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Some Final Thoughts on Everything is Dukka –The Cause of Suffering

Some Final Thoughts on Everything is Dukka –The Cause of Suffering

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After I had sent Mae Yo and Mae Neecha my uber-long synopsis on everything is suffering, they send back a reply that had a  a simple question: “The Buddha said that there are two kinds of suffering – physical suffering that we cannot avoid and mental suffering that we can avoid. In order to avoid that suffering, we need to know the cause of it. Mae Yo asked, do you know what the cause of suffering is?”

On the tail of so much in-depth investigating into the whys of suffering, its fundamental presence in this world, the answer to its cause, at least in my own life, was immediately clear to me — I am the cause of my own suffering.  Here is my reply to Mae Neecha:

In short, I’m the cause of my suffering. My desire for the world to be how I want it to be ( as opposed to how it actually is) and then my continual schemes and efforts to force it to be as I want. To try and force it to confirm who I think I AM.
 The cause of my desire however is ignorance; I don’t REALLY understand what the world is, so I don’t really understand the impossibility of trying to force it to follow my rules (instead of its own, the rules of cause and effect, the 3 common conditions). I am so blind, that my imagination  takes the isolated moments the world is sorta-kindda-if-you-squint-real-hard close enough to my desire/view as ‘evidence’ that all I need to do is hang on to what I have,  try harder/more/luckier/better and maybe this time ( or at least some time soon)  I will finally pwn the world. So more “turns”, and the accompanying dukka, ensue.
This is why the heart of the 8 fold path — the way out of suffering– lies in changing my view. So I can align my understanding with the reality of the world ( since the reality of this world is sure as hell not going to be the one to align to my understanding/ imagination). Only when the cause for desire, ignorance, is removed can desire be removed. Only when the cause for suffering, desire, is removed can suffering be removed.
But seriously, thats all a little technical. Watching my 3 year old niece have a tantrum because shit isn’t the way she demands pretty much exemplifies the cause of suffering — the world doesn’t revolve around her, but she thinks it does. It doesn’t revolve around me when I think it does, when I so desperately want it to: So it’s all sorrow, lamination, pain, distress and despair till we stop expecting this world will confirm us, be as we imagine, or give us what we want. Till we stop clinging to the hope that we can keep what we love, avoid what we hate and have everything ( or even just most things, or enough things) as we want it to be.
 I am the cause of my suffering, not just because I want the world to be how I want it to be, but because I want myself to be what I want to be — I want to become. Not only am I ignorant of what the world is, I am also ignorant of what I –self — is. I suspect this ignorance is actually more primary –first I need to misunderstand self before I can believe there is a world that will somehow obey and conform to self. I think this is why the rest of that passage from the morning chanting , after re-articulating the noble truth of dukka, continues on to speak specifically about the aggregates and what they are — stressful, inconstant and not self (subject to the 3 common characteristics like everything else). If ya wanna fix stressing ya gottta fix ignorance of self.

The more I considered my reply, the more I realized it may be time for me to turn my attention to the last of the 3 common characteristics,  annatta, or no-self; if belief in a self is fundamental to causing my suffering — for motivating and propelling my births and becoming — then understanding the truth of no self, of the inevitable cessation of all forms and processes, of the illusion of identity I imagine in the aggregates, seems like a natural next step in my path to eliminate my suffering (aka Buddhist practice). Plus, I started this practice with impermanence, dug deep on dukka, it seems only fair to give the characteristic of no-self a little air time. That all brings me to my practice today.  Right now, annatta is a slow faucet drip, I grope around, feeling mostly lost. But I have been here before, I have a plan: Each day I try and find a few examples of annatta, I gather evidence, I analyze to try and begin seeing patterns from the evidence, try to begin to consider the why everything in the world must be annatta (just as everything is impermanent and dukkha). Slowly, I suspect it will come…if and when it does, perhaps you Dear Reader will get yet another interruption in our regularly scheduled program. Till then though….I end will draw this little side-track to a close and return us to our Regularly Scheduled Program with the next blog.

Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 3

Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 3

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Dear Reader, this blog is a direct continuation of the last two, Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 1 and Part 2: Seriously, this is not one of those to try skipping ahead to get to the punchline. If you haven’t already done so, go back and read the last two blogs prior to reading the continuation here.

Just a a little refresher for those of you who have read the past blogs, below is yet more evidence to support my contemplations on the topic that everything is dukka. The evidence is organized into themes, based around the best examples I found to help prove to myself an assertation I had heard many times from my teachers — that everything is suffering. Moreover, I sought to understand not just the conclusion, but the WHY: Why everything in the world must be suffering, what it is about the nature of the world and everything in it that guarantees that every leaf I turn, every rock I look under, every new corner I turn, I will always find the suffering innate in this world.

  • If the things we love are the source of dukka, where can we possibly hope to find sukka? : A few years ago, my friend’s husband gave him an ultimatum: Adopt the kid they had always planned on or divorce so that he could find another partner to raise a kid with. My friend was torn, he really didn’t want a child, but to save the life he had and loved with his husband, he acquiesced. Fast forward a few years and this friend is quite unhappy, the child he adopted has developmental issues, and has been a huge burden, especially during the pandemic. Watching him it is so clear that we invite, and then endure, tremendous suffering for what we love. In fact, nothing else other than what we love could possibly motivate us to endure the kind of suffering we do, if we didn’t love the thing we ‘do it for’ we would say “fuck it” and be done. If I didn’t love Eric I would have said fuck it and left NY. If Eric and I both didn’t love the life we imagine money will buy we would say fuck it and be done with his abusive jobs. It’s not only present suffering either — how many times do folks commit crimes to give their kids a better life, kill to protect themselves, seek revenge to protect a wounded ego — we regularly invite future suffering for the stuff we love.  Just imagining that we have something we love, even for a moment, is the seed for all the suffering we endure in this world as we seek to cling to that thing.  But if the things we love are what brings us dukka, where should we look to find sukka?
  • The only thing keeping me here is my bondage — I was watching a play about slavery and in it a slave man decides he is going to runaway. In a scene where he goes to tell his sister about his plans he says, “out there is freedom, the only thing for me here is my bondage, there is nothing else keeping me here.” He invites his sister to join him in the escape, but she refuses, she has two young children –too young to be on the run– and she feels she can’t leave them. Her children are her bondage. In that moment, I got a brief understanding that the things and people we love are our tether to this world; it is because of Eric, my family, friends, enjoyments of various hobbies and places, my comforts and the joys I take in being loved, having the things I believe make me a me, that I can’t just flee to freedom like that sister in the play. The thing is, if all that is here is my bondage isn’t everything dukka? Just because someone with Stockholm syndrome begins to empathize with, love and depend on their captors, it doesn’t mean they aren’t in captivity. Any “sane” person looking at someone with Stolkholms realizes the patient is just deluded, that in fact they are in bondage,  and of course bondage is dukka.
  • Waiting to suffer is suffering — My mom was hit by a car and my brother was so angry at the man who hit her. He said it wasn’t fair that man walked away with just a ticket while my mom had to endure so much injury and pain, while the family had to suffer to help her. I told him it was fair, the world is fair, everyone has to suffer injury, death, struggle for their families; the only difference was the timing and the details. We take turns, this was my family’s turn to struggle, another time will be that man’s turn. The more I think about it though, the more I see that waiting for a turn at suffering is suffering in and of itself. Afterall, I started this practice motivated by the deep distress of being a hypochondriac: Even when I wasn’t ill, I was stressed and afraid of my eventual illness, of “my turn”. Though we can sometimes ‘put it out of our heads’, ignore impending suffering, on some level we all know it is coming. The thing we don’t necessarily notice is that it is already here. It is here because if everything were candy canes and rainbows, we wouldn’t need to do so much ignoring and fantasizing and hoping and striving and planning for something better. It is here because the fear and stress of waiting to suffer is just another kind of suffering, a suffering that differs only in degree, not kind.
  • There are no happy endings in this world, only stories that haven’t finished yet: I was rewatching Westworld and I came to an episode where some of the characters –bandits — have successfully stolen a safe and are trying to get it open. Here is the thing, in this show, the characters are reborn countless times, each life is just a variation on their last, small differences, but for these bandits the story line, the thing that drives them, is always the same, get and open the safe. This life, they are finally able to open the safe, inside it is empty. The scene hit me really hard, and I realized it is a powerful ubai for life: So often we struggle, labor, fight for what we want and we fail to get it, it is instant tragedy, spending lifetimes trying to crack a safe only to have it be empty. Of course, there are times the safe is full –we strive and struggle and are ‘rewarded’ with just what we want, it’s a happy ending with boku bucks. The problem though is that the story isn’t over; with a bunch of money, a host of new problems arise. For bandits, there is the consequences born of stealing money. Even if it was well gotten, with money (with anything) comes the fear of loosing it, the need to protect and preserve it. Ultimately it will be used up, and then there is the need to find at least as much as you had before to keep up the lifestyle that you had become comfortable with. When you play it forward –past the fake happy ending — it seems like whether the safe is empty or full, it is functionally the same;  neither temporarily getting ,nor not getting, quenches my thirst or stops the efforting. There is no happy ending, there is a pause –at best — and then more struggle. Stories without happy endings are called tragedies (no matter how many comic relief moments they have), and this world is an endless story without a happy ending, it is a tragedy, it is dukka.
  • The world doesn’t give a fuck about what I want or ‘need’: Long ago I was reading one of the Buddhist comics and there was a single line in one that hit me: Ananda and his pals decide to leave behind their worldly life and join the Buddha. On the way, they take off their finery and leave it in the woods because they “won’t need it anymore”, which got me thinking what it really means to ‘need’ something: When we say we need something, what we really mean is that without this object, our imagination of what the future will be can’t come to pass. Since those pals envisioned a future as monastics, they didn’t ‘need’ finery. When I envision a fun road trip, I ‘need’ a car. When I imagine the delicious cake I will bake, I ‘need’ flour. Because my deepest desire is a long, happy life with Eric I ‘need’ Eric, I ‘need’ this body and I ‘need’ all the other ingredients I think will make life long and happy. The problem is that the world doesn’t give a fuck about what I need.  Every object I think I “need” is the same as every other object –it dies/decays/fades/parts ways  — and yet time keeps ticking, the future keeps coming.
The truth is that what I don’t have I clearly don’t ‘need’ for what happens next: If I don’t have a car, I simply don’t get a road trip, I do something else instead. If I don’t have flour, I don’t get a cake, I eat something else instead. If I don’t have an Eric, or an Alana, I don’t get an Eric/Alana happy future, I get some other future instead.  My future doesn’t depend on  what I think I “need”, or want, therefore nothing obliges the world to deliver these things to me (i.e. they are necessary in my mind alone). Over and over the world proves it doesn’t pander to me, it doesn’t care what I want; How can a world that doesn’t bend or bow to me, that doesn’t give a damn about my ‘needs’ or wants be anything but a continual source of pain and disappointment –i.e. dukka — to me?
A further note on this topic: Though the world doesn’t necessarily give me what I “need”, I suffer continually to try and get it, and I suffer when I don’t get it or I lose it, because I predicate my happiness on the stories I tell myself coming true. At my last mammogram, I felt such relief (lessening of dukkha) when I got an all clear. But then I considered why I felt that way, what a clear scan had really bought me, and I realized it was just a longer time clinging to my imaginary future that “needs” this body. It’s not real happiness at all, it is just another moment in which my dream goes un-dashed. I get to live another day, to stress more about how/if/for how long I can wrangle that future I strive for. If the shit I think I  need so much could really give me sukka, how is it I am not happy now? I still have this body, I still have Eric, I have money, health, so many ingredients I imagine necessary for that happily ever after, and yet I live in a state of perma-stress only momentarily lightened (not eliminated) by an all clear scan.  Getting to that happy ending I want isn’t the way to eliminate dukka (because there is no ending, there is always just some further future fantasy), giving up my obsession with how the story ends, with chasing one ending or another, that is the way to eliminate dukka.
  • If getting what I want really made me happy, why the hell am I so damn stressed and sad: Back in early April, when it was time to head home from a fairly pleasant winter in Miami, all I wanted was to stay and enjoy more time here. As we were driving home, my mom got into an accident and I turned right back around and have been in Miami to help care for her since. I got my wish, more time in Miami with family, but this has been one of the saddest, scariest and most stressful periods in my life. It got me thinking that I frequently get exactly what I want, and yet, rather than being satisfied, I am stressed. Foundational to birth and becoming, to every action, is want, followed by belief that fulfilling said want will lead to sukka. But over and over I get what I want, and I suffer just the same. In fact, in many cases I suffer because of getting what I want…
Back, after we left SF and before we touched down in NY, Eric and I took 3 weeks off to travel Europe.I remember, we were so happy, excited, planning our new NY life and all the fun adventures we would have. I had wanted to move, and that brief period of relish in having gotten what I wanted, plus the fantasy of what it would be like, was joy. But as soon as we landed at JFK — with the noise, filth and smog — my imagination was forced to face the reality on the ground, and stress (that eventually turned to crushing anxiety/anger/depression) arose.  When my heart concots its wants, it consults imagination rather than reality. But I live in a world of reality, wants are fulfilled (or not) in the world of reality: In reality everything has two sides, there are always consequences and trade-offs,  I don’t see the whole picture, everything shifts and changes, tomorrow doesn’t look like yesterday or today. Even when I get what I want in reality, it isn’t the way I imagine it ( often, if it had been, like with  NY, I never would have wanted it, worked so hard, uprooted my life, made irreversible changes to get it  in the first place).  The delta between imagination and reality is an endless well of disappointment and pain, and there will always be a delta between imagination and reality, so there will always be dukka. The belief that satisfying my wants will satisfy me leads me to perpetuate a cycle where I invite even more dukkah chasing wants and dealing with the disappointment and consequences of sometimes getting, sometimes not getting, them.
  • A world where every activity is a risk is a world of dukka — I was getting ready to go meet my brother and some family friends for dinner the other night. It was a gathering I was really looking forward to, a way to destress a little from a very intense week dealing with mom stuff. In the shower, I did the quick ‘new normal’ risk calculation: These friends had recently recovered from Covid, so the chance they were carriers was low, my brother and his wife tested that AM. It was safeish; I could enjoy. Then I thought more about it and realized that everything I do, all the activities I enjoy, the stuff that brings me comfort and delight, it comes with risk. Covid makes this so clear, but its always been this way, it is a product of having a fragile body, clinging to breakable things, of everything we do having 2 sides, coming with unforeseen consequences. I read about a study that shows that the human brain actually tries to shield us from the reality of our deaths, categorizing information about death as something that happens to others, but doesn’t relate to us. The researchers hypothesis that humans need to be desensitized to our own mortality to function in life. Folks are hardwired to to ignore risk and to believe it doesn’t apply to them. If we were truly cognizant of the risks of an activity, it wouldn’t be fun anymore; enjoyment requires ignoring, closing our eyes to ever present risk, or assuming a situation –a life –that is safe and comfortable now will continue to be so as long as we are in it. But just because we ignore stuff it doesn’t make it untrue, just because we believe we are exempt from mortality, risk, it doesn’t mean we are. We live in a world of omnipresent risk, and omnipresent risk is just another way to define dukka.
  • Easier doesn’t mean easy, it proves degrees of hard: I was reading the news and there was an article about a study that concluded that having more money makes people happier in their day to day life. There is no threshold either, more money = more day-to-day happiness. The reason being that money tends to solve problems, it makes life easier. The story hit me because I so obviously agree, money makes life easier in many ways. Which got me thinking… Since my mom’s accident, having money has certainly made stuff easier; I have a flexible salaried job (and savings), I don’t have to worry about lost wages taking care of her. I have used money to free up time on day-to-day stuff, a meal service so I don’t need to worry about cooking, a laundry service so I don’t need to worry about cleaning. Mom has a concierge doctor, so she got immediate referrals for a pulmonologist when lung issues arose last week and the doc was super fast communicating prescription and med history to the hospital and rehab facilities. Money has definitely made some stuff in this situation easier, but  things are still exceptionally hard. Now, finally I understand your answer so many months ago, ” hot and cold are on opposite ends of the same temperature scale. Or how 0 and 100 are on opposite ends of a number scale”. If you need to demarcate stuff on a scale of how hard they are — if sometimes it is relatively harder/easier — it doesn’t mean stuff is easy, it actually proves that degrees of hard/difficulty are what define living in this world. It can be more hard, it can be less hard. But the scale is the scale of struggle, degrees of dukka is what the world slides along.
Anyway, as I said, this isn’t exactly done, but it has certainly gelled into a pretty comprehensive contemplation. What is crazy to me is that when I started this line of thinking it was such a struggle, I really had to do some serious mental gymnastics to see how examples of suffering or stress from my daily life actually proved everything is dukka. At the start, I think this may have been the most difficult contemplation I have ever undertaken. But I kept on, collecting 5 examples a day and considering what each could tell me about the why question –why everything must be dukka. Soon it went from being a faucet I struggled to get a few drips from to one gushing so hard I couldn’t turn it off. I guess that is why this took me so long to finalize to send –the evidence of dukka as the nature of this world is everywhere I look now.
Recently, my contemplations have taken a bit of a turn/flip –I have been evaluating what I think happiness is. Afterall, this email is filled with data points that just because I find something pleasurable, it doesn’t mean it isn’t dukka. Pleasurable stuff is hard to get, stressful to keep and worry about loosing, comes with risk as well as after effects I’m not so keen on…At some point it dawned on me that what I call sukka may just be a misunderstanding of the world, arising from my imagination of what things are and what they will be, versus the reality of what things are and what they will be. I suppose that is what I am  considering now. That and the fragility and suffering that comes with a body, which is so front and center as I watch my mom struggle to recover post accident.
My mom by the way, despite some snags and scares, is doing pretty well.  Considering how terrible the accident was, everyone is talking about what a miraculous ‘happy ending’ this is all likely to have; it really is so easy to mistake an easing of dukka for sukka if you aren’t paying attention. It is so easy to forget what just happened and pretend that the happier, brighter future we imagine is what is actually ‘normal’ . I am not ignoring or forgetting so easily though, there is still plenty of struggle and stress to be had, and the memory of her crying out in the hospital bed that first night I arrived still feels pretty raw to me. And hey, the ‘good news’  is if I do forget, all I need to do is live long enough, and I’m bound to get a refresher soon enough when I face something similar — or worse — with her again, and/or Eric, and/or Seth…my beloved toggle bolts.
Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 2

Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 2

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Dear Reader, this blog is a direct continuation of the last, Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 1: Seriously, this is not one of those to try skipping ahead to get to the punchline. If you haven’t already done so, go back and read the last blog prior to reading the continuation here.

Just a a little refresher for those of you who have read the past blog, below is yet more evidence to support my contemplations on the topic that everything is dukka. The evidence is organized into themes, based around the best examples I found to help prove to myself an assertation I had heard many times from my teachers — that everything is suffering. Moreover, I sought to understand not just the conclusion, but the WHY: Why everything in the world must be suffering, what it is about the nature of the world and everything in it that guarantees that every leaf I turn, every rock I look under, every new corner I turn, I will always find the suffering innate in this world.

  • Where there is desire/craving there is stress and there is ALWAYS desire: I had read the news about Omicron and I was stressed (another word for suffering), specifically I was stressed because I so desperately desired to go on a planned trip to see my family, but I also desperately desire to stay healthy and avoid Covid. So I stressed to come-up with a plan where maybe I could do both, private flight, driving to Miami, better masks, etc. All this stressing going on in my mind on my drive to Pilates class, where I paused my family/omicron stress, to stress about hitting each red light and getting stuck behind a slow driver because I was also stressed about making it to class on time. Stressed about what the teacher would think of me if I was late, etc.

I realized I live in a state of constant stress and the reason is my constant desire.  Afterall, if I didn’t give a damn about seeing family, or protecting this body, or what folks think of me, I wouldn’t care about canceled trips or Covid or being late to class. The continually shifting sand of this world (impermanence again) wouldn’t bother me at all.  But because I do want to acquire what I desire, protect what I desire, and avoid what I feel threatens those things I desire, I live under constant stress. Everything in this world is bound-up with desire, it is literally the cause of my entering this world and remaining in it. Therefore everything in this world is also bound-up with dukka –so long as my heart desires, there is absolutely no freedom from stress.

  • A burden is a burden, even when you pick it up without noticing its burdensomeness, or are reluctant to put it down: Recently my employee quit and I have been covering his administrative tasks, tasks that I hate, tasks I find stressful and burdensome. As I was dreading another day ‘at the office’, I considered the fact that this is just my duty, my responsibility, the obligations that come with my role. What else is a job after all, but a duty, an obligation? For years, I have focused on the benefits I enjoy from my job –enrichment, mental stimulation, a sense of belonging, a building block of my identity. Distracted by these benefits, I shut my eyes to what a duty/role really is — a responsibility, a commitment, a burden that I have assumed. But it is only a matter of time, a shift in circumstance, before the dukka side of each role/object/relationship show themselves and by then, both worldly norms and my own imagination/ sense of self/sense of obligation make it difficult to put them down. I would like to quit my job, but I feel like I ‘owe’ my employer. I feel like I would be a bad employee, create bad karma by quitting now when they are so understaffed. Plus, I worry about who an  Alana without a title, a job, would be, where my value would come from, how hard it would be to find a new job that allowed me so much flexibility. Everything I take up in this world is a burden, a tether, an obligation –no matter the benefits I perceive myself to enjoy from it — and burdensomeness is just another word for dukka.
  • There is no such thing as a happy memory: After several months of lockdown I had noticed I was beginning to have intrusive memories of bygone times. I would be doing zoom pilates and have an image of my last pre-pandemic vacation in Japan. Walking around the block and recalling a time I ate with friends in a restaurant. Reading emails and recalling an amazing concert I had attended. These were all happy memories and one day I started considering them more closely. I evaluated dozens of happy memories–trips, meals, times with family and friends and I watched my heart as I recalled each one. I realized that when I recalled happy times, there was always a sensation of nostalgia that arose. And what is nostalgia but longing? Missing something that is already gone, that can’t be retrieved. The happier the memory, the more tinged it was with nostalgia. If happiness now is the cause of suffering later, isn’t it just delayed suffering? When we ingest poison, even if it tastes delicious going down, don’t we still call it ‘poison’ based on its harmful effects?  It seems to follow that even happy times are dukka.
  • Imagination is how you end up in bed with a vampire: At the start of one of my favorite shows, True Bloods,  the main character, Sukkie, has never had a boyfriend because she is psychic and can hear everyone’s thoughts, she knows exactly how sleezy all the men in town are and she has no interest in dating them. Then she meets Bill, whose thoughts she is unable to read because he is a vampire, and she quickly falls in love. It’s not that Bill is so great, it’s just that she can imagine him to be whatever she likes because she can’t read his thoughts. The reality of dating a vampire though is a life –or at least 8 seasons –of constant struggle, disappointment, death and danger. Imagination lulls Sukkie, it lulls all of us, into danger; we willingly march toward dukka because imagination feeds the hope that we will get sukka. But the real story of this world is a reality of dukka while chasing the fantasy of sukka. This world, like Vampire Bill, isn’t so great, but because we imagine it to be whatever we like, we just keep diving in –this imagination we love so much, identify with so closely, is our all-you-can-ride ticket on the dukka rollercoaster that is this world.
  • A body that facilitates pleasure is the source of all pain: After my mom’s accident I walked into the hospital to find her moaning in agony, a drip of opiates doing little to numb her pain. The problem with having a body is its a guarantee to pain: Sometimes its the little stuff: lungs aching from asthma, eye burning from allergies, the continual throb from a nagging shoulder injury. Or just the daily discomforts: Hunger, too cold/ hot, enduring unpleasant sounds and smells, even just sitting still too long makes me uncomfortable. But one way or another bodies are the root of all physical suffering, suffering that simply ebbs and wanes by degree. Which made me stop to consider why anyone would sign-up for a body in the first place… at least part of the answer is pleasure of course (the other part is our belief that rupa can help us build and prove our identities  –we long ago established you need a rupa suit to play in a rupa world).
Back when I was contemplating on the 4es a lot, I came to realize pain is mostly excess pressure (though at times it can be too little/much heat). The problem, that any massage shows us, is that it is a fine line between pleasurable pressure and pain. We come into this world to experience worldly delights, but the same mechanism by which we experience pleasure (an arrangement of 4es that can sense pressure or heat) ensures we will inevitably experience pain. The organs we use to hear/smell beauty guarantee we will hear/see things that make us uncomfortable. But this body is not just a mechanism by which we experience physical pain, it is the cause. Physical pain is a result of embodiment. Having a body is painful, having a body is dukka.
  • If not having is dukka, and having is dukka, where is sukka? Eric and I are in Miami seeing family for 3 months and we are staying at a lovely Airbnb overlooking the ocean. Waking up to such beauty is so delightful and after a few days being here I already began to worry about going home, about losing the experience of such beauty. A few days after that, a super stressful quest to buy a condo in the same building had commenced (there were fights with Eric, a bidding war, a super shady realtor, etc.)Ultimately, I decided a home in Miami, particularly when we need to get back to CT when Eric’s office opens in April, is not worth the stress. It isn’t worth the burden of buying, or caring for it, or worrying about during hurricane season when we can’t even use it right now.
Still though, as I looked out at the ocean again this morning it got me thinking: Not having something is suffering, otherwise we wouldn’t chase, we wouldn’t work so hard to aquire. Desire is deep and the urge to fulfill it is primal. Hunger, as we have already established is dukka. But having this ocean view is suffering too. Just as enjoyment dawned, so too did the impulse to keep and preserve what I already have. The fear of loss, the effort and drama to make it mine, just so I can buy the option of an (imaginary) future with this ocean view.  But what I leave out of that future vision is the truth that even when I have something I need to work to preserve it (dukka), and I will fear losing it (dukka), and I will ultimately actually lose it (more dukka)  — a deed won’t change that anymore than a 3 month rental agreement.  Which brings me to the point that if having something is suffering, and not having something is suffering, isn’t everything Dukka?
  • Things that shift out of states I want are stressful, and everything shifts out of states I want: Yesterday I went to pick-up a special sweet treat to give to my brother for his birthday. The treat had both hot and cold components, so once I left the restaurant with the to go order, I felt like I was ‘on the clock’ to get over to Seth’s house. I was looking for shortcuts, trying to get ahead of traffic, speeding a bit –I didn’t want the treat to either get too cold or to melt. It dawned on me that this treat, that was supposed to bring enjoyment, was bringing me stress, and I got to thinking about why. The answer is that while perfectly warm and cold may be  the peak state for the desert, I know damn well that the desert can’t possibly stay in that peak state for very long. The reason for this is that the perfect balance of crispy fried bits and frozen custard are not the NATURE of the desert, it is just a single state. The actual nature of the dessert is an arrangement of 4es that continually shifts according to the causes and conditions of this world — custard exposed to Miami sun melts and fried bits exposed to ambient temperatures cool.
Of course, this phenomenon doesn’t end with sweet treats. Everything has a peak state, and nothing ever remains in that state, because the nature of this world, and everything in it, is flux. The problem is more than just the fact that I want ice cream, but have to accept that it melts because there are two sides (that was my old conclusion that life entails both sukka and dukka and they come together). The deeper problem is that the very NATURE of ice cream is meltability, but I falsely imagine its nature to be my preferred perfectly frozen state. Blindly I seek satisfaction in objects and circumstances because I don’t understand what they are, but the length of time they remain in states that I find satisfactory is brief (or at least it is never long enough), and even while they exist in that state I stress over the impending shift. No matter how delicious a perfectly peak desert may be, it is clearly stressful, because what shifts and fades and moves out of states I like is stressful and disappointing.  But the nature of everything in this world is to shift and fade and move out of states I like, therefore everything in this world is stressful and disappointing (aka dukka).
  • A no-win world is a dukka world: I was listening to an NPR story about the obesity epidemic, about how even smaller amounts of excess weight, particularly around the midsection, are bad for our health and it dawned on me: Back in the day, food was often scarce, so humans evolved in order to store fat. Fat storage enabled humans to survive for hundreds of thousands of years. But today, in our society, food is abundant and the very mechanism –fat storage — that enabled us to survive for so long, is now a physiological feature that puts us at risk for death and disease. Again here, the problem is circumstances are always changing, there are so many angles and aspects to life’s complex processes, the very same thing that is a blessing in one circumstance is a liability in another. There are always two sides. My apartment in San Fran that brought me so much joy when I was traveling for work, was the source of extreme stress when I had to either keep paying the rent, or figure out how to organize a long distance move during the pandemic lockdown. My old Porsche made me feel awesome in Carmel, but super scared in Soma. With the basic truth of continual change, it is hard not to see that there is really no way to win in this world, because all you need to do is wait and a win will become a loss. Worse, the very quality/object/trait that helped you win will become what ensures your loss. Take it from a former Candy Crush Master, something may be fun for a while, keep you busy, makes you feel clever, but ultimately (in my case at about level 900), playing a game there is no way to win comes to feel like sheer torture. Isn’t an unwinnable world a world of dukka?  My only problem is persisting in the delusion I can win.
  • The things I love are like toggle bolts — They go in so smoothly, but it’s all sorts of hell when it is time to pull them out.  A friend did something that deeply hurt my feelings. As I was contemplating on the situation it dawned on me: This friend and I weren’t always close. We were as students, but we drifted apart as adults. It wasn’t until in my 30s, after I decided I wanted to BE a better friend to my old cohort, after I decided there was virtue to be had in the identity of being a good friend to this group, that I embarked on acting, and eventually feeling, the part. I used my friend, our relationship, to bolster my identity, but doing so was a double edged sword — as our relationship came to symbolize my virtue, his disapproval/rejection took on the power to deflate me. The pain I was feeling was something I did to myself, it was a consequence of the satisfaction I seek in the identities I  build.
The problem is we hunt for sukka in the identity we build with relationships, jobs, stuff, but when we lose these things –or they behave in ways we view as an affront to the identities we cherish — we suffer a massive gut punch. As soon as we fall in love with something (the instant desire turns to clinging), that thing sinks little claws under our skin, claws that go in smooth, almost unnoticed like a toggle bolt into drywall. But when that thing is yanked out, its hooks catch, pulling against the grain and it is sheer suffering to have them removed. Suffering that we welcomed with open arms by letting those claws sink in in the first place.
There is an old song about a woman who sees a sick snake on the side of the road and decides to nurture it back to health. She feeds it, warms it, loves it and then is shocked when, fully recovered, the snake bites her. The song ends with the snake saying, “you knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in”. These things we seek sukka in, props for our identity and imagination, aren’t actually sukka, they are toggles waiting to be ripped out, snakes waiting to bite…a coiled cobra waiting to strike looks a lot like dukka to me.
  • Everything nama touches turns to dukka: Eric and I were driving down to Key West and it was a beautiful day — the perfect mix of humidity, wind, warmth from the sun — as I soaked it in, I realized there really is comfort in this world, i.e. there are physical circumstances a 4e being, with a particular 4e arrangement, finds comfortable. Just so, there is beauty, deliciousness, etc. The problems however arise as soon as Nama enters the scene: The moment Nama senses something, it goes into overdrive, if it likes it it clings and begins to scheme ways to maximize, to prolong, it plots to recreate and obtain more, it stresses over loss, it is saddened by loss and the future imagined without what we claimed/cling to. If nama dislikes it rejects, schemes ways to avoid, to disclaim and disassociate with what it doesn’t like and stresses to be near that thing, enduring suffering until it can disassociate. Nama is basically a dukka factory, it consumes everything around it and regurgitates dukka. Nothing is left unconsumed and unturned. So no matter what is actually in the world, as soon as our nama touches it, it turns to suffering. And there is nothing we experience untouched by nama, so functionally (at least till we stop craving and clinging) everything must be dukka.
  • Enjoyment is just turning a blind eye to suffering:  I was thinking about my love of travel and realized that one of the things I love the most about it is that I see vacation as a time when I can put aside my daily worries and burdens a bit. I can relax, enjoy, de-stress. The thing is, just because I put aside my to-do list for a bit, it doesn’t mean it isn’t there; in fact, it seems to grow with every email that piles up while my ‘out of office’ is on. With vacation there is food indulgence which I tell myself to  ‘worry about later’,  all while engaging in the very eating, and weight gain, that causes me shame and stress and that will require vigor and effort and sacrifice to ‘repent from’ when I get home.  Since the tasks required to tend to a breakable, decaying, body are endless and routine, there always seems to be a mammogram, or broken crown, or some other painful, anxiety producing procedure/ appointment on the calendar for just after I get home. All through the trip I try to put it out of mind, tell myself to worry later, though the worrisome stuff lies in wait for me upon my return. When I look at my vacation habits, I see that enjoyment requires, in fact may fundamentally be, the act of closing my eyes tight and pretending –pretending what is effortful is fun, pretending the world will go as I want it to, pretending that struggle/burden/difficulty isn’t always lurking. Enjoyment is just times suffering doesn’t intrude on my imagination. Which must mean that suffering is the ever-present reality of the world — it never disappears — my imagination just lulls me into a fantasy world, and I shut my eyes,pretend, at least until that ever-present dukka intrudes forcefully enough for me to notice.

Once again, I am going to cut this off at a somewhat arbitrary point. There are just so many examples/themes and thoughts it feels like cutting it up into more ‘bite sized chunks’ is the best approach for this blog. So stay tuned till next time …

Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 1

Yet Another Interruption in Our Regularly Scheduled Programming — Everything is Dukka Part 1

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Well Dear Reader, it has been a while since I have interrupted this here nice, orderly(ish), temporally linear(ish) blog, meant to chronologically share highlights of my dharma practice. Things have been going so well, staying on course, so naturally, I am thinking, “what better way to celebrate my birthday than to fuck-up this whole regularly scheduled programing with — yup, you got it — yet another intrusion of contemplations from the present day.”

Kidding aside, I do like to share this blog in order because contemplations build on each other; growth, though meandering, happens in linear time, there is an order to practicing and to deepening my understandings through practice. And yet, sometimes there are just those mind blowing realizations, the kind that shake and shape my practice, and I feel the deep desire to share those ‘real time’. This here is one of those contemplations, which was summarized and written-up to send to my teachers Mae Neecha and Mae Yo, so hopefully, you will indulge the birthday girl and forgive me for skipping ahead, and sharing this while it is hot off the press.

In reality, while this topic is certainly ‘deep’, it is also surprisingly simple and straight forward, after all it is just a super sobering investigation of 1 f the 3 Common Characteristics of the world (suffering, impermanence, no-self) . I think it can stand on is own without all the backstory of how I got here. So, without further adieu, everything is dukka ( in 3 parts, because it is super-duper loooonnnnggg and dense).

For years, when I considered the first noble truth, I translated it as ‘life entails suffering’. This shaped my view of the world, of practice: Life has joyful parts, but it also has suffering parts. You can’t have one without the other. Case closed. But after reading LP Thoon’s biography, I was struck by how often he said “Everything is suffering”. I had heard this in Phra Arjan Dang’s sermons too. I realized how different these takes were from my own, which basically sees happiness, delight, and joy, abundant in the world, just with a “side” of suffering.  I asked Mae Neecha about it and she said:

” Happiness is relief from suffering, or just less suffering. They are on different sides of the same scale… the scale of suffering. Just like how hot and cold are on opposite ends of the same temperature scale. Or how 0 and 100 are on opposite ends of a number scale.”

I “heard” her reply of course, but my heart really balked at it , so I realized that I needed to really consider this issue. I set about gathering daily evidence in my life, not just of instances of suffering (which I have done for years), but evidence from these instances that everything is suffering. Moreover, I began considering what this evidence illustrated about WHY everything is suffering. What it is about the nature of the world that means it is, and always will be, suffering?
I quickly realized that I was getting tripped-up on the word suffering, I had a fixed, narrow view of what constitutes “suffering”. But the word dukka itself has a very broad meaning and lots of possible translations. I started by trying on different words, and the examples and dynamics of dukka became much more clear quickly. Afterall, I certainly feel stressed out a lot, I get disappointed and anxious. I can see how any satisfaction I get from a meal quickly fades, or how if  a vacation were truly satisfying I wouldn’t be planning a new one as soon as I get home. And then there is burdensomeness, the weight of my obligations and belongings as well as the effort I put into gaining and maintaining them.
So, at long last, after many many months of consideration (I spent over 8 months fixating on this topic),  I am ready to share just a bit of the evidence I have collected and some of my thoughts on this topic of everything is suffering. Over the months I have been weighing this topic, I have noticed there have been themes –basic types of suffering and reasons for its existence — that keep coming up. So my examples will be the best ones I can come up with to demonstrate the specific ‘themes’/types of suffering/reasons everything is suffering. This contemplation is clearly not done. For starters, new themes, nuances, examples just keep coming the more I consider this topic, this just seemed like as good a point as any to sum-up and share. Also, obviously, I don’t yet really fully believe or understand the deep truth that everything is dukka or I would just give up the gun and lay down my burden already. But, I see the contours of this truth, I am not just smiling and nodding when I hear folks like Mae Neecha and LP Thoon say “Everything is Dukka”; this is an assessment of my own now, something I believe and understand I need to grow in my conviction/clarity of more deeply. In other words, this is all a work in progress, but at the same time there has been real progress. My examples/themes are below:
  • Enjoyment is just the temporary relief of suffering: I was on a 5 day fast (recommended by my doctor), looking forward to getting to finally eat the next day, and I realized that pleasure was just a relief of deprivation. If I wasn’t already hungry –if suffering wasn’t a preexisting state — there wouldn’t have been extreme delight at the prospect of eating. This is true not just of physical needs/comfort, but of non-physical craving as well. I am happy to have found a husband only because of the pre-existing husband shaped hole in my heart. I was already uncomfortable, I already felt something missing.
The truth is hunger, craving, these are uncomfortable states –dukkah in and of themselves. If they weren’t we wouldn’t always be running around, exerting so much energy trying to ‘solve’ them. Relief of hunger, and the ensuing sensation of relief — which we register as happiness —  is just the temporary dampening of our hunger (after all, I get hungry again soon after I eat. Thanks impermanence.) Dukka is the foundational state. All we need to do is wait for any comforts, any sense of fullness, to pass and we return to the base state of dukka.
  • We are never actually satisfied/there is no satisfaction to be had in this world: When I sent a short Line to Mae Neecha a ways back, with a bit about my progress on this everything is suffering topic, part of her reply made me start thinking of a different angle. She said, “if while you feel happy, it could still be better somehow (if only _were here, if only there was_instead) that already indicates it is suffering not happiness.” This got me to begin considering a different definition for dukka — ‘dissatisfaction/not satisfactory’; no matter how much I am enjoying something, in the back of my mind I am always thinking of the thing that could make it better, or the way to repeat it, or how to enjoy it for longer. Implicit in that thinking is a basic truth — the thing I am enjoying is not satisfactory. If it really were satisfactory, I wouldn’t be trying to change it. If it really were satisfactory, I wouldn’t need to find a way to prolong or repeat it. I would simply be satisfied with what it was. But every single vacation I have ever been on, no matter how magical, left me wanting more vacation time. Never have I finished a trip and said, that is it –I never need to travel again. That was perfect, I wouldn’t have changed a thing. I always want more/different. We are born into this world desiring satisfaction. We are born to satisfy desire. But this is impossible because impermanence dictates any delight we get is fleeting. So yes, we can enjoy a trip, we can momentarily fulfill our desire to travel or see a beautiful place, but there is no endurance in that delight. Instead, like the hit of a drug, the tiniest bit of enjoyment leaves us craving for more –worse, it feeds the hope that we can have more/better — and I am already calculating and planning and efforting my next trip. Why? ‘Cause everything in this world is unsatisfactory i.e. dukka.
  • If you have to pick your poison then you get poison either way. I was dragging myself out of bed for an early workout. I didn’t feel like working out, I don’t really enjoy the process, but I do it to try and stay healthy. I hedge, trying to endure what I see as the smaller suffering of working out now to stave off the bigger suffering –heart disease — that can come later from a sedentary life.  Or, another example: I was sitting at a restaurant the other night, a toddler next to me screaming. I considered my options, moving to a table closer to road noise or staying with the screaming child. I moved, trading off what I considered the greater discomfort for the lesser discomfort.

The truth is, no situation is perfect, there are always these compromises, trade-offs. The reason is that there is always dukkah, just in different shapes (toddler versus road) and in different degrees (workout versus heart attack). I like to think to myself, “yes, life entails suffering, but I got this, I can try and control my life, my fate,  by picking the suffering I prefer, that I think I can live with.” Of course, there is no guarantee I can get my wish –that workouts will stave off heart disease. There is no guarantee that even if I do get the ‘lesser evil’ it really IS the lesser evil — traffic noise may annoy me less than a toddler, but road smog can irritate my asthma. The only real guarantee is that when you have to pick your poison you get poison –dukka — either way, so of course everything must be dukka.  In fact, even the act of picking my poison –the effort, the sense of uncertainty — is in and of itself dukka. So I guess I get a dukka shot with a dukka chaser.

  • If a little less sucky feels like sukka, I must be livin’ in a dukka world. Just as I started my dukka contemplations, Eric began pissing blood. Blood in urine is presumed cancer till proven otherwise, so I was deeply afraid (dukka). A CT scan showed kidney stones and the doctor recommended surgery to remove them, but no sign of cancer. Suddenly I was overwhelmingly relieved –my mind registered this less bad news as sukka even though, lets face it, needing surgery is certainly not good news. Happiness in this case was just less suffering, less of a bad outcome than I had feared.

The problem with this situation is that in order to really feel happy, we are required to know sad; any sukka I experience is really relative to the dukka I suffered before/after it.  The pandemic isolation is another perfect example: For almost a year, Eric and I remained quite locked down. We avoided any indoor activities, even having groceries delivered. I was so lonely during that time, I longed for a return to ‘normality’, to the simplest things I had known and done before. After I got vaccinated, my first trip to Whole Foods felt like ecstasy, but I needed the extreme loss and isolation of my long lockdown to have the extreme joy of that first trip to the store.

We have already established that the world is unsatisfactory, continually stressful, that dukka is in fact the pre-existing/foundational state. Which means that it can’t be  that ‘suffering is just less happiness’ –life doesn’t bear this out: I would never say my dad’s death, or my move to NY, or my fear of Eric having cancer is ‘less happiness’. So it must be that happiness is just less suffering. Everything is just more or less dukka.

  • Comparison is the thief of joy (i.e even a little less sukka feels like dukka, which means I live in a super sucky world) . Throughout most of my life, a trip to Whole Foods was just a chore, but after my looooonnnnggg lockdown, my first Whole Foods adventure was a slice of heaven.  With each subsequent shopping trip, as I returned to more and more pre-pandemic activities, my delight waned, until a few weeks later when the grocery store became just another chore again. The reason for this loss of enjoyment in the same exact activity is that enjoyment is not in the activity, an object, another person or a situation. Enjoyment exists in my heart. And my heart is always changing, judging what meets the threshold of enjoyment using past experiences and my own fantasies as a benchmark. So Whole Foods may have been pinnacle joy at one point, but  once I had started doing more and more public stuff again, including museums and outdoor concerts –which I like way more than the store– Whole Foods felt lackluster and boring.

The problem is that if what I find to bring me joy is relative, based on standards derived from past benchmarks, I need to at least  maintain the same “level” of everything, preferably “level-up” to feel a sense of sukka. Eric often reflects on this with coffee drinking: Back when he started drinking coffee, a cup of joe from anywhere would do. But over time his tastes became more refined and he needed finer and finer roasts to drink. Before it was easy, everyplace has a gas station to grab a coffee, but once it had to be fancy we had to hunt down a rarefied coffee shop each AM. And when there really is no choice but the gas station, Eric suffers, finds it bitter and terrible on his new pallet even though back in the day gas station coffee was the norm. In other words –the very things that cause momentary happiness — like a fine cup of coffee– end up causing even more dukka, dukka to maintain according to that standard, dukka to preserve/repeat and, worst of all, dukka when you have to suffer something lesser. And the higher you go, the more there is in the world that is ‘lesser’ and the harder it becomes to find what is equal or greater than that super fine thing you are used to. Today’s joy becomes both tomorrow’s taskmaster and joykill, which makes every bit of joy I feel the seed of later dukka.

  • Entropy is the law of the cosmos and entropy makes life HARD: I was reading an article that was explaining the second law of thermodynamics, entropy. To illustrate the concept in simple terms there were 2 little pictures embedded in the text: The first was a wall of bricks and then an arrow, labeled “time”, that pointed to a disorganized pile of bricks. In a closed system, what is organized and orderly becomes less organized and orderly over time. In the second picture there was a jumbled pile of disorganized bricks and an arrow, labeled “work”, that pointed to a constructed wall of bricks. In an open system, things can move from disordered to more ordered, but only with the introduction of energy, work.

 A few days later I was shaping my eyebrows, frustrated at how quickly they grow, at the time, and painful plucks, and effort it takes to keep them in a particular shape and I realized entropy rules my life, rules this world, and it makes everything so damn hard. Left alone, buildings will crumble, eyebrows will grow bushy, rooms become dirty, bodies and objects will decay. Orderly arrangements of 4es will naturally shift, eventually disaggregating altogether. To build an orderly state, to maintain that state — even just temporarily — in the face of entropy (aka anatta) requires work, it requires effort. This effortfulness, this continual need to exert energy to obtain and maintain, this is the cause of dukka and it is literally a consequence of the law of the universe. Simply trying to live in this world, at the most basic level trying to provide requisites to a body, to acquire things and maintain them, requires herculean, regular, daily effort, not to mention overwhelming, omni-present risk (thanks Covid for making this one so obvious). For all that effort, all we buy is a little time because ultimately the law of impermanence reigns supreme. What is hard is dukka and life in this world is hard, therefore life is dukka.

This is already a lot to read and consider so more examples to come next week…to be continued…

Throwing Stones in Glass Houses

Throwing Stones in Glass Houses

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I was reading an article in The Atlantic, I have linked it here, but in short it was about how it is tempting to shame and blame individuals for their reckless actions in this pandemic (not wearing a mask, going to a crowded places, etc.) when we should really be a blaming the institutions that put us in this place: “Don’t blame people making bad choices, look at the fact that all they have are bad choices.” The pandemic creates psychological murkiness for humans and in the face of that murkiness the process of making ethical decisions, or judging risks, becomes murky as well.

Later in the article a point the author makes really hits home: “Most people congregating in tight spaces are telling themselves a story about why what they are doing is okay. Such stories flourish under confusing or ambivalent norms.”
I am the first to play the blame/shame game. I am so angry at all the folks out there whose action put me in danger, who are only prolonging this pandemic. And yet, if I am being honest with myself, a younger, healthier Alana –a collage or highschool version of myself — would be telling similar stories, making similar justifications for cramming into a club like a sardine: The government said this is ok…I am not breaking rules, if I am not breaking rules, my actions must be ok. 
This mentality, transcends pandemic logic, it  permeates my whole life: I like to think of myself as a ‘good Alana’, protected by my goodness from punishment and pain, from low births and hardships. In my mind, I justify all my actions, tell stories about how all I do is okay, how I maintain my Alana goodness. When I used to use people for sex, I told myself it was consensual, they agreed to keep it casual, of course what I did was okay. When I would emotionally cheat on partners, I would avoid physically cheating –there was a ‘line’ I wouldn’t cross (a line of my own creation and definition, but nonetheless a line)  so of course my behavior was okay. When I push Eric to endure his terrible jobs to support me, our lifestyle, I tell myself he is willing, or we all need to rely on someone, or its not using someone if you love them, so of course I am A-Okay. 
From my own side, my reasons are always justified. I am above reproach. But this world, it doesn’t operate according to my side, my stories and justifications are not the arbiters of consequence. Calling myself a ‘good Alana’ doesn’t protect me from the consequences of my actions any more than the stories those folks cramming themselves into small spaces tell protect them from catching Covid, or prolonging the pandemic for all. We all tell stories, but no matter the story we are subjects to karma, we are subjects of a world that offers no safety.
Delusion is in the Details

Delusion is in the Details

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Bored and restless in lockdown, I had started remembering old road trips to Napa, Vermont, Carmel, Northern CT –all the little towns I loved to go and visit before Covid. My imagination would take over and I would fantasize about going back to these places, plus other, as-yet-unexplored-hidden-gems, just as soon as Covid was over…

The more I fantasized though, the more I noticed that there was a pattern to what I remembered of my road trips, each was more or less, largely the same: I’d roll into some town, I jump out of the car so eager to explore. To find something new and exciting ( which, for a peril call out, is how I ended up in NY).

But every town is basically the same, a grocery, bank, shops that sell gifts/clothes, restaurants. I zoom in so hard to each town, I get lost in details, I get intoxicated by the promise of something new. When I get to the end of a main street strip, when the cookie cutter houses begin, I have this palpable disappointment –I want more. I wanted more from the town. Another block, another ‘find’, something new and different than the last town.

It dawned on me that a major mechanism my mind uses to keep deluding myself is distraction with the details. If the details were always the same, then I would be bored and burned-out by life and rebirth already. It would be 100% clear to me that I had already ‘been there done that” and I could simply give up the quest for something new and different, something truly satisfying and enduring in this world.

But it’s the slight variations –a different shop, unique architecture, some ‘special’ tourist attraction, that feed the desire to keep heading to little towns to find something new and different to entertain me. It is details that feed my hope that a treasure is just around the corner. Hope feeds desire to quest, and desire feeds the entire continual cycle of born, do, die, repeat.

Now though, I am bored, nothing changes in this Covidverse, where I do the same stuff, see the same 1 person, live in the same 4 walls day-in-day-out. Details here are all the same and I am ready to be done. But details of yesterday, of past trips and future plans – crumbs – are enough to continue feeding the hope that one day will be different. And even if today sucks, tomorrow will be new, it will be different, it is worth hanging on for. Delusion is in the details.

The Four Nobel Truths Again (and Again and Again and Again…)

The Four Nobel Truths Again (and Again and Again and Again…)

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I tend to like to keep my practice simple, basic even, but profound; In Buddhism, there is probably nothing more basic — foundational — than the 4 Noble Truths. I suppose that is why I return to them over and over again in my own practice, checking in with them, seeing what I have learned, what additional layers of meaning I can find in these simple but profound teachings. Sitting at home one afternoon, pandemic bored, restless, I decided to give them a re-read and re-exploration. I went to access to insight for translations, https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn56/sn56.011.than.html. At the time of this blog (Spring 2020), I saw 2 slightly different readings/interpretations/ ways to approach the path to enlightenment, and I will share them both below.

I do however want to note that by now, May 2022, I have a fresher take on the First Noble Truth, The Origination of Dukka: Recently,  I have come to explore the idea that everything is suffering, rather than that stress and enjoyment come as a pair or that life entails dissatisfaction. This is an evolution in my thinking that we will get to at a later entry in this blog. But I do want to mention it here, first off  to say that this entry is hardly the end-all-be-all of Alana’s deep understanding of the Four Noble truths (or anything at all for that matter). It exemplifies the fact that this blog, my practice, is a work in progress, it is shifting and growing, no entry is, or has been, the final say on a topic, especially not Buddhism’s first, most foundational, topic of the Four Nobel Truths.  Secondly, I wanna fess-up that present day Alana, reading these 2 year old notes, sees they are lacking a perspective that I have recently understood to be essential for practice — everything is stressful, the fact we don’t see it that way is a function of our delusion, not the nature of the world. It is a key culprit in our bondage.   Yet, I still want to share these older thoughts to reflect the stepping stone they are, and to as authentically as possible share the evolution of my practice. Afterall, I wouldn’t have gotten to today’s understanding without yesterday’s.

When I read the Nobel Truths now,  I see 2 possible readings at the same time, and with it 2 slightly different thoughts on how to approach enlightenment:

In the first reading/interpretation I see:

1. Life is stressful
2. Craving is the reason you have life, you crave the good parts, the things you want and so we are born and we perpetuate continual becoming for what we want. But, everything has 2 sides, which means the stuff you want comes with stuff you don’t want, and the don’t want part is super stressful.  In other words life itself, that folks desire so much, comes with stress baked-in.  If you want to avoid stress, you gotta give up the good parts, the stuff you want and like, in order to avoid their shadow side, the stressful parts you don’t want. Seeing the 2 sides, the tuk tok pie in all = getting exhausted by this crap and not wanting any more.
3. Get rid of the craving and get rid of the stress
4 Enter the 8 fold path. ie the tactics of letting go of stress
It is a fair assessment of course, straight forward; good comes with bad, if I don’t want bad forgo good. Done. But in practice, I see my own tenaciousness can be a trap with a perspective like this. The reason is that, even if I know something will be a  lot of work, may suck, may hurt, may cause suffering,  I will do it anyway to get the outcome I want. I don’t give up easily, I will take the bad with good. But as I reread these basic truths I saw a second option/ interpretation as well:
1) Life entails dissatisfaction. The un-satisfactoriness is woven into every aspect of life. Its a basic truth of this world.
2)The cause of dissatisfaction is desire for satisfaction in a world that is fundamentally dissatisfying. Therefore, the intermediary cause of dissatisfaction is the reason I want satisfaction to begin with; I have a wrong view that something I do will enable me to achieve satisfaction in a fundamentally unsatisfactory world.   I don’t understand truth 1 –dissatisfaction is baked-in — and so I have hope, born from my misunderstanding of the world. From hope springs desire. The desire for the illusive (actually impossible) white whale of satisfaction.
3) If I can change my view of the world, if I can understand those 3 common characteristics and give up hope for satisfaction I will give up desire for this world. Afterall, I never really hope for things that I believe to be utterly impossible. I only hope for thing I have seen glimmers of, or had momentary experiences with in the past (in other words, imagination relies on memory).
4) Enter the 8 fold path
With this reading of the Truths, my job is to kill the hope that I will be able to find satisfaction in a dissatisfactory world, I need to convince myself to stop striving for the impossible. Ultimately satisfaction is impossible because:
1: My desire changes — Example: First I wanted the NY home, and then, with more information  about what it was like to live in NY (terrible), I no longer wanted it but was burdened by it. It caused me dissatisfaction.
2: Objects change –Example: When it was working I wanted the Porsche, but when it had to sit in the garage for months and cost me a ton of money to repair I found it dissatisfying.
3: The circumstances change — Example: an SF apartment was great when I can go spend time there, but come the  pandemic and suddenly it was a stressful burden to get rid of.
At the end of the day all it takes is time, inescapable impermanence,  to move anything that is momentarily desirable into a state that is undesirable. And momentarily desirable is simple not satisfying.
Videos Sent By May Yo Part 7

Videos Sent By May Yo Part 7

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On May 25, 2020 Mae Yo sent over another videos for me to view. Unfortunately, the link to the video is no longer active so I will proceed to describe the video and the below will share my thoughts/comments back to Mae Yo:

The Video: The video was a short clip that showed folks using one of those aging apps for the first time. The app shows what the viewer’s face will look like as it ages, quickly fast forwarding from their present day self to an elderly version of themselves. Many of the people shown the app are in pairs, folks that look like couples, or relatives; something that stood out to me was how people as they watched themselves wither and wrinkle and age seemed almost subconsciously to move closer to the person they ere with, grab a hand or clutch an arm. I discuss this feature of the video in the second response.

Alana’s Response to Mae Yo: Since I was a kid, I liked to watch those “makeover” shows: a makeup job, a cosmetic procedure, a haircut or weight loss that makes people look younger/prettier/ thinner. When the before/after pics are dramatic I ooh and ah. I feel satisfied. On some level, it gives me hope of “beating” decline myself. But this video shows the opposite: the before and after shows the aging and decline. I watch each couples’ face– the shock and pain that seems to register–I feel it myself: disgust.

My satisfaction, my belief in what is acceptable only goes one way. I desire one side (youth and beauty) not aging and uglifying. But the reality of this world is the aging video: that is the direction that everything ultimately moves in. Those makeover moments are, just that, moments: small “battles won” in a “war” none of us can ever hope or expect to actually prevail in.

Here in lockdown for 3 months already, my Botox has worn off. I have always taken for granted I can just keep subjugating those wrinkles — a smooth forehead as “proof” that I have this aging thing under control. But I have been focusing on the wrong side — the momentary ‘wins’ — instead of seeing the bigger picture: If I have to keep fighting, if I am constantly plucking and plumping, only to lose ground and sag and wrinkle again, if just a few months kicks me back to the beginning, doesn’t it prove the opposite –I am not in control. I am always just reacting. I am forced to cling to small moments of “hope” instead of zooming out and seeing the truth — I am aging. Everyone of the people in that video aged. Northing I do is going to give me a “pass” or make me an exception. I am just clinging to little blips upwards, single makeover snapshots, to ignore the general trajectory of the line — downwards.

A Second Response From Alana: Same video, different topic — protection from a partner: In the video, I noticed that the pairs, when they see the aging set-in, seem to cling to their partner for support  and comfort in the face of a reminder of their inevitable decline.

When I feel vulnerable, I turn to Eric for support. I call him when I get dressed-down at work. When I feel guilty for losing my temper with my Mom. When I am afraid I am sick. On some level, I think he can save me.

But the truth is, when my Dad died Eric could do nothing to save me. He wasn’t even there since he had to be at work. Back in March, as Covid spread, Eric kept having to go to work in Manhattan. Training in. I was terrified he would get me sick. Why do I think Eric, can save me when he hasn’t before? When in some cases he is a risk?

Could any of those couples spare their partner aging? Then why do I think Eric can help save me?

Videos Sent By May Yo Part 6

Videos Sent By May Yo Part 6

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On May 20, 2020 Mae Yo sent over another videos for me to view. Unfortunately, the link to the video is no longer active so I will proceed to describe the story and the below will share my thoughts/comments back to Mae Yo:

The Story: The video was a comic clip about two friends who while walking down the street see  a wallet fall out of a a guy’s pocket. Friend A picks up the wallet and catches up to the guy who dropped it to give it back. But Friend had wanted to keep the wallet for himself, so Friend B scolds Friend A for returning it to the owner. He says tells him that there is no need to return something that is found, its finder’s keepers, and that he should have kept the wallet.

A few minutes later Friend B is ready to head home but when he looks in his pocket for the keys to his motor bike they’re no where to be found. He asks Friend A for help and together they push the bike many miles, on a dusty road, on a hot day, uphill to get home. After they arrive Friend A reaches into his pocket to get something, and Friend B’s motorcycle keys fall to the ground. Friend A had found them earlier in the day when they had fallen out of Friend B’s pocket.

Friend B starts scolding Friend A, asking how he could have kept the keys the whole time they were walking the bike all the way home. Friend A looks at Friend B and said he thought Friend B had said “finders keepers”, he didn’t want to be scolded again, like he had been with the wallet, so he followed Friend B’s advice and kept the keys for himself.

Alana’s Response to Mae Yo: The story is a classic double standard: in one case (or for a certain person) a behavior, like returning a lost item, is desirable. But in other cases that same exact thing is undesirable.

The other day, I was craving attention from Eric. He was busy working, and I was upset I was being ignored. We ended up having a conversation about it. A few days later, Eric, trying to be a better husband and improve his behavior, was fawning over me. Only then I had work to get done and I felt annoyed to get too much attention.

It got me thinking about why Dukka is inescapable in this world ( I have been doing an exercise every night before sleep where I think of examples of suffering in my day and try to understand the cause). I realize impermanence is key. Things can never be ultimately satisfying because:

1) My desire changes — first I want Eric’s attention and then I don’t. First that guy in the clip wants his friend to keep lost items then he wants his friend to return lost items. If our desires keep changing, how can we stay satisfied in this world?

2) The objects themselves change, when it was working, I loved  the Porsche, but when it had to sit in the garage for months, costing me thousands of dollars in repairs,  I wasn’t so keen on that car. But items themselves break and change, why do I expect to stay satisfied in them?

3) The circumstances out in the world change — having an SF apartment was something I took joy and comfort in just a few months ago, because it made me feel free, I could come and go as I pleased.  But come pandemic time and suddenly it is a stressful burden, it is a shackle not freedom. It is something I had to figure out how to rid myself of, lest I keep paying and paying a monthly rent for a place I can’t even safely get to and use.

At the end of the day all it takes is time to pass and what is satisfying will become unsatisfactory.

What is more, my desires are always limited to one side, to one snapshot of what something is: I want a body, but only a young one, a healthy one. Not a sick or aging one. I want a kitchen, but only in a clean state, not when it is a mess. I want a partner, but only when he is paying attention to me not when I need to pay attention to him. But there is no way to only get one side in this world, both come together. So again, how am I going to ultimately find satisfaction?

I realize everything I do in this world is a quest for satisfaction. So to stop, I think I need to kill the hope that satisfaction is something I can own and achieve.

A Second Response From Alana: Another angle on the same story: The thing that does stay the same is “what’s good for me”. In the video, keeping is good if it’s good for the guy. Keeping is bad if it is bad for him. Eric’s attention is good when it is good for me, bad when it annoys me. The Porsche was awesome when it ran smoothly for me, and it sucked when it broke and I had to pay money and take the bus everywhere while it took months to repair…

But each story is proof the world doesn’t revolve around me. Eric gives attention on his time, for his reasons, in accordance to his ‘rules’ . The Porsche worked not when it was convenient for me, but according to the rules of its rupa, when the parts were all in a state that made the car run. In the video, the guy’s friend returned according to his own beliefs and understanding, not in accordance with what the guy thought was best.

If ‘satisfaction’ equals ‘ what works for me’ where can it be found in a world that doesn’t operate on the rules of what works for me?

A Third Response From Alana: One more thought on this topic: if “what is good for me” is my definition of satisfaction, and this world is not going to just do “what is good for me” then, on some level, the ME is the source of my dissatisfaction.  Me/mine is the standard that keeps being the cause of my disappointment. Put more succinctly: if Alana wants what Alana thinks is good for Alana all the time. All the suffering that comes when Alana doesn’t get what she thinks is good for her is Alana’s fault. The cause of my suffering is me.

A Forth Response From Alana:   Ok one more one more, but on a totally different topic: unintended consequence monster –when the guy scolds the friend for giving back the cash he obviously thinks he is doing the right thing, the best thing for himself and his buddy. But then, the unintended consequences monster rears its ugly head when his friend doesn’t return the keys.

This monster plagues my life — in small stuff: the face product that was great till the breakout, the car that was great till the garage bill, the chairs that were great till they required an entire room resign to fit. The monster comes with the big stuff too — a move to NY that was so great, so ripe with promise and adventure till I was utterly miserable.

I’m always acting. Always calculating the best outcome for Alana. But the problem is I don’t ever see the shadow side of my choices till the unintended consequences monster comes along. Even if I had the absolute control I dream of, I couldn’t escape the unpleasantness that comes along with getting exactly the thing that I want.

 



							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		Videos Sent By May Yo Part 5

					

				Videos Sent By May Yo Part 5
			

		
				

			
 
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About a month and a half into Covid lockdowns Mae Yo again sent over a series of videos/images for me to view. I will once again share the media she sent (or descriptions in cases  I am unable to find the videos again) as well as my thoughts and replies.






 




Thoughts on the Fighter: Even at the top of the worldly conditions, life is a struggle. A struggle to get to the top, a pain to be there and a struggle all over again at the next round of fighting.


Just yesterday I was contemplating that during this pandemic, I have it “as good as it gets” — Eric and I have jobs we can safely do from home, we are financially secure, we aren’t trying to care for small children or deal with too many additional health issues. Still, I live in fear that I will get sick. Fear that Eric will need to go back to work in Manhattan and get sick. Daily errands have become a struggle. I am stressed, restless at home, feel helpless to support my friends and family in their struggles. And this is ‘ as good as it gets’.


I have persisted to this point. Where is success? Where is a world, even a little corner of it, that will bow to my control?


Which brings me to the oxen: It seems to be strolling along easy, painted beautifully, but it is still clearly tethered, leashed or nose ringed, bound by someone outside the video frame.


It makes me think of my own subject-hood. The fact that I am bound by the rules of Rupa, even if those are outside of the “frame” I pay attention to on a day-to-day basis.


As a human, I am subject to viruses. To disease and death. Even at the top, striding easy, or beautiful, I am still bound. None of these things protect me from the rules of this world.


For lifetimes I have worked to get to the top. To have ease, to have beauty, to have success. What measure I have of those things, temporarily, is still not a refuge from disease and death.


Mae Yo’s reply: Excellent Alana! Keep thinking along these lines. Look outward and internalize inward. Scold and teach yourself, but also comfort yourself that being born a human it is the only realm where we have a choice. Having already been born in the human world, take advantage of it.




							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		Pandemic Ponderings Remix

					

				Pandemic Ponderings Remix
			

		
				

			
 
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The blog below was published back in May 2020. I did however want to re-publish it here, in the correct chronology of this blog. I hope that being contextualized in time with its contemporary contemplations offers a fresh perspective on this remix…




The other day, a friend (who incidentally is Buddhist-curious, but not a practicing Buddhist), asked me what my musings were during these crazy Covid times. When I re-read the email I wrote her, I decided I wanted to share it here, on my blog. Now. While this whole pandemic thing is still  a fresh,  shared reality for all of us. I want to share it because, it is not at all technical, there is no Pali jargon, no difficult Buddhisty concepts. This is just the raw, real, reflections of scared-as-shit-there-is -a-fucking-pandemic-Alana…


Blah blah (personal conversation with a friend)…I am bored and edgy though for sure, given that health anxiety and hypochondria are my native fears, a pandemic is definitely a hot button issue to say the least. But, as you have guessed, its certainly a time and a topic ripe for musing…


As a little recap: Buddhism 101: Everything in this world is impermanent, things arise based on causes and when those causes are exhausted, those things cease to exist. Suffering arises because our understanding of the world is misaligned with this truth of impermanence. We don’t understand the nature of this world, so we are constantly hoping and expecting that we can somehow keep what we love forever and avoid what we hate forever. We don’t see that the cycles of arising and ceasing are the law of the land, we are mere subjects, not all powerful sovereigns.


In general,  I like to think I can control my life; with enough gym time or diet restraint I can guarantee my health,  with enough hard work, or money or intelligence I can perfectly plan my future. But a  pandemic is one hell of a bitch slap to my control. The truth is, as a human, I am subject to viruses — their physical nature is to consume humans and my physical nature, as a human, is to be consumed. In fact, the nature of all things in this world is to consume and be consumed, this is one of the faces of impermanence.  Of course, some humans have circumstances that make them more prone to being consumed and to suffering worse health outcomes — there are health considerations, economic considerations, livelihood considerations — but at the end of the day, all humans are subject. The lie I tell myself, that I am special, that some quality or behavior will make me exempt, is laid pretty bare by the fact that I have to be locked down, going stir crazy, in my fucking apartment.


This, of course, is not the future I foretold back when I started planning out my year in Jan. I felt utterly blindsided by this mess. I feel sorrow and horror and fear when I read the news, when I hear about neighbors who have fallen ill and so many friends who have lost jobs and businesses — it all seems wrong and unfair.  But the misconception that lurks beneath these feelings is that this world was going to continue the way it had been going. That April 2020 was going to be, more-or-less, like April 2019, and 2018, and 2017 and 2016…I was lulled by relative repetition (or rather scenarios similar enough that my mind easily glossed the differences and paid attention only to similarities) into forgetting the true ruler of this world — impermanence. All of my consternation is because on some level I feel like the world is broken, like it needs to ‘go back to the way it was’, to be fixed. But this isn’t a state of brokenness at all, this is exactly how and what the world is. What is broken is me, with my hope and expectation that it should somehow be different.


(This friend of mine has to move for work a lot and…)on one of our last outings in SF, you pointed to the unkempt sidewalk and some of the dilapidation in our old hood and you shared that one of your tricks to preparing your heart to leave a place/ to letting go of an old home, was to start paying attention to the negatives. This little trick of yours, bringing balance to your view so as to lessen your attachment, is 100% the same method that practitioners use to achieve Nirvana (freedom from all future rebirths).  Everything in this world has 2 sides (this is another face of impermanence). We humans are generally conditioned to notice the side we like and ignore/forget/minimize/justify the one we don’t.  We fool ourselves into thinking that the side we like is the  ‘normal’ state and that which we don’t is the outlier…if only we plan or control or hedge we can avoid such outliers all together. This hope is the fodder for desire to be born into this world. Gathering evidence to see the full picture, that what we love comes hand and hand with what we hate, is the fodder for freedom from this world. I love community, connection, togetherness but it comes hand in hand with contagion and disease…


So, just a few of my thoughts on all this crazy shit. Lets just hope this global pandemic is my (rude) awakening indeed ;).


							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		The Incredible Mrs. Fix-It

					

				The Incredible Mrs. Fix-It
			

		
				

			
 
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I walk into the kitchen to grab a snack and notice a puddle on the floor. Not thinking too much of it, I wipe it up and go on with my day. A few hours later, I head to the kitchen again and once again, there is a puddle on the floor. This time, a quick investigation reveals the puddle-making culprit – the freezer is leaking…


In ‘normal’ times, I would have just called my landlord and waited for her to schedule a repairman. But this is Covid times, when I have a stockpile of emergency food I don’t want to risk melting. When the idea of a repair person in my safe-covid-free home conjures up images from Outbreak. No…in these crazy times, I am going to try to fix the fridge myself.


Armed with youtube, duct tape and a tool kit, I got to work. Much to my surprise, a few hours later, I had actually fixed the fridge. I was elated. CRISIS AVERTED! I felt like The Incredible Mrs. Fix-It. I grabbed a nice, cold, snack out of the fridge to celebrate my victory.


Later that night, while I was lying in bed, I began to consider the broken fridge situation further. I was so happy that I was able to fix it. I felt so relieved, empowered, that I had been able to keep myself and my stuff safe. Frankly, I felt like a badass, like an on-top-and-in-control Alana, who is a crafty, prepared, master of her own universe, that can stay a step ahead, that can stay safe.


But these feelings, they belie a glaring truth: If I was so on-top-and-in-control, of my life, or my stuff, how on earth did my fridge break in the first place? If I am so special, badass, if my skill or preparations or craftiness really kept me safe, why am I cowering at home afraid of a tiny virus?


I use my small victories – moments where circumstances align with my wishes, moments where I ‘fix’ things or force them into states I want – as proof to sell myself the lie that I am somehow special, that the world, or at least my corner of it, will obey me, confirm me, keep me safe. But I am taking the wrong message away from these instances: In a world that bowed to me, the fridge never would have needed fixing because it simply wouldn’t break (and it sure as hell wouldn’t break in the middle of a pandemic, when I rely on it most, when fixing it involves such peril).  In a world that bowed to me, I wouldn’t need to avoid a virus because my body would remain unbroken.


The real message should be that there is no safety being dependent on things that are unreliable. There is no mastery or greatness in having to duck and dodge the impermanence and danger inherent in this world.  I am vulnerable, like all people, like all objects. Crap I need failing me, leaving me hanging, does not a badass make.


							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		Amazon Oh Amazon Please Don’t Be Out Of Stock, If I Can’t Depend on You I am Totally Fucked

					

				Amazon Oh Amazon Please Don’t Be Out Of Stock, If I Can’t Depend on You I am Totally Fucked
			

		
				

			
 
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I was trolling on Amazon, hoping to find those precious pandemic goods — toilet paper, disinfectants, hand sanitizer — to add to my stash. Out of stock, out of stock, out of stock, is all I kept encountering. Frustrated that good ole’ dependable Amazon just couldn’t be depended on anymore to bring me the stuff I want, the stuff I NEED, I got to thinking about an old Amazon inspired contemplation I had had years ago that really helped me understand that I have no control in this world; I simply have the illusion of control (here is the blog entry if you want a look:  Amazon oh Amazon Bring Me My Box).






The issue I came to recognize in that old contemplation was rearing its ugly head again:  I see particular reasons, manifest through rupa, and have pattern recognition — X set of reasons will likely yield Y set of results. The problem is that this equation is born out in/processed through my memory and imagination, not in reality. For some amount of time this ‘pattern recognition’ can be close enough to predictive that it feeds the ego. It reinforces my memory and imagination and makes me believe that I am omniscient.




I hit the order button I get the Amazon box. I hit the order button I get the Amazon box, I hit the button I get the Amazon box… Because I don’t see all the innerworkings between button and box, suddenly I think I am the cause, or at least a partial cause, or at least that I know what the world will bring – a box. Even when I didn’t get a box, I considered it an outlier, not evidence of my flawed vision of the relationship between button and box.. Not of my incomplete understanding of that supply chain, of its vulnerability, of the tiny discrepancies that occurred each time.










Now we are in a pandemic. A shift, a new world order so drastically different than what I remember came before simple isn’t  all that predictive at all; now it is becoming more common that when I hit the button I don’t get a box. That something is out of stock. That transport is delayed. Suddenly the patterns I thought I recognized deviate so much from my past experience that it lays bare the truth that I can’t possibly control this world, it isn’t going how I want it to, hell, I couldn’t even have predicted it going the way that it has. How do you prepare for the unpredictable? And if you can’t prepare, what hope is there for control?






When I consider the pandemic more broadly I realize there are reasons in the 4e virus and human bodies, reasons for government response, reasons for healthcare abilities and limitations. So many reasons that come together to result in this pandemic and its effects on society. I don’t want to be locked at home. I don’t want to get sick. I don’t want other folks to suffer. But how on earth can I expect to overcome all the reasons that led to these results? I can’t even create the reasons to acquire the toilet paper I need — I keep trying to hit a button, but Amazon has no boxes to bring me.




 Before this pandemic, my contemplations had started gelling around the idea that the past is gone. The particular alignment of reasons that brought about the past are gone. I am imagining the future, hoarding and relying upon particular objects I believe will help bring the future about, or make me better prepared for it, all based on pattern recognition ( memory) of the past. In theory I understood that the whole enterprise relied on the future being like the past. But this pandemic situation is theory turned big hairy undeniable reality. The world is different. Mundane shit I took for granted a few weeks ago is gone. It’s making me reevaluate everything I think is dependable. All the “facts” I take for granted.




It’s playing out in the littlest details of life … I thought the new makeup I bought before all this was so valuable, makeup has served me well in the past. But haha, how could I have possibly planned to be banned from seeing other people for weeks on end. Guess that makeup just took up space I could have used for toilet paper in my shopping cart. It’s playing out in the big stuff too… I tend to think of Eric as someone who protects me, that is a fundamental quality of a partner to me. But at the beginning of this thing, Eric was still going into work in Manhattan: He was doing the opposite of what I think a partner does, in this new world order, he was putting me at risk. It’s a daily barrage of shit I thought was true turning out to be totally different then what I thought.






 All that, and the innate suffering of trying to rely on what is, by nature, not reliable, I’m pointing a finger at you here Amazon, but I am also pointing a finger at me: I peg my whole hope of Alana-the-identity on a physical construct, a body, that is subject to being consumed by viruses. The pandemic has a way of proving that if I am hoping to rely on this body, I am totally fucked.


















							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		Pandemic Ponderings

					

				Pandemic Ponderings
			

		
				

			
 
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I want to introduce a new chapter in this blog, Pandemic Ponderings, that began from around February 2020, when Covid-19 really burst on the scene.  It isn’t so much that my contemplations on rupa had wound themselves to an end. Rather it was that a huge ugly monster –a global pandemic — had entered, stage left, and there was no possible way for it not to have a huge impact on my dharma contemplations, including those specifically on form.


In one way, of course, Covid was a huge change; before the end of 2019 Covid 19 hadn’t been an infectious disease in the human population, and then suddenly it began to spread, and with that spread there was a huge shift in this world, in our collective existence and in my own personal life. In another way though, the world hadn’t really changed at all — a rupa world is one in which rupa is constantly shifting, decaying, consuming and being consumed — this was never a world where I, as a rupa being, could be safe. It was never a world I could depend on. The pandemic simply made what was already true glaringly obvious.


This next chapter represents my ponderings in the shadow of the Covid Pandemic. To kick us off, I will share a short Line chat with Mae Neecha from February 26th, 2020.




MN: Maybe focus on the four elements and decay? If your attachment to your body is a big issue, then understanding the truth of the 4 elements and rupa could be the key.


AD: I think you are correct. 4es, decay and duration seem to be most helpful for me in loosening stuff right now.  I have also been trying to train myself to see the relationship between cause and effect more clearly, but it is less organic. Maybe I will set that aside for a little and really ground myself in Rupa and impermanence…those two topics feel very strong to me.


MN: I like rupa contemplations because they are super straightforward and factual. What you see is what you get. There isn’t so much room for interpretation


AD: Well…no time like a global pandemic to contemplate on the 4es and decay. The nature of this world is seriously laying itself bare right now. Needless to say pandemic illness is a real hot button for me…as I follow the news I can’t help but feel like for all the meaning I lay onto things in my life, the bottom line is every thing in this world, things I hold dear and things I despise, they are all made up of the same 4es. Constantly shifting, decaying, consuming and being consumed. That is the world I am so enamored with. These are the things I depend on to build a life…things that are fundamentally not dependable.


MN: This lovely world can turn into a nightmare overnight. Pollution or corona virus like epidemics can turn all those lovely things into death and nightmares. There is nowhere to hide for those of us comprised on 4es


AD: I hear you. It is true…and I’m starting to feel it. Nothing like a disaster to hammer it home I guess.


MN: It’s a major disaster… an undeniable danger. But we are living in a nightmare every day, corona virus or not. Only, we don’t realize it


AD: Years ago, I talked to you about a book — A Thousand Splendid Suns… mainly about the shit-show life of 2 women in Afghanistan married to an abusive guy. A sticking point in that book has stayed with me…one of the women, Laila had a perfectly good life, a supportive liberal family, an education, till the war broke out. A bomb killed her parents and that is how she found herself in the situation of needing to marry the abuser.  I was struck that it didn’t seem right/fair/ it scared me that everything could be A ok and then go south so fast. Obviously it’s a huge fear of mine. The thing my Alana-made-up-exceptionalism is seeking to hedge against. But … when I am being honest with myself ( rare moments indeed) the world, with it’s virus or pollution or war, make it clear there is no true hedge.


I love to get sidelined with the “but, but, but”. With the ways I am different, with how I can control, or build good karma or manage my body, or be mindful of the circumstances I put myself in. But these ‘buts’ take me further from the ultimate truth. They are places my mind likes to hide and I think sometimes I even use my Dharma practice as a but. That is why I think your recommendation of 4es and decay (plus my duration and impermanence add on) is so powerful — so there is no but to hide behind. I can wash my hands religiously, keep a stock of masks and hand sanitizer, stay fit and take those vitamins, but in the end there are no guarantees.  If the folks closest to me get sick, if I am exposed, if my immune system sputters, if all the ifs that need to come together to get sick in my case do in  fact come together, I’ll get sick. The reason is simple…a 4e virus is capable of traveling via air and water, existing for some time on solids, active at the right temperatures. My 4e body is susceptible to that 4e virus. It can move (wind) through my blood, attack the solids in my lungs, raise my temperature, shift the balance of my own 4es such that I get ill. In this world there is consuming and being consumed. A 4e body is ripe for consumption and a virus is a formidable consumer.


MN: Yes, exactly! This is why LP Thoon emphasized the need to spend 50% contemplation time on rupa and 50% on nama. We need the undeniable rupa to bring home the truth. To ground our nama fantasies.


AD: Well pandemics seem good for my practice…after all h1N1 homeless Alana story was what kicked off my path ..so keep your fingers crossed for me…


							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		There is Nothing Satisfying About a Glass House

					

				There is Nothing Satisfying About a Glass House
			

		
				

			
 
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Eric and I decided to take a day trip up to the ‘country’; we went to visit a little town in Northern Connecticut where a famous Manhattan architect, Philip Johnson, had built his getaway home, The Glass House. The home, as the name suggested, was a midcentury style glass box,  surrounded by other architectural marvels, nestled in lush woods. The place was stunning — a home, and a setting, on which fantasies are built.


We joined a tour to learn a bit more about the architect and the history of the home. The docent explained that Johnson would spend 3 days a week at The Glass House and then return to Manhattan for the other 4 days to live in his NY apartment and work. When visitors to The Glass House asked about how he could ever want to leave, he explained he was always ready to go back to NY because the boredom of the country was too much by day 3, and always ready to head to the country because the stress of NY was too much by day 4.


On the face of it, it seemed like this architect had the prefect arrangement, he had managed to build himself a perfect life. In my own plans, I was working toward a similar arrangement: Eric and I want to retire with a country home and a city home, we want to split our time between two places that stimulate us in different ways. This is what drives us, it is the reason we endure Eric’s abusive jobs, why we scrimp and save and endure living arrangements and cities we hate.


The more I thought about it though, the more troubled I was by Johnson’s reply: If the country home had been satisfying why did he feel compelled to rush off to the city just days after getting there? If the city were satisfying why was he eager to escape to the country in another few days time? This wasn’t the perfect life, it was a life filled with longing, with restlessness and boredom — a life that wherever you are, somewhere else soon seems better. Is this really a life I want to emulate?


In my imagination, if I just have 2 homes I can travel between them and find fulfillment.  But the fact I always want more, to seek out new places, to have second homes, to move and travel, is a pretty big hint —  what the pattern tells me is I’m not satisfied. None of the many particular living arrangements I  have had to date, (one of which actually included 3 homes) has managed to satisfy me, so why would they start to be satisfying at some future fantasy date?


 


							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		So is it MINE?

					

				So is it MINE?
			

		
				

			
 
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Seeing a homeless person on the street on my way to work, I decided on a different path, one that let me steer clear of the guy and his panhandling. It annoys me so much to feel pressured to produce change, to give just because I am asked; the truth is, I don’t think those random homeless folks  deserve my money. Of course, this begs another question — why do I feel I deserve my money?  Is the money even really ‘mine’?


When it comes to money (or stuff, or good fortune, or love, or success) I know I deserve it because I have it.  That part is pretty straight forward and clearly true: If you experience a result, the causes for that result have  been put in place, in other words,  I ‘deserve’ the result.  But the problems begin when I see the reasons, or the results, of my getting money as proof it is mine. This ignores that reasons — causes — are always changing. Just because today reflects yesterday’s causes it doesn’t guarantee a particular future. If the future is uncertain, if my state and my stuff can change, can leave me, at any time, can it truly be MINE?


A few weeks ago, Eric was negotiating to get his contract at work renewed, there were a few days when it looked like terms might not be settled on and that Eric would end-up out of a job in 2 weeks time. For those few days,  I stressed and worried over our money and financial security. I realized if it can be gone tomorrow, disappear at any time irrespective of my needs or desires, it was never really something I could rely on at all. So is it MINE?




I think money will save me. Keep me safe. Buy me a future. That is why I desire it. It is why I seek to own it. The belief that once it’s ‘mine’ it will act as I want. It will stay with me.  But does it act as I want simple because I say I  own it? I worry constantly about my investment accounts ,or inflation, or not having enough in retirement, if my money was actually going to do what I wanted I wouldn’t need to worry about it at all. Does it make me safe? Did my move to NY –which certainly made me richer — make me better off and happier? Does money protect against disease? Death?




The money I have I certainly deserve, but it doesn’t mean or do what I want it to. It can’t buy me a future, I don’t even know if I will have it in the future,  all  the causes that give rise to my wealth can become exhausted at any time. Everything and every cause eventually becomes exhausted. Money also doesn’t do what I think it does –it doesn’t buy safety, or security, or happiness, it is simply a currency with which to pay for worldly objects and experiences. I can’t depend on money to be there for me, nor depend on it to do what I want it to do: In the end, if I can’t depend on something, is it really mine?






							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		Rupa+Nama =Atta

					

				Rupa+Nama =Atta
			

		
				

			
 
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Eric and I decided to do a spa day at a fancy hotel in Miami. As we entered through the spa doors it felt like we were transported to a Spanish palace garden– a candle-lit courtyard dotted with lush trees, surrounding a fountain. A deep wave of relaxation washed over me, I hadn’t even had a spa treatment yet and I was already feeling as pampered as royalty. And then, suddenly I “sobered-up” and realized we were still indoors. My mind recoiled a bit, everything about the scene was so familiar –reminiscent of the perfect Spanish garden — even though I knew we never walked out of the building, I had mentally processed the place as being outdoors. I had processed it as a place of luxury and comfort and royal pampering, like the countless historic castles I had visited in Spain. My eyes saw familiar trappings– rupa — and my memory and imagination (nama)  filled-in “realities” that weren’t actually real. I had literally caught my mind in the act of  manufacturing meaning in my surroundings, and then getting me to swallow my made-up fantasy, even with abundant evidence  (like never leaving the building) that proved those fantasies as false.




All this got me to think about some of the other places I manufacture meaning in rupa:  I convince myself cleanliness =safety even though plenty of dangerous things can happen in a clean place. I convince myself that being fed hot food means someone loves me, even though every restaurant is in the business of serving up food not love. And then of course is the issue of this body — a shifting aggregation of elements that somehow I have pegged as “me” and “mine” despite all evidence to the contrary.






For months now I have tried to ‘sober-up’ my mind , to understand this body isn’t mine. That it is a 4e object that belongs to this world. That it is not special, that it can’t prove I am special. That I don’t control it, that I can’t rely on it, that ultimately it will go its way and I will go mine. Still, despite all this evidence, I cling to this body and I can’t even figure out exactly why I do. It is a body that causes pain, that embarrasses me, that I worry about and stress over constantly, still I can’t divorce skin suit from the identity of Alana. Now, though, upon seeing the way my mind manufactures meaning in/from objects I am starting to understand why I can’t just ‘let go’ of the body– this body is part of the Alana construct. I need the body for the meaning I overlay onto it. No body, no Alana.




 For so long I have thought about rupa and I have thought about nama, but separately. Now I see that that it is nama and rupa together that create atta, they create my sense of an Alana self. More specifically, nama, overlays the Alana identity onto this body. So of course I want it to be pretty, healthy, alive — the body it is bound to the construct of who and what I think I am. Because I love “Alana” I cling to this skin suit.




Once I assume a body is Alana, or at least the scaffolding that holds an Alana together, I have to start assuming that body is somehow special. My mind uses mental gymnastics that I have seen play out again and again (See Past Blog on The Relationship Between Desire, Clinging, Mine and Self for a more in-depth dive of the mechanics) whereby I claim this as mine, or in this case sorta ‘me’, and with that label I ‘read’ in a meaning of special so that I can conveniently ignore the evidence that this body, like every other body, will decay and decline and is liable to disappear at any moment. Afterall, no one wants an object –better yet one they build an identity off of –that can just up and  leave them  at any  moment.








All this special-bull-shit-delusion is to make this entire endeavor of being and birthing and becoming seem like it has a point, like it isn’t just futile. But no matter what my mind reads into the body, into the world, the efforts to become really are futile because the reality I am choosing to ignore is the reality of annicca (impermanence) .  This body is subject to impermanence, to dissolution and decay —  it is in fact the ticking timebomb that insures that my carefully curated Alana construct will one of these days implode. Rupa+Nama may= Atta, but the truth of this world is anatta. The truth in an indoor room, an uncertain future, no matter what meaning my mind manufactures, no matter what illusions my imagination cooks up. I just need to keep pushing my mind to sober-up.






							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		The Peril of Being Born for What I Love

					

				The Peril of Being Born for What I Love
			

		
				

			
 
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I was on vacation in Japan, sitting in a hot spring bath and thinking about something LP Thoon said in the sermon I was editing — he said we are reborn for the things that satisfy us, that we love and are enamored with. I realized that my own experiences clearly bear this out, that even in this life I can find the proof that this statement is true, that I really do keep coming back to/for the things I love, that I think will satisfy me. My relationship with San Francisco is the perfect example:




After I moved away to NY I longed for my old life back in San Francisco. I suffered miserably from my loss and plotted ways to get back.  First I took a job that allowed me to spend frequent time there. Then I pushed Eric to begin to interview with Bay Area companies to get a job that would allow us to move back again. I searched and worked, I leveraged knowledge and relationships, I allocated money and resources, all in an effort to be “reborn” back in SF –to return to a life that at one point I felt had satisfied me, that I had loved.




But when I look at the San Francisco example, the problems of craving particular ‘rebirths’ based on what once satisfied me, and what I am enamored with, quickly come into focus. The first problem is that just 3 short years after I left San Francisco, it is already clear that the city has changed drastically. Fires have become more frequent and ruined the air quality, costs have gone up, crime and homeless problems  have grown worse, many of my friends have gotten fed-up with it and have left. The thing that I long for, that I am enamored with, doesn’t even exist anymore: It isn’t San Francisco of today that I love, it is some idealized form –from my memory– of past San Francisco.  If I really were to start a new life in San Francisco now, it would be a different, and much more difficult, one than what I had left. So much so that frankly, I don’t even want it any more.




The second problem is that if I am being honest with myself, I left San Francisco originally because I wanted something more. I wanted new and different. I already saw the problems of cost and homelessness and crime and I thought I could do better elsewhere. The San Francisco I swear up and down satisfied  me, that I would be happy in if I could just get back there, really didn’t satisfy me, otherwise I never would have left in the first place. I am chasing, being reborn for, a fantasy –the false memory of satisfaction in a place that doesn’t even exist anymore.




As I sat in that hot tub, that 30 minutes ago had felt like heaven, I noticed I was starting to get uncomfortably warm. I realized that the seeds for my discomfort, getting too hot, were built into the experience of crawling into the tub seeking comfort in the first place. Any comfort I did find was inseparable from the discomfort I was now feeling, at issue was simply a question of when exactly that discomfort would show up. Any comfort I had had in my San Francisco life came with the discomfort I had when I left it, when I longed for it, when I compared NY to it and found NY so deeply disappointing. The comfort was the cause of my hard work, and squandering of hard earned resources and relationships, as I tried to orchestrate a return/rebirth. It was the reason I suffered when I was there again, caught in a fire during a work trip, and left struggling for months afterwards (even after returning to the North East) with out of control asthma and breathing issues. Any pleasure I got from my SF life is hopelessly intertwined with the suffering it caused; just like with the hot tub, all I had to do was wait and the suffering side inevitably showed-up.




What LP Thoon said is true, I am reborn for the things I think satisfy me, that I love. But that rebirth doesn’t guarantee I will be reunited with what I love, that thing has already changed and so have I. It doesn’t guarantee I will be satisfied, if SF had really been so satisfying, why did I leave in the first place? What it does guarantee however is suffering: The suffering to acquire that new life, the suffering that I find in it, the suffering to maintain it, the suffering worrying about loosing it, the suffering when I lose it, the suffering of the standards it sets –driving me to get it again in a new place, with a new life, that starts the cycle all over again. Any comfort I have must go hand-in-hand with suffering.




My problem is I discount the suffering, fixating instead on what I find enjoyable. Mae Yo once asked how I ignore the background noise (which in this case I take to mean the suffering) and it is a question I come back to over and over again. I suppose, I just ignore it. I tune it out because I am so used to it that the suffering has become  normal. The moments of pleasure (or extreme loss) are the things that stand out, they are the change in tune.




Now, years later, Feb 2022 (this original contemplation was end of 2019) I have spent months contemplating on the topic that everything is suffering. Not just that suffering goes hand-in-hand with pleasure, but that everything is really suffering. We live in a noisy world, there is constant noise, sometimes less and sometimes more. Tune, pitch, quality of sound may change, but there is , as Mae Yo says, always noise. We simply learn to tune it out much of the time. Just so, we live in a dukka world, there is constant suffering. There is change in type and intensity, but it is always there, even if we choose to ignore it, even if we come to think of it as normal.  No matter the satisfaction we imagine awaits us, birth into this world is birth into a world of suffering and so we suffering accordingly. This is the peril of birth for what I love.




							


	

			




						
							



	
		
	
	
	
		The Precarious Tower to No Where

					

				The Precarious Tower to No Where
			

		
				

			
 
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I had a dream/vision –one of those almost asleep , but still awake and thinking states that can be a real boon to practice. In it I saw a huge tower of stuff –my stuff– piled high, like bricks, but precariously balanced. I felt like it might topple at anytime. There were physical items like clothes, cars, pictures, people, jewelry, money, my body. There were also items that represented more abstract stuff, my college diploma that stood in for my knowledge and skills, office items that stood in for my career experience, all sorts of workout equipment for my physical training  and prowess. Each layer was set upon the one below it, dependent on what was below for stability. The tower was wobbly though, and I found myself running around trying to patch holes and make repairs; I felt panic knowing that it was so fragile, tired out by the unending need to  patch and fix.


When I got myself back to being fully awake, I thought about the tower more. I realized my whole life is like this –continually building and acquiring, in order to support this body, to have enjoyment, to become the alana I want to be. But if any object, if any layer of my past accomplishments fail, the whole structure I have built is at risk.  It is so stressful to worry about the inevitable collapse. It is so exhausting to tend and to build. And as soon as my body dies, the tower will crumble to the ground in an instant, no matter what height it had soared to before.


Once this body is gone, all I worked so hard for, the objects, the degrees, the professional skills, the relationships I have nurtured, the fitness and beauty, it is just gone. My accomplishments are useless in my next endeavor, I am unrecognizable to friends, my savings are left behind. When this body dies Alana is game over and I need to start the tedious, exhausting process of building it all from scratch over again.  This is the problem with relying on rupa –rupa is unreliable.


I saw from this dream how burdensome it really is to build the life I do, how stressful and, brief, the fruits I enjoy from my labors really are. It was a little spur, a motivation to keep pushing on my practice so I don’t have to persist in building precarious towers to nowhere only to watch them collapse over and over again.


 


 


							


	

			




						
							
	
					
					

				


				


			

			
             
        

        
	

	
	


		                   
		

		
			
		
	
        
        
        		
		
			
			
	     	
     		
				
		
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