alana – Page 20 – Alana's Dharma Blog

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea

July 14, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

As a kid my greatest Disney World love, the thing that filled me with anticipation before each visit, was the ride 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I remember climbing down to take my seat on the submarine, watching out the window as we traveled deep under the ocean seeing mermaids, and giant squid, and other sea wonders. As soon as the ride ended all I wanted was to get back in line and do it again.

As I got older, my family stopped taking us to Disney and I didn’t go again till I was about 16 years old. The first thing I did when I got to the park was run for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But even as I stood in line, I saw things I never noticed as a kid. There was no ocean, no submarine, you could see the ride tracks just a few feet under the murky water. The ‘submarine’ was dank and dirty, the undersea wonders just cheap plastic. As soon as I got off the ride I had an ah-ha moment. I told myself, “Alana, never look back, never look too closely at things you enjoy, when you need to, look away. Do whatever you can to preserve good memories, keep the happy bits and avoid/ignore the suffering.”

Nearly 2 decades later, I am sitting in the car, reflecting on this memory and realize, I got it all wrong.

Looking away from something can’t change what it actually is –I thought, if I avoid revisiting my happy places, I can stay in control, things will be as I imagine and remember. It is the same as my tendency to look away from decay, I ignore what I don’t want to see. But whatever my memories, whatever conditions I set around pleasure and suffering, whatever I I I Me Me Me does, it does not change reality. My perception does not make a ride something other than that what it is.
Nothing I do will ever, ever ever ever ever ever ever, allow me to have only the happy side of something and not the suffering — You see, I loved the ride. I loved the snacks in India when they were still fresh in the wrapper, I loved my Wonder Woman body the night of the Halloween party. Then, when these things changed I tried to avoid the pain of loss, to look away. Clearly though, given that I still remember the great ride disappointment of 2 decades before, my tactic does not work. Ignoring decay does not prevent it. Avoiding the suffering that comes with loss, as long as I still have things I don’t want to lose, is impossible.
Looking away has a cost — it’s not just that my idiotic method (i.e. wrong view) of looking away doesn’t work, it actually works against me. Over and over I think that ride, that snack, that body is worth it. Over and over I will suffer to get those thing and suffer to lose them. But things in this world are only worth it until I start believing they are not any more. And the process of believing, of gathering evidence, starts by looking. (Present day Alana says one of the next blogs takes a concrete example, smoking, to explore the process of moving my mind from worth it to not worth it..stay tuned).

Our Old Friends Rupa and Control Make a Reappearance

June 23, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

This next story features our old friends Rupa (form, stuff) and control. It’s not so much that I ever stopped contemplating these topics, in fact I am currently contemplating them with renewed vigor, but they slipped into the background of a number of these stories. So here we have it front and center once again….

I was at the Wat shortly after the India trip and Mae Yo asked a group of us the question, “Why do we have so many jackets?” Since once we start talking wardrobe, I’m in my zone, I left the Wat and kept considering the question carefully. It was clear to me that I have many clothes to exert control: control of my body (to make it look skinnier, prettier, more appropriate for various situations, to keep it warmer or cooler, more comfortable in a variety of circumstances), over how other people perceive me, over the clothes themselves (how often I need to do laundry, how I match things together). But I had already started seeing that suffering is caused in large part by my desire to control, by my failed efforts to create permanence and stability out of a world that, ultimately, lacks those traits.

You can look back at almost every story here in this blog of me trying to control people ( Blake, Sandy, Sue, Candy, Chris), objects (sponges, cups, money, bench), my own body (disease, weight gain, blood sugar) and situations (flying, sunbathing, dentist visits, becoming enlightened) and note the extraordinary work that went into my efforts and my deep disappointment with their very limited success. I proceeded to ask myself two questions: 1) What is the cost of my control efforts and 2) Is it even possible. I didn’t need to look any further than the objects in my living room for evidence to start answering these questions.

I look around my living room and it is so so clear that everything I bought here was to control something, to solve a problem and each item created new problems.

My fireplace — I bought to control temperature, to make me warm. But the first one I installed ended-up not being warm enough. Once I had the money for something better, I had to find a new model, new contractors and instal a second one. The second one was warm enough but produced toxic fumes, so it was months before I could use it without the window open. Which btw made it colder in the house.

Chairs — after long debates and late nights internet searching, Eric and I found ‘the perfect chairs’ for the living room. We wanted to be able to sit together, in front of the beloved fireplace, but the chairs we had did not have enough back support to be comfortable. I ended-up sitting on the floor and Eric in the other room. So we bought new chairs, they cost a fortune, covered in beautiful brown leather. We get them in the house and they don’t match anything else in the room. They were comfortable though so after agonizing over what to do, we sell our old stuff on craigslist (pain in the butt) and go through the laborious process of redesigning our living room.

Bookshelves — We couldn’t bear to get rid of any of the books in our extensive library, after all, they were part of who we are, the time we put into our reading and studies, but the boxes and boxes were crowding our closets and creating clutter so we bought a bookshelf. It was an antique piece that took forever to arrive and just as the movers were pulling it from the truck, they dropped it and broke it. We decided they could bring it back to their warehouse for repairs…the company was impossible to get a hold of, couldn’t tell me about the bookshelf, it took hours of emails, calls, and a final angry call to management to get it returned. Finally we got it back. Repaired, but never totally stable. I worry now about when exactly it’s going to break…

Rug — As part of the chair remodel, we decided we needed a rug to ‘tie the room together’. If you have ever been to a rug store…you know suffering! The pressure, the lies, the oh just take it home and try it…the endless stream of carpets testing your patients to tell the difference between each one. Eric and I couldn’t decide, an epic fight broke-out about how much to spend and which one to get. Finally we came to an agreement on a carpet so nice, I’m afraid to eat or drink in the living room, lest it get stained.

There were actually further examples, but you get the idea. I started reflecting further that with each item in this world, the problem is the suffering is already baked-in, it’s part of what you get. With birth in this body, I get death. With a breakable bookshelf, I get breaking. With a rug filled with patterns I get ones I want and ones I don’t want –its not like I can take-out the patterns I don’t like, thread by thread, and then still have a rug at the end.

Now (today time) when I look back at this contemplation, I see that my stuff is already evidence of my failure to be a person who is in control — if buying something it is always to solve some problem, and the thing I buy creates more problems; my failure to have a world exactly as I want it is already assumed in the purchase. The idea that some object is going to help win the war against impermanence and discomfort is ridiculous –how could that be when the objects themselves are impermanent, when they create a fresh set of problems? I mistake my little victories, the small battles, where I bought an object and for a time it made things better, as evidence that with enough objects, with enough effort, I will win the war against impermanence and suffering. But the truth is I will always lose and continuing the fight is starting to feel exhausting.

India Interlude Part 3: On Karma

June 16, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

On Karma

On the first day of the trip, Mae Yo asked us to consider what kind of karma folks have to be living in a place like India, to be born into the conditions of poverty we see on the streets around us. (Present day note: a much more complete entry on Karma is coming-up, these are just a few thoughts from my trip).

As I looked out the window of the buss I noticed that folks live in such squalor and don’t even seem to care. They let rubbish stay in the streets, animals roam in and out of people’s shack homes. I watched folks clean their laundry in the river and then just lay it in the dirt to dry. I don’t understand it…there are trees everywhere, why not hang the clean laundry in sheets rather than putting it right back in the dirt? It feels like collectively, people here don’t even notice the conditions they are in, they don’t even look for a way to fix the easy stuff (like sweeping the streets or hanging the laundry or fencing their homes from the goats). That’s the karma of the place, of the folks born here — to not even know there is a suffering, an issue, better yet to try to fix it.

When we went to Nepal it was different. Still poor, much poorer than India in fact, but at least folks tried. The streets were cleaner, more orderly, laundry hung. It was such a contrast.

Then I think about the US. there things are so relatively clean and orderly. With our collective karma, we invent, we problem solve, we come-up with ways to live a more comfortable life, to put off the impermanence, the negative side of the coin. We have refrigerators and medicine and street cleaning, and trash collection. In the end of course, impermanent wins, in the US, India, Nepal, everywhere.

I don’t know what exactly got someone born in India versus in the US. In poverty versus wealth. But I see what perpetuates it. I see that complacency, failure to see a problem means it will never get solved. I see that by not seeing my own suffering I will never solve it, never figure out how to stop being reborn.

India Interlude Part 2: On Standards

June 9, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

On Standards

Last night we stayed at a hotel that was super dirty. The sheets were stained, there was hair everywhere, a peek in the kitchen revealed all kinds of creepy crawlies, the toilet was brown, as was the faucet water. It stank. I was soooo very uncomfortable. As I lay in my bed, I had no choice, no where else to go so I tried to fall asleep. I realized that there is a difference between ignoring the dirty and seeing it for what it is and accepting it when there really is no other way out.

Today we checked into another hotel. It too is modest, way below my normal standards, but it is clean. Just walking in the room filled my heart with comfort and joy. Compared to last night it is heaven even though at home I would never ever stay at a place like this, it is so below my standards.

From this I see the trap –the way I keep being able to stay in this world filled with things that disgust me, the way I get reborn; Little changes can give me hope, reset my standards, blind me to the terrible parts of life. All I need is something a little better than before and I can accept. But the downside, even a little worse than before and I feel loss.

More on Disgust

Disgust is a symptom of a wrong view. It is the desire to see only one side (the clean and orderly side), one state. But can anyone really be neutral? Can anyone really walk into a room at the hotel from 2 nights ago and be ok? What about folks who have never even stayed in a hotel before? Folks who sleep in shacks. They would likely find the room, with beds and sheets and running water a wonderful place. Our #3, memory, is what sets the standard.

India Interlude Part 1: On Decay

June 2, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

Back in Nov. 2013 my temple took a group trip to visit the Buddhist holy sites in India and Nepal. In the next few entries I will relate some of my notes and observations from the trip. I will go ahead and copy these directly from my notebook and make edits only for the sake of context and understandability.

More Trash

There is trash in the tour bus, empty water bottles on the floor, food wrappers stuffed in seat pockets. It makes me feel disgusted (clearly a pretty prevalent emotion for me around this time). A part of me realizes it’s what everything becomes — even what I will become — expired, dead and done, something disgusting in my eyes. I know these wrappers used to keep food, something I enjoy and desire, safe and fresh. These wrappers lived a good life, served a helpful function, and still, in the end, it becomes trash. Trash that requires effort to clean, that impacts the environment, that causes me discomfort. And really, it stays trash for so much longer than it was a ‘useful good’.

But, I still eat the snacks on the bus, even if I’m not hungry I’ll eat it for the taste, even knowing they will produce empty wrappers, trash that disgusts me. Why do I do this? If I know the trash is built-into the experience, if I know I will be disgusted, why eat the snacks?

I prefer to ignore the bus trash, look away, look out a window. It’s a pattern I have, look away from the decay as it makes me uncomfortable. I prefer clean places, well designed indoors, nature outdoors, places I associate with beauty and safety and life. I prefer looking pretty, well dressed, well groomed, I’ll do it even to the point of hurting myself, starvation, over exercise, expense, so that I can feel beautiful and safe and full of life.

But the decay, the trash state, it is natural, unavoidable. Everything I find desirable, like snacks and pretty places and my own beauty will erode, it will die and decay. I look out the window, I look away from decay, pretending that if I ignore it I can escape it. But I can’t. And Dharma practice is the process of learning to stop looking away. To see the decay, the trash, is built into the system.

Dead Flowers

I observe at the holy sites folks come and leave beautiful fresh flower offerings. After the flowers begin to wither and die, workers gather them up to throw away. It’s the cycle of the world. But I am disgusted by it, by the bus trash, by the dead flowers. How can it be that even these beautiful flowers, offered to the Buddha, die, decay. My disgust is a mechanism to keep me from accepting the impermanent nature of things (Alana’s present day note: my disgust is actually a result of my failure to believe in my heart the impermanent nature of things…but this took a bit longer to clarify). I am disgusted because in my heart I believe the decay is an aberration, a broken bit of this world, not the norm. I am disgusted because I don’t want to be reminded of impermanence. I still want to believe it’s beatable somehow. That I will beat it myself. But all flowers, even the beautiful ones, even the useful ones, even the ones offered to the Buddha, die.

So I look away from the parts I don’t like. That is my habit, what I am used to. If I do that though, how can I ever break free from this world? I need to habituate myself to seeing both sides, the beauty and the disgusting bits. This is why Mae Yo gave me the homework to see the percent of joy versus suffering.

Notes From Mae Yo

I shared some of these contemplations with Mae Yo. And her advice was to look at the energy it took to grow the flower compared to the 3 or 4 days in which the flower is fresh and beautiful. And to know the conditions I set, flowers must be fresh, beautiful, cause me the suffering of continuing to try to meet them over and over again, having to keep buying these flowers when they are at their prime and tossing them when they wither. Finally, that is looking at my decay is too hard, zoom-out and use external stuff, bigger patterns to avoid just looking out the bus window and ignoring the trash all together.

My Dirt is Cleaner Than Your Dirt

May 26, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

I am waiting for a table at a cafe and when one opens-up the waiter tells me to have a seat and he will be over to clear the table in a few moments. I sit down and look at the last patron’s trash piled on the table and I feel disgusted. What a mess these folks left behind at my table.

Of course, the waiter comes and cleans everything up, sets my heart at ease, and before I know it I am enjoying my meal. When I am done, I stretch my legs, feel myself full and relaxed, and take-out a book to start reading. Then I stop. I look around at my own trash piled on the table and it hits me…

Someone else’s trash on my table makes me squirm, but my trash is perfectly ok. And other people’s trash on their tables is totally ok, just as long as it’s not on my table. But trash is trash and tables are tables right? There is it again, the culprit of my discomfort, my delusion — me and mine.

All That I Aspire Towards

May 19, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

Aspirations are one of those ‘Big Buddhisty Things’; they cameo in all the liturgy, we are instructed to make them whenever we do something good, they even managed to make it onto the Buddha’s critical stuff shortlist (often poorly translated as ‘right thought’ in the the 8 fold path). So, naturally, I obsessed over my own. I crafted it, word-smithed it, revised it over time. But at around this point in my practice (late 2013) I had come-up with a version that looks a lot like what I still use today.

In plain speak, an aspiration (Buddhist or otherwise) is simply setting a goal. It expresses the intention to move towards that goal, and it calls upon the force of momentum we have already created (for the Buddhist aspiration variety, that is usually in the form of our past good deeds), to help ensure we we get there.

My teacher, Me Yo, emphasized the importance of crafting a good aspiration, reiterating it, dedicating myself, and my merit, to its accomplishment. Without further ado here is aspiration 1.0 and a few notes of later day changes.

I dedicate all the merit of my current and all my past lives to becoming, at least, a sotapana (first stage of enlightenment) now, as quickly as possible, preferably in this life.

I ask that if I am born at all, I am born into circumstances of dharma, with true teachers and dharma friends.

I ask for the comforts of this world, health, wealth, beauty and long life (Alana’s present day note: I dropped this part of the aspiration several years ago, figuring it was best to be narrow and focused on leaving this world, comforts and all).

Above all else, I ask for the wisdom to know right view from wrong and the willpower to choose what is right. (Alana’s present day note, again several years ago this line also changed when I realize willpower has nothing to do with anything. Once I see wrong views, the change in action comes with ease, not force. Nowadays I ask for wisdom and any other quality that will help me reach enlightenment quickly).

Let me take back any vows and remove any obstacles that stand in the way of my walking the path to complete enlightenment, now, as quickly as possible, preferably in this life.

Me and Mine: A Little Help From a Monk and A Baby

May 14, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

Since Dharma Practice Day One, Mae Yo has repeated one homework assignment to me over and over — “Alana, look at your stories, go and prove that all your problems really start from your sense of me and mine.” Somehow, I kept ignoring the assignment; just an empty space in my notebook again and again.

Even though I had sort of figured-out that I was the one causing my problems (see the last section, Whoo Wait a Sec its Me…), I figured I could tweak myself, improve myself and then the problems would go away. This idea that the very concept of self and self belongings is a lie (wrong view) and that any self I created, even a new and improved one, was going to keep biting me in the ass, I guess it never really clicked until…

Shortly after I had ‘finished’ the homework about suffering in where my mind visits most often, I happened to go to temple and listen to LP Anan talk about his experiences helping look after a baby some community members were leaving at the temple while they went to school/work. I must have been primed to really start thinking about the perils of me and mine because the sermon hit me like a ton of bricks. I felt it resonate in my heart and, ultimately it launched my very first effort to answer that age old homework assignment about me and mine.

In this entry, I want to just share a few of LP Anan’s remarks that really got my ball rolling. In the next entry I will share my own contemplations on the topic.

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A couple with a newborn came to the temple in some dire straights — they had no one to help care for their child while they went to school/work and not enough money to pay for daycare. Mae Yo, being Mae Yo, offered to help and soon enough the temple was doubling as day care and the monks doubling as nannies. LP Anan (one of the monks) was explaining how, at first, he didn’t want to care for the baby. He certainly didn’t want to change a dirty diaper. Its disgusting!

But over time, the baby started to grow on him. The baby would smile, when LP Anan held him. Or cry when he was put down. And LP Anan came to love the baby, to feel needed by him, to feel proud to be such a good caretaker of the baby. The baby became his responsibility. The baby became his.

Suddenly changing diapers became an act of love, something LP could do to prove what a good caretaker he was. Diaper time went from being disgusting to being desirable, at least when it was his baby’s diaper time (other baby’s diapers were, of course, still disgusting). And I, heard loud and clear in LP Anan’s story — the condition of ownership is the ticket — that is what transforms a yuk, a suffering, into something desirable, something that we want to nurture and protect and preserve.

Incidentally several months later, the couple moved away and, of course took their baby with them. And LP Anan, suffered loss, suffered sorrow. Not because a baby had moved away, but because his baby had moved away….

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When I got home from temple I went back through my homework about suffering in where my mind visits most often (see the previous 3 entries) and I noticed a theme (finally!!!!!). My time, my body, my clothes, my self… in each story my suffering has a singular seed — me and mine. And in each story I was able to forgive the pain my time (the careful planning and frequent disappointment), my body (soreness, hunger), my clothes (obligation for continued striving) caused me for one simple reason –they are mine. Imagine that, Mae Yo was right after all..

Homework Part 3 Where My Mind Vists Most Often: A Slave to Fashion

May 5, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

So, a little reminder, this entry is the third part of my homework assignment to use snippets of my life/experiences (a biopsy) to start evaluating what happiness is and if it’s worth it. Specifically I was told to:

Figure out where my mind visits often, my memories/fantasies.
See the suffering. How long is the suffering versus happiness?
How do I repeat the cycle?

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A Slave to Fashion

You see, I am a Fashionista it’s one of the places my mind visits most often. Even as a kid, I loved to play dress-up. By the time I could drive, my favorite destination was the mall. Even when I was broke in college, I made weekly shopping trips to the goodwill. Little by little, paycheck by paycheck, I came to frequent Marshals, then Bloomys, then Neimans and Barney’s…

I remember my first pair of black boots. I put them on and felt so sexy, so strong, like some bad-ass chick in the movies ready to kick ass. In my wrong view ridden mind, clothes give me a sense of control. With just a little fabric and some bling, I believe I can make people see me the way I want to be seen. I can come-off as sexy and strong (black boots), professional and smart (crisp blazer), wealthy (Goyard bag), buttoned-up (matching belt and shoes), ageless (black dress), stylish… Clothes help make me special and unique, at least till I take them off, or they go out of fashion, or they make the wrong impression…

But my bright and fancy wardrobe has a dark side. It’s not just the monthly credit card bill, or the time I spend shopping and caring for my clothes. Sometimes I open my closet door and I literally feel oppressed. I feel like I have so many items, I have the responsibility to figure out how to wear them all. I need to plan outfits that are original and appropriate, that no one has seen me in before. I need to shop constantly, to keep up with the stylish image I have created. I bought a great skirt, but now I need to find a shirt and shoes to match. I used to shop at Gap and Banana Republic but once I got a feel for Prada fabric, saw how Gucci fits just right (#3), I set new standards, conditions (#4) for what this fashionista should and shouldn’t go around wearing. I can’t go back after all, so I get trapped in a cycle of more clothes, more matching, better brands, new outfits. I have to preserve my image. I have to preserve myself.

This is how I get reborn. Just like with clothes, I have an ever changing ‘fact’ sheet (#3 memory) of what is fashionable, desirable, situationally appropriate. Of what is good. I (#4) imagine-up an outfit that fits the bill, I imagine how that outfit helps create an Alana, I imagine the Alana that I will or won’t be. And once I have the perfect outfit, the perfect Alana, I need to figure out how to keep it up, how to one-up it for the next event. Black booted, kick-ass Alana doesn’t give-up after all, so my only choice is to keep becoming….

Homework Part 2 Where My Mind Vists Most Often: Wonderfully Beautiful

April 28, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

So, a little reminder, this entry is the second part of my homework assignment to use snippets of my life/experiences (a biopsy) to start evaluating what happiness is and if it’s worth it. Specifically I was told to:

Figure out where my mind visits often, my memories/fantasies.
See the suffering. How long is the suffering versus happiness?
How do I repeat the cycle?

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Wonderfully Beautiful

For Halloween a few years ago, I was intent on going to a party dressed as Wonder Woman. For months, I worked-out even harder than usual (3 times a day instead of just 2), I barely ate, all to fit into the costume and look fabulous (I’m sure you will all recall just how little clothing liberated-feminist-role-model Wonder Woman ran around in) And I did look truly fabulous. For one night, I was a rock star, well, a superhero actually.

But man did it suck. From all the workouts I ached all the time. And boy was I hungry. I had some blood work done around that time and my Dr. asked me about a few red flags in my liver enzymes. Conversation went like this:

Dr: “Alana, you have some weird elevated enzymes on your blood panel, any idea why?”

Alana: “ Can too much exercise and near starvation cause those blood results?”

Dr: “Yes”.

Alana: “No worries then, I’m Wonder Woman, she is invincible”

Even the night of the great party, it wasn’t that great. I looked so awesome as Wonder Women, guys wouldn’t leave me alone to just dance and hang-out with friends, I was getting hit-on left and right. I was uncomfortable being so exposed, not to mention cold! And I was so hungry I could eat an ox. Well, a whole pizza, which I did finally do at 2:00 AM when I couldn’t take it anymore and then paid the price with severe heart burn…

This idea, that I can control my body absolutely, since it’s mine after all, that it will be what I want it to be without downside is a place my mind visits often. I have a ton of examples of it (some of which you will likely remember from earlier posts in this blog) and, just like in the Wonder Woman story, it doesn’t always go according to my plan and when it does, it sure isn’t forever and it sure isn’t easy. Here are a few more examples I jotted down in my homework (there were actually quite a few more, but you will get the idea):

I was going to control my blood sugar with coffee extract and ended up peeing myself
I was going to control my teeth by putting crowns on them and I destroyed a tooth and needed a root canal
I was going to have that great yoga body but then hurt my back
I was going to improve my skin with green tea cream and broke-out terribly

The problem is, sometimes I win, get what I want, appear to be in control. For one night, I looked amazing as Wonder Woman. I save that image in my head (#3 Memory) and hope is born. Hope that I can stay wonderfully beautiful forever (#4 Imagination), that I can keep working out till exhaustion and limit food to starvation and my body, my beauty, will endure.This is how I repeat the cycle, keep trying to stay pretty, stay young, stay healthy, control my body. But I don’t have an invincible liver or the super heroic willpower to not eat forever. So I suffer. Forget the suffering of getting to Super Woman levels of fitness, losing it was so so so much more painful. Even today, I look in the mirror and see the flab and sag that wasn’t there that night and I mourn for the loss of Wonderfully Beautiful Alana. I wonder and hope if maybe for just one night, I can get there again….

Homework Part 1 Where My Mind Vists Most Often: Alana’s Special Time

April 21, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

So, a little reminder, this entry is the first part of my homework assignment to use snippets of my life/experiences (a biopsy) to start evaluating what happiness is and if it’s worth it. Specifically I was told to:

Figure out where my mind visits often, my memories/fantasies.
See the suffering. How long is the suffering versus happiness?
How do I repeat the cycle?

Alana’s Special Vacation Time

After months of prep and planning, the day of Eric and my first vacation in years arrived — we were going camping in the Texas backwoods called Big Thicket. Just as we pull up to the campground, Eric got sick. I mean really sick. Entirely too sick to be sleeping in the woods, far away from bathrooms or electricity, so we had to turn around and drive home. I was so disappointed. So frustrated. Hell, I was downright angry! How could Eric just get sick like that on My Time, on my vacation? I earned this trip after all, I planned it and then he ruined it. Lets just say, this was not one of my finer moments as a loving supportive wife…

I had a seriously stupid wrong view: Because I had planned something, counted on it, expected it, earned it, wished for it, pretty pleased with sugar on top of it, I suddenly had control. I could shape a time, a trip in this case, to my will. It would be Alana’s Special Vacation Time. When the world, my husband’s body more specifically, did not abide by my time, my rules and my plan, well I was a super bitch.

The truth is this theme of ‘Alana Vacation Time’ is one of my my big fantasies (delusions), it is a place my mind visits often. I have a ton of examples of it and, just like in the camping story, my time doesn’t always go according to my plan and I suffer (or worse, I cause suffering to others I love, like Eric). Here are a few more examples I jotted down in my homework (there were actually quite a few more, but you will get the idea):

I went on Safari to Kenya, believing it would be a safe fun vacay, and I was attacked by a rhino. I felt safe the first 3 days of the trip. After the attack I was in pain and fear the next 10 days.
I went traveling in Italy and got horrible food poisoning. Sure it was only one day, but it was the day I was looking forward to the most in the whole trip.
I went to visit friends in Arizona. It was a 3 week trip and I got and got super sick for 2 of those 3 weeks.
I went for a semester abroad in Israel and I was so miserable and depressed for 7 months, all I wanted was to come home.
I went to Yosemite, but stayed in a crappy hotel. We had fun all day, but I tossed and turned unable to sleep all night.
Eric and I went to Mexico, but he was depressed the whole time so it was a terrible trip
Eric and I went to Hawaii but fought the first 2 days of a 5 day trip
I was having stomach problems from the food in China so I worried constantly for 12 days about being close enough to a bathroom in the event of an emergency.

You see, I’m not an idiot, I know life entails suffering, duhh it’s all around me, in my life, my day to day. But I believe that sometimes, if I ‘earn’ it, if I do all the right things, I can carve out a time/space that is devoid of suffering. In my mind, I build a fence –suffering over there, in day-to-day life, joy over here on vacations/My TIme. This wrong view, it’s a tool I use to keep going in life, to repeat the cycle of being born. I think, “if I can just make it over to that little space of refuge over there, in Big Thicket or Kenya or Italy or just the end of the workday curled up in front of my fireplace, I can chillax just a bit. Life is worth it for those suffering free moments.”

But, the evidence, if I pay attention to it, doesn’t lie. Even in my Vacay Time, I have plenty of suffering. I have illness, depression, fights, pain, fear — it appears that I can’t control, that the fence I build in my mind does nothing to keep all the baddies out in real life. Since the truth isn’t at all what I want to hear (that I can’t avoid suffering, I can’t control), I ignore it. I forget the evidence. I selectively delete it from my memory (#3) and imagine (#4) the next happy trip I will plan. And then I suffer disappointment when My Time is ruined again and again. I suffer the consequences of being cruel to the people around me during fits of frustration and anger. I suffer the work and planning of trying for the next repeat, redo trip that will be just perfect. I build a certain self, A Special Vacay Time Alana self, seeking to have happiness and avoid pain. I fail so I forget….

But Whyyyyyyyyy-ey-ey-ey!!! Do I Create this Self Thing Anyway?

April 14, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

I had only a brief moment of feeling triumphant — having conquered Mae Yo’s seemingly impossible homework assignment about how the aggregates work — when I realized, I now had an even bigger question…Why? I mean seriously, why do I create a sense of self and then bolster it using some crazy ass mental acrobatics ( i.e. aggregates of memory (3) and imagination (4))? Why bother with this self-stuff? Why bother getting born?

Try as I might I was stumped so I did go to Mae Yo and Neecha, “Whyyyyyyyy-ey-ey-ey!”

This next entry is the guidance they provided me and the few that follow are my early contemplations on why and how I create this self. This is a very ongoing contemplation so it is not quite as ‘buttoned-up’ as some of my other stories, but it lays an important groundwork for future contemplations so I will do my best to get it out here and make it clear(ish).

Mae Yo’s Suggestions/More Homework

So spoiler alert, Neecha basically told me the answer to my question up-front. It went something like, “We create a self to maximize pleasure/happiness and avoid pain” I remember answering, “seriously, that’s it?”

Mae Yo then went one step further than answering the why by giving me contemplations on how to stop, essentially, to evaluate the cost. Here is what I wrote down:

Things arise and cease too fast for us to understand. So we need to take a biopsy, look at a single section and take a closer look. See where is comes from and what the problem really is.

We try to avoid suffering/ impermanence. But clearly we can’t. What we can do is use suffering as a tool to leave this cycle (rebirth). Like using snake poison as an antidote, we can use suffering to teach ourselves the undesirable aspects of being born.

We get born for such a short period of happiness, is it worth it. Mae Yo then walked through a personal example using my life:

I am the oldest of 2 children, I loved my parents, wanted their attention. I was born and enjoyed that undivided attention for 4 years before my little brother was born. Then, for the next 30+ years, I was no longer the center of my parent’s universe. I lost what I had, what I loved, what I sent myself up to be born into…

All you need to do is pay attention to what happiness really is, its duration and if it’s worth it. With that I was given the following homework:

Figure out where my mind visits often, my memories/fantasies. The places my mind visits most often are my biggest addictions. Identify them and find the suffering in them.
How long is the suffering versus happiness. Just like in the story with my brother and I, it is important to see that I got 4 years I wanted and then another 34 that were less than my ideal of being the center of my parent’s attention.
How do we repeat the cycle? Neecha gave an example, someone allergic to nuts, they love the taste but when they eat them they itch and their face swells and they have pain. Still though, some people can’t stop eating them. In general, what we have done is what we keep doing, we never think through the cost. They want the flavor and ignore the suffering. It is how we all perpetuate our pain. Use snapshots from my real life to see the suffering and try and be done with it.

Next week we will see how I fared with this assignment…

Alana’s Later Addition Note: So, I just want to connect a few dots here and make explicit the connections between the aggregates, the illusion of self (wrong view) and suffering. Through these were not terribly clear at the time of this contemplation, I think my adding a little more filler info will serve you Dear Reader, so let’s recap.

In Buddhism, the self is considered an illusion (remember the exercise of trying to find baby and prom night and day dad died Alana? ). The reality is we are just a continual flow of arising and ceasing. This belief in self is a deep wrong view. As we know, wrong views cause suffering (there is a whole blog about this ;)) and since the goal of this Buddhism thing is to escape suffering we had best correct our view of the self. That’s the overview.

The aggregates are the process by which we hide our/the world’s true nature (continually changing) from ourselves. These aggregates, especially our memory and our imagination, sell the lie that we have a self. Mae Yo asked me to go and investigate them so I could understand the mechanics of my self delusion in order to be better equipped to fight it (it’s like knowing the tools my enemy uses so I can better strategize how to win a war). Once I saw the how,the next question was why.

The answer to why was given to me — I create and sustain myself because I think it will make me happy. Really, it’s the same reason any of us do anything. Mae Yo then gave me contemplations to help me stop creating the self — look at the suffering that comes with the happiness and the motivation for continued thrill seeking becomes lesser and lesser. Bringing us to the homework in the next section…

Alana’s (Seemingly) Impossible Homework Assignment– Go and Figure Out How Memory (3) and Imagination (4) Work. What is Their Process?

April 7, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

Another technical entry warning, do your best and feel free to scan and skip ahead to next week if this is all a bit much…

Gurrr, ughhrr, ugggh … those were basically my first thoughts when I sat down to do my homework. Fortunately, as I’m sure all you Dear Readers have noted already, the methods taught by LP Thoon are chalk-full of tools, the most important being to start from experiences in our everyday lives to understand the dharma. So I began to comb through my own stories for one that would help me understand the aggregates of memory (3) and imagination (4) …

When we first moved to SF I discovered we had a mouse in our house. I had never had mice before so it didn’t bother me at all. In fact, after I didn’t see it for a few days I began to worry something bad had happened. I thought maybe the mouse was hungry, so I started leaving out food for it. I went online, to check-out what mice might like to eat (FYI — everything) and started seeing articles about the dangers of vermin in your house. Apparently my cute little mouse wasn’t so harmless at all, it could spread death and disease and plague oh my! This was back in the days of ‘paranoid and afraid of death all the time Alana’ so, it was — Freak-out time!!!!!

Suddenly my house mouse was a pest not a guest.

But the change from needing to be fed to something I dread was all in my head

————————-OK, with the rhyming out of my system — ————————————-

As I began to consider the aggregates of memory (3) and imagination (4) this particular story jumped into my head because well, it was all in my head. The mouse went from furry friend to freaky fiend in my head alone, based on changes to my knowledge and imagination of the future — this was a story I could work with.

What were my original #3s, memory, for this story? What were the ‘facts’, data points, things I already firmly believed to be true based on past experiences, that I drew-on to formulate my beliefs about needing to feed mice in my house?

The mouse is missing
My mother and stepmother always took special care with animals and strays. It was normal in my household and it was something my father (who I loved and respected very much) appreciated
What happens in my house is my responsibility
My hamsters as a child died because I didn’t take good enough care of them
The folks in my old dharma community and my teachers were always going around and saving animals
Caring for animals makes me a compassionate Alana, and compassionate people are loved (see Compassionate Alana Story )

What were my original #4s, imagination, for this story? What conclusions did I draw based on my memories, what did I imagine would or wouldn’t happen, that had me going around and feeding mice?

A missing mouse is hungry and in danger (thank the mouse gods compassionate Alana is here to save the day)
Eric, my friends, my family would learn about me caring for this poor mouse I would score some serious Brownie Points.
But if I didn’t take care of the mouse it would die and I would be to blame since it happened in my house, on my watch. I would be a bed person unworthy of love

( It is worth noting that none of my imaginations really had anything to do with the actual mouse, they were me and mine, my mouse, my house, my compassionate Alana PR)

Enter the internet and a little research on diseases spread by rodents….

What were my post-Googling #3s, memories, for this story? Suddenly internet ‘facts’ filled my brain and I now have a data bank full of cautionary tales about the dangers of mice in my house.

What were my post-Googling #4s, imaginations, for this story? I’m going to die –aahhh. Death by mouse disease, plague, yikes. That mouse needs to get the hell out now.

My mouse story, what I believed, what I imagined, how I acted, changed super fast as soon as my old 3’s and 4’s were replaced with new ones. Clearly, I am choosing which memories to recall, which ones to preference (in this story the new ones not the originals), I am the judge and a biased one at that. Afterall, its not like I had never before seen folks killing mice, or ignoring them, or being harmed by wildlife, or not actually realizing that disease is sometimes spread by animals. All those things existed in my memory banks right along side what I listed above. But, the rupa (form, 1st aggregate) of that cute little mouse, all alone, in my house, it triggered me to a selection of certain memories, certain facts that I used to imagine myself as a mouse saving hero. And then, in very ‘Alana repeats the same patterns’ form (after all, this is the Homeless Alana theme all over again), even a small glimmer of danger (new 3’s) gets total preference of all other facts and sends me into panic imagining my impending death.

So to return to the homework questions, what are memory and imagination and how exactly does this all work?

What exactly is #3, memory? Its a recall of a memory/object/situation as something familiar, something I already have experiences of, a pattern recognition (animal in apparent distress/human capable of intervening). It can be something taught or told (Dr. Google says mice cause disease) or something learned (not feeding hamsters makes them dead). Most interestingly, our old imaginations, like vegetarians are good people (see the blog the Buddhist who loves Bacon) or Dad will love me if I save animals, can become so fixed that we take them to be facts. In essence our old #4s become new 3s. 3s then are basically our ‘facts’ things we believe to be true (whether they are or not) and use as the building blocks for what we imagine, our #4s.

What exactly is #4, imagination? # 4 is where we interpret the ‘evidence’ in #3 (memory), it’s where we go from mouse is missing (memory) to mouse is hungry and needs me to feed it and if I don’t it will die (crazy ass imagination). 4 is how we fantasize about the future/past, assign meaning and value to things and actions. 4 is the narrator of our life, and in an interesting circular way, it is 4 that selects which pieces of ‘evidence’ from our memory to choose and which to ignore. 4 is extra naughty naughty because it is where the idea of self and self belonging arise from. We have a memory (3) of buying a certain cup, using the cup, washing the cup, and our imagination (4) tells us that cup is ours, that we can own it and control it and have it forever. 4 makes it ‘my cup’.

How exactly does all this work, what is the process of memory and imagination?

For this grand finale, I think we will need one more story/example…

———————————————————————————-

Back in the day (i.e. some indeterminate period of time before this current story/homework) Mae Yo had given me another assignment I never quite did/understood. — Tell me how/why refrigerators were invented (which, now that I understood the assignment, is really a question about the aggregates, how they function, relate to each other and what they create/result in in this world). During the current contemplation on the aggregates the answer finally came to mind clearly:

It all starts with food (#1, rupa, form). We humans know from experience food spoils (#3 memory ) and we also notice that it spoils more quickly when warm and slowly when cold (still #3). Since unspoiled food is yay and spoiled food is yuk (#2 Vedanā/Feeling), we humans start scheming, we start imagining, we start inventing (#4 Imagination) ways to make the food last longer, ways to get more yays than yuks. Through trial and error, a ton of hard work, we come-up with refrigeration.

This is all well and good, but refrigeration is just one instance where we succeeded in curtailing impermanence, naturally it sits amongst many failures. But we imagine (4 again) we can do it again and again, that we are ultimately the ones in control of food and its decaying process. We commit this one success to memory and we create a new #3s, a data point we use to sell the lie, to feed the hope (again imagination) that we can beat impermanence in the end. And we suffer. We suffer the effort of manifesting our imaginations, of ignoring the consequences (I’m sure refrigeration has had plenty of negative impact to the environment, farming economy, family structure, etc), of our ultimate disappointment when impermanence has the final word.

And after all that, I answered a bonus question; how do I use this information in my practice?

Naughty naughty #4 (imagination) has been ruling my life forever. It is after all the creative process and it creates my sense of self (my wrong view of self). I have been letting it go unwatched, unchecked. But I have another option. I can gather evidence. I can create new #3s (memories) that show me the truth of this world (impermanence/suffering) and use that to drive my imagination. I can use it to imagine risks and perils, to see the other side, to internalize, I can use it to help get myself free.

Tick, tock, goes the clock — it’s time to start looking at that those watch gears a little more closely.

Alana’s 3s and 4s or, More Technically, the 5 Aggregates and the Buddhist Concept of Self

March 31, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

So, I am going to warn in advance that this is sure to be a mighty technical entry. This is about to get REALZ so, if you are having trouble, assume you’re in good company (even with this blogger) and do your best to follow along. Also note, the stuff in this post is not a starting place for practice, this is not meant to fuel anyone else’s contemplations, though none of this is a great secret (there are no secrets thanks to Wikipedia), it can be a bit confusing. This was however information and a Homework assignment (in the next blog) that Mae Yo gave me to act as a scaffolding for my contemplations. With this blog, I am trying to tell a linear(ish) story of how my practice progressed and if I don’t explain this we will have a big gaping hole in the plot line. This blog then starts a period of more technical analysis of myself and myself belongings (from around Sept. 2013). So without further ado..

A little Buddhism 101: 5 Aggregates and the Buddhist Concept of Self:

So, spoiler alert — Buddhism believes there is no self. This is probably one of the single most important tidbits of the Buddha’s teachings; our concept of self is an illusion, our biggest, dirtiest, most troublesome wrong view! Now that we got that out there, let’s back-up a bit and try to understand what all this actually means, what exactly is ’no self’ or Anatta . I really Like Phra Anan’s explanation of this so, I’m going to borrow it here…

If I asked you to go find for me baby Alana could you do it? The answer of course, is no. If I asked you to go find middle school alana or prom night alana or day dad died alana could you find those alanas either? Though each of those alanas really did exist at one point, now they are gone. Things, their form, are constantly changing. This is the principle of No Self in Buddhism — there is no enduring, inherent, unchanging thingness, no self in anything…there is just a continual flow of arising and ceasing. This is actually happening in every instant, but we have developed tools in our minds to ignore it. If we look over a long period it gets easier to detect that our little snapshots of moments aren’t enduring at all. In other words, baby alana and middle school alana and today alana aren’t really the same alana at all. Alana has no permanent enduring self.

So now the million dollar question — if we are just a continual sequence of arising and ceasing (little momentary self particles for simplicity), how did we come to the delusion that we are actually some kind of solid, enduring, permanent self? What are the tools we use to ignore reality?

Enter the 5 aggregates, which are essentially the mechanism that creates and sustains the illusion of self. I like to think of them like a watch — we call the watch a watch, a single solid thing. But in reality, if you open the back you can see it’s a bunch of gears, ‘aggregate’ parts, each performing their functions, contributing to the whole, making it seem like the watch is some constant singular entity even though its parts are always moving and changing. So here we are going to have the briefest review of what those parts are, with a special focus on the two Mae Yo explained are super key to my practice… #3 and #4 (memory and imagination).

The Aggregates: I will use the Pali once for the sake of precision and after that English for the sake of practicality…

Rupa/Form — This is just the physical, tangible, forms in the world. We talked about it a bit in the blog Stop Being Such a Mooch. For ‘self’ this is our body and our sense organs like eyes and ears, etc.
Vedanā/Feeling — this is just our response to something as yah yuk or neutral. In general we like yahs, but it is actually the next 2 aggregates that really control what we view as a yah/yuk/neutral and what scheme we are going to employ to get more yahs and less yuks.
Saññā/ Memory — I like to think of this as a memory bank. It is a place we we have stored memories of past experiences, things we have learned, been taught and which we remember.It’s the fuel we use for #4 to start moving.
Saṅkhāra/Imagination — I like to think of this as my own personal storyteller. This is the ‘gear’ that takes what we sense, and whatever memories that it triggers and starts imagining. Imagining how you can use this object, avoid this pain, it fantasizes about the future, it innovates, it retaliates, it selects, it interprets, frankly it causes a commotion
Viññāṇa/ Consciousness — This sort of goes on in the background and is not something I have contemplated. The best explanation I have heard for this .. if you had a room full of corpses and cranked-up the party tunes, they wouldn’t hear a thing. Even though they have ears, they don’t seem to have the ear consciousness to register sound. This is the job of Viññāṇa.

Why are Memory and Imagination so critical to consider? Its because they sell the lie. Memory selectively stores moments from the past, pictures of infant alana, details of prom night alana or dad’s death alana. Imagination colors in the lines, tells stories that take these separate moments, which are merely connected, and makes them seem solid, like an identity. Though our ignorance has been in charge of the storage and imagination up till now, with some wisdom, we can take back control of the story telling and begin to write new memories to the bank –ones that are in alignment with the truths of this world, namely impermanence, our propensity to suffer and no self. This part gets a little ahead of the game though. With way less info than I have given ya’ll…my homework assignment from Mae Yo was — Go and figure out how Memory and Imagination work. What is their process?

You can see how I fared in the next blog….

Buckle-up and Prepare for a Buddhisty Ride

March 24, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

I began this blog with the idea of Buddhism, of Bhuddistiness — what I said from the get-go remains entirely true: This blog, all my contemplations, my path, is firmly rooted in the path the Buddha himself laid-out, beginning with correcting our wrong views, to guide us to freedom from suffering. Simple as it sounds, this is the heart of my dharma practice — seeing the reality that everything is impermanent, subject to change, to cease, to die and that woven into the fabric of my life is suffering, discontent, peril and consequence, brought about by a failure to align my view of the world with its true nature.

Nonetheless, at around this time (late 2013) my contemplations began to incorporate some additional Buddhist concepts (like the aggregates, karma, the worldly conditions, self and self belonging). These evolved naturally, some arose as topics from my own contemplations, others were given to me as homework by my teachers. All the topics and their contemplation had a purpose — they act as a scaffolding to grow my contemplations, concepts to help me structure my thinking more clearly.

So, in the eyes of some folks, the next period of practice will start looking a little more “Buddhist-y”. At least it will introduce some fun new Pali/Sanskrit vocab, and if that’s not the sign of deep religious understanding, I don’t know what is ;). I ask that you guys, my readers, try not to get too distracted/overwhelmed, after all the heart of the practice remains as simple as it was in all the earlier stories. Just take what you can and leave the rest for someone else.
For my part, I will do my very best to keep it simple and to add explanations (to the best of my understanding) of those Bhuddist-y topics that come-up. My goal is not to be all fancy or make things difficult, my goal is to show the direction my practice took/is taking. To do that fairly, I need to include some of these topics…so hold on, buckle-up and prepare for a Buddhisty ride..

Candy, Sounds so Sweet But Boy Can She Be Trouble

March 17, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

A dear friend from college, we’ll call her Candy, came for a few days to visit. Candy and I are extremely close, I love her like a sister, but sometimes we can fight like sisters too…when I look back at the visit I realize, I had prepared myself for a knockout prize fight from the moment she stepped out of the Uber and onto my front curb. You see Candy, despite having many redeeming qualities as a friend, can be pretty demanding and difficult. I felt like I was always trying to accommodate her and meet her needs but nothing I did was good enough… ultimately feelings would get hurt, harsh words exchanged and we would each return home frustrated and angry…

Candy was hungry after her flight, so I took her to my favorite neighborhood restaurant for a bite. The waiter came over to take our order, this was the scene:

Candy, “So I see you have a salad bar, but I’m not really that hungry and $14 seems expensive, can I pay you $7 and then eat only half of what I would normally eat?”

Waiter,” Um..that’s not really how it works, the salad bar is a fixed price no matter how much, or how little you eat. “

Candy: “Well then, I’ll just take an order of french fries, can I get those not fried?”

Waiter: “You mean plain potatoes?”

Candy: “No no, I like the crispness and the shape of french fries, I just don’t want all that oil and grease. Can you just cut up potatoes into strips and like bake them or something?”

At this point the waiter was looking at me with the most sad and pleading eyes, but all I could do was shrug my shoulders. In that moment I saw the truth…for years whenever Candy was difficult with me, I thought it was my fault, I thought it was an attack on me that required some rebuttal or defense, or that it was a reflection of how much she loved and valued me. When I saw her with the waiter I finally understood — this is just the type of person Candy is. Whether I am there or not, whether I am involved or not, whether I talk back or fight back or cower like a wounded animal, this is how she acts. No way can I change Candy, and the truth is, none of this is about me, none of it has anything to do with me.

We head from dinner to the bowling alley/ arcade where we were going to shoot a few rounds of pool. While we were waiting for a table to open up, Candy walked over to the bowling section, picked-up a ball and was about to start bowling on an open lane when a staff member came over and explained she couldn’t just start to bowl, the lane had been reserved by a group that hadn’t yet arrived.

Candy: “its totally cool, I just want to bowl like 1 or 2 rounds…I’ll finish-up before the group arrives”

Staff Person: “That’s not how it works, we charge by the game. If you would like to go and put your name on the lane waiting list I can show you where to do that”

Candy: No no, don’t stress, it’ll just be a minute. Plus, how will I know if I want to bowl a whole game if I can’t try-out a few rounds. And the lane is open anyway”

Back and forth, back and forth, Candy and the staff member go … and I feel my blood starting to boil. Why can’t Candy just follow the rules? Why does she always act like this? Then, it hit me — how terrible were Candy’s actions really? Did they deserve the response of epic anger on my part? What if someone besides Candy was doing this, would I be so upset? If I saw it on TV, I might think it was funny. If it was a different friend, I might think it was bold. If it were a kid, I might think it was cute. If a random stranger did it I might be moderately annoyed, I might look at them all judgey, but I wouldn’t be filled with this kind of rage. But again, I still think this is about me, that it reflects on me (that the whole room is looking on and knows she is my friend, I brought her here, I ruined the fun and games), that it speaks to who I am as a person, what friends I choose to keep.

As I contemplated this my anger began to fade. I realized that it was my interpretation of my friend’s actions that were generating my negative emotions — my anger was entirely self created. Moreover, I saw that I already have so much narrative around who Candy is and how I should respond to her that I almost default to anger and annoyance whenever I see her, no matter what her actions are (seriously, she could be bottle feeding rescue kittens and I would find some way to feel offended — just forcing those helpless kittens to eat her food). I saw how my pattern of conditioned responses to Candy was keeping us in a cycle of fighting. So while Candy’s actions and personality weren’t on me, this anger, this cycle were, they were entirely my fault. After this incident, I began catching myself whenever I went into default anger mode. I began seeing the causes of my anger instead of just lashing-out.

This ended up being a critical story in my Dharma practice and my personal growth –I owe Candy a great deal of thanks. Here is where I started to learn to discern what stuff was on me to address and fix (i.e. my personality traits, my wrong views) and what was not about me at all, what was beyond my control (other people’s personality and views). Moreover, I saw it was all my imagination, my wrong perceptions that fueled my confusion, before this story, I pretty much had it entirely backwards: I believed, Candy’s personality/actions were about me (and something I could fix), but my anger and my response, that was her fault –after all who wouldn’t get frustrated with Candy?

Warning: another blogger’s late addition prerogative is coming here — When I think about my practice, what it has given me, I think about it a lot in terms of freedom. I want to be free, I think most of us do, but wrong views are actually a trap, a shackle. Before with Candy, I was stuck in a cycle, she would do something, I would get angry, we would fight. Or I would do something, she would get angry and I would need to fight back. Either way..it was like a movie on a loop with no end..it was the complete opposite of freedom.

Now, I have choices. Candy (or anyone else) can do something and I can respond, or not respond, as is appropriate to the situation –not just based on the same old script (which was fueled by my anger and hurt and wrong views). Moreover, by not making everything other people say and do about me, I can observe patterns in their actions and behaviors with greater clarity. I can actually fulfill my roles and responsibilities better, prepare for when I interact with them more. I can make smarter real-life decisions, about what to say and do that are actually a response to others, not just to my beliefs about them, that are really my beliefs about me, projected outwardly onto them (you can look at hugs for the homeless in the first blog entry for an example of this). With these new options, finally come greater degrees of freedom.

The Green-Not-So-Green Purse

March 10, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

Eric and I were in Hawaii and, me being a sucker for all things touristy and kitschy, got sold on tickets to a submarine ride. We took our seats on board and the boat began to descend. Down and down we went into a world that looks so different than what I’m used to. I peeled my eyes away from the window for just a sec and I noticed that my very bright neon green bag was changing colors.

This bag was green, I mean really green. Bright enough to make your eyes sore green. Flashy enough to announce to the whole world that I was coming from a mile away green. But here, on the submarine it was turning yellowish-puke-brown. Fortunately for this fashionista, light wave refraction did not fail, and as we surfaced an hour later, I watched my bag change back from brown to puke to lime to that neon green I had paid so much to enjoy.

Clearly, colors appear differently at deeper depths of water, this is not a magical mystery, there is a perfectly good scientific explination. But later, when I was reflecting on my bag going hyper color on me, I realized I really believed the bag was green, that was its color, it had a natural and true (permanent) green state. But by changing colors under water my bag gave me the very first glimpse I had of an important reality — greeness, or any quality for that matter, is dependent on the circumstances. Both the circumstances of the object and, even more importantly from a Dharma perspective, the circumstances of the viewer (a certain me-monster in this case).

At the time, this was a quick contemplation, and ah that’s nice moment. Later, when we hit the Big Buddhisty Topic of the 8 Worldly Conditions, this idea will return again in a much more impactful way. For now let’s leave it with the eerie feeling I got on that submarine, that I haven’t really been able to shake since, that the world may not be exactly as it seems/ as I believe it to be.

It’s Thai Time (A Year and a Half Late)

February 24, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

It was at the end of the 2012 (I think) retreat and the teachers were taking suggestions/ feedback on the retreat from the participants. I raised my hand, “I think it would be good if LP Nut (one of the teachers) led some of the English discussion groups/activities. I always get so much out of his teachings” LP Nut takes the microphone, thanks me, and then calls me out, “just remember Alana you can learn Thai too.”

OK, I hear you, I hear you LP Nut: So I enroll in a once a week Thai class at the temple. But honestly, I half assed it, minimal study, last minute homework. I heard you L.P. Nut, but not really…

Over time though, LP.’s words really started to echo in my head. I heard not just, “you, Alana, have the capability to learn Thai”. But, “you Alana are not the immutable force in the world to which all things and people must bend, adjust.” The language you speak is not a universal norm (duh, you belong to a Thai community), your terms are not those of the world, they are in fact quite irrelevant.”

A year and a half late (it was Thai time after all ;)), I enrolled in a 3 hour a week intensive Thai class and began to study an additional 10 hours on top. I put the petal to the metal and I pushed, I learned.

I pushed because I really do want to understand LP Nut and all of my teachers. I don’t want to miss the important details during late night discussions when everyone is too tired to translate. I don’t want language to limit my choice of dharma friends. I don’t want to feel like an outsider in my own community. So I study, for me.

I want to be clear, I’m not saying every non-Thai speaker must go out and learn Thai. Or that the Temple is inaccessable to folks who don’t speak Thai. Or that the community is closed and unaccepting. Not at all! But, for me, in my life, I came to see language as a barrier. A barrier I had no way of surmounting as long as I waited around and expected people to adjust to me, to my terms. If I wanted to feel included and get all the info, something had to give. Finally, a year and a half late, I realized that something could be me.

I’m Better Than This Bus

February 17, 2017 alana Comments 0 Comment

The buses in SF suck! They are dirty, overcrowded, slow and filled with all kinds of ‘colorful’ and delicious smelling characters. So when, I could finally afford to drive to work everyday (and pay for parking) instead of having to take the bus, I felt like I had ‘made-it’. Sweet!

Then one day, my husband needed the car and it was back to the bus for me. I got on and it was worse than I remembered — all pushing and shoving, stinky too. I felt so put-out, angry at Eric for needing the car, annoyed with the folks around me for their coughing and sneezing, their pushing and invasion of “my space”. I was disgusted at needing to be on the bus. I searched my heart for the feeling and I realized — I was indignant. I looked around at my fellow passengers and I thought, “I’m better than this, I am better than having to take the bus.”

Then I thought, whoo wait a sec. How can I be better than taking the bus when I am sitting on it? Can I possibly be better than something I am actually doing right now? Am I better than the other folks on the bus? Better than the situation? What does better than this even mean?

Sure I didn’t really like taking the bus when I had to before, but I had never felt like this about it. But, now, I looked around and thought, the bus is for those poor masses, lowly folks. That is the identity of the bus — that is its nature, its character, its permanent state. I however had become a driver. I was someone that didn’t have to take the bus anymore. I had established that as a fact, a permanent identity, a permanent state (wrong views of permanence).

Suddenly, I flashed to an image of my father when he was dying. He was so ill he couldn’t leave the bed to go to the bathroom. He had to pee in a cup as I was watching. I had to help. The memory is seared in my mind. I felt it was indignant, a loss of dignity, that my father who had once been so strong was now so weak, that he couldn’t even control his own body. That I had to lose my vision of my father as the healthy, independent person he had been as long as I had known him.

Here it was, the source of my indignity on the bus — losing something I once had, wanted to keep, had believed was mine for good. Losing my status as a driver. In just one day, I lost the illusion that I had ‘made-it’, after all, one early meeting in my husband’s office was enough to send me right back to the bus.

And I felt resentful of the other passengers for making me feel this way, for making me afraid I would catch their colds, for feeling claustrophobic, and jostled and having my space invaded. But really, did these other folks cause their illnesses, or create the rush hour crush, did they make bumpy road conditions and narrow buses? Can I really resent them?

Can I really resent other people when I am the sole cause of my discomfort? A bus is a mode of transport that goes from point A to point B. Everyone on it is the same, passengers, trying to get from point A to point B. But I created a nonsense story, a special meaning, an identity for the bus and the riders and myself as a driver. I pretended it was real, that it existed permanently. But things change, circumstances change, people lose all the time, my dad did and so do I. Who else can I blame for spinning a fiction, getting excited about it, and then being disappointed when it’s revealed as the fiction I always, on some level, knew it was?

I’ll make one final, later addition comment on this story, because it offers a very clear example of how we create identity with Rupa, physical objects. The bus, it meant something to me because of its physical trappings — it was crowded, dirty, filled with folks of different stripes. It’s a form, an environment, that made me feel out of control, exposed to disease, ordinary (as opposed to wealthy). Where as my own car, that made me feel in control, clean, safe and rich. It was mine afterall. I used these forms like facts that supported my idea about what buses are and what my car was and what I was when I started driving.

The truth is, I get on the bus and in my own car dirty and sick all the time. I am no safer, less prone to accident in my own car or on a bus, accidents can happen anywhere. In some ways I am in more control in my car; I don’t have to share, make random stops, stay on a “line”. But in others I am in less control; I have to drive, I can’t use the bus lane so there is more traffic, I have to worry about finding parking. Nowadays, I rarely drive anymore. I like to walk. I keep a bus pass in my purse too. When I have walked for miles, and my feet hurt, I see an approaching bus as a comfort, a respite, a way home without needing to take another step.

The stories I tell, using the ‘facts’ of rupa, they aren’t even true. The meaning, the identity, it’s not in the bus or the car (or even in me), it’s in my heart as the storyteller. And even that changes, with my own needs, my priorities, my beliefs and my aching feet.