Alana's Dharma Blog

Like the phone strap, this body is not mine.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This Phone Strap is Not Mine

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

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

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

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

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

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

And is something inconstant stressful or easeful?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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This Computer is Not Mine

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Waiting for more information from the doctors, waiting for a diagnosis, waiting for the symptoms of illness to set in, waiting to get sick and die, I got to thinking more about what exactly autoimmunity is and how it is an illness that fits my own brand of crazy…

What is autoimmunity — it is my own body attacking myself. It fits. It fits my personality. I am so harsh and unaccepting, of others, but especially of myself. It is part of my effort to curate who I am, to curate a world that I find acceptable to live in. I forcefully reject what is unacceptable in an effort to define not me, not how things should be. I use self control, and discipline, and self loathing, to force me to be more of what I want to be. Just look at my old gym routines and dieting, my extreme efforts to be a fit-not-fat-alana and you, I, can see just what kind of person I am.

A note from present-day-alana (April, 2023):

In recent years, the concept of ‘arbitrariness’ has, over time, become a core point of contemplation in my practice. As I consider the idea of ‘identity’, where it arises from, and, ultimately its hollowness, considering arbitrariness has been a key tool for me. Afterall, if the characteristics we choose to build our uniqueness – our identity— from are just arbitrarily selected, could have been anything, THIS OR THAT depending on the circumstances, can we really claim that the identity we have built is inherent and absolute?

Is my identity really so damn special if I just choose characteristics arbitrarily, choose the meaning I assigned to them arbitrarily, and then arbitrarily claim I possess those characteristics and therefore I am a certain thing? What is arbitrary is just a random choice, a personal whim, it is meaningless. The identities we build –that seem so solid and important to us – could have just as easily been something else if the stars had aligned, if that is what we had selected, and curated, and convinced ourselves of. There is nothing so special about what we chose, what we believe ourselves to be. There is no significance to an arbitrarily constructed ‘alana’.

But, I am getting waaaaaayyyyy ahead of myself here. We will, I promise, in due time circle back…I offer this introduction only to highlight just how important, and nuanced, a tool ‘arbitrary’ has become for me, because this blog here is going to share one of my earliest, nascent considerations of the idea of arbitrariness.

It all started because I had sent a brief line to Mae Neecha, sharing a bit about my recent contemplation efforts on the 5 aggregates of clinging, and asking for a bit of clarification about #5, consciousness. Something Mae Neecha said in passing really got my wheels turning. She said:

“Basically, it is a process that relies on arbitrary permanence (choose A or B – there’s no real meaning) and then builds upon that uncertain foundation (well, last time you chose A so since you’re familiar with A, let’s choose A again… over and over until you “become” A)”.

Below are the contemplations spurred on by her comment:

On Mae Neecha’s point that the creation of self-starts with some arbitrary ‘choice’:

I was thinking it is like moving to SF. I moved, once I was there, I came to identify with it. It became me, me an SFer. When I left, I was devastated, losing a part of me. And in NY I hated it because it was so ‘not me’.

Birth in a body is much the same way, I end-up in a body, just as I ended up in the city of SF, and over time it becomes who I am. I am defined by the body, I imagine that it manifests me, that I have a specific future with it. The thought of leaving it is painful.

Of course, from my current perspective, it is hard to see the ‘choice’ that went into my body, but in other circumstances, the choice is more clear. For example, I shop for homes, I buy one with architecture, or location, that reflect me, my preferences, who I think I am. I choose features I think will bring me comfort. In the selection process I imagine a future with the home, a future I believe the home will bring about (note to self alana: this didn’t work too great with the Manhattan loft or the country home in Connecticut).

If you have the resources, you can pick a home, one you believe reflects you. One that conjures an imaginary future you like. Of course, with less resources, you have less choice. With a body, this is likely how a transgender person is born into a “home” they don’t see as reflecting them (trans folks are the perfect example of how the 4e body really doesn’t manifest our imagined version of our self –I have used the idea of being trans in several contemplations about if our body can ever really reflect our identity).

Of course, even in a case of less resources, the identity built, and the objects selected to reflect that identity, are still arbitrary. Based on old aggregates, which were also arbitrary. Like the study of kids broken up into blue and brown eyes and told blue eyed kids are inferior and brown eyed kids superior: Before the study, the physical trait existed, but there was no identity. But the identity was planted, and then the trait used to prove it. Just like with the beaver dam (you can read the beaver contemplation here): I am the one who chooses which trait to focus on. I am the one that assigns one meaning over another. It truly is arbitrary. Worse, I don’t just choose the trait, the rupa, to identify me with, I choose a particular state of rupa, 1 arrangement in the continual shifting of a form that is optimally me/mine. And when rupa shifts past that peak state, I am stressed and saddened.

I call something mine. Mine is in my mind and not the object: At KPY one time I saw a ladder with a post-it note that read, “Mine not yours”. The writer was claiming the ladder. But every reader, from their perspective, would read the ladder is “mine”. No where buried in the ingredients of the ladder is an extra element “mineness”. That exists in the mind alone. No 1 ladder acts fundamentally different than other ladders: It is, as all things, a product of causes and will continue for as long as the causes allow, and then it will cease. Sticky note and imagination aside, there is no special ladder.

Just like all bodies are made of the same elements, none is special. I just choose a specific set of traits, give them meaning, claim they identify me or reflect my identity and then I try and force the particular body I am in to reflect those traits. Or, I choose the traits because they already exist in the body I am in. On and on this cycle goes. Trying to use form to manifest self.

But that is not what from is. That isn’t what form does. How do I know? Because everyone can use this body, just like everyone can use that sticky-noted ladder. Every woman knows anyone can use our bodies at anytime; we grow-up with stern warnings about the dangers of walking alone at night, of leaving our drinks unattended at the bar, we live in fear of rape.  If this body is free for anyone to use, how do I claim it is something that will uniquely reflect me, my desires, my vison of who I am, my vison for my future?

If this body really manifested me, made my identity reified in form, then it wouldn’t change into states I despise. How do I reconcile a shift into aging, or ugliness, or smelliness, or sickness, or death, or post death decay, with a form that manifests me? Those aren’t traits or states I would claim. They are not how I see myself or what I imagine my future to be.

When my body, my objects, my traits -the As and Bs I have chosen – shift/decay/disappear, I am forced to adapt, to adjust, to accept; if I am the one needing to adjust to the objects (a little botox to bring that brow back to smoothness, a new car when the old one has broken down, devastating mourning over the lost ex and the quest for a new lover to fill the partner shaped hole in my heart) then can the objects really be proving anything about me other than my beliefs –my desire for them, the ignorance that I have that drives me to  continue to chase and cling to what shifts and slips away?

I recently had begun making chanting a daily practice and, after enough rote repetition, I stated getting curious…I started reading the English, considering the meaning of the passages more closely. There were a few that really struck me, but over and over I kept coming back to a part of the morning chanting that talk about the five aggregates of clinging. Per the Buddha, those bitches bring about a whole world’o’suffering. Its all “sorrow, lamentation, pain distress and despair … the five aggregates for clinging are stressful”.

Apparently, it is so critical that we understand these five, that chanting verse itself explains, “So they might fully understand this, the Blessed One, while still alive, often instructed his listeners that:”

Form is inconstant
Feeling is inconstant
Memory is inconstant
Mental processes are inconstant
Consciousness is inconstant

Form is not self
Feeling is not self
Memory is not self
Mental processes are not self
Consciousness is not self

All processes are inconstant
All processes are not self

Well if the Buddha himself thought this was worthy of a little consideration, who was I to argue…so I decided to begin considering the aggregates, each in kind: How they are a sources of stress? Changeable?  Not self? I felt like I had already really spent time considering form, so I thought maybe I would skip ahead a bit and try feeling. Now strictly speaking, in Buddhism feeling is just 3 things: positive/negative/neutral.  I know the academics of this, but to make my contemplation more interesting, to get the creativity flowing, I considered feeling a bit more openly. I used our day-to-day definition of emotions for my exercise. In doing so, I was able to capture more than just a strict definition of +/- and could consider a broader aspect of nama –my inner life, the me I think I am, all wrapped-up ‘safe and sound’ in this body.

Feelings, they change so quickly, I can be angry in one minute and then feel calm, happy, even elated the next. What is more, my feelings, they are out of my control: I don’t want to feel angry, I don’t want to feel afraid, but ultimately I can’t just will these feelings (really imagination–#4 –when we are speaking of the aggregates) away.  What is more is that these feelings of mine don’t reflect me, sometimes I am downright ashamed of how I feel. I can’t use these feeling, or my thoughts, to manifest my sense of self: They are fickle, changeable, out of my control, they cause me distress, so how could they be me?

Memories too seem to fade. In fact in any one moment I can suddenly remember one thing and forget another. I know for sure these are out of my control, otherwise I would never forget a deadline, or I could easily shake the memory of a nightmare when I wake instead of continuing to feel haunted by it. I guess I feel like my memories are a part of me, but at the same time, I realize they reflect moments that are gone. No more. They are phantoms of what was. So how could these insubstantial things, that live in my mind alone, be me?

Imagination of course is a bear. It is always trying to steal the stage, be the star, direct the play. But if I am honest, it too is capricious. I imagined NY was a fabulous new adventure, and then I imagined it was a hell I would be trapped in forever. I imagined SF was my forever home, then I imagined how the fires would flare my asthma nonstop. If I controlled imagination would I stress so much about moles and lumps? I don’t want to imagine illness, death, but as soon as I see a sign that reminds me, makes me remember a danger, my imagination literally runs wild. It runs me right into stress and despair. So is imagination the me I want to be? Is it who I am

The problem is, when I get to the not self part of the teaching, I hesitate. I am willing to say what I feel, remember, imagine, arrange physically is not me. But I assume I am the imaginer, the arranger, the feeler. I many not be a given aggregate, I may not even be the collection of aggregates, but I  keep thinking there has to be an entity behind all these and that is who I am. I assume that the symphony, the system, the process, needs a conductor. I am the conductor, the great entity in  possession of the aggregates.

I decided then to review some of my prior contemplations on possessing –what evidence had I found before that made me question whether or not a claimed object was really a possession of the claimer, and if a possession could prove a claimer’s sense of self. My mind zoomed-in on the story of my old Bite Me Socks: Socks that I had once found so funny, I had claimed as a reflection of my humorous self, which degraded and became worn just as my own sense of humor shifted and changed. Socks and sense of humor both evolving, at their own rate, in their own direction, ultimately away from each other. The things we claim, shifting, just as we who claims them shift, so how exactly can a possession prove an owner? How would shifting aggregates that I identify with –claim — really be able to prove me?

In fact, on closer inspection, it is clear that if there is an entity that does the imagining, the feeling, the arranging, the remembering, it must be shifting and changing just as do the aggregate. After all, over and over I see the same stimulus, like a song, can fuel different feeling, different memory, different imagination across time. If the owner of these aggregates were unchanging, than how could the same externalities trigger different mental processes at different times? And, if the processes change over time, don’t they impact the supposed owner? Doesn’t a new memory need to change the person doing the remembering? If I say that the changeability of any given aggregate is part of the ‘proof’ that the aggregate isn’t who I am, don’t I need to apply the same standard to the supposed self/possessor of the aggregate? Is something that keeps changing, in ways I don’t drive or determine (I am not after all forcing a song to make me fee a certain way), who I am?

The other evidence I weigh when considering each individual aggregate is its propensity to cause me suffering. The whole chanting verse basically leads with the dukkha –the assertion, upfront, is that the 5 aggregates of clinging are stressful. In each aggregate, I see causes of my stress. If I really am the great aggregate possessor, don’t my own ‘possessions’ cause me stress? If I conduct a bunch of processes that stress me the fuck out, isn’t that claiming myself to be a victim of the stresses brought about by my supposed possessions? A conductor that can’t even evoke a symphony that sounds good to them, that doesn’t really control the sounds of the instruments at all, isn’t really much of a conductor. Doesn’t identity, possession, require some measure of control?

For several months I had been doing a little exercise: Tracing daily suffering back to it’s cause, and over and over the exercise showed me that if I want to find a cause of my suffering, the first place to look was at my desires. What is it that I want, that I cling to, that I wish to acquire or avoid, that spins up my emotions, my suffering, in the first place? When I really consider the aggregates closely, desire seems to arise as a product of the aggregates working together. Desire needs a physical form to sense a physical world trigger, a memory of that trigger and an imagination of what it means/ will do for you later, and a feeling of it being fun or crappy. In other words desire is a product of the aggregates as a process. Then the aggregates go and create a plan/ action to satisfy desire. Along the way desires change, aggregates change, new desires are born and on and on goes the aggregate process. It is a continual shifting process.

The aggregates aren’t a self. So why do I think they need some self, some possessor or conductor (who isn’t even possessing or conducting) to function. Processes don’t need a puppet master, they can just  unfold and change and then unfolds further from their changed state. Ad Infineum. This is normal. The problem is claiming the processes, identifying with them, being ignorant to the fact that they are all inconstant. Not self. This is the teaching that the Buddha felt was worthy of frequent admonition, and while I can’t claim, in my heart of hearts to deeply understand it, at least I am closer to understanding that the machine doesn’t need some great overlord to run. Aggregates don’t prove a possessor, processes don’t prove a conductor.

With that tooth pain gone, I got to thinking more clearly, and I couldn’t help think more about what it was that tooth could teach me. Specifically my mind turned toward the relationship between form and imagination. You see, in the weeks prior to the tooth extraction I had begun to consider the question of where my stress in life comes from –what exactly is the cause of my dukka? With the extraction, it was so clear that the cause of my pain was the tooth, but the cause of my stress, that was all imagination.

Rupa is an essential ingredient to my stress of course, it is what I fixate on, what I obsessive over. It is the skin spots that prompt my concern over skin cancer, the lump that I stress might be breast cancer, or the leg cramps that turns my mind towards thrombosis: I have this body and I don’t want to loose it. But clearly the body,  with all its spots and lumps and cramps,  isn’t the cause of my stress –imagination is the real culprit.  Imagination must be  the cause of my  non physical dukkha because without imagination dreading the worst –assigning meaning and portending the future — all the lumps and bumps in the world couldn’t cause stress.

Imagination is sorta a double whammy though: It doesn’t just imagine the worst while I wait for biopsy results to come in. Imagination has the naughty tendency to imagine only the best, ignoring the worst, right up until I read the rupa ‘signs’ of illness and danger. That all-sunshine-and-rainbow side of imagination, the side that ignores a sky that also has storms, is what gets me into trouble in the first place. Ex 1: The country home Eric and I tried to rent (Blog About it Here), when we signed the lease it was the joys of the quiet and the fresh country air, only after I had moved in to find rodent droppings near the laundry, did I begin to imagine –to stress– about how to deal with a mouse infestation during a pandemic. Ex 2: Eric and I moved to NY imagining the exciting, eventful, cool, artsy life we would have there. Only after we moved did I see my imagination had left our the filth, the noise, the bustle that came hand-in-hand with such an artsy, event filled city.

I have this body, because  I craved the experiences I imagined I  would have with it. Imagination is why, after being born into this body, a shifting arrangement of four elements, I claimed it, said it was me/mine. Imagination of what will come next, of further living, and becoming, and enjoying, make me cling all the more tightly.  But right up till I experience it, my imagination glosses the tooth pain, the stress of worrying about more pain, worrying about loss of a part of this body –and eventually the whole thing. This imagination that I live for, that gives me identity, that gives me hope actually stresses me the fuck out. Why should I live for something, be born for something, that brings me so much suffering?

A long time ago, Mae Yo asked me, “What does rupa do to people?” Now I see, rupa is the clay nama uses to construct its fantasy world. It is the props in the imagination’s story line. It is the match that sets my heart ablaze. But fire can’t start without fuel. You could throw matches at an empty firepit, devoid of kindling, all day long and never get a spark. Rupa is just 4 elements, an empty firepit. It is my imagination that allows for my heart to be set ablaze with stress, and the hope that gives rise to it. And hope, fantasy, all my imagined delights, are come at the heavy, hidden, cost of STRESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

Yesterday, I finally had my long-suffering, cracked tooth extracted. It had been all panic leading up to the extraction: I feared the pain, I feared infection, I feared catching covid all masks-off-vulnerable in the dentist’s chair. But the tooth had reached the end of its life, and an infection of a top molar could endanger mine, so it was, at long last, so long tooth.

After she had pulled it out, the dentist asked if I wanted to see the tooth, and I reached-out my hand to take it from her. After so much worry, the extraction had been painless, anticlimactic. That tooth so unassuming to look at now, was the cause of so much suffering. Or was it? As I considered the tooth more closely it dawned on me that the tooth was the cause of my pain for sure, but I was the cause of my suffering…

So let’s back up a second here for some context.

The tooth had hurt me for years, anytime I chewed on the right side of my mouth, it sent an electric shock of searing pain straight through my jaw.  Just before Covid struck I had a root canal, it seemed clear to me straight away that it didn’t work –I still had pain –but my dentist encouraged me to give it a few months to ‘settle’ before I decided to pull the tooth.

And then, there was Covid.

Long after the dentist opened, long after the whole world opened, I was still locked down in fear of Covid. Nearly 18 months with no one but Eric, avoiding even medical care to protect myself, my body. The whole time, the tooth didn’t just physically hurt, it threatened. I spent every day awaiting, dreading, the moment of imminent tooth failure. And now that failure had come, exposed me to pain, exposed me to risk, all I felt was relief that this tooth I had clung to, obsessively worried about for so long, was finally gone.

The thing is, its not just my tooth, its my whole body that I slave over, stress over, obsess over, all as I wait for its imminent failure. That was the reason for the whole 18-month Covid lockdown. This is my life. Will I feel similarly relieved at its end? And if so, why do I do this to myself, why cling so tightly to this body, when like clinging to the tooth, it causes me suffering and stress?

I suppose, much like with the tooth, I cling because of what I imagine the future will be. For the tooth I clung to avoid a nightmarish future of painful extractions and Covid catching. A future that never did come to pass.

I think without this body, I will never get all the futures I fantasize about –no post covid celebrations, no travel, no family reunions, no long life with Eric, no happy retirement. Of course, even with this body, those may never come to pass.

I cling to this body because I think I need it to become, to actualize what I imagine, to satisfy my desire, to satisfy me… but then why hasn’t it worked yet? If this body really could be satisfying, could make me self-actualized, could definitively confirmed and affirm me, why hasn’t it stepped up in the last 40ish years?

I cling because I think I need my body for the thing that happens next. But can I really need something, once I lose it, for what is next? What is next happens without it.

For all of my imaginations about this body, about all the future adventures we will have together, the only experiences that I can guarantee are ones I don’t want — sickness, pain, death. All I do is cling to the uncertainties between these definites — illness, aging and death — and with that clinging I create suffering far greater than the constant pulsing pain of a cracked tooth.

I was sitting in the kitchen while Eric was preparing lunch, watching as he tossed the shrimp peels, the lemon rind, the parsley stems, into the trash. Eric loves to cook. He derives so much of his value — his sense of identity — from his ability to feed and nourish others, to prepare food as delicious as it is wholesome. Cooking isn’t just what Eric does, Eric IS A COOK.

The scampi was, as most of Eric’s meals are, delicious. But, as I was cleaning-up, throwing away the remaining waste, I got to thinking: If a chef claims the finished meal, don’t they also need to claim the waste? The trash? The rotting parts? The shit? How can just one part of the meal, one part of the ingredients, one state of the food, reflect the chef?

The more I thought on this, the more clear it became — the scampi, all rupa, reflects only itself. It is nama that is a choosy narrator, curating a story, claiming the parts to ignore, and the parts to highlight. To be a chef we must claim only the delicious meals, only the tasty parts of a meal, only the peak moment of food, the rest is discard like the shrimp peels and the lemon rind. Incidental. Passing parts of the story. The compost heap is not us, it is not what we claim, its organization and ordering not a sign of our status as a great arranger.

My body of course is just like a meal: If my body really reflected me, why are there so many moments I am embarrassed by it? Why the dissonance between the wrinkles I see in the mirror and the me I imagine myself to be? Why would I pluck and discard the gray hairs –not me/not mine — while carefully washing and conditioning all the brown ones that are left? There is a disconnect between how I see myself –the me I want to be, the body I believe in my heart-of-hearts represents me, reflects who I am, stands-in so the whole world can see ALANA — and, well, reality.

The evidence is actually there, abundant, as plain as the compost bin after a meal, I just choose to ignore it. I am strong (ignoring those times I am recovering from injury, or ill, or have been out of the gym too long). I a beautiful (ignoring the pre-Botox state, the blemishes, the dark circles on sleepless nights). I am buttoned-up and pulled together (ignoring rumpled clothes after a flight, matted hair when I get up in the morning, the stench of my body after a hard workout). I am on top and in control, and this body reflects this deepest of identities and personality traits. Only the recalcitrant wart on my right big toe, the uncontrollable fall allergies, the tooth pain, the fact that I have been locked away from family and friends for over a year fearing a virus that can kill me, beg to differ; these tell a tale of an Alana decidedly out of control, of this body and the world it inhabits, its just that my choosy narrator decides to ignore all this.

I so deeply want this body to reflect me, to shout to the world who I am. I take every incidence of ‘success’ as proof  that I can force this body to conform to my will, my desire, my sense of who I am. I look at the post botox state and think -Eureka!! This here proves I am beautiful, I am in control, ignoring the very clear evidence that the fact I need botox in the first place clearly proves otherwise.  I pretend sometimes is proof of control. I pretend there is affirmation in the moments that a particular arrangement of rupa conforms to my desires.  I pretend that I can claim a state of something while disowning other states. I pretend I can carve out meaning — identity — from the passing states of the rupa I claim, wildly believing there is significance to the momentary impact I can have on these things. Alana, The-Beutiful -Botoxed- Great-Arranger.

Of course ‘I know’ all objects are just 4 elements. The meal, this body.  On some level, I know there is no way to shove identity into cracks between water, fire, air and earth. But still I think I can overlay meaning on top –this body isn’t me, but it can represent me. And there is of course truth to this, what is a representation after all other than something we imagine stands in for something else? My choosy narrator gets to choose. Its just that imagining something represents something else doesn’t mean it REALLY DOES. A hint that this is true is that both the object we imagine represents us, and our imagination itself changes, there is not some immutable pairing between fixed imagination and fixed object.

For a long time, I imagined going back to SF. I imagined it was my home, an SFer was who I was. SF was my future. But as fire season started getting worse, it began to dawn on me, as an asthmatic, that SF couldn’t be my future, it couldn’t be my home. It ultimately strained credulity for me to believe that a place inhospitable to my living and breathing could be who I was.

At 20 I never imagined that my 40 year old body, with its gray hairs, and sagging breasts, and eye crinkles, would represent me. To 20 year old alana, today’s body is some middle aged woman. But my imagination has, reluctantly, painfully, with much dissonance and disappointment, ultimately shifted as the body shifted.  What choice did I have? Form is not obligated to take the shapes I imagine it takes, to follow my sense of self, my desires, ultimately it is me and my own imagination that must adjust. If I fast forward a little, I consider a dying body, a corpse, the inevitable end for this body. Much like SF, there will come a point that it strains credulity to believe that this shifting, decaying, sack of skin and bones can represent me, can be me.  But, as my clinging testifies to, I am not there yet…

Right now, I am just sitting around waiting for this body to break and die. To reach a point where it is an inhospitable place to live, to breath in. To no longer be able to build my fantasies of a future life around. And while I wait, I will pay for my ignorance — my denial of the truth — with the labor, born of clinging, to preserve; the agony of loss when those efforts to preserve fail; the thousand daily embarrassments, disappointments and disgusts as I reconcile myself, again and again, to a body that simply won’t, can’t, be the reflection of me that I want it to be.