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The Buddhist Who Loves Bacon

The Buddhist Who Loves Bacon

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I love bacon –seriously, I do a little celebration dance in the kitchen whenever my husband cooks it. I wrote a little song too: Bacon bacon such a treat, something super delicious to eat…But, it wasn’t always this way, in fact I was a moral vegetarian for more than 20 years. Squiggly line zoom-out…

I was about 10 years old, my  family was driving around Miami on a Saturday evening and, out of the blue, we saw a pig jump out of the back of a truck, get hit by a car and run into the bush aside the road. We, being good, caring people, stop the car, chase the pig down and put it in the back of my Dad’s fancy Cadillac. So now the real question…what do we do with a pig?

After finding the pig medical care, we brought him home and named him Traif. One day my brother decided to feed Traif bacon and, being the little piggy that he was, he ate it. I was appalled, I felt like I would never want Traif to be made into bacon and I extended that emotion to all other animals. I felt  disgust with my brother too — seriously, feeding a pig bacon, ugh!. I had already come to the conclusion that I was better than Seth in my extraordinary compassion, and here was another chance to prove it with my actions — I stopped eating meat that day and began 20 years of being a burden on all the humans who ever wanted to cook for and care for me, starting with my Mom and Dad. Over the years I layered more elaborate moral arguments onto my initial decision.  But at the heart of it, I was a little girl who saw something emotionally shocking and felt like I wanted to do something to help. Only later did I realize that I was mostly  just ‘helping’ myself…

Fast forward to a few years ago. Initially, it was my doctor’s suggestion I start eating meat to deal with some digestive and blood sugar issues I was having. I was so hesitant, I wanted to be a good person and good people are vegetarians. Right? But then again, I also wanted to be a healthy person and in my case, that may mean eating meat. I decided it was time to consider what wrong views may be underlying my diet:

1)   Being a vegetarian can’t make me a good person —  I realized, over time, being a vegetarian was part of a particular identity I had established for myself –“Alana the Good Person”. Even from the get-go, part of my decision to stop eating meat revolved around being better than my brother and being compassionate to animals. The longer I was a vegetarian the more I saw it as an identifying characteristic of myself and as evidence of myself as a good person (and a person who was better and morally superior to others).

As part of my broader practice I started confronting a number of the identities I have created for myself, including the “Alana as a Good Person” one and probing them as to their truth and desirability. So in this case some of the questions were: Is there such a thing as a 100% always good person? Is it an identity I can have? I realized that sometimes I do things I judge as good and other times as bad. So am I a Good Person if my actions are mixed? Moreover the same act that I may judge as good can be judged as bad by others. Also, its situational, sometimes something can be good and other times that same act can be bad.  

I contemplated a number of actions I had assigned as kind and compassionate, not eating meat was one of them.  So,  if not eating meat really is good can it balance out other bad things I do and make me net good as a person? I also thought about situations where eating meat could be good, or at least neutral –what if I was starving? What about not refusing something offered if I worry doing so might cause offense? What about honoring cultural or religious norms of places I visit?

I saw that there is actually no such thing as a good person or a good action all the time—I was striving to be something that doesn’t exist. I also realized that my actions to be a good person were mostly self-serving … Good Person Alana wanted approval from others, wanted to be loved, wanted to be treated with the same “kind compassion” I treated others, including animals, with. Good Person Alana was actually not all that altruistic.  In the process though I was ignoring that there could be actions and identities that are more or less appropriate at certain times. For me I found that sometimes eating meat could be desirable, like when it helps stabilize my blood sugar, or makes it easier on hosts cooking for me. Sometimes it may not be appropriate, like if I developed trouble digesting meat, or if I went to stay in home that had rules that everyone should cook vegetarian food in the kitchen.  Either way, by clearing-up the misconception that being a vegetarian makes me good (or even more profoundly that I can be an absolutely good person), I was able to open myself to making decisions on a case-by-case basis that frankly causes me much less suffering.

2)  The idea that not eating meat was allowing me to assert control over the welfare of animals and over my relationship with animals was completely false:    Even at first blush this is pretty ridiculous. After all, I wasn’t raiding factory farms and freeing the cows. I was just not eating what was already packaged in the store.  Still –in my mind I was super heroically transferring the virtue of my meat abstinence into the living condition of animals –impressively delusional no? I came to realize that this notion was hubris. As was the more subtle lurking idea –I knew what animals deserved and it was my role to somehow interrupt their fate, in whatever way I could, in order to control its outcome. Basically I came to see that this is a pretty deep misunderstanding of karma. In reality I have no idea what got animals, or anyone, into the situation they are in. To believe that blindly, and based on my own poorly informed judgments, I should (even if I could) intervene is ridiculous. I’m not saying its never appropriate to act or intervene –just that I was applying a blanket misunderstanding to create a blanket rule. Intervene, in one particular way, in all cases.

3)   That I could have my cake and eat it too.  I wanted to be a vegetarian even though it was creating health problems for me.  So on one hand, I wanted to be a vegetarian, on the other I wanted to feel good and be healthy. For me, at that time, the two were mutually exclusive and I was suffering for wanting both outcomes when only one seemed possible.   What finally  prompted me to start eating meat again was realizing that I was the one setting-up all the trouble, after all, I was the one creating rules (based on my own wrong views) for a diet that made me feel ill.

 

Ubaitam in the Ocean

Ubaitam in the Ocean

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I was in Mendicino, a charming seaside town in Northern Cali, and I’m staring out the window of a coffee shop, watching the ocean, impatiently waiting for Eric to get his latte. At first I was mesmerized by the crashing waves, the churning near the rocks, it was so so beautiful. Then suddenly I thought, from here, from this perspective, this viewpoint, it’s all beauty no pain. I don’t notice, don’t think about…the rocks are so sharp, so dangerous, the water so cold, just below the surface are animals that bite, that sting, that cause harm, peril.

How is my own life like this? Where are the places, the things, the relationships in which I only see the surface, the one side, I forget the costs?

The truth is, this brief contemplation was shallow, not full or complete. It was before I really began to see and comprehend the way suffering permeates my life. I  didn’t yet understand how to look at the rupa —  the car, the clothes, my body, my beauty  — and see the dark side. Or my imagination, my aspirations — having that princess charmed life, having that ‘dangerous’ and mysterious lover, having that high powered partner — and seeing the costs. That came later. Much later.

But this Ubai, like the plants, it stayed with me. Gnawed at my mind for years. I share it now, Dear Reader, so you get it in the same course  I did. So that when it comes up again you can trace the timing, you can appreciate how long a seed can stay below the surface. Also, so you know…not every story of mine or thought has a neat conclusion, a short tie-up. But over time my mind has a pattern of coming back to examples, thoughts, themes when I am ready for them to grow.

 

Incompetent Employees and the Voices in My Head

Incompetent Employees and the Voices in My Head

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I had this employee, let’s call him Glen, who just couldn’t get it together and stop making mistakes. I tried everything — I taught him, nurtured him, scolded him, guilted him, spelled-out the consequences of his mistakes, warned him — but still, every assignment he turned in was filled with errors . I WAS FRUSTRATED BEYOND BELIEF. Glen was a smart guy, he seemed pretty normal, with the skills of other opposable thumbed creatures, so how, HOW, was it possible that his attention to detail could be so bad ??? What in the heck am I supposed to do about it now???

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Interjection: For all of you  that read the above paragraph and thought, “well duh..of course you are frustrated” or “Glen is a screw-up, you have every right to be upset with him, do what you must” or some other version of,  “my feelings are Glen’s fault and my reaction based on those feelings is reasonable” — this blog is for you!  After the story I will address the issue of how I separate my feelings, or ‘Inside Voice’,  from my roles and responsibilities in the outside world,  aka my ‘Outside Voice’.

I have learned that separating the Inside Voice from my beliefs about outside roles is critical for practice. Without doing this its sooo easy to fall into the trap of blaming my outside roles and responsibilities for my wrong views instead of fixing the views and, by fixing them, having a much clearer sense of how to perform real world duties. If I had just said there is nothing wrong with me, with my frustration, Glen really is a screw-up and it is my duty to fix it,  I would have had all the suffering of my frustration, I would have allowed that frustration to dictate my actions (likely firing Glen),  and then felt guilty, always wondering if I had made the right decision, since I fired Glen in a fit of frustration.  Game over, no one wins… So back to the story…

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First off, whenever I am  truly surprised I know there is a wrong view lurking. I believe something about the world is true in all cases, which is impossible. So,  why couldn’t I believe a smart, normal, human could be detail challenged? I have met lots of absent minded professor types, I have a donor at work who fits the profile –so smart, so nice, so generous, but he can’t remember start times, can’t find concert tickets, doesn’t even know what day it is. I like him just fine… so, is it  really all humans I think need to be attentive to details, or just my employees?

Was it because he was hired to do an administrative job and really I thought all Admins had to be detail oriented? I am detail oriented after all, I hired him, I know what I was looking for, why wasn’t he what I expected? Why wasn’t he like me? Or maybe he was…

Flashback moment… For many years I took piano lessons. I  went to class consistently, I practiced on my little keyboard, I did my homework, I wanted to learn. I think I am a smart and normal human, I definitely have an opposable thumb — but I am a horrible piano player. Sure I improved a little over time, but really, for all my effort, I just sucked. So why can’t I believe that someone else would have something they also sucked at? I was a piano student who sucked at piano. My Admin was an Admin that sucked at detail oriented administrative work. Is this really so impossible? Should I be totally surprised? Upset?

I remember too, my piano teacher didn’t suck. She played well, she was attentive and instructive. I heard some of her other students play and they sounded fine. But, despite all she did to help me, I remained a terrible pianist. I wonder if she was as frustrated with me as I was with Glen. Or, if she saw the truth — no matter what you do, you can’t control other people, you can’t make them something they are not. Those people are not yours, they are not under your power. Sure you can provide guidance, you can give feedback, you can discipline and teach. But in the end,  you can’t make a terrible piano player into a concert pianist and you can’t make a non-detail oriented person into someone detail oriented. At most we can be a factor in someone’s success or failure, it’s not like we are an ultimate cause.

In fact, for as much as I saw myself as a hero trying to ‘fix’ my broken employee. I played a starring  role contributing to the problem in the first place…I hired Glen after all. Glen was my first hire, my first employee, I had no idea what I was doing. I knew what I was looking for (someone detail oriented  like me) but when I look back at the interview questions that I wrote, they were terrible indicators that someone had the skills I was looking for. Glen may have sucked as my Admin, but I sorta sucked as a Manager too…

And now it’s time for another later addition, an insert that doesn’t really follow the timeline of my practice, but which provides extra information I want to highlight. Here I want to talk about a technique (not KPY sanctioned, I came-up with this one on my own),  I call:

Separate the Inside Voice from the Outside Voice:

In this world, we all have duties, we have roles that we have to play.  I  play boss, employee, spouse, daughter, sister, student, customer, patient,  etc.. when I interact with folks outside my own head, I use what I call my Outside Voices. I really try to use my very best outside voice possible — basically because I have noticed that when my outside voice  (words, tones, intensity, timing, actions) is wrong for a situation it can get ugly fast. FYI If you are interested in some more details of a helpful outside voice guideline the Buddha gave us called the Sappurisa Dhamma you can check-out LP Anan’s class: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=re9E0G7IsWw&index=2&list=PLVuzoIVk88hhgIMzqmf4sNdoPlULI5DMX

I also have an Inside Voice. This is the understanding that I have of a situation in my head/heart. If I have right views then my inside voice is correct, it is aligned with the true nature of this world (the Dharma). If I have wrong views that inside voice is dead wrong, it sees permanence in a world that is always changing.

The critical thing to realize is that the way we ‘play’ in the outside world, our Outside Voice, does not always have to say what our Inside Voice believes. On some level, I think we all know this. For example, when a store clerk asks how my day is, I say “good” or “fine”; even if it’s a terrible day; it’s really not appropriate to spill my problems to the store clerk after all. Guys out there…when you have already left the house, you’re stepping into an event, and your gal suddenly whispers, “do I look fat in this dress?”, there really is only one right answer no matter how she looks.

By extension, even if we correct our Inside Voice, really see the impermanence and the places we are at fault in a situation, it doesn’t mean we suddenly stop fulfilling our roles in the outside world …its not like we can say, huh I can’t ultimately control my teenager so I won’t bother to punish them for sneaking-out at night. Or, I know this patient of mine will live or die based on their karma, so I’m not going to bother giving them medicine.  Or I was the one who hired this person, that was my mistake, now I am stuck with them no matter how much they mess-up or cost the company. This would be ridiculous and ultimately, the clearer my views become, the more naturally correct behavior comes anyway…

It really was a huge ah-ha moment when I understood that just because I have a duty to manage my employee it does not mean,  in my heart, I need to be upset by their work quality. Even if given the situation it is appropriate  to scold them, fire them, (sometimes for some folks to yell at them), it doesn’t mean I need to be angry, hurt, disappointed, etc. inside my heart.

In the end, I fired Glen. I put him on a performance plan first, tried to support him in correcting his mistakes, but when I felt like I had exhausted all my options, I let him go. I did it with a clear heart as well. By correcting my wrong views I was no longer so frustrated, I saw the role I played in the events and I saw what role (changing Glen) I ultimately couldn’t play. I learned from my mistakes too.. It took a few more hires, I’ll admit, but  I started to change my interview tactics, changed the background checks,  I refined the training I provided, the feedback I gave, etc.

To-may-toe, To-mah-toe, Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe, Alana, Sandy

To-may-toe, To-mah-toe, Po-tay-toe, Po-tah-toe, Alana, Sandy

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Again, I have chosen a story that utilizes a method that I have found particularly helpful in my practice. The method, which was taught at the 2012 KPY retreat, basically takes 2 objects and compares them as follows:

  • A is Better than B
  • B is Better than A
  • A and B are essentially the same
  • A and B are so different from each other they are not worth comparing

Back in the day, I liked this method as a quick fix –something that really forced me to shift my perspective in a hurry, something to take the edge off of a bloated sense of self. Without further ado, here is the story:

I was on my way home and my husband called to tell me that our friends Sandy and Blake were at our house, unexpectedly, to borrow  something. As soon as I hung-up the phone I started feeling uneasy –I really didn’t feel like seeing those guys at all. I was already edgy about Sandy and Blake from their mooching (see the last blog). Plus, at the time, I couldn’t quite put my finger on why (don’t worry, this will be the topic of a future blog), but even though I loved Sandy, she could really get under my skin — the things she said and did annoyed me. A lot. Often. I simply wasn’t in the mood that day.

I pull over the car, to stall, but also to contemplate a bit. To try to do something to set my heart at ease enough that I wasn’t being mean to everyone as soon as I stepped foot in the door. Here is what I thought:

Alana is Better than Sandy: Well Duh. Of course I’m better in all ways…but more specifically, I am smarter, more responsible, prettier, I dress better, I actually have a job,  I had better grades in school, I am richer, more generous, more articulate, I don’t mooch,  I am more considerate, more conscientious,  more physically fit, I plan ahead, am more calculated, more cautious, more compassionate,  people just like me better (some people anyway…).

Sandy Is Better than Alana: Sandy is more fun, more care free, skinnier, easier going, has more friends, more adventurous, more outgoing, more open to new things and new people, more outdoorsy, more tolerant of change, Sandy goes with the flow, is less of a worrier, more of a caregiver, Sandy cooks, she is crafty, good with her hands, good with kids, good in new situations, gives her husband more freedom, people just like her better (some people anyway…)

Sandy and Alana are Basically the Same: Honestly, we are both 30 something white women living in SF.  We grew up with rich daddies and married young. We  are both college educated, have masters degrees, we like the same music, the same food, the same hangouts, the same activities, we have the same set of friends. We both like to play dress-up and peacock around. We both try to find jobs that make us seem important, busy enough, but not sooo busy or sooo important as to be stressful. We both bask in our sense of self awesome, open-minded, new agey hippy crap. We love to jump on trends that reinforce our hip sense of our hip selves. We spend every Friday night, almost every free moment, together, doing the same things. If she weren’t blond and I weren’t brunette –would anyone even notice if you switched one of us out for the other? In those critical ways that make up our everyday identity we are basically the same. Why quibble over who is better or worse?

Sandy and Alana are so Different from Each Other We are Not Worth Comparing:  Sandy and I each have our own families, husbands, jobs and responsibilities. We manage each of these according to the rules, the norms, that we believe are appropriate, based on our own experiences and beliefs. We each have our own dreams, our own aspirations for the future. What success means to me is different than what it means to Sandy. What makes me happy, satisfied, anxious or angry are totally different than the things that evoke those responses in Sandy. Ultimately, my karma and Sandy’s are totally different from each other, so what is the point in comparing tomatoes to potatoes, they aren’t the same vegetable at all.

When I started the car again, it was with a profound sense of relief. Relief from the burden of needing to return home and keep vigilant watch, to note each of Sandy’s words or actions as evidence in my case against her and in favor of me. Overtime, my annoyance crept back…it wasn’t for quite a while longer till I started finding the deeper causes of my unrest with Sandy and could start killing them at their root.

Warning, this is another current day addition…looks like I just can’t help myself: I have used this method several times over the course of my practice with some very epic issues. Watching the pattern, I can look behind the curtain a bit and see where the profound power of this exercise lies:  it uses a sneaky trick of my mind — the way in which I use comparisons to define the world — against myself. This exercise forces me to face the fact that it is my perspective, informed by all of my past experiences, biases and beliefs, that colors my ‘reality’ — Alana is better than Sandy. In truth however, there are always 2 sides, Sandy is also better than Alana in certain ways, at certain times, and according to certain people.

Deeper still, is that if I am able to see both sides, to minimize the bias for self, I can start to see that these comparisons I use to prop-up myself, the things I love and believe in, are hollow; ultimately, things, people, are so similar — made of the same elements, the same aggregates, arising and ceasing, having virtues and flaws, for people having hopes and disappointments, etc.  This exercise has helped bring me way more humility because it shows me my own unexceptionalism.

Deepest of all, no two things are the same. In fact no one thing is the same from one moment to the next. For Sandy and I, we each have our own unique causes, karma, factors, directions and ultimately cessations. We are comparable only in my mind, only in select aspects, only for a very short time, only to serve my own agenda. So where is the sense in comparing? In boosting my sense of self with ‘information’ that ultimately fails to see the impermanence of each of our arising and ceasing? In tethering my sense of self to someone else, to something else,  when in the end, that causes me to be the one who is bound, tied, imprisoned, not free.

Stop Being Such a Mooch

Stop Being Such a Mooch

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I had these friends, we’ll call them, Blake and Sandy, who were always mooching off my husband and I. When we went to dinner, the grocery, the farmers market, the movies, these two would just stand on the side while my hubs and I pulled-out our wallets. I figured, for sure, when they hung out with other friends, it couldn’t be like that. So why were we always expected to pick-up the tab?

The situation really tore me-up, I worried we couldn’t afford to pay for 4 all the time, we had to use our money to meet our own wants and needs, to save for retirement, a rainy day. I imagined-up a future scenario where we were just a few dollars shy of being able to pay for my life saving surgery…If only we hadn’t bought those ice creams for Blake and Sandy. On the other hand, I didn’t want to be greedy; my husband and I made more money than Blake and Sandy so shouldn’t we be the ones to pick-up the tab? Then again (so many voices in my head), I couldn’t help feeling taken advantage of, maybe they couldn’t pay for a fancy meal, but would an occasional cup of coffee be too much to ask for?  

But, of course, there are a ton of wrong views and pretty deep concepts here (you may have noticed already that that’s sort of the theme of all these posts ;)) so let’s take a closer look:

1) That friends are all supposed to behave in some fixed, predictable, formulaic way. When it comes time to picking-up the bill, either bills should be split equally or those with more should always pony-up more. The problem was, if things should always be split equally, I was violating my own rules. My husband is the big earner in our house — let’s just say my quaint low-stress non-profit job is not exactly bringing in the big bucks — but still, we share everything equally. 

And if those with more always bear the financial responsibility, there have been times at my  job that I have had more in the bank then my organization — should I be paying them my salary? And is it the case that whatever the rule is it applies to every relationship across time and space or was it ok that Blake and Sandy may be treating us different than their other friends?

2. If I spend on X it doesn’t mean I won’t be able to get the Y I want/need… Alright Dear Reader, here I am going to exercise my ‘later addition author’s prerogative’ and add a bit more details. This is because though I want these stories to reflect my natural progress, I also want this blog to be clear and helpful. So, originally, as far as I got on this topic was that money is not necessarily black and white, I could spend some on X and some on Y. Or I could spend on X and still have enough for Y later. I had a bunch of scratched-out diagrams in my notebook,  not terribly clear.

Fast forward to a meal I was having with a friend the other night. I order first and ask for french fries. My friend, who loves fires, orders after me and she does not order fries. In my head I’m already thinking, “Crap. Why didn’t she just get her own fries, now she is going to eat all of mine.” Food arrives and sure enough my friend and I both start hoovering down the fries. But then, we both get full, and in the end there are a few fries left in the basket.  I immediately  saw my wrong view — because a resource is finite it means I won’t have enough. But the truth is, I really can’t know my future wants/needs (even in the course of one meal). Moreover, I can’t know my future resources. I didn’t know how many fries would actually come in an order, just like I couldn’t have known how much cash I would have in the bank when it came time to pay for all the imaginary wants/needs that I perceived myself to be trading off in order to buy stuff for Blake and Sandy.

3. That money is equivalent to safety and security.  Clearly this is not true, rich folks die, get diseases, get into accidents, have pain and loss everyday. Money does not protect them. In fact, there may be times where money makes one more vulnerable, like being a target of theft. Additionally, friends are sometimes a source of safety and security — so can I know in any instance whether money or friends, neither or both are going to help me (too many variables for a magic 8 ball to help answer)?

4. That there is a single activity or behavior which will indicate someone is taking advantage. These friends, actually did a lot for Eric and I. Even though they didn’t split bills, they took care of our home when we were away, helped us run errands, taught us lots of new skills and fun tricks, they were emotionally supportive and could be a lot of fun to hang-out with.Can any one activity and behavior demonstrate if they really cared for us or were they just using us (are these even either/or things or could it be both/neither)? Can I know what’s in someone else’s heart driving them? If not, why did I zoom in on one thing–mooching–and use that to judge their intention rather than picking another activity like time spent with us as the indicator of what was in their hearts?

At around this time, I had been contemplating Rupa (without much clarity or success to be honest so the explanation here has been colored by some more recent contemplations). Rupa is a fancy word for the tangible form that exists out in the world (including our bodies), versus all the stuff going on in our heads. This form, Rupa, on its own, is neutral, something that is just composed of the elements that make-up the physical world. The problem however is when our wrong-view ridden minds sense it, it really gets our imagination running. This Rupa, which in this story is money (dolla dolla bills yo), acts like a trigger for the problems that arise. It’s sort of a base, a foundation for the whole drama –after all, if there were no money in this story there would be no story at all. 

Ultimately, the way I see Rupa, and the belief I can own it and control it is a major source of daily suffering. Starting to see this, and the mechanics of how the outside physical world interacts with my mind was a starting point for seeing the way this whole kit-and-kaboodle of myself and my beliefs arises. But those details are an entry for much much later… (shameless pitch to get you to keep on reading 😉 ) For now, lets just say..what a bunch of noise, for me, my husband, my friends, all based on the all mighty dollar.  

 

The Problem Statement

The Problem Statement

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So I will start by admitting that this short entry is  less of a story or a contemplation and more of a moment —  a brief flash of awareness. It must have been mid 2012. I was at the farmers market with some friends and the day was beautiful, perfect even. I was standing, with a delicious coffee in hand, looking out at a sparkling blue ocean and it hit me. The problem statement. My problem:

  1. I don’t really believe that my suffering in this world is greater than my enjoyment — this moment, this place, these folks,  are soo very enjoyable
  2. I don’t really think this, this day, this wonderful situation, the warmth, the love from my friends, the sense of belonging and contentment will end. I don’t believe it’s impermanent

By this point I had been practicing dharma a few years, so I knew the drill. Suffering, impermanence, rinse, repeat. But as I stood on that sunny day, surrounded by things I found so pleasurable and enticing and  it dawned on me —  I don’t believe. Not really, not in my heart. That is my problem. 

When I got home that day, I wrote the problem statement on the back cover of my notebook. Not much more I could do in the moment — I  can’t force myself to believe. On some level of course, I had to have had an inkling of how suffering and impermanence were woven into this world –why else walk a path with the ultimate goal of escaping? So, I kept practicing.  I keep gathering evidence, constantly, vigilantly  and slowly but surely I am becoming a believer.

This small story was a big moment; it was when I saw the problem in my own heart, in my own life (instead of it just being what I was told). Over the years, I have turned back to the notebook cover. In fact, when I changed notebooks (3 X already), I tore off the cover and put it in the new one. I use it to remind myself of the problem,  to test my assumptions and to gauge my progress. To check  in my heart how things have changed. Clearly, this blog is about the path to change, the path to believing. Truly seeing the problem, even if it was just a glimpse, a flash, was a pivot point. Its when I started understanding some of the deepest wrong views I am working towards correcting.

Watching Plants Grow May Not Be as Boring as it Sounds

Watching Plants Grow May Not Be as Boring as it Sounds

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I would like to preface this blog by telling you upfront, you have heard it all before.  It is on a theme you may have noticed already —  Ideal/ Good Alana versus Normal/Bad Alana. You can see it in the prelude to this blog (Super Buddhist versus Everyday Alana), in the Homeless Alana story, In the Compassionate Alana story, spoiler alert : in an upcoming blog about mooching friends and in the last blog of this section about fearing my practice progressing.  I am not so clever … it has taken me 6 years to truly see how deeply this wrong view, and its close cousins — Good Alana versus Bad Other Peeps and Bad Alana Versus Way Holier than Me Peeps — runs.

It has caused so much havoc in my life, just read the stories, they speak for themselves. It’s a real danger because, among other things, it builds my ego; Good Alana is a judgey, entitled, thankless, witch, but even Bad Alana is egotistical (little heart variety), she thinks she is soooo exceptional (after all, she is the worst of the worst… so unworthy of enlightenment she barricades her own path).  It’s a hindrance to my practice, to my relationships, to my sense of wellbeing. The weird thing is, this duality that underpins my views, this belief that I can separate one side from another in neat bundles and still retain the whole …it’s not even possible. You know how I know that ? I spent time staring at a potted plant. Yup, there is wisdom to be found in the most unlikely places; all around us in fact. One of the reasons I am sharing this particular story is to highlight another one of my superduper all time favorite dharma techniques…cue ooohhh ahh soundtrack flash a few lights…

Ubaitam

An Ubaitam is essentially an external stimulant that helps us apply the truths we see out in the world to ourselves. It is a tool for internalizing ( which we will talk about even more in a future blog), for drawing parallels that show us the way in which we, just like everything else, are subject to the basic conditions that govern this world (they aren’t called the 3 common characteristics for nothing). The belief that we are so special, so exceptional, is the source of many of our wrong views; actually, thinking we are so special is a major foundation for our entire wrong view of self. Ubaitam can be  really really  helpful to show how all of us are like plants (which have two sides), and cell phones (which break), and umbrellas (which decay).

The Story: We had a group of nuns visit the temple and I was speaking to one (Mae Toy) about my difficulty accepting my faults. When I was a Bad Alana, someone who made mistakes at work, lost my patience with my family, even just skipped the gym for a day, I would feel guilty for weeks. Really, I would think over and over again about my shortcomings, about my failures, about how far I was from being the ideal Alana I wanted to be. This was not a productive assessment of my mistakes and a consideration of how to avoid them in the future. This was just rolling around in my self-hate.  

The Nun went to a table and picked-up a potted plant and asked me what I saw. I went on and on about how green and lush the plant was. About its beauty and the beauty it offered to its surrounding. When I was done she pointed out that I had forgotten some stuff. The plant sat in, was in fact nourished by, dirt. Almost half the plant, with its root structure, sits in darkness and dirt below the base of the pot. Just like us humans, just like everything in the world, the plant has two sides. There is the lush green part but there is also the dirty roots –you can’t have one without the other. Anything less is not a plant.

This was my first mini understanding, tiny glimmer, that my flaws, my shortcomings and all my mistakes are part of who I am. In fact, many of the same causes of attributes which I consider virtuous in some situations, end up manifesting as faults in other situations. Deeper still, who is judging which Alana, Good or Bad, is playing the starring role in any given situation (if I am being a ‘considerate Alana’ and letting the car in front of me enter a lane, the car behind me may think I am slowing them down) ?

Bad Alana exists as part of the same package as Good Alana –they don’t come apart (actually, the whole package is a continuously changing bundle anyway, not static good or static bad).  There really are two sides to every coin — it’s never just heads or just tails — I  however get so distracted by what I am focusing on (green leaves), I forget about the other side (the dirt).

For years, actually, for all my lives,  I have been in denial about the basic nature of this world, with its two sidedness and about my own nature as a being that is in and part of this world. With this story, I got the first tiny shards of awareness (it was super early in my practice, 2011 maybe), the first bit of evidence that I am not really special at all, that I can compare myself to the things around me to give me the perspective I need to fix my wrong views and lower my ego. 

The awesome thing is, years later, this Ubaitam keeps giving. Each time (and clearly there are many many many times) that I begin to sense the Good/Bad duality wrong view is lurking, I imagine the plant. The image, it’s like a shortcut, some quick reference that can keep me focused, can help recall the contemplations I have had on the plant theme, i.e. two-sidedness, over time.

I love, love, love, Ubaitam. You will see them all over my practice because for me they are like video game powerups, or  like finding a secret warp to a new level. They are shortcuts to big understanding. So Dear Reader…can you spot all the Ubaitam so far 😉 ?

Compassionate Alana — Like a Better Dressed Mother Teresa

Compassionate Alana — Like a Better Dressed Mother Teresa

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I show-up at the Wat one day and LP Anan tells me that he and Mae Yo were talking about me the night before (uh-oh). They noticed that I have a problem (double uh-oh), my driving need to be compassionate (wha wha what how can this be a problem? Snap triple uh-oh), and I should go and solve it (easy as pie right?). So, in sum, my assignment was to notice the way that being a ‘compassionate’ person feeds into many of my stories, my life, and determine the wrong views that drive it and the harm it causes. Here is the contemplation that followed:

Back when I practiced Tibetan Buddhism, I had a favorite deity, Green Tara. Her main characteristic is that, out of compassion, she swiftly helps eliminate the fear of suffering beings. Without getting into a theology class here, you should know that  in Tibetan Buddhism, one of the main points of practice is to embody the qualities and characteristics of the deities you ‘practice’ (i.e. visualize and say mantras about). Upon consideration, it told me a whole lot that, out of all the Tibetan deities (and there are lots), the one I identified with, the one I wanted to ‘become’, was the compassionate fear remover, Green Tara.

I noticed straight off that one of my meta-themes is the idea that there is fearful alana and compassionate alana and the 2 exist at odds with one another (this can be seen in homeless alana story, blog 1). In the ideal world in my head, where I’m not crippled by self-absorbed fear, I am like Tara — my compassion side wins against my fear side and, by definition, my compassion side goes out and acts  to help other people remove their fear (let’s call this self-absorbed ‘compassion’).

Reality check — the ‘ideal world in my head’ is more like a fun house with all those crazy mirrors that warp images. Of course, in this fun house world, compassion goes out and force feeds everyone else my own medicine — no more fear. Since I’m afraid, everyone else must be too so I should go out and solve it (self-important much?).  So what does ‘solving it’ actually look like? What do I do? Mostly, I use the ‘golden rule’ to do to others exactly what I want done to me. So with my friend Sue, since I would want to lose weight, Compassion=a grocery bag full of crunchy compassionate kale. For Shack, the homeless guy, I would want someone to give me a hug so compassion is hugs for the homeless.

Bigger picture, I had a very rigid set of ethics that were informed by my ‘instinct’, i.e.,  I used my superpowers (goddess-like even) to determine what was right and wrong in every situation. As a note, the  wrong view here was exactly the same as with fear –that if I believe something it must be true (with fear it was the belief in the scary things that would happen, with compassion, it was the belief that what I felt was right must be right).

So this begs an interesting question –Why in the heck do I do all of this? I started thinking about my childhood (I now know  that tendencies like this run for many lives, but a single life can provide information, a snapshot, to work with). I’m the oldest of 2 kids. I realize that when it was just me things were going pretty well, then my brother, Seth,  was born and suddenly I have competition for my parent’s attention and love. Seth turned out to be an adorable, charming little devil and I didn’t really stand a chance against him. Except for that he was always causing trouble, being naughty and occasionally shooting pellets at small lizards and snakes. That was it — I could be  more ethical, more compassionate than him –I would save all the lizards, that would get me loved.

In addition, when I was a kid my Mom was sick with chronic illness. She spent a lot of time in bed and we had a number of other caregivers who would come and help-out. It made me feel vulnerable, I never knew exactly what each person wanted, how to please them and avoid punishment, so I was always trying to intuit what was good and bad behavior. I wanted rules and structure, a clear delineation of right and wrong, and I depended on my instincts to help me build them.

Here is the problem though (more wrong views), Can I really be a person with absolute value? Can I be GOOD? Can my value be determined by my behaviors (saving lizards)? By a set of rules that as long as I follow strictly, will make me valuable and therefore safe? Can I be universally worthy of love under any conditions? Can my value in other people’s eyes be based on my definition of  valuable (what if they hate lizards?)? Even if it could, are love and protection constant, based on my value; can I predict when I’ll get them and when I will lose them?

This last question really struck me and I started thinking again about my time practicing Vajrayana. Back then, I had promised my teacher that I wouldn’t quit, I had offered to come and be her student more seriously, to begin to help carry on the traditions of our linage. But then, I turned away from Vajrayana and I couldn’t fulfill my intentions, my promises. I was so afraid to tell her when I had started going to Wat SF. In my own mind, I thought my actions were a betrayal, that I was a promise breaker unworthy of her continued love and support. But when I told her what I had found at the Wat, she was happy for me. She supported me. This was the exact opposite of what I expected –in my mind, which was the real arbitrator of my sense of self value, I was worthless, a disappointment, so how could someone I loved and respected still love and support me? It really started to hit home that the way I saw my value, all wrapped-up in a very fixed set of proscribed actions, and the consequences of having or losing it just wasn’t true. It’s not how the world worked. It wasn’t how things worked with my old teacher at least…

I started considering the dangers of all this craziness and it dawned on me just how difficult and painful it was making my life, just how pained I constantly felt. In my relationship with others, I was constantly thinking I knew what they wanted/needed and was “helping” them accordingly (I’m sure Sue felt deeply helped by all that kale). Also, a natural extension of ‘instinctively’ knowing right and wrong was just how judgey I was —  just that morning I was on the bus giving the death stare (but a compassionate one 😉 ) to a woman taking-up 4 seats. Evil witch broke my moral code…but then, I don’t know her life, her story, her circumstances and besides, can I say I have never taken-up multiple bus seats myself? Can I say everyone needs to follow Alana’s Bus Etiquette (there is much much more on this topic to come)?   In my relationship with myself, I felt constantly inadequate, I derived my value based on a proscribed set of actions /ideals that I could never meet since I change, circumstances change, everything changes… And finally, I was living in fear of my own high and mighty moral code. Afraid that if I deviated from it, if I let go of being ‘ compassionate’, I would lose my way, err horribly, do unforgivable things and never become a person worthy of my own (and other’s) love and protection. Believe me when I say the road to hell, or at least endless rebirth, can  really be paved with good intentions and deeply wrong views.

Tree Pose and a Decision Tree

Tree Pose and a Decision Tree

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Impermanence is the meat and potatoes of my practice. Though over the years my thinking (and this blog, which will soon follow that thinking) evolved to consider many more Dharma topics (self and self belonging, suffering, aggregates, karma, etc.), I always come ‘home’ to impermanence. It’s my staple food for thought. It is my constant companion. It is the Dharma, my great refuge.  So here I want to offer you, Dear Reader, one more simple tool that I consider a straightforward, ‘pure play’, impermanence thinking technique:

The Decision Tree

Like the Matrix, the Decision Tree provides a structured approach to seeing multiple possibilities for a given situation. Unlike the Matrix however, it is not strictly binary so it allows me to think through more possible factors/outcomes at once. It lets thoughts grow, branch-out, explore many possible futures/outcomes; ultimately, it helps to understand the TRUTH of this world —  the outcomes I hope for/worry about/believe will happen are really  just one single solitary leaf on a tree filled with leafy possibilities.

Story:

I was in pain. Daily. I would wake-up and my lower back would ache, moving around relieved it, but anytime I had to sit for an extended period, back it would come. Per my physical therapist, the cause was a destabilized joint in my lower back and/or a tear in my hip;  incidentally, both  common injuries amongst dancers and yoga folks and the like. Her recommendation, lay-off my 6X a week 2 hour a day intensive yoga practice and give myself time to heal.

For a saner, less stubborn, less worry warty, less vain person, the story may have ended right here. But for cray cray Alana, much to the benefit of this blog, there is of course more…  

I was so attached to my practice, to the way it defined me and the results I believed it had (my ideal ‘dancer’s body’) I just couldn’t lay-off. So in and out, in and out, in and out of the physical therapist’s office I went.  I honestly thought: if I quit doing yoga I won’t stay physically active (which is ironic since before I did yoga I used to body build). I will get lazy, inflexible and fat. I will lose the ability and the figure I had worked so hard to build. If all that happens I’ll be miserable. I  realized I had a great deal of certainty that I had built up around the idea of quitting yoga so  I decided to analyze if I could really be so sure that the outcomes I imagined would come true.

Enter the decision tree –which is a link here since I can’t seem to get a flowchart into the blog: Click on Me 

For me, my mind has a tendency to leap from imagined A to imagined Z super quick (just like from hugs to the homeless to swine flu death, or mole to cancer, or not being invited out to not having a true friend). So, a tool, like a tree, that helps me imagine some of the many other possible outcomes softens my sense of ‘for sureness’, my sense of permanence. Just so you know…I don’t actually always go around drawing a tree…but you may notice just from reading this blog, my mind works this way naturally, the serious of questions/reality checks I often ask myself show tree-like echos throughout my stories (just look at the prelude to this blog for a very recent example). The truth is, for this story, the tree did soften me-up a bit. Ultimately though, it was the pain, the suffering and consequences, that got me to take a break and give my body a chance to heal.

Tracing the benefits of a yoga practice got me to start and continue doing it,  but using the same thought process to see the harm got me to quit. Of course, it’s worth noting that my desire for the benefits of a yoga practice (strong, fit, flexible, dancer bod) remained so I simply replace yoga with other activities that I thought would help me achieve that aim with less pain…the deeper questions of can I control my body, can it stay strong or fit or a particular shape forever, are those things I preference really more valuable?  Can they make me loved? Cared for? Safe? Safe from what exactly? Is it worth the effort? What is the middle ground? Those are questions for later in my practice, questions I still face right now. Questions that maybe will motivate you to stay tuned…

Wanna Play a Game? Its Called Gathering Evidence

Wanna Play a Game? Its Called Gathering Evidence

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It was one of my early retreats, 2012 perhaps, and Mae Yo started playing a game some of you ‘old timers’ might know: How are those birds related? The set-up is simple; imagine you look up and see 2 birds flying in the sky. Explain how they are related.

I heard this and I thought, “this is sorta idiotic”. I mean who cares how the birds are related? Sure, sure I know the punch-line before we even start the game (because if you hangout with KPYers for a bit you’ll catch-on that it’s always about impermanence and/or suffering); the relationship between the birds is impermanent, which in this case means it is not just what we initially think, but some huge number of possibilities. But this isn’t a real-life situation. No one would play a game this simple. What’s the point? Isn’t there some ‘real Dharma’ we can be learning? Still, like a good student, I played:

Folks start calling-out how  the birds might be related and a list goes up on the board:

  • The birds can be lovers/spouses
  • The birds can be a parent and child
  • The birds can be friends
  • The birds can be enemies
  • The birds can be travel companions
  • One bird could be teaching the other bird
  • One bird could be hunting the other bird
  • The birds could be leader/follower
  • The birds could be siblings
  • The birds could be be strangers going in the same direction
  • The birds may have no relationship at all, we just see them for a single moment flying in one space

The list went on…The conclusion was just what I thought it was at the start of the game. Our assumptions about this world are based on one view, one belief, one perspective –ours. Reality is there are many possibilities, many perspectives. I get it already…moving on to the next big idea…

But once I went home from that retreat, I noticed that I had started playing games like this in my head  when I had a few minutes to myself. I would look out at situations in the world, the way two people interacted, the meaning of words in a language I couldn’t understand, the possible outcomes for a game or an interaction and I would start listing –what could it be? I watched, I gathered evidence, I noted when I guessed correctly and when incorrectly (when that information was available). I played. I let my mind imagine and I checked myself.

One day I get a letter in the mail slot of my house, flip-it over and see it was addressed to someone else. In that instant I  realized something had changed in my heart  because I noticed I wasn’t surprised* to be getting a letter for a stranger. Sure, sometimes I get letters for other folks, its a normal everyday event, but it always surprised me a little bit. After all, I expected that the letters in my mailbox were for me, when they weren’t it was surprising — an exception to the rule. The rule is permanent, the exception is a corner case, not something I need to worry about, not proof that my basic assumption about letters in boxes is wrong…But all that practice, all that play, it had helped me start seeing possibilities. I had begun, in small everyday ways, to train my mind to see the impermanence that is always there, to not just write-off the corner cases, to not ignore the evidence. This was the first time I really recognized that my Dharma practice wasn’t just solving my big problems, it was reshaping my habits of thinking, my expectations about how everyday stuff happens in the world.

This story may seem small, may seem trivial. After all,  where is the suffering of thinking 2 birds always relate in one way? What’s the suffering of thinking letters in my mailbox are for me?  But imagine a similar situation — I see my husband at a cafe with another woman  (2 birds) and I believe it can only mean one thing (lovers), what’s the suffering in that? If I believe that an invitation to a friends’ outing should be coming to me only to find it addressed to someone else, where is the suffering in that? If I believe every mole is cancer? Every dentist appointment will hurt? Every fat person will die young, where is the suffering there?

The thing about impermanence is we all already know it’s real; we know the conclusion before we even start the game. I sure thought I did — Yah, yah, old  punchline, yipee, moving on… But, knowing abstractly and really believing in my heart are two different things. Believing only comes from my gathering the evidence, training to look for it, making note of when I am right and wrong. If I really already knew impermanence ruled this world, it would be game over, I would have no fear, no surprise, no disappointment, I would be enlightened already.

I offer you, Dear Reader, this story so you know my practice isn’t all heavy doomy and gloomy all the time. Sometime I just play, I let my natural curiosity guide me, I re-explore the world I think I know so well, I note when things are not the way I thought. I use the technique I will call “Gathering Evidence” — making mental (and sometimes written) note of  the many possibilities that exist in the world, the huge number of possible futures, possible meanings, possible perspectives —  so I can learn to believe in impermanence, not just ‘yah yah’ it and move on. And when I have a real problem, when life gets heavy, I can  turn back to the technique of gathering evidence, which I have been practicing all along, to show myself how so many times this world isn’t really how I imagine it to be/ will be at all. 

*  A note about being surprised: Just like anger or fear or annoyance, surprise is one of those warning lights we have a wrong view of permanence. We are surprised because we believe we already know what will happen, what is normal, what the rule is. When something else happens, something other than our expectation we are surprised. If we deeply understood anything can happen, that the world operates by its own laws (karma and impermanence) not by our expectations, we would not have any surprise in our hearts. 

The Matrix — Method Not Movie

The Matrix — Method Not Movie

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Another Prelude to Introduce A Super Duper Important Buddhist Concept — Two-Sidedness:

This next 2 section will have lots of entries on two sidedness so this seems as good a time as any to offer an introduction to one of the most fundamental ideas in Buddhism — Everything, everything, EVERYTHING, has 2 sides. 2 sidedness is a feature of impermanence. What exactly does that mean? Actually, it means lost of things. A few simple ones:

  • The things that we enjoy come with suffering and the things we hate also have good parts. Example: I love buying fresh flowers, until a few days later when I feel sad to throw them away…
  • Everything that benefits us also has a cost. Example: I buy that dress, it looks great on, but I’m afraid I’ll stain it every time I put it on. The dress costs me money and worry.
  • Opposites come together,  they define each other.  If everyone were the same height would there be short and tall?

There are even more ways to think about 2-sidedness and there will be future blogs on the topic. Here though I want to talk about using 2-sidedness to combat a super sneaky and troublesome wrong view — seeing things only from one side, our own. So today’s aspect of  2-sidedness:  

  • Any time I have a conflict (i.e. suffering), either in my heart or out in the real world,  there are 2 sides to the story. I however am only seeing the one I am used to, that I already believe, that benefits me, that belongs to me –I have a permanent view that  my side is right, in fact, I often can’t even see an alternative (I call that super permanent).  That whole other side out there is a blind spot.

I like to think of blind spots as bright, flashing danger lights on my dashboard. And how do I fix danger lights? With a tool of course!! Enter:

The Matrix

The Story: I had a coworker, we’ll call her Barb, who I was just beginning to become friends with; we had started having lunch together, riding the bus together and hanging-out after work sometimes. I really liked Barb, I wanted to be her friend and I though she felt the same way too, until…

It was after a huge work event, Barb and I had spent months planning the thing and it was a success. A few of the folks from the office were helping to clean-up and Barb, who had been talking to another co-worked, Rina, while cleaning, asked Rina if she wanted to go hang-out after the cleanup was done. I was standing right there but no one invited me. I was crushed. My heart hurt so bad as Rina and Barb walked away.

I went home sulking thinking Barb wasn’t really my friend, I had misread all the signs…after all, if it had been me who had invited-out Rina, I would have invited Barb to come along.  Real friends just don’t leave their friends out like that (this is my side, the belief I already have, what I am used to). Then as I lay awake in bed, too upset to sleep, I thought, “wait”, “is it really true that Barb not inviting me means she isn’t my friend?  Is it true that real friends invite each other to every single gathering? Is it possible there are factors besides our friendship at play here?”

The Matrix: So the matrix is really just a series of 4 squares that cover all the logical conclusions of a problem statement: If X then Y, If X then not Y, If not X then Y, If not X then not Y. Then, it uses examples, evidence from real life to show us that really, any one of the possibilities can be true. Us clinging to the squares we believe, just because we haven’t stacked sufficient evidence in the other squares isn’t reasonable — it is a wrong view. Let’s work it for the Barb Story:

Problem Statement: On some level, I think Barb not inviting me out means she isn’t a real friend…  So let’s use the statement — Real friends always invite their friends out.

Real Friends Invite Their Friends Out:

I already believed this one was the truth.I based this off my experiences, my gut reaction that it’s what I always do. When around multiple friends, I include everyone in my plans. I wouldn’t just leave people out. No more evidence needs to be stacked here since it’s my starting belief.

Real Friends Don’t Invite Friends Out

—  When I think a friend is sick,  tired, broke, has other plans, etc. I don’t always invite them out; I don’t want to put them on the spot. In this case, I had to admit, Barb knew how late I had stayed-up the night before the event.
—  I don’t always invite Eric, my husband and best friend out when I want to have girl-time, or talk privately.  Again, thinking a little more… Barb had mentioned she wanted to talk to Rina about a project that didn’t involve me.
— Sometimes as much as I love my friend Sandy, I need a break. Barb and I had been together non stop planning the event
Already, it was clear I don’t even follow my own rule of “always inviting out friends”

‘Fake’ Friends Invite Their Friends Out

— I had a ‘friend’ back in college who invited me out only when they needed me to drive or pay the bill.
—  I have invited ‘friends’ out just so I didn’t need to go out alone when I wanted to go dancing.

–I have had ‘friends’ that would invite me out just to make fun of me, or make themselves look good next to me since I was less attractive, popular, stylish.
Clearly, it doesn’t require someone to be my friend in order for them to invite me out.

‘Fake’ Friends Don’t  Invite Friends Out

Again, I believed this one and didn’t need evidence, it’s just the opposite of what I already believed: friendship = invite so no friendship also = no invite.

 

When I really thought it through, I was upset for nothing. I was upset because I believed one possibility, one side, was true and didn’t leave room for the other side in my heart. I didn’t even see it. But evidence from my own life tells me that there are many possible situations in which Barb may not invite me out and it does not necessarily mean she doesn’t think of me as a friend.

If I had just stayed upset I would have been sad myself and may well have put my relationship with Barb, as well as my other co-worker, in danger. Barb and I actually became  very close friends over the years.  Since this incident there have been many times she has invited me out and many when she has not. She has mostly behaved like a good friend and sometimes like a bad one too. We have both grown and learned a great deal from each other though and I am so so happy I did not let this early-on incident stand in the way of our friendship.

As for the Matrix, it’s a simple tool that can help focus my mind on the ‘other side’. I will admit, that for complex problems, it may not be my starting place as it can be a bit too simple. But it does, ultimately represent the TRUTH —  the matrix is the logical conclusion of a correct view (check-out Killing the Crazy to see how I got to a “matrix model”  on the relationship between what I fear and what actually happens using the evidence). So why not try drawing one out every once in awhile…

 

Odds and Ends, Tools and Techniques, Impermanence and Suffering

Odds and Ends, Tools and Techniques, Impermanence and Suffering

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In this next section I’ll share a few more stories from the “early days”(up till around June 2013). Some of these precede the Killing the Crazy story, but cover topics aside from paranoia, many are from the months shortly following that story (which occurred late 2012 or early 2013). The main point here is that as my anxiety levels began to diminish, I was able to ‘work the program’ and consider a broader array of topics through the lenses of impermanence and suffering.   These stories are still mostly born from contemplation on obvious problems, pains and slights — I like to think of them as using Dharma to triage a situation. They continued to build my understanding of control, impermanence and, to a lesser degree, suffering.

In this section I will also try to introduce a few additional tools and techniques that have served me well over the course of my practice. Though this is by no means everything, you will see many of these particular techniques repeated frequently in my stories; here I will try to highlight them and describe them a bit so that as we proceed you will have a sense of some of the tools I have used to learn to guide and structure my thinking.

Killing the Crazy (At least the overly paranoid fear of death and decay aspect)

Killing the Crazy (At least the overly paranoid fear of death and decay aspect)

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I had a mole that my doctor said needed removal, only I had to wait a few weeks before I could get back in for an appointment.  During that time, I panicked and contemplated, panicked and contemplated, panicked and contemplated. I’ll spare you guys the full panic details (do I have skin cancer? Am I dying? Again? I was just dying of something else last week…) and share a bit of the contemplations because they ended-up being the thoughts that really sunk a nail in the coffin of my constant, daily,  fear of death and disease.

I was in a yoga class and came to a particularly challenging upside down pose. I had practiced for a while, worked-up to it, but I was afraid. My teacher came over and said, “don’t be afraid, just breath”. It worked, I got up in the pose and focused on breathing instead of fear. After class I was thinking, that hippy dippy advice had some value; I always believed fear was a fixed part of the experiences I was afraid of. That it was built into the situation (instead of my perception of it). But when I breathed and wasn’t afraid it showed me fear is not fixed it can come and go, it is not built into the situations where I am afraid.

My life was a series of fearful moments. I jumped from one situation to the next worrying that something was killing me. If I was lucky I got a few weeks off before the next bout of imaginary cancer, ebola, killer bee invasions, etc. This was a horrible way to live, but I did it anyway. I thought it was normal. I thought I had no choice. But if the fear was not fixed, not built-in to the situations, a few conclusions followed:

  1. Just because I will die, it does not mean I need to constantly worry about it. In any situation I may die, I may not, my death in fact will occur whether I worry about it or not. If situations don’t have fear built in, I don’t have to fear any given situation. Moreover, since my fear won’t necessarily impact the outcome (death or no death), I am suffering for free with all this paranoia.
  2. Impermanence is not necessarily negative — it is not the enemy to be fought. I fear change, decay, like its something unnatural. Like its after me. Like there is something real and fixed in my body, something I can be attached to and that I can protect and preserve from that enemy impermanence. But really, is there some fixed, unchanging Alana I can really keep safe and preserve? If Alana was so unchanging how could I be afraid of a yoga pose one minute and then not afraid the next. That’s change right? And, it was change for the better in this case.
  3. I was choosing fear. On some level, I believed that fear was practical, that it functioned to serve me and protect me.  That it was my weapon against that enemy impermanence. But if fear really worked, staved-off the horrible outcomes I worried about, then why did bad things sometimes happen when I was afraid of them? Why when I worried I was coming down with a cold did I sometimes get a cold? Why when I worried about failing a test did I sometimes fail the test? Not such a great weapon after all huh?

Because this was such a biggie contemplation, I’ll write-out my major take away concepts from my notebook. i.e. the big picture wrong views that I identified during this contemplation:

Wrong View 1: Change, impermanence is bad/  it has  a specific value —  negative. change, particularly in regards to me is bad, that there is a solid, real Alana. That changes to that Alana, particularly bodily changes, are problematic in that they erode that Alana self.

Correct View 1: Change is a universal truth. I, like all other things in this world am subject to it. It is not negative or positive, but I, especially when the change involves me or my body, view it as negative. In reality though, even in my body, changes I view as positive take place: I heal from illness, bad haircuts grow out and I don’t still walk like a 2 year old. Moreover, there is no unchanging Alana self or I would still look like an infant, act like an infant. Change is inevitable whether I view it as positive or negative.

Wrong View 2: That emotions can be ingrained into an experience, that all experiences of a similar type always trigger the same emotional response.

Correct View 2: Just like with the yoga pose, it is my perception that interprets a situation as scary/not scary –if the pose were scary by its own nature, I would have never been able to do it without fear. Fear would have always remained part of the pose.More evidence is the dentist, I used to believe it was scary and then was OK with it. When I went away to college at first I was scared, then excited. As a kid I was afraid of the dark and now I find it relaxing. I have changed, my sense has changed. When  something goes from scary to not scary or not scary to scary, it is my perception that causes the shift.

Wrong View 3: That anything I do or say can avert nature, the laws of karma and impermanence. That I can battle impermanence and win,  that any given situation, especially the scary ones, are in my control.

Correct View 3: My control is limited, not ultimate. Just like with the airplane, I can take steps I believe help keep me safe, but in the end, if my plane is going to crash my fear, my prayers, my superstitions, my standing over the pilot’s shoulder and seeing it happen are not going to save me. Using fear to motivate some action that will give me absolute control is crazy because, in the end, nothing gives me absolute control. I get all the negatives of fear and no secret weapon of immortality.

Plus, look at the costs of living this way, how much I worried, how often my controlling had unwanted side effects (peeing myself), how I stressed out the people around me that I love and care about, how I close-down and think only about myself when I’m afraid.
The biopsy results came back negative. No skin cancer. After the Dr. called to tell me,  I started collecting evidence in my head, thinking about my life and experiences.  That’s when I saw it —the TRUTH — There is absolutely no necessary relationship between the things/ experiences that I fear and their actual outcome.  I was afraid of the mole, but it was not skin cancer. I was afraid of stomach cancer, but it was hemorrhoids and IBS, I was afraid on each flight my plane would drop from the sky, hasn’t happened yet. Clearly, just because I fear something it doesn’t mean it comes true. Then I considered all the stuff I was never afraid off, my new cell phone breaking, pain after my dentist appointments, getting run down by a Rhino in Kenya (long story), getting food poisoning in Italy when I had managed Mexico, China and 1000 other places problem free. Obviously, not worrying about something did not mean that something bad wouldn’t happen. Sure, sometime I worry about something bad and sure enough, sh** happens. And surely there are all sorts of perils lurking that I don’t worry about and never result in something bad (we have all watched that horror movie..the killer is behind the shrubs, the well dressed lady walking by, and the killer never jumps out, and the lady walks away).

That then is the full story — my worry and certain outcomes are really only linked in my head. In reality, there is no causal relationship between my fear and bad things happening. I was, finally, free in one small but tremendously significant way, crazy insomnia Alana is dead.

I Am Always Afraid My Umbrella Will Get Wet.

I Am Always Afraid My Umbrella Will Get Wet.

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I was strolling around one of those poppy art galleries in the Mission and there was an exhibit composed entirely of quotes on the wall.  Front and center was 1 line of text that really struck a chord in my heart – “I am always afraid my umbrella will get wet.”

Immediately my mind started racing, after all, what’s the purpose, the nature, of an umbrella, it’s something that gets wet. Being afraid of that is just crazy right? But look at me, with my fear and paranoia around health and death.  What is the purpose of my body? What is its nature? A body is something we use to move through the world, and in the process it gets worn, it breaks down, gets sick, gets injured and dies. No matter how well we try and care for our bodies, the wear and tear comes hand-in-hand with the purpose of body. Just like getting wet comes hand-in- hand with the purpose of umbrella. But me, I live in fear of the nature of my body and I am always running around trying to find the most ridiculous ways to fight it…squiggly fade-out to past memory…

Last time I had been to the Dr. my blood sugar was a touch high, not diabetic, not pre-diabetic, but slightly above the goal that “Life Extension” magazine suggested I should target in the hopes of living just shy of forever.  So I decide I’m going to ‘fix-it’ with the latest greatest national supplement, green coffee extract.  I started feeling the “energizing” effects of the coffee extract almost immediately, still who wouldn’t trade a little jitteriness and insomnia for near immortality? Then, 3 days into ‘treatment’, I started peeing myself. Yup, apparently all that stimulating green coffee was over-stimulating my bladder too, result — incontinence. Perhaps you can imagine my mortification of discovering this tiny unwanted side effect while in the middle of a meeting with my boss…

I was so busy ‘controlling’ my blood sugar I lost control of my bladder, one of the most basic of bodily functions. Let’s just say, this was a trade-off (a cost, a consequence, suffering), I was totally unprepared for.

But here, with this story I really started to ask myself how much can I control my body? To what extent and at what cost? What are the tradeoffs, the risks (besides the unpleasant state of constant terror) of holding on so tightly?  Can I really live in this body without decay? Can I walk in the rain with an umbrella and avoid it getting wet?

 

Don’t Make Me Come into That Cockpit and Fly this Plane For You

Don’t Make Me Come into That Cockpit and Fly this Plane For You

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I am a real globe trotter, I travel almost every chance I get. In just the last few years I have been to Kenya, China, India, Italy, Iceland, France, Japan… So, it might come as surprise to y’all that  I really don’t like flying at all, in the past I was down right terrified. No, it never really stopped me from getting on a plane, I love to travel after all, but I did manage to worry the whole flight long that that huge hunk of metal would fall from the sky. To be fair, I didn’t really care for driving much either, but at least when I drove, I was driving. With the plane all I could do was sit in my seat and mutter prayers under my breath hoping that my will, the power of my mind, alone could keep the plane aloft.  Unless of course…

I was talking to Mae Yo and Neecha one day about my fear of flying. A bit of probing and prodding and out came the real question. Do I really think I could fly the plane better than the pilots? I stopped in my tracks —  the extent of my flying experience was the old space invaders video game — of course I would not be better off if I were the one flying the plane. Still though, a part of me, on some level thought, if I were in control, if I were the one flying, the experience wouldn’t be so scary. Why else would I be doing all that prayer muttering? Moreover, I saw that I wanted to know, I wanted to see, I thought if I was aware what was going on it would be OK. But since all that flying is happening behind the sealed cockpit door it is an unknown and, by definition, scary by nature.

With a little more thought  I realized that before the plane story, I had begun to grapple with the limitations of my control –I couldn’t control my friend Sue, my teeth, my body or my phone –I just can’t control everything. Still, I had the sneaking suspicion that if I could control something I should control it since I would be better off for having done so. Plus,  if I just knew what was going on I would be safe. But could that really be some immutable fact? If I were flying the plane would me, or the rest of the passengers,  be better off?  If I was standing over the pilot’s’ shoulder, watching — knowing — their every move ( How can my husband say I’m a  backseat driver) could I rest easy assured I would have a safe flight?   

I saw that when I fly the best I can do is exercise my limited control. I can pick reputable airlines, buckle my safety belt and maybe sit in the exit row if the seat  is free. But after that, I need to accept the risk and the fact that it’s not something I’m in control of and that it actually wouldn’t be better if I were.  The risk, in fact was part of my decision to travel, it’s built into the trip and the activity I love so much –but that is a topic that came a little bit later in my practice.

Get your Grimey Hands off my Teacup

Get your Grimey Hands off my Teacup

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The reason I chose this story to share is it uses one of my all-time favorite contemplation methods. The method comes directly from a teaching Luang Por Thoon gave to a man named Singh that quickly led to his enlightenment.  The method is essentially asking a series of questions about objects we ‘own’ in order to better understand the nature of the objects (impermanent) and our relationship with those objects (also impermanent) and, in the process, to  weaken  our attachment to them. Basically, we have a bunch of stuff that we use while we are in this world, but it doesn’t actually belong to us, it is not stuff we ultimately own or control, it’s not like we can take it with us when we die. We work so hard to get ‘our’ things, we work hard to keep them, we mourn when they are gone. Because we are deluded, we believe these things will serve us as we imagine they will,  permanently, and our misunderstanding drives us to continue accumulating, to come back for more lifetime after lifetime and with each life, with each scavenger hunt for things, we suffer the pains of being disappointed by the limitations of these objects, the pain of getting them, the pain of trying to preserve them and the pain of their loss. . . Without further ado, the questions*:  

  1. Where did the item come from
  2. Think about the item leaving you
  3. Think about leaving the item behind
  4. How do you control the item
  5. How does the item control you

The Story:

I get to the 2012 KPY retreat and on my first night I grab a cup from the kitchen. I wash it SUPER well and then I tape a note on the cup, “Alana’s Cup, do not clean, I will reuse teabag”. Sounds very eco of me right? Conserving and all, who can argue with what a great person I am being? The real reason —  I do not want to to share cups with other folks at the retreat, I don’t want their germs, their disease. So clearly, if I just take a cup and make it ‘mine’ with this simple sticky note, I will be safe from all those dirty grimey folks licking-up on my cup and making me sick. My cup is, by definition, cleaner and safer than ya’lls cups (even though I kept forgetting it outside and there is some possibility all manner of bug and vermin were crawling-up in it –wait how is the plague spread again?). Clearly, this is all very sane ;)…

So, let’s start with the idea that the cup is mine (I did label it after all) and get down to our questions:

  1. Where did the cup come from? The cup came from the KPY kitchen. Someone may have donated it, KPY may have bought it, some other person whose cup it was may have brought it on retreat and left it behind. Before that the cup came from some store, before that some factory. Someone labored to make the cup, manufacture it, the clay that made-up the cup was molded, shaped. Before that it came from the ground…  When exactly did the cup become mine? In fact, when exactly did the cup become a cup instead of a lump of clay? Why would I believe that a sticky note (which was written in my super illegible handwriting, in English, at a retreat where most folk’s first language is Thai) made it mine. Made it so others would know not to use ‘my cup’ and my cup would know not to run -off with some other thirsty person…
  • How can the cup leave me? The cup actually did leave me several times on retreat –I kept forgetting it outside. Sure I managed to recover it each time, but was the cup mine when it was lost? What if it broke? Would it still be mine..would each piece be mine? What if someone took the sticky note off of it –that sticky seemed to have the magical power to make the cup mine so did its removal return it to the status of KPY community cup?
  1. How can I leave the cup? Clearly I could leave the retreat center, so was I going to take the cup with me? Was I actually going to steal a KPY cup because I had convinced myself, with that all powerful note and a little effort of a good scrubbing, that the cup was mine? Or, I could be out in the woods, get attacked by a bear (that was attracted by the sweet smell of my delicious tea) and die — I guess I wouldn’t really need the cup then…
  • How do I control the cup? Thats easy, I can wash it, label it, carry it around, drink from it, play mini drums on it, I can do anything I want right? Because it’s just an object and an object that’s mine! Well, maybe I can’t do anything with it, I can’t make it sprout wings and fly after all, but of course I am the person and the cup is a cup, I must be in control. Right? Well, not so fast…
  • How does the cup control me? Once I make that cup ‘mine’ suddenly I have a responsibility, a burden. I have to carry it around (so no one takes it –clearly even I don’t believe my note is enough), I have to wash it, I have to make sure my sticky isn’t chipping off. When I lost the cup I had to retrace my steps, one time I had to walk halfway down the mountain, to retrieve it. I felt slightly self conscious about the cup, about labeling it, so I both wanted folks to see the label but I also wanted to hide it as best I could. I had to worry –should I take the cup back to the tent? I know food in the tent is a no-no because of bears…can they smell tea?

What are the risks of all this craziness? Someone could see the label and be offended by it, I could create disharmony in the community. Perhaps I lose the cup carrying it around, or someone who needs a cup to drink from can’t find one since I have raided the kitchen for ‘mine’.  

More dangerous still though is that I feed the control monster — I reinforce this idea that I am empowered, I can control risk by having my own cup (cup=control). I can avoid all the death and disease out there that is lurking behind every corner just ready to get me.  I create a false sense of safety , built on a false understanding of the nature of ‘my cup’, rather than dealing with the fact that diseases spread and I am subject to them with or without a cup.

Plus, what does ‘after me’ really mean? Is disease after me? Is impermanence a personal affront that with enough effort (and some teacups) I can control? LP Nut helped me immensely with this contemplation…he taught me  the method of  “Killing the Hope”. (Lucky luck, we have a twofer here –two methods, for the price of one story). As  he explained it,  I need to look at the world, look who out there is exempt from death and disease and loss. Gather the evidence and determine whether or not I can control or change these things, exempt myself, or whether they are realities that need to be accepted. I.e. I need to kill the hope that I can escape impermanence so that I can accept.  So here are a few highlights of my evidence:

  1. I, unlike my husband at the time, vigilantly watch what I eat and exercise  –my blood sugar is a little high and his is just fine, all my control is not yielding the results I desire.
  2. I was considering taking a yellow fever vaccine for some travel, my Dr. recommended against it. Why? Because a number of folks have gotten the vaccine and actually gotten yellow fever from it. Guess control wasn’t working for them either.
  3. As hard as I diet and exercise I still feel fat most of the time
  4. I wash my hands obsessively, but I still manage to get sick
  5. I hired financial advisors to help manage and control my money and then I still lost money the last time the markets dipped
  6. I went to Italy for an easy, risk free, vacation and ended up getting food poisoning
  7. I went on birth control to manage pregnancy and menstrual symptoms but it caused me weight gain
  8. Despite all my lotions and potions I am starting to get wrinkles and grey hair
  9. Once I graduated university I had to leave all my friends and my university life behind even though I did not want to
  10. My father died
  11. My cat died
  12. My friend Sue gained weight even though I tried to ‘help her’ avoid it
  13. I lost faith in my Vajrayana practice even though I worked so hard at it, chanted hundreds of thousands of mantras and meditated every day
  14. This actor I really liked, played Spartacus on TV. He was so talented and crazy fit/beautiful. He was diagnosed with a rare cancer just when his acting career began to take off. At first they said it was highly treatable and then, he died from complications
  15. I tried to control my teeth, prevent pain, by getting crowns and then the crowns ended up causing me pain

Gathering all this evidence (there was actually even more, but I won’t bore you)  was what helped the pieces started coming together, when I started seeing the limitations of my control and the fact that sometimes I can’t just fight, I need to accept.  My next few stories will take up this theme further.

I also want to say that, mostly, at the time of this contemplation my focus was on impermanence, on my wrong views regarding control and disease/unwanted outcomes. Contemplating on the cup, realizing my relationship with it and its abilities to fight disease were not fixed, were a backdoor into considering my control of death and disease more broadly. In other words, I used an analysis of my crazy view that I control the cup and use it like a talisman to ward off disease, in order to consider the broader questions of whether disease is something within my complete power to avoid . But now, reviewing and rewriting this story I see so much more fruit here sooo…. I am going to write this later addition synopsis concerning ownership, which is another potential aspect of the teacup contemplation. Though this does not follow my contemplation timeline,  I think it will help clarify and make this entry richer. So I am going to use that ‘blogger’s prerogative’ and fill-in the lines a bit more on the topic of owning (plus..this is how my practice works, back over the same stories, the same themes, getting deeper and richer over time):

We get so caught-up buying things, owning things, thinking they are ours –we don’t notice these items totally manipulate us, they bully us, they force our hands all the time. Like with the teacup, it’s easy at first to say I’m in control, the cup makes my life better, more convenient, safe from the disease I fear. Or that, with my extensive wardrobe, I can define who I am, shape my identity and make it real. But from the get-go the items are in charge. I seek them out, it’s not like the cup labeled itself or my clothes hop into the shopping cart on their own. I pay for them with money or elbow grease. I need to care for the items, to clean them, to interact with the items on their  terms if I have any desire to retain and preserve them  (if it’s breakable I have to handle with care, if it’s white fabric I have to be so careful about stains, when a part or a gear wears out I must replace it, when the car needs gas I have to stop what I am doing and feed it).

Trust this fashionista, once I have found that perfect purse I have to have it (it’s like it calls to me from across the store). I spend hard earned money on it  and then  I worry constantly about keeping it nice. When it finally does wear out, or goes out of fashion, I need one that’s just as good or better..it’s not like I’m going to go from carrying a Chanel purse to something from the Gap..I have standards after all.  And those standards, they came from the Chanel bag (my misunderstanding of it anyway), from the wardrobe I have built that matches that bag, so really, who is in charge?

Even more subtly still, these items, each one, we obtain to solve a problem. I need a cup to keep me disease free. I need a bag to carry all my other stuff, I need an accessory to match my clothes, I need a thing I wear to make other folks think I’m pretty and fashionable (that I am a person who is in control of my super buttoned-up image). And in return for a problem patch I get an item that creates a bunch more problems — gives me new responsibilities, sets new standards, makes me dependent,  plants the seed for the ‘need’ for more new items in the future. And does the item even solve the problem I think it solves? If so, for how long? Can a cup keep me disease free? Can a purse make you see me as beautiful or polished or in control?  So is an item we can’t control really ours? How much do we pay, how much do we suffer, for the privilege of fake owning it for some limited time?

* I have actually see multiple versions of the questions that go with this story. Here I have the ones I used for this contemplation.

I Just Bought This Piece of Junk…How Can It Be Broken Already?

I Just Bought This Piece of Junk…How Can It Be Broken Already?

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My cell phone died. I dropped it on the street and when I picked it up I couldn’t get it to start again. It was an older model, had served me well for a few years. I knew it would be a pain to replace (have you ever been to a Verizon store?), it would take time to reload it with all my aps, with the cute icons and live wallpapers that made the thing ‘mine’, but it was alright, I knew it was time.

I got my new phone…spent the money, spent the time…1 day later, the phone stops working and I was so annoyed. I tried all the usual techniques, I surgically removed the battery, restarted, reboot. But nothing, dead. I think to myself..hows this possible?

A Little Background: Around the same time as this I was having stomach problems. One afternoon I went to the bathroom and out came a ton of blood. Between that and the pain I was having, my Dr. thought it was best to get a colonoscopy and rule-out stomach cancer or inflammatory conditions. I was so scared, scared of the procedure and even more scared of the cancer or serious disease. Plus, how is it possible, someone so young (early 30s) getting cancer or other crazy broken diseases?

As I was looking down at the dead phone, I realized, it was exactly like me. It is like my body, a tool, a device I need to get by in this world. I imagine that it’s something I own, I control, but in reality it can control me. It breaks and I need to run and replace it, find a way to fix it. When my body breaks there are surgeries, pills or a new birth to replace it. I invest so much time and energy in the phone, I make it mine with icons and ornaments, I imagine, like I do about my body, that it reflects “me”, my personality, my unique specialness.

Of course, I’m not a fool, I know phones break and people die. When it happens at the right time — when I dictate it is acceptable, when it aligns with my perception of how the world is supposed to work, when it retains my perception of control — it’s sad but OK. But this new phone, my stomach issues, it was evidence that duration is not certain, not under my control.

It’s easy to see once or twice or 10 times that control is limited, things are uncertain, but my mind is so used to its habits of thought; the same wrong concept will hide in slightly different permutations, different twists. So this story here showed me a new fact to consider, a different misunderstanding of impermanence that I needed to correct — I had to see impermanence  is something that exists ‘out there’ and does not abide by my terms, my expectations of when cessation, brokenness, death, is acceptable and when it is not.

In the end I was able to exchange the phone for a new one, manufacturer’s defect. I had the colonoscopy and turns out I had hemorrhoids and IBS, no warranty on the body so I just have to live with the broken parts.

 

I Rather be Doing ANYTHING Other Than Having a Root Canal

I Rather be Doing ANYTHING Other Than Having a Root Canal

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OK a little warning: This post is a little more technical/boringly written in an effort to more clearly show the structure of my thinking. However, it does deal well with the key cause (wrong view) of fears and phobias –the crazy belief that what has happened to in the past/what we imagine is an indicator of what will happen in the future. Spoiler alert: it’s not, too much changes, all the time… So anyway, if you can stay awake, it may just be worth the read ;).

I Rather be Doing ANYTHING Other Than Having a Root Canal:

Step 1, Story/Situation:  I have spent most of my life in absolute dread of the dentist. I mean horror movie-like scenes  played in my head at the mere mention of the word. When I was a kid, I had a sadistic dentist and when he was angry, annoyed, or just having a good time, he would drill my lips and gums ‘accidentally’ when filling cavities. Needless to say, once I was an adult, I avoided the dentist like the plague.  This strategy worked great, till it didn’t, and I started having pretty intense pain in a back molar.

One night, I go to the Temple in a panic, I clearly needed to go to the dentist, but I was so so so so so so so so so so so so so so so afraid. Help!! Mae Yo and Phra Anan came to the rescue and started talking me through the crazy and fixed ideas (i.e. permanent so by definition wrong views) I had in my head that were clearly creating suffering (the unique type of suffering that arises from not having paid a visit to a dentist in 15 years…). Here is what I began to see:

Step 2. Wrong Views: My wrong view of the situation

a) That the dentist is always scary/painful

b) That my past bad experiences with the dentist will be mirrors for my future experiences — to convince myself that this was wrong, I did a little exercise; I considered all the ways I could think of that this experience would actually be different from when I was a kid. For example, now I’m an adult, before I was a child. This is a different dentist, in a different city, the old dentist is dead already (though zombie dentist would be in keeping with the horror movie dentist I had been imagining for 15 years). Dental technology has changed. My pain tolerance and perception has changed. In essence a ton of stuff had changed. This exercise, which Mae Yo walked me through, began loosening the gripping belief that underlaid my phobia –I had one bad experience and now they will all be the same. Even though, factors and conditions had already changed.

c) That I can predict  what will be painful/the source of my suffering

Step 3 Concepts: The deeper concepts or beliefs that underlie this particular (and many other) stories

a) That a particular stimulus will yield predictable results. In truth, there is uncertainty. No stimulus (like a dentist visit) is ever exactly the same as a previous one (circumstances constantly change) so there is no guarantee that results will be the same. Plus, I am not all knowing, so I don’t have the power to fully understand all the causes, how could I predict results with 100% certainty?

b) That a past experience is a credible indicator for what will happen in the future. That I know what to expect. In reality I have experiences all the time that I then try to replicate and am unable to do so. This idea is actually one I consider all the time with food. If I go to a restaurant and have the best pizza, best ice cream, can I go back and get it again? If I do go back, and the dish is still there, I notice sometimes the flavors change, the cooking changes, its better or worse than before.

c) That something being a certain way means it will always be that way. All things in fact cease. As such  they can never always be the same

Floater Step, More Stories, More Evidence:  More Story: This set of contemplations, plus the throbbing pain in my tooth, were enough to get me into the dentist’s office. As it turned-out, I needed 4 crowns and elected to have all the work done under a mild sedative. The procedure, from my doped-out perspective, was over in a minute and involved absolutely no pain. So me and the dentist lived happily ever after…

But actually, there was more to it, the next day I went to eat solid food and each chew was agony… I went back to the dentist and the crown didn’t quite fit. It took several more visits before it finally did and the chewing pain ceased.  In addition to several more trips to the dentist, my post procedure experience exposed a new wrong view and gave me more evidence to consider. I originally worried only about pain during the procedure, I had no concern at all about  pain afterwards. Once I had pain afterwards, I suffered a new wrong view (actually, you may notice it is just a different version of the previous concept that my past bad experiences predict the future)  that once I had pain I would have pain and suffer with it for a long time. That it would be hard to fix. In reality, a few trips to adjust the crown brought my pain to an end.

When I really thought it through, I saw that my beliefs about pain, fear, the stuff I worry about, they were not entirely accurate. After all had they been I would have hurt in the dentist’s chair and been fine after. Once I wasn’t fine, I would be in pain forever. Fortunately, I managed to escape eternal pain, this time around. Step 4, Suffering: But, all the suffering I managed to create around one little trip to the dentist, was pretty epic in scale. There was the physical pain of my tooth ache, the worry about going to the dentist, the worry afterwards that the pain from the crown would never get fixed. There was my sour attitude toward my family, toward the dentist and his staff –I was so busy being immersed in my fear I had no concern for anyone else. There was also the very clear consequences of my wrong view that prevented me from going to the dentist in the first place — years of refusing to go for even a cleaning probably contributed to the state of decay my teeth were in.

Step 5, Dharma: Later blogs will have much more detail about  the aggregates, which is a major ‘dharma idea’ about what makes-up our ‘self’. If this does not compute now, fear not, it will later. But Rupa, or form, was the first topic given to me for contemplation, the only thing I considered deeply, though weakly, in this early period of practice. It is the outside world trappings (i.e. not stuff in my head) that provides the foundations for all the drama imaginings that ensued. In this story, we have my body, my teeth, the dentist, the dentist office with its machines and funky chair, etc. My memory and association of each of these material things triggered an imagination, built on memories, that prompted my fear.

Method to Undo the Madness

Method to Undo the Madness

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For me, one of the most empowering aspects of the Dharma approach taught by Luang Por Thoon’s students is the use of methods, tools, to structure my practice. Though I incorporate many different tools into my contemplations (I will call-out a few special ones in some of these blogs), there has been one in particular that has supported almost all of my contemplations —  this method, which I will outline here, was adopted from what I understood from a teaching by Mae Yo and LP Anan at the 2010 KPY retreat. I suspect I have changed it, altered it, made it workable for my own thinking style. It is simply a series of  5 questions/steps as seen below.

The reason I share this with you is not to dazzle you with technique or bore you with details .It’s because one of the greatest assets in my dharma practice has been a notebook and a system, some kind of outline to put down on a blank page to get me started. Then whenever I  have felt sad, angry, afraid stressed, etc. (which is actually a little dashboard warning light that I have a wrong view), I could just pick-up a pen and paper and start working some predefined steps till something shook loose. This has really helped me train myself to be systematic, organized, fast and structured in my thinking and I have been rewarded for that effort with clarity, progress, and alleviation of stress and suffering. So without further ado… the 5 steps:

1) Tell the story or situation. Make it elaborate. Spill what’s in my head so that I can read it for clues about what the real issues are. Back in the day I used to go back to all the permanent words in my story (always, never, must be, can’t fail,  etc.) and underline them as a starting place.

2) Find the wrong views in the situation. What is it that I believe that is contrary to the actual impermanent nature of the world. I can look for things that surprise me (showing me what I expect must be permanent or I wouldn’t be surprised by a different outcome), things I want to control, things that I think are/should always be a certain way.

3) Find the concepts. This is where I peel away the specific details of a situation and find the  themes that underlie the wrong views in # 2. This step is critical because these themes tend to come-up again and again in our lives, by learning to strip away details we can see patterns much more effectively.  So, in Sue’s story for example, one of my wrong views is if Sue loves me she will lose weight. Some of the  wrong concepts behind this include: people all express love the same way, or there is a necessary  link between people’s feelings and their actions, or being loved gives the beloved control. There are more…

4) Identify the Tuk, Tok, Bie, or the risks, suffering and consequences. These are basically the bundle of unpleasantness that comes from my wrong views and the behaviors, beliefs and situations that those views give rise to. They can affect affect me and affect others.  Sometimes, especially at first, it was hard to see “suffering” —  that seemed like something that is happening to those starving kids in Africa, not to me in my charmed SF hipster life. So instead, I started by  think of the costs/tradeoffs, what I pay (not just in money but in time, in loss, in emotion, in effort, in risk, etc.) in exchange for holding these wrong views and the behaviors, situations and beliefs that they give rise to. For me, it’s very very easy to see that everything in this world has costs. The better I get at seeing them, the easier it is to decide whether I’m willing to continue paying them or not. Is it worth it?

5) Find the Dharma. This is the step where I apply all this to the dharma concepts I am currently contemplating. Stuff like rupa (form), self and self belonging, the four elements, the 8 worldly conditions, karma, etc. At first I found this hard, I really didn’t understand any of these things, so I  just did a  quick pass mostly considering form (rupa) and checked it off the list. Eventually, this step gave me a place to add details, it evolved naturally over time because –and this is critical– seeing the impermanence and the suffering is in fact seeing the dharma. Doing that over and over helped clarify these other fancy ideas, it brought them to my mind naturally (or my teachers nudged me a little, but because I had practice seeing the impermanence and the costs, I was able to run with them). I say this in case you out there, dear reader, are following along and thinking, “well, I was ok till step 5, totally doable, but now I’m lost, what the heck is rupa or worldly conditions…I give up.” But if you made it this far, you were on board till you felt confused by step 5, don’t give up! Just start to see the impermanence, the broken views and the costs, and the fancy stuff can arise from there.

X) Floater Number –Tie in other stories/ Evidence — This is something that has became much more central as my practice has grown.  I tie together the concepts across multiple stories or situations so I can better understand the tendencies of my mind and/or overcome those tendencies (ie wrong views) with evidence. I do this in different sections depending on the story and my own goals or practice at the time.  The important thing here is that I take the opportunity to tie things together over time, to reinforce my understanding rather than just trying to solve a single story/problem.

At the beginning I used these bullets as a template, I would write them out and then fill-in; I was very diligent about following the method and each step in order. I think that was a huge help in really making each step, each part of the thinking process very clear and ingrained. Overtime  I have become more flexible, ordering more based on story and need (so sometimes suffering comes before wrong view for example) or lumping together different steps for different segments of a story or concept and then tying everything together in the Dharma section. Still, each distinct step is a part of 100% of my contemplations. They work when I consider actual stories that are mine and they work when I, internalize, put myself in other people’s shoes and imagine how I would feel in their stories.  Best of all, when I get stuck (or so emotional it’s hard to think straight) I can always go back to this structure.

Most of these blogs have been written for readability, so I am not outlining each step, but you can see if you can identify them as you go. In the next blog however, I will give a story about going to the dentist as an example that follows these steps in a clear way. So, read on…

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