Alana's Dharma Blog

I was a few days into my first KPY retreat and I was still on the fence about whether or not this approach was for me. I had quietly listened as other folks shared stories from their lives and the realizations they had achieved when they examined their experiences from a correct viewpoint. I still don’t know what persuaded me to finally speak. But I did. I raised my hand and tearfully shared a story that had caused me a tremendous amount of pain. Without further ado…the story:

It was during the swine flu panic back in 2009 and I was on my way to Walgreens looking for facemasks. Standing out front was a homeless guy, Shack, who I knew from around the neighborhood. Shack and I had become friendly and whenever I saw him I would give him a big hug and offer him something to eat.

Well there I was, face-to-face with Shack and at a total loss for what to do; I wanted to be kind and compassionate and give the guy a hug, after all, I always did. But I was petrified! This was before anyone knew how swine flu spread, or how serious it was. I was caught, staring at my friend –homeless, dirty, clearly high—and my mind started feeling torn between wanting to be a “good person” and the fear that if I hug this guy I’m going to get swine flu and then I’m going to get sick and then I’m going to die. In the end, I gave him a hug, I didn’t get swine flu and I didn’t die. I also didn’t get facemasks, they were all sold out.

The story however clearly wasn’t finished. Over a year later I find myself at a retreat sobbing through my tale and weighed down with what I saw as my epic struggle—being compassionate versus being afraid. Here is where I learned KPY lesson #1, if I’m that upset about something there is still a problem. I quickly realized that, since we were nowhere near Shack, Wallgreens or swine flu the real problem could only be me. A little help from my new Dharma friends helped me see some of the other issues much more clearly.

First off, I was making a whole lot of assumptions during my interaction with Shack. I assumed that Shack had swine flu, if I hugged him I would get it, if I got it I would get sick, if I got sick I would die. That’s a long trail of ‘ifs’ but underlying them all was a pretty incorrect assumption about the world –that it is permanent and that I can know for sure what is going to happen. Actually, I have since learned that in every situation there are many many possibilities; leaving more room for these in my thoughts has had the effect of helping minimize my many many fears.

Moreover, I saw exactly how ego-centric I had been in the situation. From the get go, I assumed that Shack wanted a hug and that my giving it to him was the act of a compassionate being. I never even considered the possibility that Shack saw me and thought, “darn there is that crazy hippy girl again, I guess I’ll be nice and give her a hug since she clearly needs one.” On some level, I figured that if I were in Shack’s situation I would want someone to give me a hug because that would acknowledge my personhood. Ironically, the reasons I gave Shack a hug ignored Shack’s personhood –he just became an extension of me –how I would want to be treated, how I can be “compassionate”.

Here is the point at which we can look at the peril of my ways. First off, I was looking outwards, at disease and homelessness and uncertainty, for the source of my pain but it was all about me and my own issues all along. If I had kept looking outwards I wouldn’t have found the cause of my suffering and I wouldn’t have been able to correct it. Truth be told, being afraid and upset is no fun but they go hand-in-hand with the view point from which I engaged with Shack. Second, I really do want to be a good person, but if I subconsciously overlay my own agenda on the situations and people around me, my grounds for making “good person” decisions are pretty shaky.

Finally, my story was starting to come to a close. My tears had dried, my breathing was calm and even. I had caught a glimmer of where I was (suffering) and the direction in which this practice could move me (towards an understanding that minimized my suffering) and I liked it. I became a “KPY convert” that day nearly 6 years ago. Since then I have felt myself continue to grow, to become less neurotic and happier, to be kinder and gentler to the folks around me, and, I hope, to see the world and myself in greater alignment with reality.  Back then, I couldn’t really see any lighted paths or  illuminated exit signs, but with each story my hunch grew that I was headed in the right direction.

So, Neecha and Phra Anan actually asked me to start this blog years ago (2011). At first I said yes (because who wants to disappoint their teachers?) but then…on second thought…no.  Neecha told me, “We just get so excited about your practice because it progresses naturally and your examples are so clear that we want others to see how it can be done”. But honestly, I just didn’t think I was someone worthy of writing a blog about Buddhism. I certainly had an image in my head of what a Super Buddhist looked like (the kind who wears a nifty get-up, cape optional, and who is worthy of blogging), someone who lives a holy life, someone humble, respectful, gentle in their speech and actions, someone who keeps the precepts flawlessly, someone compassionate and wise, someone entirely unlike me.

I’m just a regular person –I have a husband, a job, a mortgage and a fancy car. I have lots and lots and lots (and lots) of flaws –I can be vain, selfish, greedy, harsh, judgmental, mean to the people I love and owe the most – I have soooo many wrong views about this world and myself in it. But still, I practice.

I practice not in spite of these flaws, but because of them. I practice because these flaws, these traits, they cost me, they pain me and I want to be free. I practice because the more I practice the more clearly I see the cause of these faults, these broken perceptions, and I understand how to start chipping away at them. I practice because, well, it works; without a doubt the Dhamma has made me a less tortured, calmer, kinder, gentler version of myself. But hey, rest assured I’m still plenty crazy (otherwise you would be getting a pretty short blog 😉 so lets call this a work in progress. Finally then, after just a few short years of total delusion, I realized that a well-qualified person to write a blog about being on the path is someone who is, you know, actually on the path so…here I am, one of KPY’s new bloggers.

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So maybe, in some cases, this would be a good stopping point. You know the soppy-sweet story; you have the conclusion, that’s the important stuff, right? In fact, from here this entry  does get a little complicated so, if you’re having trouble reading on, if it’s hit the point of snooze,  just skip the rest of this entry and head to the next,  it’s the story that starts my path.  Seriously, that’s a perfectly reasonable option, you can always come back and get here later –I sure did.  

But I did promise you a blog about my path…that is the steps that got me from there to here…so, to be fair, I will start with this (very long) pre-blog and see exactly what misunderstandings  I started to correct that helped me change my mind, my view, about blogging.

Everyday Alana versus the Super Buddhist  –

A: Choose a Side — for a long time I have struggled to reconcile the idea that there seems to be a war going on between 2 sets of desires, one to be super Buddhist Alana and the other to be regular everyday life Alana. On one side, there is some great saintly creature, worthy of the title “Buddhist”, an aspiration Alana really, who has all the “Super Buddhist” qualities I listed above and then some (FYI I would definitely have a cape, can’t pass-up an accessory). Then there is little ole regular life Alana, the wife, employee, crazy flawed person, who still does love my life, love my family, love my stuff, who is just not ready to let go.  But right off, there is a wrong view here:  That I am, I can always be one thing, one Alana ; that I can always be my imagined ideal, that that ideal is even fixed and accurate; that it’s actually better for me to just be that one Alana; that Alanas exist in diametrically opposed pairs and I need to choose one; that it is even about choosing, controlling, exercising my will and –poof — it’s done, I am a certain thing ( do you guys think I can be a fairy princess?) . 

B: Who’s making the rules and are they actually fixed– But wait, there’s more…I saw that the idea of a “Super Buddhist”, who plays by certain rules, meets certain criteria, its all in my head. I imagined up what this hero would look like, right down to the cape, and then I proceeded to judge myself against my own creation.  I pretend that if I meet these criteria (which aren’t even fixed anyway), if I could just do a certain set of things, act a certain way, sacrifice enough to get there, then I would be the real deal. So, major spoiler alert (I promise future stories about this with way more detail) but: A) you can’t just become a thing, we change, everything changes, there is no thingness that is permanent and real; B) there is no way to act your way to any ideal: Compassion, Buddhistiness, wisdom, selflessness, etc — these are causes, the actions that follow are the results –you can’t just flip it around.

As for regular Alana, which is also a product of my imagination, my curation, is she fixed? Never to change from being the little ole me I am now? I used to be a vegetarian but now I’m not, I used to be a smoker but now I’m not, I used to dress like a hipster denying my deep love of the color pink – now if you could only see how many heart-shaped pink belts I have in my closet.

C:  Maybe a different, “working definition” of Buddhist (super or otherwise): I really started thinking about what it means, to me, to be a Buddhist and it’s about being on a path. Not just any path however, the path the Buddha laid out for his followers (i.e. Buddhists) to follow. The very first step on the Path (Eight Fold) is Right View i.e. aligning my understanding of the world to reality. Reality is that everything is impermanent, subject to change, to cease, to die, and that woven into the fabric of our lives is suffering , discontent, peril  and consequence, all brought about by our failure to see the world as it really is.  

With every story you see here, in everyday of my life, I am constantly trying to pluck out the wrong views, trying to shift my perspective, trying to retrain my mind to see the impermanence I tend to ignore, to understand the costs of my choices, my beliefs. So am I worthy to blog? It really depends on who you ask, whose criteria we are using? But, for me, I finally, came to see how something as seemingly simple as not wanting to keep this blog (plus a ton of other stories, struggles, beliefs and decisions in the last few years) could be underpinned by these strong ,but totally crazy and inaccurate beliefs.  So now, worthy or not, I’m ready.