently.

My goal was to start seeing the world, the ugly parts of it that I tend to turn away from, for what they actually are — real and unexceptional.  When I look back over my notebook from the time, I see the first few entries were mostly observations, with internalization being more of an afterthought; it is like my eyes needed to adjust to seeing things in a new light before I could move forward. In the interest of being honest to this project of setting out key highlights from my practice, I will share these observations. So dear reader, just hang in there and rest assured, we are only a few blogs away from some ass kicking internalizations ;).

A dear friend from grad school was in town and I invited her, her husband and their little 2 year old son over for dinner. The truth is, I knew my friend’s kid had some ‘disciplinary problems’, but nothing could have possibly prepared me for what I witnessed over dinner. No sooner had my friends stepped in the door then the 4 hour temper tantrum began. Nothing we could do would placate my friend’s son, we sang songs, played games, sent him for time-outs, but he just ran around screaming non-stop.

I looked at my friend and the anguish was plain on her face; she had told me before she felt trapped in her life, trapped by her responsibilities as a parent, but still, I know, she loves her son. Yet, in this moment, it looked to me like the suffering was so much greater than the joy and I couldn’t help wondering how many more moments were like that (alot, by my friend’s own account). Or how many moments in my own life were like that…

The thing is, this wasn’t one of those ‘horror show’ events in life, there was no rape, no devastating disease, divorce or financial ruin. This was a dinner amongst friends, an unruly child, a day in the life of a  parent — it was plain old, mundane, super ordinary life. And yet, 5 people in a room were living what felt a lot like a four hour hell.

If I weren’t preparing to peek over the fence, focusing my attention on life’s little (and big) unpleasantnesses, I bet you anything I would have ignored, or at least forgotten, the feeling of that night. I would have closed one eye to the whole thing, remembering only the good food or the fact that I got to see a friend I hadn’t seen in years. But with both eyes open, the look on my friend’s face that night was seared into my memory.   

The main character of a book I was reading (The Orphan Master’s Son) was part of an elite unit of North Korean soldiers stationed to guard the country’s border. Other members of the unit used to like to go peek over the fence and peer into South Korea, to see what life was like there. But, the main character never looked:

“He knew the televisions were huge and there was all the rice you could eat. Yet he wanted no part of it—he was scared that if he saw it with his own eyes, his entire life would mean nothing. Stealing turnips from an old man who’d gone blind from hunger? That would have been for nothing. Sending another boy (to his death) instead of himself to clean vats at the paint factory? For nothing.   

When I read this paragraph it squeezed the hell out of my heart and I started wondering  what there is in my own life, my own experience, that I shut my eyes to? When do I refuse to peek because I am afraid what I see will make me question my life, myself, and the way I see the world.

Shortly after I finished this book I was cleaning the house and came across a calendar with quotes from Luang Por Thoon. One quote in particular really stood out, “ignorance of reality is the cause of becoming.” And in that moment I realized, it was time to toughen-up, to open my eyes, to start really looking more closely at all those things in the world that I have been trying to ignore. The next phase of my practice is when I decided it was time to start peeking over the fence.