Alana's Dharma Blog

The other day, I went to pilates class, and the front desk guy wasn’t wearing a mask; I got so angry at him for endangering me, everyone else – “wear a fucking mask” I thought, “it’s the fucking law!”

Later, thinking about the situation again, a question popped into my head, if everyone were already masking, would there even need to be a law?  There are only laws when folks are already doing, or not doing, the thing forbidden or required. A law proves the thing it legislates isn’t standard, its not universal, and it is already being done/not done.

Anyway, don’t I break the law/rules too? I value rules so much –when I agree with them.  But when I don’t, I casually disregard them the same as the anti-maskers disregard masks. I constantly j-walk, I speed, I use medical weed recreationally. When a rule meets my standards, when I can see how it is important, I follow it. Otherwise, whatevez. When I j-walk on a blazing red pedestrian sign, why do I do it? Because I can use my own two eyes to look both ways and determine if there is a car. The rule is unnecessary, stupid.

And what about the front desk guy not wearing a mask? I don’t know his reasons, but surely he has them. Everyone does. Some folks think they are healthy and strong, so why wear a mask? Some folks think it should be personal responsibility, if you want to wear a mask fine, but don’t legislate my body. Hell, turn on Fox news, plenty of folks don’t even think Covid is real – so why on earth would they mask? Why should I even expect them to? Because it’s the law?

A few weeks later, my mom comes to visit. She wanted to see me since we hadn’t been face-to-face since before Covid. I was too afraid to get on a plane myself, but she was willing to brave it. Me, still deeply Covid cautious, agreed to the visit on strict terms: She wear an n95 on the plane, test before and after arrival, we mask and stick to outdoor activities. Super strict shit, stricter than her own usual standards at home, but standards she vowed she would uphold for the chance to see me.

Mom arrives and for one of our outings, I take her to an outdoor concert in a local park. Its outdoors, so mask laws don’t apply, still looking around I see different folks have different standards for Covid safety. Some folks (like me) still mask. Others don’t. Some folks sit on blankets far from the crowd, while other folks choose close together seats near the stage. Some people are clearly just with their family units, others are obviously using the concert as an occasion for a large gathering of friends.

My mom wants to dance, so I agree, as long as we choose a spot away from the crowd. As we are dancing, there is a toddler that notices my mom and wants to come up and dance with her. My mom, instead of shooing the unmasked germ bucket (aka child) away, dances with her. I was livid, beyond angry: My mom promised to be Covid careful, how in the hell could she go and do something so OBVIOUSLY risky? With the presence of mind to avoid just screaming at my mom, I told her I was tiered, excused myself from the dance, and went to sit on a bench away for the crowd to calm down.

As I calmed myself, I looked out over the crowd, again noticing how everyone is behaving differently, in accordance with their sense of risk. It’s not just about laws and rules, after all, all of my state’s Covid rules had been lifted for outdoor events by this time. It’s the fact that everyone has their own standard for Covid precautions. And the truth is, why wouldn’t they? Everyone has their own health situations, they get information from different sources, they have their own politics, their own beliefs, their own education levels. They have their own vaccination status, their own history with covid and other diseases, their own family situations to attend to, their own priorities for their life, their own risk tolerance…

The even bigger question is why in the hell would my mom be any different from any of these other folks? Why do I expect her to follow my risk tolerance, my set of covid safety standards? Why should I assume these would be obvious to her? The answer became obvious to me: Because she is mine!

But what the hell does being mine even mean? My mom, like everyone else has her own health situations, information sources, politics, beliefs, education levels. Her own history with disease, her own priorities and risk tolerance, all shaped by her life. She has her own unique circumstances, that give rise to her covid safety standards, that are totally different than my own.

Being ‘mine’, is just an arbitrary tag I give her. It is the expectation that for no other reason than the fact I dub her my own, she will act according to my standards, born of my unique circumstances instead of her own.

Suddenly, all my anger at my mom just disappeared. I realized that I had completely insane, and unrealistic expectations for her; it was beyond silly for me to be angry at her for not meeting these impossible expectations. What is more, I realized she had already done a lot. She had already gone way further than most would to  accommodate me and my crazy covid safety standards just to spend time with me. In this world, how many people would even bother to do that? I suddenly felt deep gratitude to my mom for her efforts.

Over the next few days, my mom and I enjoyed a wonderful visit together. In fact, years later, we now have a mostly pleasant and easy relationship, which is a marked difference from the 40+ years that came before. I realize that when I stopped expecting she would follow my standards, and when I stopped feeling that I always had to defend myself and my standards against her standards (like it was some imaginary war to prove who was right), I stopped getting angry at her. When I stopped getting angry, I stopped stirring shit. When I stopped shit stirring, there was nothing to spark a cycle of bickering and fighting that had been going on since I was a kid, it was just over.

Obviously, this turned out to be one of those big real-life results of dhamma practice that has made my life a lot better. But also something I know I need to continue to learn from. Afterall, its not just my mom…what shred of proof do I have that I should expect anyone or anything to act as I want – according to my standards – when everything/one acts according to their own unique circumstances? My standards are arbitrary, shaped by my circumstances, and yet again and again I find myself indignant. So sure I am right and others are wrong. So convinced of what I deserve, of what will happen, of my power to drive and shape the world as I see fit. Of my power to own, to pown, what I claim. And yet, over and over, I get evidence to the contrary. Evidence that even ‘my’ closest, most intimate ‘possessions’ – my own mother – won’t bow to my rules. Why do I hold out hope for anything else?

My mom called, she was feeling depressed and had started wondering what she had done in her life to have value, feeling regretful that in her old age, she has found she hasn’t done enough. I tried to console her, reminding her she had raised kids, had students, been a part of her community, etc. But she said that wasn’t enough, she felt like she needed to do something more for other people, for the world, for society. It occurred to me that my mom was feeling so stressed because she feels she has failed to BECOME up to her own standards of what a worthy becoming is.

I had been re-watching one of the animated videos of the enlightenment of Sariputta, one of the Buddha’s chief disciples. Sariputta struggled to become an arhant, his desire to BECOME the right hand of the buddha inhibited his ability to become enlightened. Because he clung to being the right hand, fretted over not having the characteristics, in his own opinion, that would make him that identity, he stressed. He was stuck until he realized that clinging – even to that ‘holy’ identity – was still clinging. Only then could he let go and he became enlightened.

It made me start thinking that all these criteria for meeting identities are made up by us. I do this a lot – standards to be, to become, to be worthy. There are already hundreds of blogs about what would make me (in my own un-humble opinion) a good enough alana to bear the title Buddhist, better yet to be worthy of enlightenment.

But more and more lately, I have seen in the past that my standards aren’t the arbiter of the world, if they were than everyone would wear masks and stay home and socially distance like good citizens. Hell there wouldn’t even be a pandemic, since that is certainly not part of my standard of a good and livable world. Shit, even my own body and behaviors, getting sick, getting angry, lashing out at all those unmaskers, isn’t living up to my standards. My standards aren’t arbiters of anything, they are just arbitrary.

My mom, myself, even Sariputta, we just arbitrarily choose what it is we think we should become and then we choose the ‘markers’, the characteristics and traits we think will get us there. But no characteristic is necessary to make you become something because, you can’t become an identity at all. All of us doing this are just stressing over manifesting the impossible. You can simply do certain things, based on certain beliefs, that have certain consequences.

For a few weeks, I had been considering each of the ‘aggregates for clinging’, how they operate to delude me into thinking I AM, I CAN BECOME. These aggregates are like funky colored glasses that obscure reality so that I can mistake an ever-changing process as self. So that I can cling to an identity I arbitrarily create, proving it with arbitrary characteristics and behaviors of my choosing.

I work so hard to be, to become, a certain thing. I work, I effort, I cultivate, I act: I workout to be a fit on top and in control Alana, I practice to be a good Buddhist Alana, I act and morph to be a good family member, employee, friend, citizen to have these traits I have lionized of good, and beautiful and willful and strong. But as soon as some marker stops, I feel the loss. As soon as I leave SF, I fret I am no longer an SF Alana. I mourn the loss of self.

And so, I am on to building the next me, finding and clinging to the new stuff I think will uphold that me, in a cycle that of clinging and loss that can go on without end.

During Covid, with time on my hands and my dhamma practice in high gear, I had begun (and still continue) a daily chanting practice. Sometimes, I just rush through, phone it in, chant for the sake of chanting simply because I have taken it upon myself as something I will do. Other times though, something I chant/read will really hit me and I will go down the rabbit hole of contemplating on a single line, even a single word, until I feel like I really understand it.

At some point, I was reciting the part of the morning chanting that says, “the five aggregates for clinging are stressful”, it then goes on to list: Form as an aggregate for clinging, feeling as an aggregate for clinging, perception as an aggregate for clinging, imagination as an aggregate for clinging, consciousness as an aggregate for clinging…and I started wondering what the heck is an aggregate for clinging anyway? Or, another way to ask, how exactly do I use aggregates to cling? So I decided to go ahead and consider rupa a bit more closely:

How do I use rupa to cling:

I cling to my body. My face is broken out and I am embarrassed. Using stickers and creams to clear it, I try to force it back into a non-broken out state I prefer. One I want to be seen with. One that will get folks to desire me. To be awed by my beauty.  I have an old friend coming to visit, I haven’t seen her since before Covid –I am desperate to fix my face before her arrival. Why? I want my face to show her I am on top, I have weathered the pandemic ok, I am not just some shadow of my former self.

But is that all really the truth? My face is damaged. My body is damaged. I have not weathered this time unscathed. I am diminished. Emotionally diminished. Physically hanging on the potential precipice of illness with my newly found autoimmune markers. and with my positive. These are all facts. How do I expect to use a body to prove what isn’t even true? More importantly, why would I want it to?

Rupa is the object I cling to — look at how tightly I cling to my body. Fear for illness, death, loving it even as I despise certain states it passes through –a breakout, an autoimmune disease – states not reflective of ME, that belie my ability to be on top and in control. Embarrass me in front of friends.

And yet still, I somehow convince myself this body is a tool to broadcast who I am to the world. That it is a tool to prove who I am to myself. I cling to it because I believe without it, I can’t prove my identity. Rupa is an ‘aggregate of clinging’, in so far as it is a tool I use to establish an identity. An ALANA, that I desperately cling to.

I try to use body and belongings to paint a character, and then I try and convince myself that is me, who I am. Though in one way, I know the body isn’t me, I still think it is a scaffold. Without it there is no self that can be built, what else could I use to prove the characteristics and behaviors I identify with? Rupa is a fundamental tool for building the identity of Alana who clings. Clings to what? To the identity of Alana, which requires a body, that I then also cling to.

So there it is – its not just that I cling to rupa, the truth is rupa is also a tool for further clinging. I need a rupa body to play in a rupa world, where I search out other things to cling to. I need rupa to hold together the Alana identity I cling to so tightly; the body feeds the summutti, helps me pin down and stabilize as sense of Alana self, when that self, especially nama, shift so quickly. Rupa is a primary tool I use to establish permanence. Most basically performance of an Alana self. A solid, flesh and bone manifestation of who I am.

If I really saw the world as something in contain flux, always changing, I would understand there is nothing to cling to amidst all the shifting movement. But I don’t see that, in fact, I deliberately try to delude myself – to affix things – so that I can cling, and rupa is tool #1 for containing what is always moving, for trying to create a steady state, sameness, in a world where there is none. I guess its starting to make a little sense how rupa can be an aggregate For, ie in the service of, ie a tool to promote, clinging.

MN: This makes you think about how it could turn out if people we’ve wronged controlled how we were punished for those wrongs. Keep going until their revenge is satisfied. https://youtu.be/_flYlbBpSok

AD: Ugh, that is disturbing. I need to think on it more, but the thing that really jumps out at me is how scary vengeance can be if we allow it to run unfettered. We already know what becomes of the murdered in this story, but my other fear is what happens if I am the father?  Vengeance will blind people to any sense of conscience or consequence, then we open ourselves up to an endless retributive cycle.

What really drives this home to me is that in the movie, the viewer, because they begin the story where the murderer is already the victim, feels bad for the murder. But of course, if we saw him brutalizing a child would we feel the same? We are so colored by the perspective from which we see events. Of course, if I were the father, my perfect child raped and killed I would see myself as the victim. Over and over these rolls will flip and switch.

But we all are so fixated on us, our perspective and roll. I know for a fact, when I look at my relationship with my Mom, that by believing myself to be the hero, or the victim, or the one with a fixed roll of right (versus one that swaps and switches and is contingent on situation and perspective) is the source of endless struggles. I hurt her, she hurts me. It wasn’t till I at least began trying to shift my perspective that I could shift my auto response.

Vengeance I think requires the belief that I deserve vindication, I am in the right. It also doesn’t really see the cycle or the other side. And it is so passionate, it blinds us to consequences. In other words vengeance rests on a wrong view of permanence. Which of course, makes sense in that all our wrong views are grounded in not seeing the full picture of impermanence, but I don’t think I ever saw how it could work for vengeance before…

AD: Also…on a totally different topic. But watching this movie as an exploration of body as self/ identity is pretty poignant. What is interesting is the movie clearly takes pain out of the equation. It also takes needing the body for self-care out as the guy has care givers. It even takes body as a tool to live freely and do activities he likes out as he is a prisoner anyway. Really that leaves his devastation at losing his body specifically arising not out of particular functions but the idea of body as self. It is quite clear when they say is breaking point is losing ‘Little Willie”…

It is interesting to consider when the cumulative loss of parts equals loss of self. Can a collection of parts be a self if individual parts can go and we still think me and mine?

And probably most poignant, the loss of limb is a result of the guy’s past actions, of that there is no doubt. But his actual suffering arises because of his view of his body as self.

For me I suppose the suffering would lie in the fear that more of “me” could be taken at anytime. That if this body is subject to the whims of someone else to whittle away as they see fit, what does that say for my own power in this world? Something as basic as my body is not mine to command. It confirms my lack of control, of autonomy, of self-determination, when it is surgically whittled down at the arbitrary request of someone else.

I suppose to the point of karma really — that is all what the murderer took from the girl: her opportunity for self-determination. Her hope for a future, dependent on her body.

MN: There’s a LOT to process from this this film. It’s so disturbing yet brings a lot of our beliefs to light. TTP, vengeance, freedom, identity, self and self belongings, kamma, rules/laws created by society, right and wrong, blame, guilt, …

MN: I missed the “little willie” part – a lot of times, that’s what men believe makes them a man. many believe that they’re less of a man if they’re small, more of a man if large. or if they’re fertile and can get it up, they’re manly .. but infertile or impotent, and they’re not. They can lose limbs, but the one thing they can’t deal with losing is their “manhood.”

This is such food for thought. I especially feel the truth in this statement:

“And probably most poingnet, the loss of limb is a result of the guys past actions, of that there is no doubt. **But his actual suffering arises because of his view of his body as self.**”

So often I have seen that when I see someone “get what they deserve” I don’t feel as good about it as I thought I would. Because in the end, when we see anyone suffering, we know and can relate (because we’ve been through all kinds of suffering and hell realms) – and that recognition doesn’t make us feel good.

AD: This issue isn’t just for the boys, recently ( on the tail of finding that cervical cyst) I had a really powerful contemplation on my own lady parts. The full version is actually posted on the English HW line, but the punchline is this:

Being a woman is a deeply important part of my identity so clearly I need a vagina to make my claim of womanhood credible. But that leaves me depending on an utterly undependable body part to establish my claim of who I am. It is a part that causes me frequent discomfort and embarrassment and a part I need to make accommodations for in my every day life — how do I call it myself if it involves my needing to do things I don’t want to do, and need to make accommodations for?

What is more, I build my identity on an item that can literally be the death of me, that can force me to abandon the Alana identity I have worked so hard to build and nurture. And my lady parts may or may not be the end of me. But this body in one way or another definitely will be. What business do I have saying this body is who I am when it will die and wipe out my entire sense of Alana self along with it.

Finally, I really see that I claim this body, and it’s Lady parts, as a foundation for the fairytale future my imagination cooks up, this really is at the core the way my mind uses rupa –as a prop to make my self-spun story convincing. But the truth is it is a foundation so flimsy that a single doctors appointment can shake it to the core. How do I call this body me or mine if it isn’t going to give me the future I want. When in fact it definitely gives me the future I Do Not Want, ie death and disease.

Around June 2021, Mae Neecha, on the tale of our karma conversations, had reached out again to share a few videos for contemplation. In the next 2 blogs I want to share a few highlights – though, in the interest of brevity, not the complete record – of that conversation, particularly in light of Mae Neecha’s insights about the delusions of specialness and differences that give rise to rebirth.

AD: I just started watching Loki, one of the Marvel spinoff shows about Loki. In the Avengers movies he is a comical villain, planning to try and take over the world to rule it. In the show, he is time warped into an alternative universe — a time universe — that guards multiple timelines. Loki is being interrogated and he is so self-important, claiming his awesome godlike power and intention to take over earth. The interrogator, who has seen multiple timelines and realities play out over and over, sort of smiles and nods at him like he is a cute child.

Finally, Loki escapes and finds a file room where the infinity stone he seeks is, only he finds tons of them in a desk drawer. A clerk remarks that lots of his office mates use these infinity stones as paper weights. In the movies these are all powerful objects that launch epic wars. In this context though, they are just baubles. It is then Loki understands his story trying to takeover earth is up. He sees it is small and sort of silly in the broader context. After all, just a change of circumstances and stuff that is so powerful is petty. All his schemes are just the schemes of so many men over so many times, in different worlds and different timelines, that eventually fizzle. Stories saved to files in record rooms.

It has really been striking me lately how zooming out can really take the shine of special out of self and situations. My “epic” mistake is thinking things and people that are normal are extraordinary (because they are associated with me or my beliefs). In believing that decay and change, sickness and death is something broken that if I try hard enough I can “fix”, rather than seeing my story and everyone else’s tends to play out in more or less the same way. There is nothing “broken” for me to be fixing.

MN: Ooh I really like this. The nothingness of a spec like me feeling is so necessary in dhamma practice. It’s almost comical how often we have to tell ourselves this. And how often we try to deny it or fight it.

AD: Yah, I am starting to sense my own smallness. I am honestly just hitting self and self belongings, especially rupa, super hard but it has a way of giving perspective. After all, the #1 job my imagination ascribes to this body is to somehow make me a special me, it is ( in my funhouse mirror mind) some supposed manifester of the traits I value and want to associate with. That plus the tool that I depend on to stay alive so I can weave my fairytale future story.

But in reality it is just a body, a 4e thing. No matter what meaning and story I ascribe to it, it doesn’t really change the facts of what it is. I suppose that is where the perspective is coming from.

Yesterday I went for my annual mammogram and breast ultrasound. As there is social distancing in effect, they had me wait in a room that had all the scans of my boobs up. It just looked like black and white waves. I couldn’t say which pic was which part of which boob. I honestly wouldn’t know they were my boobs if there wasn’t a name on the chart.

It made me see that these physical parts that I have tied so much of my identity, my womanhood, my sensuality to, are just layers of fat and tissue and water. If you pasted up the pics of all the women in the office, it would look more or less the same.

MN: Gotta watch this channel https://youtube.com/c/InstituteofHumanAnatomy. The doctor is so excited talking about body parts from people who donated their bodies to science. It is like those boob pictures. Just 4e, but we say my boob, my leg, my Achilles tendon. He sees them as components. But when we are still alive and well, they aren’t components – but our pride and identity.

AD: Yes, obviously there is a conventional need to identify. But I see that the problem is when #4 (imagination) starts to believe the convenient convention is actual reality. We claim, then we cling because #4 becomes invested.

After clinging comes suffering bc clinging doesn’t change the reality that if I call something mine, or I call it Bob, it will shift and decay like all 4es.

It is a long and detailed contemplation, but the punchline I got to yesterday was that it is my imagination being invested in some particular future/outcome (i.e. hope) that creates all my burdens. The burden to acquire and preserve shit towards the goal of achievement of the outcome. The sorrow and stress when I lose the thing necessary for that outcome.

If I just put down preference for outcome a vs outcome b, I don’t have to suffer anymore.

I create my suffering. And really what for? Even when I have achieved a goal outcome in real life have I really felt satisfied? Mostly I have almost immediately fixated on preserving, or grown board and wants more or different. Or, like after my mammogram yesterday, I breath a sigh of relief that I can live another day to keep building my fairytale future. In other words, I don’t get much for the cost. Definitely nothing enduring.

Rupa that I claim is just the future-fairytale props I use to convince myself the fairytale is on track and will come true. Be it a body, a cute outfit or an IRA, these things, in so far as I let them keep feeding fantasy mongering #4 are toxic

MN: Preference is the glue that makes us come back to be reborn. Not understanding that no matter what choice you make, you will always meet the same result – suffering

AD: Oh, clearly.  Without a fairytale, some attachment to a particular outcome, what would be the fuel to become at all? If a or b or c or d is all fine by me. If it is just the product of all the causes that brought it into being, not meaningful to me, there is no inertia nor burden.

MN: We really believe in “different”…that we are different, that each outcome is different… and so it is worth it to keep coming back to experience different things.  We fail to see that, no matter what name we give it, it is always the same thing on the menu.

AD: Ughh I intellectually understand that. But I know in my heart I don’t believe it. I’m not bored enough, or unenammored enough yet. But…I am working on it. I feel disillusionment creeping in.  I have been having a series of ‘almost’ health issues. A cervical cyst the doc thought could be cancer, a mole that was inflamed but benign, blood markers for an autoimmune disease but no symptoms (yet anyway). One after another it is starting to erode my hope to somehow march through this world unscathed. Like this particular body can be different from every other object that gets sick and breaks.

MN: That’s why it is so beneficial to see our own past lives. To see how often we have failed attempting the very same thing. Trying to preserve this body, trying to preserve our status, trying to preserve our belongings – and failing miserably every time. Well we do not have the Buddha to point out our past lives to us, we can look into the past of this life and draw the same conclusion. Because we are basically running the same storyline everyday, every week, every month, every year.

I was left a small inheritance from my grandma. Unhesitatingly, I gave it away to a cousin – one of my grandma’s other grandchildren – that was in school and really needed the money far more than I did. It got me thinking, why the money was something I wasn’t at all greedy for when I am greedy for so many other things. I realized I never really thought of the inheritance as mine. I never imagined a future with it. It was never an important part of my plans.

The things I imagine a future with, the things I view as most essential to the future I want –my body, Eric and my money — those are what I cling to tightest. Those are what I am most greedy for. Because of my imaginary future, I suffer at any sign these items, which I need for this future to come true, may become damaged, defunct, or dead. I stress extra hard to hold onto these things.

Several years back, I had a friend who miscarried, she and her husband were absolutely devastated by the loss of her pregnancy, and I struggled to understand why. To me, it seemed like they were mourning the loss of a baby they didn’t even have yet. Only when I came to understand they were mourning the loss of the future they imagined they would have with that baby did I understand their reaction.

We become attached to our imagination of the future. We cling to the objects that we believe are requisite to that future coming true. We claim those objects as ours, mine, in the hopes we can control them – hang onto them – make sure that through our claims, through our efforts, we can ensure those objects our fantasy future depends on will still be around when the future actually comes.

A long time ago LP Nut told me a story of how LP Anan had taken a group on a hike and made everyone carry a chair. LP Anan’s question to the group was, “why can’t you lay down the burden of the chair and just keep walking?” I imagined myself on that hike, unable to put down the chair, and I realized for me, I wouldn’t lay down the chair because I imagine some scenario I might need it in the future, so I cling to it just in case. It’s the same reason I have so many shoes and dresses and jewelry I still can’t seem to consign –the just in case my story calls for it later. It’s the reason I cling to my vast sums of money, but easily give away the small pittance my grandmother left me. It’s too trivial an amount to effect my future, I don’t imagine a just in case where I might need it.

A few days after considering the inheritance issue, I was waiting at the radiology center to go get my annual mammogram, waiting in fear that the doctor might see something suspicious. Why — because I am attached to a story I need this body for, a story where it is healthy and still usable by me. I need it the way I need a chair, the shoes and the clothes, the wealth, just in case, for what happens next. If I could just lay down my attachment to the story having this ending or that, this story arc or that, I wouldn’t have to worry about the just in cases, I wouldn’t have to stress and suffer anymore.

I trade a whole lot of worry, and work, and pain to be attached to an imaginary story. What is the upside I really get through? If the mammogram is ok, all I get is a little, temporary relief from the worry it created, worry that will come back again just as soon as I again sense a threat to this body. Thats because, deep down, I know –everyone knows—that the objects, the body, we use to hang these fantasies on, are here for only a little while before they shift/decay/die.

And do these objects really even confirm my story? Even if I have them, all aligned, for a single point in time, is that a confirmation of the story I have imagined? If so, for how long? will it satisfy me or make me? Even if I have all the objects, can’t I have a “wrong story?” I mean I have Eric, body and money right now, am I happy? Is this my peak story? If I were really so satisfied by this particular arrangement, why am I so stressed all the time? Why am I always focusing on preserving, or acquiring, building my story?

I run around and use physical objects like props in a play,  to help manifest and confirm the stories I tell about who I am, what my future will be. But, the objects I choose to do so are arbitrary. One home can be subbed for another, one boyfriend for another. But once I latch-on, once the object is part of my imagination, I cling. Once I cling, I suffer to hold, and I suffer to loose. But these objects my imagination has grown attached to, that it hangs its storyline on, are no different than any other objects. No matter what I imagine, impermanence, annatta always write the end of the story and it is always the same. I will leave them and they will leave me.

This body is not my own. If it were mine it wouldn’t be showing such intense signs of aging and wear after just 41 years. My skin wouldn’t be covered in brown and red spots. My hip joint and toe joint and knees wouldn’t be worn and hard to use. If this body were actually my own it would reflect my idea of who I am –pretty and fit and buttoned up and in control ( if not of everything in the world than at least of my corner of it, of what is mine, of what is me.) But alas, a spotted, busted-up body doesn’t exactly reflect those things.

If this body were truly mine my immune system would not be overtaxed — it would not be showing markers of inflammation and  aggravation, with positive ANA labs, new metal allergies and sensitivity to fiber and dairy — there would be less strain and more capacity so my body could stay fit to fight when I need it, but not so sensitive to cause damage when I don’t want it to.

If this body were mine it would show no signs of slowing down: I wouldn’t need so much sleep, I wouldn’t need more rest time than I used to between vigorous workouts and I wouldn’t have, so recently, been finding myself more easily tired out on my walks. If this body were really mine it would keep going the way I believe it should, it would have the same energy level in flesh as I want/consider in mind.

If my body were under my control I wouldn’t need to be petrified by recent changes and labs, I wouldn’t need to worry about each biopsy, each new mole or ache, because if my body were under my control I would –duhhh, control it — and could simply demand it keep a form I consider acceptable, healthy, in all ways and at all times.

So is the body constant or inconstant? Clearly the body is changing, inconstant, my immune system is being overtaxed, my iron levels have grown past capacity, I have a new growth on my cervix, a change in my mole. All this change has already occurred and my doctors are watching and waiting for more. New labs, new appointments and checks, seeing if there is new pain and new symptoms that indicate even further change and decay.

And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful? Quite clearly I am hella stressed out by these changes to my body. I look in the mirror and feel embarrassed by the sun spots and rosacea. I workout and I feel self loathing that I can’t push harder, that fatigue or joint damage get in the way. I keep tinkering, making changes to diet, supplements, exercise, trying so hard to decrease inflammation, to lighten the immunity load. I worry with each test for a result I don’t want. I worry continually that I will lose this body. I will lose everything I love –my life, my husband –because they are mere accompaniments of this body that is decaying before my eyes.

And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant and stressful and subject to change

as: “This is mine”, “This is  my self”, “This is what I am”? Well Lord, this is certainly a question worth considering. This body is not acting in accord with my wishes and desires, but rather in accord with its 4e nature. If something marches through forms I dislike, I prefer to disassociate with, that I am helpless to change, it is hard to defend the position that “it is mine”.

What is more is that, as it marches through these various forms, it seems to invariably hit forms that I consider, in my imagination, to be decisively not me. Why else would I be embarrassed by my age spots? The embarrassment arises precisely because I think these are not me, these ugly splotches do not represent the beautiful Alana of my mind’s eye.  Why else would I be disappointed with myself when my achy hip prevents me from getting into a yoga pose or I need extra time between weight sets to recover? It is because an  Alana with an undisciplined body disappoints my self view as a fit Alana.

The fact is this body has already broken. There are already things it can no longer do: I can no longer digest certain foods. I can no longer do certain yoga poses. The reason for this is simple: The lining of my intestines has been worn away by chronic infection, bacteria have consumed a part of my body and it is no longer able to function to digest. Friction has worn away a part of my hip joint and it is no longer able to rotate in certain ways.

Now there are signs of further potential damage. An immune system that may be over taxed because it has fought occult gut infection so long. A cervix that is friable and damaged because part of it was burned away in a past surgery. This body, as a whole, and in individual parts is changing, decaying and aging in accord with its nature. In response to the other 4es in its environment.

It is crazy to expect that going forward this body will do anything different than what it has already done, i.e. change. That is what is in its nature to do.  As it continues its march of ever changing aggregations, it will continue to break. There will be more and more it can not do. Ultimately it will no longer be able to sustain life and I will die. At that point, I will definitely part ways from this body. It will go its way — decayed back to the ground — and I will go my way.  How can something I will inevitably part with really be myself or who I am?

What is more is that this body will continue its march of shifting aggregations, and ultimate disaggregation, independent of my desire that it be otherwise, irrespective of my hopes and expectations. My beliefs of what it should do, what it should be, what it is,  or what it makes me are irrelevant.

Notwithstanding any momentary impacts I am able to have, any minor deviations of course I can affect (by using Rupa to manipulate rupa), the end point of this body is always the same. I can remove a mole, or change my diet or take prophylactic drugs in the hopes of mitigating an autoimmune disease, but my best case impact is lengthened duration. Other possibilities are no change, or shortened duration, all are possible. This is because the nature of this body is not an entity that shifts in accord with my desires, but rather an entity that shifts in response to 4es in its environment and within itself. If I poke 4e body with 4e medication it will cause a change to its aggregation. This does not prove anything special about me, it confirms the body is acting in accordance with its 4e nature. If changes to this body are not about me — Alana the great causer — but about the nature of this body to change, and to change in accord to stimulus (whoever/whatever the stimulus causer), how would I claim this body confirms me?

I will part ways with this body and when I do I will lose all the accompaniments that it comes with –I will lose my wealth, my alana identity, my status and Eric. That I am so desperate to cling to these things has no bearing. How can a body be myself when its very decaying nature is the thing that guarantees I will lose my sense of self and everything I hold dear?

Oh and then there is the suffering…because it is what I consider mine, me, a necessity to realize my self and my dreams, I have become consumed with this body. Not a day passes that I do not have to worry about it. I fed myself a lie, that this body is special, exempt from the decay and change common in this world, and based on that lie have I let myself grow reliant on a body that a simple blood test has called into question the reliability of. It could break, fail, grow inflamed and start attacking itself at any moment. Seriously, a body that attacks itself, how on earth do I call that mine or me?

Because I call this body “mine”, my imagination envisions a future with it (or because my imagination envisions a future with it, I call it “mine”. Its a bit of a chicken and egg as far as I can tell), and I suffer as I try to force that future into reality. I suffer by any piece of evidence– a growing mole, a cervical polyp, a flagged blood test —  that forces my imagination to consider another possibility: A future without this body. A world that goes on spinning devoid of ‘Alana me’.

I wanted to come into this world. I wanted pleasure. I wanted to become, to prove who I am. I wanted to have a story, a future as I imagined it would be. And because I wanted birth in a rupa world, I required a rupa body. But with this rupa body comes pain not just pleasure. With this rupa body comes states that are incongruous with who I see myself to be –states of ugliness, of weakness, of illness, of sharp words and harsh behavior. With this rupa body comes not just a story but a very definite ending, a future that is not as I imagine it, because whose  ‘happily ever after’ has sickness and aging and death? With this rupa body comes loss, unbecoming, unalanafication (i.e. death).

I have convinced myself that an object which brings about the end of what I see myself to be is actually me. I have claimed an object that will fail me and leave me. I have claimed an object that the very act of claiming induces extreme stress. I have claimed an object that doesn’t give a damn about my claims, that will march along, shifting, decaying and disaggregating anyways.

And why? . And so, I lie, I claim this body, to support that lie because, alas,  hope, against all reason, still reigns supreme.

Like the Underwear, the Lady parts are not mine.

My Lady Parts are not my own. If they were they would never become filthy or smelly, uncomfortably moist, sweaty, itchy or infected. If my lady bits were my own they would stay fresh and clean all the time. They would stay healthy and disease free. But alas, no matter how many times I shower, all it takes is a few hours before my lady parts become stinky again. No matter how much care I take to keep them healthy, a yeast infection or PH imbalance or bacterial overgrowth can pop-up at any time.

My lady parts are not mine, if they were they would be under my control. In fact my lady parts regularly control me: I have had to halt vacations in foreign countries, travel hundreds of miles out of my way, to find English speaking doctors, or quality hospitals to address my vaginal pain. I have been reluctant to do activities I enjoy — worried in Israel that my vaginal issues would get in the way of the camping trip I was so excited for, worried my incontinence would interrupt my going on dhamma  retreat. I have been forced to alter my clothing choices (no white jeans on period days) or find “solutions” that let me proceed with normal everyday life despite fluids leaking from my lady parts. I have had to be quick to change out of wet swimsuits or gym clothes to avoid yeast infections. And, no matter how unpleasant, I have been forced to schedule pelvic exams so doctors can poke and prod at my cervix and ovaries, causing me discomfort and bleeding every time.

If my vagina were truly my own, it wouldn’t embarrass me: It wouldn’t smell so bad during workouts that it made me self conscious. It wouldn’t threaten the horror of bloody pants during a class. It wouldn’t have forced me out of bed with lovers because of pressure, urgency or blood. Its liquids wouldn’t soak through silk pants at work events and force me to carefully sit stiffly and cross legged the whole time.

If my lady parts were truly mine — even if I had to accept that they were going to inconvenience, embarrass and pain me — I could at least trust they would not kill me. But precancerous changes on my cervix, leading to surgery, made it clear that my lady parts can in fact make me ill. And my last visit to the gyn, where they found a weird growth and needed to biopsy it, was yet further evidence that lurking up in my lady parts, just slightly beyond my vision, insidious changes that can silently grow and spread could be the death of this body at any time.

No matter what I think the vagina’s job is, no matter that I count on it to stay functional and clean and safe, no matter that I am desperate for it to just  work as I need it to and not interrupt my everyday life, no matter that I wash it, medicate it when needed, and go for my annual exams, my vagina does not heed my desires and expectations.

This is because the fluids that are released by my vagina, precisely so that it can function for sex and childbirth, also make it wet and smelly. Bacteria and yeast that naturally grows in the warm, dark, moist environment –bacteria and yeast that in the right proportions can help keep the vagina healthy — can easily overgrow and cause disease with slight changes to the PH from medicines or douches or excess moisture from wet clothes. The skin and epithelial cells that line and protect the vagina can easily become itchy and irritated due to excess friction from clothes or solid objects placed in the vagina. Cells on the cervix can become cancerous in the presence of viruses (introduced into the environment through the normal use of sex). Cancer is simply a mutation in cells, and cells in the body regularly change in order to allow for the protection, regrowth, renewal and adaptation. Cancer can easily spread because lymphatic fluids, that help clear the body of debris and toxins, can also carry mutated cells and allow cancer to metastasize. In other words, the very nature of my body, the very qualities that enable it to function, are also the reason that it is able to assume/shift into forms I do not like, forms that embarrass, inconvenience or endanger me.

Is the vagina constant or inconstant? Clearly inconstant — it goes through states of wet and dry. The smell changes not just throughout the day but has changed over the years of my life as well. It goes through states of bleeding and states where there is no blood. States of PH balance and health and states where a changed PH causes pain and disease. The cells can change and new polyps or cancer can appear.

Is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful? Obviously it is stressful. It is stressful to be embarrassed by my vagina’s smell or leaking. It is stressful for it to itch or hurt. It is stressful to have to plan around its cycles or afflictions. Most of all though,  it is stressful when I worry it might kill me. When it forces me to endure surgery or biopsies. Stressful when I have to wait for the results and worry about cancer. It is stressful precisely because it changes when I want it to stay the same.

And is it fitting to regard something that is inconstant, stressful and subject to change as” this is mine”, “this is myself” or “this is who I am”?

Still working on getting to a true heartfelt no, but here is what I have:

My vagina is a body part that frequently disgusts and embarrasses me, I surely don’t want to claim those moments and aspects as my own. But at the same time, I accept them because a vagina is essential to my womanhood, and being a woman is something I deeply regard as myself, who I am. But that means, in essence, that I depend on an utterly undependable item, a body part, to claim/establish who I am.

I depend on an item that causes me physical pain and discomfort just to establish an identity. I tolerate behaviors that are filthy and super inconvenient, like bleeding and itching, so I can claim a female form. I have an object that I need to make accommodations for in my daily life, that forces me into situations I hate, and deters me from ones that I desire, and this is the thing I want to use to build an identity and life around? How is it “myself” if it involves doing things and making accommodations I don’t want to have to do?

Probably most significantly, I build an identity on an object that can literally force me to abandon the alana identity I so carefully crafted and nourished over the years. I want to be a woman, but the very thing my mind uses to make that identity credible, has the power to end it. The alana identity and life I have worked so hard for, invested so much time in, endured so much suffering for, can be brought to a swift end by these lady parts.  The alana identity and life I have worked so hard for, invested so much time in, endured so much suffering for, will definitely be brought to an end by this body.  What business do I have saying this body is myself, who I am, when it will die and, like a tidal wave, wipe out my entire sense of myself as Alana along with it.

What is more is I want my body to reflect me, who I believe myself to be. Of course, on one end, the lady parts do this, making my claim of womaness credible. But in another, they do the opposite, even in their “normal”, healthy state, being bloody and moist and smelly and frequently disgusting. If I want to claim the lady parts represent or reflect me, I need to claim all aspects and all states. I can’t simply keep it under wraps, try to tame it with undies and creams and soaps and medications and dysplasia removal surgeries and say “because of/ and yet in spite of/ these lady parts I am the me I want to be –a badass, on top, beautiful, sensual, good woman with a body and life all buttoned up and  in control”.

Just 2 weeks ago I am in the GYN’s office for my annual exam when my new GY looks up at me with concern plain on her face to tell me I have “an unusual growth on my cervix”. Second doctor ushered in for a second opinion, me freaking out, GY struggling to remove the growth, cramping and bleeding and terror. I go home, with a week to doomscroll and preparing for the worst, as I wait for the biopsy results to come back. All along, I am just wondering how I could possibly have cervical cancer so advanced it is visible to the naked eye, when I have been beyond diligent getting regular exams.  The doc calls 6 days later — benign polyp. Relief.

A few days later, every detail of that exam still seared in my brain, and I got to wondering — how on earth can this body be the foundation for the fairytale future my imagination has cooked up? It is a foundation so flimsy a single doctor’s appointment, the tiniest of cellular changes on the tiniest of body parts, could shake and tear down at any moment. What business do I have calling this body ‘me’ or ‘mine’ or ‘who I am’ if it isn’t going to give me the future I want, the story I was born to tell, but instead guarantees death and disease, the future I do everything to avoid.

These lady parts are changing, they are aging, and decaying — the lab results, the smells, the altered texture and blood flow are proof. I use it, as long as I can, and while I use it I must care for it and accept its downsides –its nature. But its nature is to go the way of this entire body, shifting states/form until it can no longer be used at all. So how exactly can I prove to myself that these lady parts, this body, is ‘who I am’ when all evidence points to the contrary?

This Underwear is not Mine

My underwear are not my own. If they were, they would never become filthy, smelly, moist and soiled. If my underwear were my own they would stay fresh and clean at all times. But alas, no matter how many times I wash the underwear, all it takes is a few hours of wear before they become filthy all over again.

My underwear is not mine, if it was, it would be under my control. In fact my underwear regularly controls me: it is my underwear stash that dictates laundry days, that monopolizes room in my suitcase. My trips are even planned with underwear in mind –will I be able to get to a hotel with laundry service to clean them?  Hell, on several trips my entire day was blown trying to get laundry done because I had run out of clean undies.

If my underwear were truly mine it wouldn’t rip and tear at inconvenient times. It wouldn’t get holes and wouldn’t wear out in the moisture absorbing crotch. At the very least, the expensive pairs would be built to last, I could count on those for a long time. But alas I have had underwear fray, rip in half mid day at the office, and force me to go comando all afternoon. Even the pricey period pairs come unstitched, their pads come out in the wash, weakening with every wash and every wear.

If my underwear were actually mine they would not embarrass me. They wouldn’t become so fragrant I could smell myself when I sit, and wouldn’t make me paranoid others around could smell me too.  Those period panties would always work, I wouldn’t have to worry continually, running to and from the bathroom checking for leaks. They would always absorb what they say they would absorb, irrespective of if it is a light period day or massive bleeding after a biopsy or pap. No matter what, they would do their job of keeping my lady business discreet.

But no matter what I think the underwear’s job is, no matter why I bought it, no mater that I count on it, no matter that I seriously prefer no stench, no matter that I wash after every single wear –my underwear will not heed my desires. This is because bodily fluids make them wet. Bacteria, in the hot humid vaginal area consuming those fluids and make them smell. Saturated solid cotton fibers begin to leak. Tension in the threads, and friction of fabric against my body, make them tear.

Are the undies constant or inconstant ? Clearly they are inconstant: they go through cycles from clean to dirty. They rip and tear, become waterlogged and leak, they go wet and dry in the hamper. They fade and they stretch.

And is that which is constant easeful or stressful? Stressful, no question. I work hard, to preserve my undies, to transform them into a clean state when they grow filthy. I think ahead, plan, make sure I have enough undies wherever I go. I am embarrassed when my undies smell, I worry they will leak and embarrass me even more. I am, quite frankly, disgusted by them at the end of each and every wear. When they stopped making my incontinence underwear I stressed even more, I scoured the internet and stress bought every last pair, because I felt like I needed them. Despite my need, they are the easiest ones to tear.

And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful and subject to change as “this is mine”?

I am starting to think… likely no: When I take my underwear off I literally fling them across the room, into the hamper, as fast as I can to be unseen and unsmelt. How is it I claim an object as mine when it disgusts me more often than it doesn’t.

How do I call something mine when it dictates my actions. When I am forced to make accommodations for it. No matter where I want to go, no matter what else I want to pack, no matter my other plans for the day –I always need to be mindful of underwear. Do I have enough? If not, I have to stop everything I am doing to clean them. I have to spend hours searching for new ones. I have to slip out over lunch and buy a pair to replace ones torn during the work day.

What is more is these undies were bought with the intention of keeping me clean and presentable, but they regularly make me smell. They are bought to protect me from the embarrassment of peeing or bleeding on myself, but at times they fail. Is something that embarrasses me mine? Is something I can’t really count on, with an issue so personal and delicate, actually mine?

I generally want my stuff to reflect me, but does a dirty ass ratty pair of underwear reflect who I am –does it prove I am pretty, delicate, in control of my body? Does it even actually keep me from leaking when I pee myself? Shit, it doesn’t even hide my filth so that other, “more me” rupa can “shine” unhindered. If I can’t force, or manage, something so small, something so basic, the very first thing I put on every single day still hasn’t yielded to my command, how on earth can I claim command over bigger things in the universe?

How am I supposed to call these consumables mine? These items I use, on their terms, when they are usable at all…items I care for. Items I am burdened by and stressed about. Perhaps the best question is “how is it that I think I can prove the underwear are mine when all the evidence points to the contrary?”

The sunscreen I diligently use, depend on every day isn’t mine — it is something I use to protect myself, but it is also leeching chemicals that can harm me through my skin. My blood isn’t mine, it is supposed to protect me, nourish my tissues and organs, but it also carries lipids to my heart and clogs my arteries. Is something that acts against me –threatens my life, mine?

My skin cream is not mine. It is a consumable good. I rely on it to have smooth skin, but I don’t even know when it is going to run out and leave me high and dry. My body is not mine. It is consumable. I rely on it to have an alana identity, an alana life, but I don’t even know when it is going to run out and leave me high and dry. Is something I rely on, but that can end at any moment really mine?

My phone is not mine. I bought it for one reason only: A long battery life. I wanted an item I could depend on. That would keep me safe and informed wherever I went. That I didn’t have to worry about just leaving me high and dry midday in some foreign city. For this feature I was willing to tolerate all the other shortcomings and suckiness of the phone — ugly, bad camera, bulky, expensive, bad UI. But in just a year the phone’s batter life is significantly diminished. Well before I think it is time for it to go. Now I have a sucky phone that doesn’t even get me through a day. How is it mine if it disappointed my expectations, forced me to accept suffering and tradeoffs and didn’t even deliver the thing most important to me.

My body is not mine. I have it for one reason: to have an Alana identity and Alana life/future consistent with my story, with my hopes and imagination. Obviously, its primary directive is to last, to stay functional so I can keep counting on it, so I have it –the necessary ingredient –for my future fantasy. I tolerate the shitshow of having a body –the pain, the filth, the bleeding pussy, the feces, the continuous need to eat and sleep, the humiliation of sagging skin and thickening waist. All for this one feature. And yet, here I am at 41 –way before I think it should be time –and my body is showing real signs of being on the fritz. Threatening to not be there to get me through too many more days: with inflammation, autoreactivity, ridiculously high cholesterols, strange new growths, how much longer can I count on this thing? How is it mine if it disappoints my expectations: If I am forced to tolerate all the downsides and I don’t even feel satisfied with the “upside’ I traded it for. When that upside is threatened too soon, every day and that threat is yet another cause of suffering in this life.

My tile grout is not mine: No matter how I care for it, how I scrub and bleach, after a few weeks it becomes moldy again. It changes form because a moist warm environment is the perfect solid place for spores of mold to move onto and grow. It changes form despite my desire or my efforts. My gut is not my own. No matter how I feed it, control diet, give it meds, it has bacterial overgrowth. It has changed form because the moist dark warm environment of the gut is perfect for bacterial to grow. They have moved from the large intestine to the small intestine and now the 4e bacteria consume the 4e food I eat and proliferate, causing gas, and eroding the intestinal lining so they leak into my blood and circulate through my body. This happens despite my desire or my effort. This happens even though this shift in stasis, in the elements of my body and the bacteria within it, is a threat to my health and my life. Something that doesn’t care about my efforts or desires, that endangers the thing I hold most dear is clearly not something I an call my own. I rely on my gut, as long as I am able, but a change in circumstance, in bacterial composition, makes it less reliable. It makes it something that can act against me.

My skin is not my own: If it were my own it would represent me. It would show the world the qualities I value, I imagine myself to have, especially beauty. Self control. But today, on one of the rare occasions I will see friends, I have a cold sore on my nose. What is more embarrassing that a contagious, ugly disease coming from my nose. I feel so self conscious, the opposite of beautiful (in my mind) –diseased. Clearly my skin is not manifesting my ideal self, the characteristics I want to project. It isn’t the me I want to be.

My food is not my own, if it were mine then when I had craved it and coveted it and gone out of the way to obtain it, it would nourish me. But last night, before I even had the opportunity to digest and be nourished by my first high calorie meal in weeks, I was vomiting it up. It had made me sick. If it is mine, wouldn’t it return my efforts with nourishment instead of illness? It is like my body, when I workout hard and hurt myself, shouldn’t my body reward my efforts with health and strength not pain. Or when I go get medical tests and find something may be wrong, shouldn’t my diligence be rewarded not send me into a cycle of torcher and fear? If this body were mine, it would sustain me, it would let me manifest the self and life I want. It wouldn’t cause me pain and suffering.

If my blinds were my own, they wouldn’t become cracked and broken. They wouldn’t look ghetto and cheap — the opposite of how I imagine myself. They wouldn’t be an embarrassment I fear others seeing. If my blinds were mine they couldn’t make my whole home feel uncomfortable, a reminder of how little control I really have, even in the space I live. This face is not my own. If it were it wouldn’t be blotched and sagging and there wouldn’t be a fat lump under my eye. If this face were really mine it would look beautiful –the way I imagine myself, instead of worn and withered, a testament to my inability to control even this one single body, the space I inhabit, the most “mine” of all things I call my own. It wouldn’t be an embarrassment, that was plain for all to see. A failure that glared back at me in the bathroom mirror each time I go in to pee. No this face is not mine, it isn’t how I imagine it, it isn’t dependable or keepable, it isn’t and affirmation of my control or uniqueness or specialness it is , with its sagging and wrinkling, like every other face, a reminder it is not mine and it can’t be who I am.

My coravan canister is not my own, it can run out at any time. It is a disposable good, something I can rely on only for a little while and then, at a time I have no insight or transparency into it ends. I need to replace it with another if I want the functionality of preserving wine again. This is exactly like my body. It is a disposable product. I can rely on it for a time and then, with no real insight or transparency into timing, it will end. Then if I want to be in this world again, I have to find a way to replace it, secure the effort and expense to obtain yet another consumable good.

My skin is not my own. If it were mine it would go unchanged, hold tight to the form I adore, it wouldn’t crinkle or wrinkle or sag with ease.

But in truth my skin has already shown the tell tale signs of ware, it has age spots, wrinkles , lines and sags. Despite all my lotions and potions and exercises and machines, the skin has assumed a shape I so not adore. All it took was excess heat, excess facial expressions, not enough moisture, the force of gravity, 4e toxins in the environment and my skin has become old looking.

At the very least, if my skin were truly mine it would protect me. It would do the job it was evolutionarily designed for and keep me safe. It would honor my intentions toward health and my efforts at care. Instead the very skin I need to keep me safe has begun to redden and change, become a sore, shift into a state that could be cancerous.

If the skin were mine I could order it to maintain a certain, youthful and healthful state. But precisely because the skin can fail to keep me safe — may actually expose me to cancer and infection — it is clearly not mine to claim I control.

Is the skin constant or inconstant? Clearly it is inconstant. It changes texture, look, color. It becomes blotchy, wrinkled, it has begun to sag. Worst of all, it can become infected. The cells can change and mutate in ways that are dangerous and can spread –it can become cancerous.

Is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful? Oh the skin is a continual source of stress fro me. I stress about how it looks. How it feels. I stress about how others will judge me based on it. About how I judge myself. I look in the mirror and my skin makes be feel shame some of the time.

What is worse is the stress, the physical pain, when my skin becomes sick. I have been stressed about my changing mole for weeks now. I stress and feel anxious right now as I await the biopsy results.

There was the stress about my nose spots being cancer. Stress when my rosacea itches and burns and looks like shit. Stress I might get a cold sore before a important event. Stress that time in highschool I got a huge infected abscess on my face. Stress when I need to find a new dermatologist when I move, someone who I can trust with my face. Stress and deep sorrow when I couldn’t get botox over the pandemic, I couldn’t get in for fillers soon enough after it ended. Stress that people, by seeing my skin would see my weakness and inability to control my body. Like my face was a sign of my diseased self.

And is it fitting to regard that which is inconstant, stressful and subject to change as this is mine, this is myself, this is who I am?

Here are my thoughts on this issue: Sometimes the skin has a form I like and at other times it has a form I don’t like. A form that can put me in danger. If I claim the skin as me, as mine, don’t I need to claim both times? And do I really think something I don’t like, something that embarassaes me, something that can kill me, can deprive me of a life with all I have worked so hard for, all I love, is mine? It clearly doesn’t represent me. It clearly doesn’t act solely to my benefit and in my interest. How do I justify claiming it as mine?

Eventually this skin will slough off my body, rot, return to the earth. It is merely a consumable good. Something used for a time. It is already showing the signs of being consumed/ altered and used up: Rosacea is from my skin being consumed by mites. The wrinkles arise because my own body has consumed my collagen stores and because I have consumed toxins that accumulate in my body and shift the cellular forms. Acne is consumption by bacteria. And cancer is my body’s cells shifting form in response to 4es in my body, in the environment and growing as healthy skin cells are consumed by altered ones.  If one part of my body is a consumable, isn’t all of it?

If It is just something to use. To use up. How do I think this skin will follow my rules, be altered, preserved, shift on my terms? Does 4es in the world obey my terms? If it is for use, it is usable sometimes in some circumstances. What object in this world is usable all the time, in all circumstances?

Considering the extreme stress caused by my claiming my skin. Caused by my deep desire to depend on something that definitionally is a ‘sometimes’. Considering that the kin, this body, acts and shifts and changes along independent of my claim or my stress.. Aren’t I truly suffering for free?

Like the phone strap, this body is not mine.

My body is not under my control — all the lab work suggests it is wearing out faster than I want it to. I fear that at the current rate of wear it will become useless to me sooner rather than later, at least sooner than I am ready to part with it, while I still need it. This body is not my own because it will depart from me on its time and not on mine.

The body is not under my control: If it were it wouldn’t be showing signs of inflammation, there wouldn’t be flagged CRp tests, elevated antibodies, high cholesterol and high iron. If this body were under my control, there wouldn’t be these classic signs of wear. Signs that cause me to worry that this body is in danger of breaking.

But the reality is, I can’t count on having this body going forward. The presence of bacteria and viruses and chemicals in its environment are causing it to shift into inflammatory states. The genetic defects, already present in the body at birth, are causing high cholesterol. The exposure to toxic food and drink and air has contributed to changes in the cells of my body, causing them to be autoreactive.  If this body were mine to control, to even use as I see fit, its use wouldn’t be altered by pesky shit like genetics or diet or environment. It would simply continue to run like a well oiled machine.

At least, if this body were really mine, I would know exactly what was wrong. It wouldn’t just be mystery markers. I wouldn’t need to wait for more information, I would just know right now what was wrong. I would then be able to fix it. Because if this body were mine it would be within my power to ensure that that it stayed with me, at least as long as I needed it. It wouldn’t simply be able to decay and get inflames and autoreactive and diseased on its terms. Terms that are definitely not my own.

Is the body constant or inconstant: Clearly it is inconstant. The blood tests were all normal before, they have changed only in the last few years. Pelvic exams were all normal before, a new growth appeared on my cervix in the last 2 years. If the body were constant, I wouldn’t be waiting on more results, on new changes, that would clarify the nature of this body’s disease. If these markers were constant, everyone with them would have an autoimmune disease, or a clearly cancerous polyp, there wouldn’t be so much variability between people and labs.

Is what is constant stressful or easeful. Obviously super stressful. I am so afraid of these changes. I am afraid of what they mean. I feel confused. I want to act, but don’t know what to do. I am working hard –fasting, changing diet, to try and change my body back. Or at least keep if from changing any further. But the uncertainty of the results of my effort makes them even harder. I am, constantly, stressed out.

And is it fitting to regard something that is inconstant, stressful and subject to change “mine”, “myself” or what I am?

Urggh I so desperately want to feel no in my heart. Till then, here is my thoughts:

I didn’t always have this body, there was a history of this world before I was born. The body is something I acquired. What is more is I will definitely lose this body in the future. It doesn’t matter at all that I don’t want to lose this body. It doesn’t matter that all these signs seem to indicate the possibility that I may loose this body sooner rather than later, at least sooner than I had hoped. Sooner than I imagined. Well before I think I am done needing it to have the life I want, the life I imagine.

Even while I have this body to use, to call my own, it continually slips into states I despise, i.e. states that create laboratory markers that stress me out. States that embarrass. States I believe are decidedly not me: Just look at all the sagging, the pimples, the bad haircuts, the eye bulge, the weight gain, the pain and the illness.

I try to dictate the outcomes of this body, I struggle to preserve it: I manage the diet, the exercise, the meds, the sleep. But despite both my desire and my efforts, I can not control the outcome. In fact, my efforts often have the opposite effect of my desired outcome –moving my body into states of dis-ease and decay. Or I am forced to make tradeoffs –meds that decrease one risk but increase another for example. In spite of all my efforts, my work and my stress, in the end this body will reach a state I can no longer use it. Then, ready or not, it will depart from me.

This Phone Strap is Not Mine

My phone strap is not under my control — it is wearing out faster than I want it to. At its current rate of wearing it is likely to become useless to me before I am ready to part with it, while I think I still need it. This phone strap is not my own because it will depart from me on its time and not on mine.

This phone strap is not under my control: If it were it would not be chipping and fraying before my eyes. It would not be loosing its beauty, its sleekness. At the very least, if it were truly my own, it would retain the glittery sides I like the best. But alas, as a result of the friction of the solid strap, against my solid wrist, the leather is fraying and cracking and glittering in the course of normal wear, of doing its job allowing me to carry the phone.

This phone strap is not under my control: If it were the leather would not stretch and weaken. Becoming easier to slip from my wrist and, eventually break apart all together. But alas, the heat of my hand, the sweat of my body, cause the strap to change shape. The weight and pressure of the phone it holds slowly stretching and weakening the leather.

This strap is not under my control: If it were it wouldn’t grow filthy, it wouldn’t be a “high touch item” a possible vector for viruses and disease. But alas, simply being in the environment were dirt and viruses and bacteria exist make the strap a vector for them. The 4e strap carrying the 4e contaminants that move onto my 4e body with contact between the solids.

Most of all, if my phone strap were truly my own, I could count on it going forward. I would know I could continue to wear it and use it to carry my phone in a fashionable way. But the fact that it is already looking tired, stretched and dirty, are sure signs the strap will not stay with me forever. I look at the strap and worry “when”, I plot and plan to replace it, “knowing” my need for the strap will outlive this particular strap.

Is the strap constant or inconstant? Clearly with its wearing and chipping and stretching and dirtying it is inconstant.

And is something inconstant stressful or easeful?

Clearly it is stressful: I look at the strap and feel disappointed, embarrassed to be needing to carry around something so shabby, something doesn’t jive with my high fashion, buttoned up alana identity. I worry about when it is time to get a new one. If I can find one that is as suitable as this one was back when it was new. I feel forced to exhibit special care of it. Take the time to clean it, to be gentile with it.

And is it fitting to regard something which is inconstant, stressful and subject to change mine?

I am working on getting to a no. For now here are my thoughts:

How can something that wasn’t always “mine” in the past, and won’t always be “mine in the future, be mine right now?

In truth, I didn’t always have this strap. Before, I carried my phone with other straps or other devices. When I was younger, I didn’t even have a phone at all. But now that I am using this strap, I have become attached to it.. Now, I worry about its wear and I worry about what I will do when it can no longer be used. I worry about this even though I was fine without it before.

I worry that I still need the strap, but it is wearing despite my need.  How can an item that wears when I still “need” it actually be my own? I consider how to fix it, how to replace it. Why, because I imagine I need it in the future based on my use of it in the present. I try to dictate the outcome of the object based on my perceived need rather than on the realities –the composition and change of the strap itself. But, it is impossible to deny that the day will come –sooner or later — that the phone strap is no longer with me.

The reality is, this strap will wear independent of my desire, my “need”. And while it does wear, even in the time I consider it mine,  it will shift through states that embarrass me, even states that endanger me, states that fail to meet my needs or my desired function. While I consider it mine, I will struggle and fight to preserve it, to keep it in a form I like best. Only to lose it despite all my efforts in the end. Then, ready  or not, the strap will depart from me, it will reach a state I can no longer use it.

Body is like my computer. This body is not mine:

This body is not my own. If it were mine it wouldn’t be showing such intense signs of aging and wear after just 41 years. My skin wouldn’t be covered in brown and red spots. My hip joint and toe joint and knees wouldn’t be worn and hard to use. If this body were actually my own it would reflect my idea of who I am –pretty and fit and buttoned up and in control ( if not of everything in the world than at least of my corner of it, of what is mine, of what is me.) But alas, a spotted, busted-up body doesn’t exactly reflect those things.

If this body were truly mine my immune system would not be overtaxed — it would not be showing markers of inflammation and  aggravation, with positive ANA labs, new metal allergies and sensitivity to fiber and dairy — there would be less strain and more capacity so my body could stay fit to fight when I need it, but not so sensitive to cause damage when I don’t want it to.

If this body were mine it would show no signs of slowing down: I wouldn’t need so much sleep, I wouldn’t need more rest time than I used to between vigorous workouts and I wouldn’t have, so recently, been finding myself more easily tired out on my walks. If this body were really mine it would keep going the way I believe it should, it would have the same energy level in flesh as I want/consider in mind.

If my body were under my control I wouldn’t need to be petrified by recent changes and labs, I wouldn’t need to worry about each biopsy, each new mole or ache, because if my body were under my control I would –duhhh, control it — and could simply demand it keep a form I consider acceptable, healthy, in all ways and at all times.

So is the body constant or inconstant? Clearly the body is changing, inconstant, my immune system is being overtaxed, my iron levels have grown past capacity, I have a new growth on my cervix, a change in my mole. All this change has already occurred and my doctors are watching and waiting for more. New labs, new appointments and checks, seeing if there is new pain and new symptoms that indicate even further change and decay.

And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful? Quite clearly I am hella stressed out by these changes to my body. I look in the mirror and feel embarrassed by the sun spots and rosacea. I workout and I feel self loathing that I can’t push harder, that fatigue or joint damage get in the way. I keep tinkering, making changes to diet, supplements, exercise, trying so hard to decrease inflammation, to lighten the immunity load. I worry with each test for a result I don’t want. I worry continually that I will lose this body. I will lose everything I love –my life, my husband –because they are mere accompaniments of this body that is decaying before my eyes.

And is it fitting to regard what is inconstant and stressful and subject to change as: “This is mine”, “This is  my self”, “This is what I am”? Well Lord, this is certainly a question worth considering. This body is not acting in accord with my wishes and desires, but rather in accord with its 4e nature. If something marches through forms I dislike, I prefer to disassociate with, that I am helpless to change, it is hard to defend the position that “it is mine”.

What is more is that, as it marches through these various forms, it seems to invariably hit forms that I consider, in my imagination, to be decisively not me. Why else would I be embarrassed by my age spots? The embarrassment arises precisely because I think these are not me, these ugly splotches do not represent the beautiful Alana of my mind’s eye.  Why else would I be disappointed with myself when my achy hip prevents me from getting into a yoga pose or I need extra time between weight sets to recover? It is because an Alana with an undisciplined body disappoints my self view as a fit Alana.

The fact is this body has already broken. There are already things it can no longer do: I can no longer digest certain foods. I can no longer do certain yoga poses. The reason for this is simple: The lining of my intestines has been worn away by chronic infection, bacteria have consumed a part of my body and it is no longer able to function to digest. Friction has worn away a part of my hip joint and it is no longer able to rotate in certain ways.

Now there are signs of further potential damage. An immune system that may be over taxed because it has fought occult gut infection so long. A cervix that is friable and damaged because part of it was burned away in a past surgery. This body, as a whole, and in individual parts is changing, decaying and aging in accord with its nature. In response to the other 4es in its environment.

It is crazy to expect that going forward this body will do anything different than it what it has already done, i.e. change. Then is what is in its nature to do.  As it continues its march of ever changing aggregations, it will continue to break. There will be more and more it can not do. Ultimately it will no longer be able to sustain life and I will die. At that point, I will definitely part ways from this body. It will go its way — decayed back to the ground — and I will go my way.  How can something I will inevitably part with really be myself or who I am?

What is more is that this body will continue its march of shifting aggregations, and ultimate disaggregation, independent of my desire that it be otherwise, irrespective of my hopes and expectations. My beliefs of what it should do, what it should be, what it is,  or what it makes me are irrelevant.

Notwithstanding any momentary impacts I am able to have, any minor deviations of course I can affect (by using Rupa to manipulate rupa), the end point of this body is always the same. I can remove a mole, or change my diet or take prophylactic drugs in the hopes of mitigating an autoimmune disease, but my best case impact is lengthened duration. Other possibilities are no change, or shortened duration, all are possible. This is because the nature of this body is not an entity that shifts in accord with my desires, but rather an entity that shifts in response to 4es in its environment and within itself. If I poke 4e body with 4e medication it will cause a change to its aggregation. This does not prove anything special about me, it confirms the body is acting in accordance with its 4e nature. If changes to this body are not about me — Alana the great causer — but about the nature of this body to change, and to change in accord to stimulus (whoever/whatever the stimulus causer), how would I claim this body confirms me?

I will part ways with this body and when I do I will lose all the accompaniments that it comes with –I will lose my wealth, my alana identity, my status and Eric. That I am so desperate to cling to these things has no bearing. How can a body be myself when its very decaying nature is the thing that guarantees I will lose my sense of self and everything I hold dear?

Oh and then there is the suffering…because it is what I consider mine, me, a necessity to realize my self and my dreams, I have become consumed with this body. Not a day passes that I do not have to worry about it. I fed myself a lie, that this body is special, exempt from the decay and change common in this world, and based on that lie have I let myself grow reliant on a body that a simple blood test has called into question the reliability of. It could break, fail, grow inflamed and start attacking itself at any moment. Seriously, a body that attacks itself, how on earth do I call that mine or me?

Because I call this body “mine”, my imagination envisions a future with it (or because my imagination envisions a future with it, I call it “mine”. Its a bit of a chicken and egg as far as I can tell), and I suffer as I try to force that future into reality. I suffer by any piece of evidence– a growing mole, a cervical polyp, a flagged blood test —  that forces my imagination to consider another possibility: A future without this body. A world that goes on spinning devoid of ‘Alana me’.

I wanted to come into this world. I wanted pleasure. I wanted to become, to prove who I am. I wanted to have a story, a future as I imagined it would be. And because I wanted birth in a rupa world, I required a rupa body. But with this rupa body comes pain not just pleasure. With this rupa body comes states that are incongruous with who I see myself to be –states of ugliness, of weakness, of illness, of sharp words and harsh behavior. With this rupa body comes not just a story but a very definite ending, a future that is not as I imagine it, because whose ‘happily ever after’ has sickness and aging and death? With this rupa body comes loss, unbecoming, unalanafication (i.e. death).

I have convinced myself that an object which brings about the end of what I see myself to be is actually me. I have claimed an object that will fail me and leave me. I have claimed an object that the very act of claiming induces extreme stress. I have claimed an object that doesn’t give a damn about my claims, that will march along, shifting, decaying and disaggregating anyways.

And why? . And so, I lie, I claim this body, to support that lie because, alas, hope, against all reason, still reigns supreme.

The next few blogs — written as in the days I awaited my cervical biopsy results — are a return to an exercise, from the Anatta-lakkhana Sutra, that I had been doing during my 2020 personal retreat. As a little reminder, the exercise was a series of questions, framed as a conversation between the Buddha and the practitioner, to guide contemplation on the nature of self in regard to our bodies and our physical belongings. The contemplation begins by taking an object that we own and considering whether or not that object is really under our control. It then imagines the Buddha asking the following questions to which one must formulate a reply:

“Alana, is your ____ (object chosen for contemplation) constant or inconstant?”

“And Alana, is something that is inconstant stress full or easeful?”

“Is it fitting to regard what is inconstant, stressful, subject to change as: ‘This is mine’. ‘This is my self’. ‘This is what I am’?”

The same considerations and questions are then internalized and applied to one’s body. Rinse and repeat. So hi ho, hi ho, its back to rupa we go…

______________________________________________________________________________

This Computer is Not Mine

This computer is not my own. If it were mine it would not be showing signs of aging in just 3 years. The screen would not be covered in crust and dirt, the keys wouldn’t be sticky and crumb filled. The period key wouldn’t be sunken and weak, hard to press and use. If this computer were actually mine it would glisten and shine and be a reflection of my “clean, crisp, in control self, whose belongings prove to the world just how clean and crisp and buttoned up I am.”

If the computer were truly mine, the storage space would not be filling-up, it would be more ample — there would always be capacity to hold onto and save everything I need. The computer wouldn’t be slowing and stalling, hanging on sites when I want to move faster. If this computer were actually mine it would bend to my desires, it would function as I believe a computer should –as I “know” for a fact this very computer should, because that is how it acted in the past.

If this computer were truly mine, I wouldn’t be looking at its worn down shell, I wouldn’t be registering its symptoms of declining battery life, and slow processing and worry to myself, “I may not be able to count on this computer much longer, I may be left high and dry when I need it most for work, or when we don’t have as much money that I can easily replace it”.

If my computer were truly under my control, I could shut my eyes, click my heels three times and say be back to new, be back to shiny and speedy and new and when I opened them the computer would have its just out of the box luster back again. Honestly, if it were truly mine to control, it would never have lost that luster to begin with.

So is the computer constant or inconstant — Clearly Great Lord, the computer is inconstant: It started sleek and shiny and clean. Now it is dull, dinged, dingey and dirty. It started speedy, with long battery life and full of space. Now it is slower, needs more frequent charging and is running out of room.

And is that which is inconstant easeful or stressful?  It is quite clearly stressful My Lord. I look at the accumulation of dirt and I feel disgust. I try and use the period key and I feel inconvenienced when it doesn’t work. When the computer freezes and slows, I feel annoyed it is not going at the speed I want, it is slowing me down. And I am continually taking the time, tinkering with the memory, trying to preserve it, to get a little more space out of it so I can hold onto more of the files I want to keep. Most of all, there is the low level stress of worry that eventually, I will lose this computer. I will need to find a new one to replace this one. I worry that when it finally does break Eric won’t have a job and buying such an expensive item will make me stress about money.

Is it fitting to regard what is inconstant and stressful as “this is mine”? Probably not My Lord because the changes I see in this computer, the things that stress me out, are the necessary consequences of this computer’s nature and use. The computer was not/could never have been designed to go unchanged and to meet my expectations all of the time. It follows its own rules, takes its own path from newness to worness to breaking.  It does not follow my rules, it does not progress on its path according to my desires, my timeline or my needs. Ultimately its path and mine will diverge and we will part ways from each other. Only the question of duration remains open.

When I think about it, I see I use this computer every single day. I bring it to the kitchen and bathroom, I use it while I eat. Of course it is going to get crusty and dirty: physical objects exposed to dirt get dirty. I use it all day long, day after day, it makes sense, the battery, which has a finite number of charge cycles, is going to become depleted with heavy use. I store files for work, files for play, and files for life in general on this computer, continually downloading and saving. Because it has finite space, of course it will fill up. I surf the web, I download many files and click into spam pages, of course this computer when exposed to viruses and adware –designed specifically to infect computers –will catch some of these bugs and exhibit symptoms of infection like slowing down.

What is more surprising than all this wear is that I expect anything different. That as I type along with sticky fingers I wonder at how the computer gets sticky. Why would this object be any different than any other in this world? It is only because I title this mine that I suddenly have special hopes/demands/ expectations for it.