Alana's Dharma Blog

Each morning, I get-up and take my asthma medication, a quick puff, a rinse of the mouth and I am good to go. Fit as a fiddle. Strong as an Ox. Healthy as a horse…

My fit, healthy self, went to fill-out some insurance paperwork, and as I read their definitions of “excellent health”, I saw I didn’t qualify. With asthma, a chronic condition, the best I can be, according to the insurance company, is in “good health.”

But wait wait wait a second there…I am a woman who takes care of my body. I work-out, I diet, I take my vitamins and drink my water and get a check-up at least once a year. I am young, vibrant, active. In my mind, I am in “excellent health.” How could you, insurance company, who doesn’t even know me, say otherwise? Wait wait wait, why am I, Alana, so damn upset about this?

The thing is, this body is my ultimate tool to prove who I am. Because it is always with me, its what I focus on the most. I bathe it, I dress it, I pierce and decorate it. Choices as seemingly small as not shaving my legs, or letting my feet get calloused are choices that prove WHO I AM (an independent hairy woman not confined by male-centric beauty trends, or a woman tough enough to wear no shoes even on rocky ground). I CONTROL MY BODY, I need to be in control of my body, BECAUSE BEING IN CONTROL OF MY BODY MEANS I AM IN CONTROL OF MY LIFE.

But as much as I love to play make believe, to dress-up this body and peacock it around, the truth is I am not in ‘excellent health’. I have asthma, without medication I can’t even control my breathing. I have had stomach problems since I was a kid and there I times I can’t control the need to run to the bathroom. I get kidney stones and the pain is so severe I can’t control the shaking and crying. I have a hip injury, terrible teeth, I wear glasses, have a vitamin D deficiency, eczema…

My minds uses the fact that my body is ‘always there’, changes ever so slowly from one day to the next, to convince myself that the body is the answer to my preservation dilemma; with proper care and feeding I can preserve it and it can in turn preserve myself. But for all my effort, this body keeps breaking down. If I can’t even control this sack of skin, how can it prove I am an ‘in control kinda gal’?

The next two blogs, which will close-out the Suffering and Self –Yummy period of my practice, are a recap of the homework Mae Yo gave me to look at my own experiences to see how I use stuff to feed and sustain the self. Part 1 will be evidence gathered from my belongings. Part 2 will address my body directly. 

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Fishing through my wardrobe I come across an outfit I love: tall black boots and a long jacket. Even just thinking of putting those two things on and I feel like a sexy badass. But really, in the dim light of a packed Victorian closet, the boots are just boots, the jacket just a jacket. So what exactly is going on here? Is it like Clark Kent in a phonebooth, throw-on a shiny, skin tight, costume and I am transformed into a super hero? Where did this idea even come from? 

I remember my first pair of tall black boots. I bought them late in life, already in my 30s. I found them at a goodwill and as soon as I zipped them-up, I felt transformed. Sharper, sexier, bolder, stronger… I honestly don’t know where any of this came from, but since that fateful day, a tall black boot is a wardrobe staple. 

The jacket, I have a bit more memory of. I had a friend in university, Amber, who always wore a long jacket/sweater. It was her signature look and damn was she sexy: a strong, take charge, take no shit personality I frankly always wished I had. Me, I’m a bit timid, I shy away from confrontation, the best I could do was to make friends with someone so bold. That, and buy a long jacket.  

But, do the clothes really make the woman? Back when I was in elementary school there was a brand of pants, Z. Cavaricci, that was all the rage. I was desperately unpopular at that age and even more desperate to become popular. Before the new school year started I got it in my head that it was a fashion problem. I convinced my mom to take me to the store and I bought a rainbow of Cavariccis, armed to make myself popular in the new year. But on the first day of school, I arrived in my new pants and I was greeted by taunts and bullying. Each day I wore a new color Cavaricci, but not one pair –not even the pink ones—did anything to get the other kids to like me. 

I started looking around my house and my eyes fell on my dining room table, a 6 foot long mid century piece by the famous designer Finn Juhl, a gift from an old friend. Sitting at the table always makes me feel so special, so loved. It’s a unique, museum quality piece that affirms my awesome design sense and the fact that my awesome friend gave it to me…well what better evidence is there of my general awesomeness. And wrapped-up in that table are the memories of so many gatherings, so many dinner parties, so many occasions to affirm that I can surround myself with people who love and adore me.  

Each thing in the house really seems to serve 2 purposes: One is the actual use; clothes to cover my body, chairs to sit in, books to read. But these objects, in my mind provide something else, they prove me; clothes to make me badass, furniture to make me fashionable and loved, books to make me seem smart. But, even my own experiences show the objects fail, they don’t do what I want them to do, they don’t make me who I want to be, after all, a closet full of Cavaricci never even made me 1 friend… 

Each object took effort to acquire, to care for, to preserve. I try to make the objects, like my green purse, permanent. But they break and fade or like a Cavaricci go way way way out of fashion. I try to use those same objects to make me permanent, to make me what I want to be, but even when I’m wearing those tall boots and a long jacket, I still find myself shying away from a confrontation. Alas, Alana the badass is in my mind only, she isn’t born with a quick wardrobe change.

I shared my reflections on the Green Purse with Mae Yo and she offered a few thoughts I will share here: 

Identity comes from what we are familiar with, we reiterate it, we become used to it and then, in our minds it becomes us and ours. We are repulsed by things we don’t like and attached to stuff we do.  

It all starts with me and the bag, but compliments from others, Eric’s comment that the bag reminds him of me, build my sense of specialness that is confirmed by the bag. There are 3 types of self/ego: 1) inflated 2) middle 3) small hearted. When we get a compliment it inflates our ego while with no comment we stay in a state of middle or little heart. This is how we confirm our sense of self. Like the body needs food, the sense of self is fed by self belongings –we use object in this world to feed and sustain our self. 

When we want to preserve something (like a bag) why do we do it? Like a preserved food, a pickle, we want to delay time, we want to sustain our stuff and self as long as possible.  

My home work was to go home and see if my own experience confirms this, to see if I can prove the tendency to use self belonging to feed self, the tendency to preserve to sustain self, are true.  

I asked Mae Yo a final question: What am I missing? Her reply: “ You haven’t committed that this path is the only way. You would still give another method a chance, to keep your options open. Its like you haven’t really broken up with an Ex yet, so ask yourself why not? When you are convinced, you will be able to walk the path alone. Its like a swimmer, looking at the competitor in another lane makes you lose time.”

After the retreat I went ahead and summed-up all my contemplations and shared them with Mae Yo and Neecha. I had a few additional questions. Here you will find my questions in purple and Mae Yo’s responses in green below:

 1)So this is really the first time that self has jumped out at me. I wanted to ask if there are pieces I am missing or more mechanics I should be contemplating? Anything at all you want to offer on the topic? Sometimes even if I don’t fully understand your responses now they really hit me like a ton of bricks later.

When contemplating self/identity, we typically apply the same techniques. Look at how it was created (3s and 4s working hard here), what are the puzzle pieces that form the whole picture of “self” and where did those pieces come from? How do we reinforce them? How does maintaining them cause us happiness or suffering? What are the consequences, Tuk Toht Pie, of this self? 

Usually though, we contemplate other issues and it leads us to see our identity, how we’ve defined ourselves. Lessening our degree of identity is usually more a result than it is the focus of contemplation.

2) Where should I go from here? My instinct is to go back to my old stories and plug-in my new thoughts on self and self belonging. Also, I think I should more closely consider the relationship between preserve and control.

Self in terms of self-belongings is more doable; this is self in terms of tangibles, so you’re really contemplating tangibles, how you view tangibles, and it’ll lead you to identity. You can do this by focusing on the self that is derived from or that exists in tangibles. Tangibles are the foundation for our suffering, after all. 

3) What is the relationship between self and desire? Between desire and becoming? I wrote the question before I finished all the contemplation above, so perhaps I already answered it. Still, if Mae Yo has any pithy response for me to keep in mind?

Self and desire are what make us reborn. We see ourselves a certain way, want to maintain that or have another go at it, and that’s why we are reborn.

 

For the longest time, I had seen practicing the Dharma as a struggle. A sacrifice. Something I endured for the promise of a better future, or being a better person, or at least understanding the world more clearly.  Of course, it had already been of benefit to me, I saw results; otherwise why in the heck would I keep pushing? But, to be honest, most of the time I imagined my path as me groping in the dark along a thorny road…heavy, serious, a burden I attended to out of a mix of fear, guilt, self-judgment/hate, pride in small victories, and a sprinkle of hope to keep me going.

When LP Nut and I were talking about my wrong views around future options he shared a perspective on practicing that completely shifted my paradigm. For that, I am eternally grateful. Here Dear Reader is a short blog on my paradigm shift: Practice as a relief for unbearable burdens.

LP Nut shared the story of a hike LP Anan had led in which everyone had to take a heavy object along with them. LP Nut took a chair. He labored through the hike, panting, sweating, and at the end LP Anan looked at him and asked, “why are you still carrying the chair?” As LP Nut explained, my mind was already racing: All of our life we carry around the burdens of our responsibilities, of acquiring and maintain our shit, of nurturing our relationships, of caring for our bodies, of making it through this life one day at a time. But these burdens are like chairs on a hike — we don’t need to carry them — we really can just put them down.   Pchwwwfffzzz – that, My Friends, is the sound of my mind being blown. Practice is for the relief of unbearable burdens.

I can’t say my practice is always a cake walk, that it doesn’t take time, dedication and some compromise (sometimes it’s a bit like taking bitter medicine). But what I once saw as harrowing trek along a dark, thorny, road now shines in my mind as a light in that dead of night, a warm blanket against the cold, a balm for my tired feet. Instead of all harshness, my path became a comfort. The Dharma is my faithful companion that no one can ever take away; it is where I go for refuge from my burdens.

So, by the time I got back from my forest nap adventure, I had a pretty solid grasp on the limitations of my ability to preserve what I have, i.e. to keep and maintain control over my present circumstances. But there is another idea in my always choosing A — a fairly pervasive one in my life really — that I can make decisions to hedge my future, to keep doors open so I ‘always’ have more choices later, more potential paths and potential escaper routes. Its like trying to preserve, only for the future. I decided it deserved a little additional attention, so I went to talk about it with LP Nut.

The following blog is an amalgamation of 2 conversations LP and I had and some of my contemplations around them. I never meant for this to get a formal write-up, so his teachings and my thoughts are sort of melded together in the notes I took. Still, there were some powerful seeds of my future practice planted in these ideas/dialogues/contemplations, so I am going to reconstruct and share to the best of my ability.

When I went to LP the first time and expressed my struggle finding the wrong view underlying this idea that I can keep options open for later he shared an example from his own life. He explained that he loves his parents and being with them, but he moved away from home because he also wants his freedom. Even still, in his heart he feels comforted that he can go and visit them, that the option to return to them is still there. But, this feeling is based on a wrong view, that he knows what a future visit will look like. That it will be nurturing, fun, rewarding. That it will be what he wants/imagines. That it will be possible at all.

Fast forward to our next conversation and LP suggested that I need to consider probability and duration more carefully. After all, if I think I can control my future options through my decisions now it’s worth really considering the likelihood of my success, for how long and, of course, at what cost. He also told me to look more carefully at the factors that go into having an experience I want –what exactly are the conditions that had to be met for me to call something satisfying?

We took a recent trip Eric and I had shared as an example. I went to the hotsprings with Eric because I wanted us to be together, share time together. But LP asked, was it exactly how I imagined it? Were there times we were apart (of course), times we fought, or simply weren’t totally happy, where these disappointments (again, of course, of course and of course)?  If I believe I can somehow make decisions to keep options open for the future, how likely is it the future will be what I imagine and hope for? Was it the case with my vacation?

LP shared a story of a girl who had come to the temple recently devastated by the death of her boyfriend. He asked me if I uews

nderstood why she was so upset. I ventured a guess – the girl imagined (#4) a future with her boyfriend and his death destroyed her happy imaginations of that future so she felt loss.  As LP explained, this is the same problem with my imagining ‘options’ and open doors for my own future. They are based on my imagination alone, not on any certain, guaranteed future. The future is unknowable, it is impermanent, it arises based on a precise combination of conditions/factors that are totally beyond my imagination’s ability to know or control.

For Eric and I to go on vacation together a number of conditions had to be met. We needed the money, our jobs needed to approve the time off, the hotel had to have available bookings, the roads needed to be passable, the weather accommodating, our health good enough for travel, etc. A bunch of conditions, most entirely outside of our control, had to be ripe for just one trip to happen. And even if the trip had been all sunshine and rainbows, was exactly as I imagined when I planned it, there is an important caveat – it came to an end. Its duration was not infinite.

The truth is, this world has happy moments, like a good vacation, and then those come to an end. Duration is uncertain; only cessation, at some unknown point, can be guaranteed.

I got back to thinking again about why I always chose A. Why we chose F.U.ber this time around instead of Sonos. It hit me — I think the money and career boost of F.U.ber keeps doors open so that I can enjoy the Sonos beach bum, lazy life, experience later.  So by continuing to choose A, I keep open the future option of more A, or B, or possibly C or D. I think $ and career experience = future choices, future control. But is a job at F.U.ber a necessary, or sufficient, condition to have beach bum life later? Does money or career experience come with any guarantees? Countless times, including my vacation, my imagination failed to predict or control the future. Why should I believe it when it tells me that if I just collect a few tools — $ and experience – I can turn possibility into probability or even a guarantee for ever and always?

Don’t worry, no need to stress, this isn’t a cliff hanger story. Sure, I took a wayward path, but I assure you we are still on topic…Why do I always chose A?

As I was sitting in the forest I had a thought, the reason Eric and I stressed so much about the job choice, and then ultimately chose A is simple — we believe we are better than those trees, that we can preserve, control, that this choice of ours was somehow determinate of our future, finances, careers. That it was all on us.  B had a moment of being tempting because I thought I was ready to change style, get rid of that old hippy shirt and redefine myself with a new story. A change, yes, but one of my own design. In fact, the only reason I even noticed the A A A A always A pattern was that for one moment in time B tempted me…

After the retreat Eric got more troubling, drama-y, news from F.U.ber that again awakened my exhaustion with A and got me wondering if we should have chosen B. In that moment I was so upset and then it hit me — I was upset because I really believed there was a “right choice” that with just enough information or clarity I could pick it . I imagined an outcome that was all sunshine and rainbows if I could just control enough to get there. In truth, option “A” and “B” both have pros and cons. I select based on my biases (3s and 4s) for what I believe the pros and cons will be (imagination) . I know there will be suffering, but I still think I can hedge, I can control the amount, the duration, the nature of the suffering as a variety I can bear. Plus, it keeps my options open for the future. Based on these biases and beliefs I keep choosing A, but as I come to see the suffering involved I think that maybe another option, like “B”, would be better.

Seeing the deeper issue and the perils — Again, I was just sort of struck by the fact that my choosing “A” or ” B” (or any other letter/option) was just like this game we played on retreat. We, as a group, pretended to be a child of a father who rapes us and to really see the suffering. Finally, we convinced ourselves that being born to a father who rapes us isn’t worth it and it will cut us off from that birth (option A) but we may still get “B”, life with a single Mom. Or “C”, life as an orphan. In a nutshell, I keep choosing A because I haven’t yet convinced myself that the drama, stress, and sacrifice of this particular A life just isn’t worth it.

My deeper problem is that I still have hope that I can calibrate my decisions to get what I want with minimal and acceptable downside. Basically, my hope/desire that I can control, at least control enough to make it worthwhile, means even if I tire of one option I will continue to try others (super perilous). The whole trick to avoiding any crappy birth is to avoid birth altogether and that requires seeing the truth that all births have dissatisfaction. Afterall, even in a life as charmed, successful and comfortable as my own –a life of A A A — I will eventually get tired and want B. Maybe, if I really can see this, I don’t have to try every life, every option, I don’t have to turn over every card before I get up and leave the table. Maybe, I can just quit the rebirths that keep arising in service of my imaginary specialness …

A note to my readers: this blog is a direct continuation of contemplations from Contemplations from the 2015 Retreat : Priming the Pump for Insight with contemplations on security and preserving. If you have not already done so, head back and read that entry before you proceed further.

Slowly, I woke from my nap and I opened my eyes to see that the forest floor was covered in leaves. In fact, it seemed like more leaves were on the ground than on the trees. In that semi-conscious awakening moment I   thought to myself, “the trees, so big and beautiful and powerful, with all their tree life force can’t preserve the leaves.” The tree is even the maker of the leaves, and in my mind, should be their absolute “owner” and still, despite their efforts the leaves all eventually fall and die, in the end so does the tree itself. I am nowhere near as mighty as a tree, so why do I believing that I am somehow different, better, that I can be preserved and I can preserve things?

Fully awake now, I reached for a sip of water and I considered my water bottle: I had bought it a  gas station in Healdsburg and brought it up the mountain. I had actually laid it down in the great hall when I first arrived, and had a momentary worry I wouldn’t find it again amongst all the other water bottles on the floor, in peoples’ hands, on tables, in the kitchen…I knew that ‘my’ bottle was basically the same as everyone else’s, but it was special to me, something I worried about preserving, re-finding, just because it was mine.  I realized the water bottle and I are just the same; I think I’m special, exempt from the rules just because I’m mine.

I saw further that it is made of the elements like me it has form; It comes to be “my water bottle” based on causes (arising) – and many of those are based on desire- my carrying it up the mountain bc I want water, the clerk selling it bc he wants to run a business, etc. And it will cease, at first I thought it already had when I lost it (I later found it).  I see I have a memory of a certain me, a certain bottle, I imagine us both as unchanging, as somehow real and mine. The me-ness is what blocks me from seeing the truth, my sameness as water bottles and trees, neither of which can preserve. Its also where all the spinning and suffering begin (just like my worry over 1 particular water bottle, ‘mine’ and no others).

I then started thinking of ways in which I work so hard to make myself special and the pain of the effort (like becoming a vegetarian for 20+years to prove I was more special/ethical than my brother, or the way I had let ‘friends’ talk me into jumping off a bridge as a kid to prove I was cool like them, or the way I worried constantly on how to stay special to my husband). I considered the way I acquire things, like pretty clothes/ hippy shirts, to further build and support that specialness, and the ways I work to preserve those things. I see the changes to myself of course, but I imagine them as selected, curated by myself. Sure I changed career goals, but it was my decision, I chose something better, something more in-line with the values of my new self. Sure I moved past my ‘hippy style’ into something more refined and classy. By subtly adjusting, by glazing those adjustments with an illusion of control, I preserve a cogent sense of self. A uniform being that does change (no more hippy clothes), but only in strictly guarded and allowable ways. My desire to preserve this I is so deep I get exactly what I want — more rebirths to keep this I going — the whole system supports this goal.

 

The Tuk Tok Pie (i.e. suffering): The peril is so clear too…this is why the sponge in the woods, or my disappointment with the jazz singer not singing “my songs” arises and creates such a problem. Because I think I’m so special I believe others/situations either conform to me or they are wrong (present Alana says, “just look at the whole New York hate, I think a whole city of 8mm people deserves fiery death just because they don’t conform to behavior I think is appropriate”) . It’s the main source of frustration and disappointment in my life.

Additionally, by creating and reinforcing “me” in relation to “mine”, I assume a burden to what’s mine, the burden of finding the water bottle, of placating my husband of preserving my company (its so striking too how this burden changes when we no longer perceive something as ours-for example I don’t give a second thought to placating ex lovers).

Worse of all though, I see so clearly how me is the foundation for the horrible stuff I do to others too. I behaved so badly towards my Mom for so long just because I needed to cling to a particular narrative, an identity as a victim and as the person more deserving of my Father’s love (my specialness).

In the end though, I will decay like the trees. I am the same as the water bottle, as everything in this world. And I suffer because I think I’m not. Because I work so hard to weave stories of how I am special and different, I have forgotten I am the author of these tales, so I have become overly invested, I think they are true.

A note to my readers: this blog is a direct continuation of contemplations from the 2015 Retreat: It’s multiple choice, but I always chose A (i.e.The Problem). If you have not already done so, head back and read that entry before you proceed further.

Background Thoughts: For those of you who may be new to this blog, we are going to skip ahead to a conclusion easily born-out by 100 prior posts (about health, relationships, beauty, fear, etc) — my life, my motives, my actions, my desires, often come down to my deep desire for security and safety,  So, a good preliminary question for a contemplation about jobs, money, security and preserving is: Why oh why do I assume money will keep me safe? Why don’t I assume more time with my beloved, doing things I enjoy, living a laid back life will keep me safe? And why do I feel like a job has to be the biggest job, the most lucrative, to be a path to further jobs and further security and further $. And, even if I have money, a job, a partner or safety in this instant, is it something I can really preserve long-term? What about the Sukatam Lok I so diligently contemplated? In my notes, I referred to these questions as “background thoughts”, to keep in mind as I moved through the ‘meat of my contemplation’.

The Contemplation: When have I tried to preserve, has it worked and what is the cost?

• My Fancy Porsche – Damn I love(d) that car. Sort of. It was also a pain in the ass. I worried about dents, theft, parking near grocery carts. Back when I had a Toyota, I never worried about those things. But the Porsche I had to preserve. Because it was mine. I wanted to be a certain Alana, with a shiny, perfect, fancy car. Some of the time. But, not always, not when I needed gas in a shady hood at night and that Porsche made me feel like a magnet for being robbed. Not when I wanted to avoid jealousy from my coworkers or my boss thinking I didn’t need raises because I was already financially fine. But still, I worked so hard to care for that car.

The funny thing is, back when I had a Toyota, I never wanted a Porsche. Once I had the Porsche, I felt like I couldn’t go back to just a Toyota. Having more made me more vulnerable. More likely to lose something. It was less safe and made preserving all the more difficult…

• I had a little hippy shirt I had found in a thrift store back in college, It was so so so me and I loved it so so so much. But it was already old when I got it, thread bare. I was so selective about the times I chose to wear it, knowing with each trip out of my closet it came closer to its final rip, tear or hole. I would be so careful to avoid stains, sweat. I would sew it each time it ripped. I worried so much about that shirt and long before it died, it fell out of fashion, was no longer so ‘me’. I grew-up, grew-out of hippy style and all that worry, effort to preserve, didn’t even mater because I didn’t want the damn shirt in the end anyway.

 

• I came to a Kulti (a hut) in the forest that seemed so worn-out. It made me sad. Why had no one tried to preserve it, repaint it, rehammer lost nails, fix the broken gate? My instinct is to overcome the nature, forest, trees trying to take over. To hold back time and decay. The Kulti made me think of myself, my body. My once beautiful skin fading like the paint, my joints creaky like the gate, my body sagging into disrepair. I do try to fight, to preserve. There is botox, creams, makeup, threading, spanx, corset training (I quit that pretty fast as I couldn’t breathe), 100s of hours at the gym, starvation diets. And really does it work? Kind of, a little, enough I keep trying. But do I really still look 20? 30? Can I, ever? The cellulite won’t go away even after a week of starvation, the sagging won’t stop even with every lotion and potion. I so want to be a pretty Alana, a thin Alana, an in control Alana. But even my body betrays my desires.

My head was swimming with examples, exhaustion, I didn’t quite know where to keep going so I decided. Nap time. Yup, I laid down in the forest, closed my eyes and said sweet dreams till next time…

I showed-up at the 2015 retreat with fresh emotional wounds hard won from the struggle of weighty decision making about my husband, Eric’s, next career move. Eric had gotten 2 job offers: A) from a company we will call F.U.ber, from the get-go we expected it would be painfully unpleasant, but secure and lucrative; and B) from a company called Sonos, which we expected to have good work life balance, in a nice Cali Coastal town, but with risky prospects for money and long-term career success. Spoiler alert –we chose A.

The truth is, we always chose A: We always chose the option we perceive of as safe, with financial security and option value for future career prospects. We chose to carefully preserve what we have and ‘keep the door open’ for having the same/more in the future. But this time, the choice wasn’t automatic. It was weighed, agonized over, and when we finally turned our back on the dream of B — a sweet job in a sweet small town with lots of time for other stuff we enjoy – I decided to ask myself why I always chose A? What do I believe about money, security, option value? Is the fight to achieve these things, or the struggle to make such weighty life decisions in general, worth it?

This then My Friends is the launching place for the next few blogs. I will explore my contemplations around these questions, my detour into insight into self and self belonging, and some helpful thoughts from my teachers.

I started out by asking 2 of my teachers, Neecha and LP Nut, for advice on how to proceed. I explained I had started seeing the suffering of being stuck in my patterns, of always choosing A (where A is preserving, security, $ and the option for more  preserving choices, security and $ in the future), but I didn’t know a way out. Here were the replies I got:

Neecha told me a story about a woman who used to drink till she blacked-out every night. She would always ask her husband what happened in the times she couldn’t remember and he would always give sketchy replies. One day, she remembered that her husband had tried to killer her after she had drunk too much. From that day forward, she never drank again out of fear. Fear Neecha explained is the way to stop doing something. It was a good answer, and a true answer, but I wasn’t quite sure how to use it. So I went and asked LP Nut for his thoughts…

LP Nut pointed to a tree in the forest. It had once bore a huge number of pine cones, but it had since fallen down and started to die. He said, the cones were dependent on the tree, the tree on the roots, the roots on sun, soil, rain. We think we can depend on one thing, one person, job, money for security. But the truth is there are so many factors. He said to go look for examples where I quest for security, for preserving. Does it work? At what cost?

This, was something I could work with, that I knew how to begin to tackle. So stay tuned for the next installment in contemplations from the 2015 Retreat…where I think about security and preserving.

A brief introduction to the Jatakas: I suppose it’s not really something most of us Buddhists think about much, but the Buddha, who was superduppermegga awesome in his final life,  took awhile to get there. In fact, the Jataka Tales, which recount the past lives of the Buddha-to-be, have around 550 stories — not exactly instant enlightenment huh?  

To me, it’s pretty heartening really, even the Buddha had to follow a path, perfecting himself along the way, till he became his ultimate awesome self. For someone who usually feels like the fact that I’m not there yet (i.e. enlightened) means I will never ever get there, the Jatakas are pretty darn inspirational.

Anyway, this blog is a brief one about a single moment from a single jataka — the Mahajanaka Jataka — that really touched me. For context, this is the Buddha-to-be’s 9th from last life, after a long arduous journey involving a shipwreck and goddess style saving, the passing of some perilous tests and riddles, and the marriage to a lovely queen, Mahajanaka (soon to be Buddha) becomes the just and beloved king of his homeland, bringing us to the moment of my blog…

The Blog: One day, King Mahajanaka decided to take a walk in one of his gardens.  He came to a place where 2 mango trees stood, one was lush and green, but bore no fruit. The other had a ton of fruit and the king decided to gather a few mangos to eat. They were super delicious so, he thought to himself, “at the end of my stroll, I’ll come back and grab a bit more fruit before I return to the palace”.

Meanwhile, word got out that that the King had eaten from the mango trees. You see, as was the custom, before the king ate the first fruit no one would dare touch the tree. But after he had partaken, everyone felt free to come grab some fruit, so a hoard of people came to eat. By the time the king had returned the tree had been nearly destroyed by the picking and climbing and pushing and shoving. At the same time the fruitless neighbor tree remained untouched, still green and full of life, since there were no mangos for anyone to bother with.

When Mahajanaka came back and saw the two trees again –the fruitful one ravaged and the barren one just fine — he realized that he was like the fruitful mango tree, with a kingdom, riches, subjects, a family and a life filled with so much to lose. “Better” he thought “to be the barren tree and never have anything to take, anything to be beaten for or plundered for, nothing to lose.”   At this point the King decides to renounce the world and worldly possessions, to make himself like the barren tree and leaf (J/K –leave), to become an ascetic.

I have no idea why it was this particular story, this particular telling, that touched me so deeply. But for the first time it really hit my heart: my shit, my peeps, my meness, make me too just like that fruitful mango tree. So pretty, so rich, so smart, so loved, so verdant and abundant and healthful and so so so much to lose. So much to make me a target, a victim, both of outside ravishers (duh) but also of time and withering and wasting and attrition and all the other causes by which a tree can lose fruit and an alana can lose what I hold dear.

I guess its the fact that in this telling, turning away is not a sacrifice. It’s not the high road or the hard decision. It’s not the effort-full forcing to be non-attached, to be ‘what a Buddhist should be’. It’s a way out, a road of ease, peace, salvation. It the natural, even easy, choice once you really see it for what it is.

And though, obviously, I’m still not quite clearly seeing this world for what it is, these days, when I think about my practice, what it can bring me, what it’s really about, I think a whole lot about those mango trees.

Final note: I dedicate this blog to the Buddha — yah, I know, he is already long gone and doesn’t really need any dedication of mine. But still, I have so much gratitude. For the 550ish lives he worked so hard to become the Buddha and then, when it wasn’t necessary, when it was a bunch of work, when he had already become a Buddha so what more merritt did he need, when he could have just been a silent Buddha like so many others, he decided to teach. He left behind a legacy, a friggin roadmap and a compass, for slow pokes like me. He left behind hope…so Great Dharma Lord, this blogs for you.

 

Dear Reader — This blog is a direct continuation of the last blog, I Won’t Be Leaving on That Jet Plane. If you haven’t already read that one go ahead and do so before you continue here.

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Over one weekend nothing outside really changed. And yet, a whole new ‘Jet set’ life, with new possibilities, was born in my head. And then in my head it died. Was Jet inherently risky/undesirable (as I had assumed at the start of the weekend) or was it an escape from the risk of Eric’s company, to a secure and wonderful new life (as I assumed by the end of the weekend)? It’s like Schrodinger’s Cat *, alive/dead at the same time, risky/safe NY at the same time, awesome/shitty job at the same time, it all just depends on the perspective of the viewer. It depends on my perspective… Step 1 of easing my pain and seeing the truth – see clearly that it is me, my perception, that is generating it in the first place.

Squiggly line fade-out……….

I was sitting in a pool at my favorite resort in Sonoma, relaxing and thinking, “this pool IS relaxing.” Then I noticed all the dead bugs. I though, “this pool, which I think of as relaxing is a death trap to those bugs.” The water is just water, the pool just a pool, but its value, its meaning, that is subjective.

Jet is a job, NY is a city. Are these things good or bad? Relaxing or death trap? Neither or both? The truth is I wasn’t sure. The problem is my fact finding and interpretation skills are notoriously crappy, bringing me to Step 2 of easing my pain and seeing the truth – prove that I am a fickle little liar.

Well, this blog is certainly filed with evidence that, at best, my interpretations of situations change as do my desires. Shit, the Jet story alone is strong evidence… after all in 48 hours both my reading of the situation and my desire changed. There is the jury duty story, vegetarian/pork loving alana, the sponge in the forest story. Even whether I think oatmeal is healthy or toxic has changed 4 times in 8 years. I, my mind, they change.

Moreover, I am a liar. I lied about me being the victim and my Mom the evil victimizer. I lied about my Dad being a saint and my Mom being a devil. I lied about what it is to cheat, about my value as an employee, about my being a compassionate alana just because I give hugs to homeless people. I lie/tell stories because it makes me feel I can control the way I am seen by others and how I see myself. I lie to uphold the self-created “narrative of the world” that I am a good person, good people get good outcomes, so I am safe from harm (this is a serious summarizing of a number of past blogs).

Step 3 of easing my pain and seeing the truth – poke around till I find reality.

In just a few days I reinterpreted the Jet situation. It went from negative/risky to safe/desirable to hella disappointment in a flash. It just swung from one extreme to the next. In truth, Jet, NY, water and pools, all contain risks and safety, pros and cons. Imagine that—its like there are two sides. But my imagination played favorite with certain ‘facts’ so first Jet was revolting and then, with new ‘facts’ with new re-imagining, it was desirable. No neutral heart to be found here. Hence, the suffering…

So the final step, ask the question — Is it worth it? (i.e. what is the suffering of the situation) — It was such a painful week. The suffering had so many components:

1)The first was the pains it took to change my perception. First I worried about Jet and security, then I had to convince myself to take it to see it as safe. Once I did…

2) I experienced the pain of loss. I had already assumed an identity and it was rejected, taken from me. I in fact felt worse than if I had never had it. Because, in order to sell it to myself as a good outcome, as desirable, I had to build it into my identity. When the identity was crushed it made me feel hopeless for the future and a sense of loss of the opportunity.

3) Jet made Eric’s current work situation feel even more “risky,” like we had missed our best escape raft. In order to convince ourselves to take the Jet job we had drawn a future with Jet in it and that by being there my need for security was met. Therefore, losing it, by definition, had to make me less secure. Already feeling that way heightened sensitivity to insecurity, it made other options outside of the secure Jet seem worse. When evidence, possible layoffs, came our way, I immediately read it back into the Jet is secure narrative I had written just to convince myself to take it. By creating an imaginary island of security, I actually succeeded in making myself feel more insecure when I had to deal with all situations off that island.

Worse, when I create islands in my mind, places to go or places to avoid, I set the conditions for trying to navigate there or away. I set conditions for continued re-birth. I set conditions for struggle. In this lie I already lived on the island I wanted.

4) In just the course of the weekend I experienced the pain of uncertainty, the sheer turmoil and grief of deciding and then the excitement and then the let down. My emotions took a roller coaster ride just based on what I wanted, based on what I imagined it would be.

It makes me reflect on how painful life is, how changeable my desires are. And then how feeble my joy and disappointment are. So much struggle hinging on desires and imaginations that change constantly. Just because in my mind they feel so real, so permanent. The solution then, find neutral, re-train my mind to see when my imagination runs wild, and bring it back to center, to seeing both sides…

Final thought from present day Alana – The ironic part of this story is, at the time, I was so disappointed that Eric didn’t get the Jet job, that we didn’t move to NY. Now however, I see it as a reprieve. I hate NY so much…had I known then what I do now, I would have celebrated like an inmate on death row that gets a stay of execution, a stay in San Fran for another few years. Further proof still…I’m a fickle little liar.

 

It was mid 2015 and Eric’s company was on the rocks. Massive layoffs were on the way and, like everyone else, Eric was looking for a way off a sinking ship. So, when he got a call for a great job in NY, at a startup named Jet, you would think I would be delighted. But, I was anti-delighted…The company (a startup), the move to a new uber expensive city (NY), it all felt too risky. Still, I reluctantly supported my hubs and we went together to NY for his interview.

The more we heard about the job, the company, the team, the founder, the more excited we became. Finally, after 2 days of deep discussions, after I met the founder for coffee, heard the whole business pitch, we were in! New York here we come. Yipee!!!

The recruiter told Eric he was going to get the job for sure. No other decent candidates had even applied. Then, at the last moment, another candidate dropped from the sky — literally, she took her private helicopter into town for a last-minute interview…

In the 24 hours between Eric and I ‘deciding to take the job,’ and him learning the job was going to the helicopter woman, my mind had already erected the image of a bright new future, a new identity, a new NY life. When that image was shattered with just a few words, “you didn’t get the job”, my heart ached so badly with the loss. But…how exactly could I be hurt by a loss of something I never had to begin with?

The fact is, in one weekend I took the very same situation –a new job/move to NY — and reinterpreted it. First I imagined scary, hard, risky, broke life. Then I imagined fun adventure, safety from Eric’s sinking ship job and wealth from a startup getting big. Like with the sand paintings, the jazz song, my mind took a bare bones situation and it colored in a whole elaborate narrative of what my life would be like. My desire for Jet was born in a flash, in a flash it was mine, a part of my life, a life that I lost before it ever began. The narrative I built was so sticky, it came to feel so real, it became what I desired, and when I ‘lost it’ the pain really was real.

With real pain, I was in need of a real solution.  How can I fix this? Mae Yo already told me of course, I need to bring my heart to neutral. It should be easy, after all, in just 2 days I went from not wanting Jet to wanting it. I went from seeing all cons to seeing all pros. I just needed to merge them, to see both sides.

But first things first. I need to convince my thick brain/heart to see I created the desire, so I created the pain, so I must be able to un-create it too. Stay tuned, in the next blog we will start from the starting place–little ole lying Alana–and see if we can’t get to the truth.  

 

Yup, I admit it, Vampire Diaries, The Originals, Charmed … I have a slightly unnatural love for the teeny bopper drama. The thing is these shows — rife with the undead, the supernatural, the witches, zombies, werewolves and end times — do double duty: 1) they are easy and fun to watch and 2) they make for excellent dharma contemplation. Seriously, the characters are so flat, the themes so black and white, the dharma lessons pop-out in the contrast. Which brings me to the season finale of my favorite 2014/15 show, The 100s.

Show recap: A group of humans (the 100s) left earth in ships to avoid ‘the end of the world’ and lived in space for several generations. Upon returning to earth these humans find others who had managed to survive a great apocalyptic event, including a community who lived underground. Initially, members of the underground community and some of these 100s folks became friends and lived together peacefully in the underground bunkers. But soon we learn the underground community is dying-out. They don’t have the resources to keep living underground, but they can’t live above ground due to high radiation. That is, unless…

The Scene: The undergrounders have realized that the bone marrow of their 100s friends (whom being born in space are immune to radiation) is their ticket to surviving above ground. But, for one undergrounder to survive they need all the marrow from a 100. For one to live another must die. The story’s hero, Clark,  the leader of the 100s, learns that the undergrounders plan to murder all of her people and steal their bone marrow. There is only one way to stop them — kill or be killed. Just as the undergrounders go to kill Clark’s mom and harvest her marrow, Clark, torn by guilt, but filled with conviction, opens an air valve to the outside and floods the underground bunker with radiation. All the undergrounders die and the 100s are free to go. So the hero saves her people, and everyone (at least the important people, the 100s) live to see another day and another season on air. The end.

The Contemplation: The whole show is told from the perspective of the 100s. From the very first episode we, the audience, follow their struggles and their triumphs. We audience members are led to identify with them, to rejoice for them and worry about them. Their story is our story. So, it’s only natural that when Clark pulls open the air valve, I found myself cheering for her, relieved that her plan to save her people (my people) worked.

But when the show ended and the credits began to roll I started having second thoughts…two groups of humans, desperate to protect their families, children and communities. Two groups of humans willing to turn to the abomination of genocide to ensure their own survival. This is the danger of self and self belonging. It scared the shit out of me.

I put myself in Clark’s shoes, then in the shoes of the underground leader and the truth is, I didn’t know what I would do in either case. Probably the same thing and try to save my people. But, at the end of the day, it’s not about which group is right/wrong, it’s not about morals or values or justice. It is about a dark truth of this world — as long as I have an ‘I/We’ to preserve, I face the peril of committing unfathomable horrors.

 

 

 

Well Dear Reader, if you have followed even a few of my 100+ blogs to date, you will know one thing about me for sure –I am a worrier. ♪ I worry in the morning, I worry at night, I worry when it’s dark and I worry when its light. ♪ Sing it with me here ♪..I worry about my marriage, my beauty and my wealth; I worry when in sickness and I worry when in health. ♪ When life is going swell, I worry ‘cause ‘what the hell’. And when life is in the shitter worrying seems even fitter ♪…

Thanks for bearing with me while I got that out of my system…the point here is I worry.  The story is:

I was interviewing to find a new Development Coordinator at work, someone to help with gift entry, donor relations, events, etc. I had narrowed it down to two great candidates and arranged final stage interviews back to back on a Friday afternoon.  The first candidate, Raja, came in and I was blown away. He was amazing and the interview went amazing. We both knew it. I really thought my mind was made-up till the second candidate came-in, Lisa.

Lisa was weaker on paper, less experience, less time in the industry. But something about her character, honesty, judgment and true passion struck me. I surprised myself when, by the end of the interview, I had decided we needed to hire her. A few minutes before 5:00 PM, I went to my boss to discuss. We were both on the same page, Lisa it was, we would call first thing Monday morning and extend an offer.

As I was on my way home, I thought about all the times I had been in Lisa and Raja’s position — waiting. Waiting for news on a job, a test, a medical exam. Waiting and worrying, because worrying lives in the space/time of uncertainty.

But the fates of Raja and Lisa weren’t uncertain at all, I had already decided who I would hire. What, from their perspective was a space/ time of uncertainty, was from my perspective already a done deal, a foregone conclusion.

I realized my life is the same way. I take a test and I either passed or failed, so why do I worry till I get the grade ( and then have worry replaced by either satisfaction or  disappointment)? I take a medical screen and worry till I get the results even though the condition of health, or illness, was already existent well before the doctor called with the report.

A further note from present day Alana: When I was packing my bags and preparing for the move to NY, I wasn’t worried at all, I thought I was going to be just fine. I think we all know I was not…

My life is a rollercoaster of fear and hope, all of which take place while I wait for the news, wait for the future, wait to ‘know’ whatever it is I’m waiting for. But I am actually a terrible predictor of how things will turn-out, of when it’s ‘time to worry’  and when it’s time to chill (i.e. the great NY misadventure). I worry because I only see a tiny bit of this world out my window and I fear what is outside of my view. But the world is out there, the future is already being shaped, perhaps decided, so why all the worry?

 

So the last blog began with a conversation about ‘mess’ at the Wat and ended with an ah-haaaa moment about me understanding(ish) a path to make my heart neutral; to see not mess but  a pile of stuff without judgment or bother. But, there is a bit more to the story. A few contemplations, conversations and inputs that really helped me get there. So, although this a twist and turn in my timeline, in this blog I will share an email conversation between Neecha and I that took place after the conversation at the Wat about ‘mess’ that I mentioned in the beginning of the last blog, but before my contemplation about neutrality that followed managed to take shape (i.e the end of the last blog). I offer it here to show a kind of bridge in my thinking, one example of the inputs that helped get me from something my teachers say to something I can actually process and understand.

Alana’s Email to Neecha asking 2 questions:

1) I wanted to submit a general question for the video Q and A if you guys think its appropriate (if not then maybe you and Mae Yo just have a few thoughts for me) . The question in general is if Mae Yo can talk a little about the role of “what we are familiar with/used to” plays in our lives and more specifically in our continued rebirth. It seems to me a really important underpinning for how we view with and interact in the world. Yet, in my own observation its kind of “silent” it lurks in the background as a kind of unspoken standard…

2) I wanted to share a few specifics of my own contemplation on the topic as well as ask for a little guidance in a place I am stuck. I have contemplated this topic a lot in the past, mostly in relation to the 8 worldly conditions and comparison.I guess I felt like I kinda understood it, but then I was at a concert of a jazz singer I really like last weekend and I noticed that before each song I kept hoping she would play one I knew. The first few cords I was filled with hope, and then, when I realized I didn’t know the song, first I was disappointed, then I started trying to find things that were familiar–oh she uses the same cords, or its the same theme as this other song I like, etc.

It really struck me that something so small as if I knew a song effected my enjoyment so much, and for each new song, it was the old songs that I knew that helped me judge the likability of what is new. I don’t know quite why but the experience was a powerful one — like I caught a glimpse of my own standard setting, my own building of identity, of belonging, of relating to stuff around me  in real time.

I have already started thinking about this in terms of the aggregates as well as self and self belonging. Also, I am thinking a lot about the idea of preservation and how it relates to what we are used to. There is one thing that I’m a little stuck on — when things aren’t “as good as” what I’m familiar with I’m disappointed, but sometime, if I perceive them as better than what is familiar I am happy. I notice there is a limit to this–food can be too rich, houses too big, clothing too fancy –still though there is seemingly some acceptance for a creep “above” what I’m used to but not really much room below. I understand my own imagination creates the yard stick based on my past experiences…still, I’m a little surprised that it doesn’t go both ways (actually I’m less surprised than that I think I have a major wrong view lurking here and I can’t quite pin it down).

My suspicion arises based on the direction my contemplation on preservation have taken me. I have noticed that a major personality trait of mine is that I seek to preserve what I have, things, feelings, relationships, beauty, fitness, health. I’m not necessarily a person that wants or seeks more, I’d rather just “guard” whats “mine”. But sometimes I get more  (this has been especially true with money in the past few years) and when I do, my standards shift, more becomes the thing I am used to and also the new thing I need to guard. I guess the thought that resonated with me most is that if my goal is to preserve then getting more is actually a bad thing–its more work, more to guard, its more painful to lose. Still, I am willing to accept above my standards/what I am used to, even though its so much riskier and harder, than to accept below. Its on this bit of crazy that I wonder if you or Mae Yo have any guidance or gentle nudging for my own thoughts, I would love to hear them.

Neecha’s Reply:

What we are familiar with is super important. It leads us to define happiness and dissatisfaction, which in turn leads to to desire to be reborn a certain way- either to continue to encounter what we are pleased with, or to have another try, only this time not having to face the things we were displeased with. As Mae Yo often talks about, we are reborn because we either desire it, or because we are being forced into it. We can desire more of the pleasant or less of the unpleasant, but either way, we will be reborn because of it. And whether we are forced by karmic debts or willingly reborn, once reborn, we will encounter more of the pleasant and unpleasant, and continue this endless cycle of “I want more of this” and “I don’t want to be like this anymore.” Each of those wants is a “bhava” or becoming, another attempt, another lifetime. That’s what we are trying to cut out by seeing the TTP (suffering) of the things we’re pleased and displeased with in life. And we measure being pleased or displeased based on what we are accustomed to, so it’s super crucial to understand sanya (#3) and how it works, how it affects us, what its TTP(suffering)  are.

Being ok with a slight upgrade but not ok with a slight downgrade is normal. It’s cause is nothing to dig too deep into, because it’s just a natural part of this world, we are all like that. Just like how everything comes with two sides, and one side is considered preferable.  Preferable is perceived personal benefit, while not preferable is perceived personal loss. As you know, how we perceive the outcome can also change, given new info or as time passes. What we see is an upgrade now can be perceived as a downgrade a week later. The main thing here to see how #3 (memory) works in defining good or bad, where did you start thinking it was good or bad to start with, how permanent or impermanent are those labels anyhow, how much TTP is involved in maintaining that yardstick of yours.

For instance, I never really noticed or cared about how people held their spoons when they ate. I traced it back to a mother and daughter who seemed to have it all together. They had the newest toys, the newest clothes, they were like trendsetters. And since I was younger than the daughter, she seemed so smart to me. When she told me I held my spoon in a barbaric way, I re-positioned my hand to hold it in the “proper” way, and started noticing they way others held theirs. Soon, I was labeling people as barbaric and refined. Those judgments affected how I viewed their other actions, how I treated them. When I realized this attitude came from such an arbitrary cause (the point is to eat, who cares how you hold the spoon), that it was completely conditional (would everyone agree that holding the spoon in X way was superior to Y), the idea lost its foundation, it couldn’t be maintained anymore. This is how we destroy the bonds in our memories. By seeing the harm caused as we strive to reinforce them, and the nature of how they were formed and perceived in the first place.

Alana Reads Neecha’s Blog: http://neecha.kpyusa.org/blog/subway/ — OK, blog Neecha wrote on fairness is one of those really important, timely, inputs that helped me shift my thinking. I am linking it here and suggesting you give it a read for context in my final reply,

Alana’s Reply:

Sometimes I get the feeling I’m sorta grasping around a topic, but can’t quite find the entry point.  Anyway, this plus your recent Subway blog actually helped a lot! You sort of freed me from being zoomed-in on the upgrade/downgrade thing and I was able to look a little more closely at a close cousin…neutrality. Or, more specifically, the causes for my being bias in one direction or another rather than being neutral to something (which is a state that would cause less suffering if I could just get there and which would uproot the potential for that thing to propel me forward any further).  

A while back, at the Wat, we were talking about the “mess” on the table. About how, even though we understood that our #3s were the benchmark for the  judgement (#4) of the “messiness” and even though we recognized the discomfort it caused us and possible future perils of the judgement as well, it was hard not to really imagine it as a mess in that moment. It was hard to be neutral to the pile of stuff on the table as being just that, a pile of stuff. I sort of ended-up setting this contemplation a side for a little while because I wasn’t getting anywhere…

When I look at my jazz night out though, I see the situation so much more clearly — the songs are just a jumble of notes and lyrics. I see them as enjoyable or not just based on my own familiarity (3) (somehow this is a clearer example to me then stuff on a table, even though I think its the exact same thing). I then used my imagination , drawing parallels of her old songs to her new  to create new memories, new songs that I can like/be failure with/judge against in the future. Suddenly it just seems kind of silly that I could think some note combos are absolutely great (clean) and others are absolutely bad (messy), particularly when my yard stick is my own creating and i’m continually manipulating the notches on it as well.

The funny thing is, when I really think about my jazz story, I know the origins just like you did with the spoons. Its got to do with my job. I know this Jazz singer because my org. has presented her several times. Since I started this job, I feel like I’m “in the know”, especially about musicians we have presented before.  Its an identity I have developed in part because I felt like it would help me be successful with this job, also to “justify” the reasons I enjoy it and the things it gives me. Plus, I really respect the taste of our ED and it is she who has chosen to present this artist multiple times. When I didn’t know the songs she sang, a part of me felt like my identity as “in the know” was threatened, since clearly, I didn’t know. All the issues I was solving for by creating the identity were challenged and it made me uncomfortable. Combine that with the tendency to prefer what is familiar and I felt dissatisfaction and the need to quickly adjust, to build new memories so in the future I would be in the know again. Ironically, if I were a different kind of person, someone who valued being exposed to new things (which is just a different kind of familiarity, begin familiar with whats new) the concert would have been awesome to my ear and reinforced my sense of being a new edgy person.

Anyway, I’m sort of writing and thinking real time, so this is a bit scattered. I think however this is a topic I will consider more and I am grateful in the nudge you gave me to get here. It seems like a lot of my practice these days lies in my second guessing myself, chipping at my previously held assumptions by looking more closely about how they arise and what purpose I believe they serve (usually they do a pretty half-assed job serving their supposed purpose) . I think I had been taking familiarity/ what I was used to as a logical given truth, something it was safe to base my beliefs and judgments on. I see how important it is to chip away at this,since, it is kind of crazy to think some notes and words are good/bad in their essence.

 

I was at the Wat and a friend was talking with Mae Yo about an issue of hers: She had asked someone to go to the store and pick-up a case of Coke, they came home with Pepsi.  Over and over she asked them to go and make and exchange and she grew more and more frustrated when they didn’t. The thing is, she already knew her wrong view: when someone fucks something up, they should fix it. She already knew she was the one suffering. But still the problem wasn’t fixed –so what are us practitioners supposed to do when we know we have set a condition, but it just seems so real and right?

A few minutes before Mae Yo had pointed to a stack of papers and pens and other stuff on the table — a bunch of stuff I said  looked like mess– and Mae Yo told us the goal was to be neutral about it. We should see it as an impermanent pile of things, not a mess per se. Or, at least, if it is a mess, it is only one in conventional terms, it is something we should not be bothered by.

But seriously, it still looked like a mess to me, and messes bother me. How am I supposed to come to neutral? I know it is my condition of what is mess and what is clean, I know these conditions will come and bite me in the ass, They already had, as I was uncomfortable sitting there and staring at the mess. But looking at that friggen pile, I was 100% sure it was a mess!!!

Neecha pointed out that it is really just my memory (3) of past object piles informing my imagination (4) to think of it as a mess. And, my memory and imagination have been wrong so many times before. Mae Yo suggested I zoom-out, just looking at mess may not be enough, maybe I should consider concepts of cleanliness, safety, and my experiences with those to consider their performance. But to be completely honest, I left that conversation thinking me and my definition of mess were a totally hopeless mess…

Fast forward a few weeks: I had been to a concert with one of my favorite Jazz singers, Paula West, and it had sparked some contemplations about what is familiar  being what is preferable to me (we will look at this in the next blog). Older songs I had heard before I liked, newer ones I tended to judge based on my experience with her old music.

But it dawned on me the songs are really just a jumble of notes and lyrics (just like a mess is just a jumble of objects). I see them as enjoyable, or not, based on my own familiarity (memory–#3).  I then use my imagination (#4), drawing parallels to other music I like, the way her new songs sound like old favorites, to create new memories, new songs that I can like and use to judge future music.

Suddenly it just seemed kind of silly that I could think some note combos are absolutely great (clean) and others are absolutely bad (messy), particularly when my yard stick is my own creation, based on my own past experiences,  and I’m continually manipulating the notches on the yardstick as I interpret new experiences and imagine ways they impact the future.

And here it is –I think I may sorta kinda understand what Mae Yo was trying to say about the process by which I can bring my emotions to neutral: When I love/hate something, it is my emotions, my feelings, my vedana (that would be the second aggregate) that is responding to the imagination (#4) of what it means which is based off my past memories (#3). The path is is manipulate my own imagination (#4)– by assessing the evidence in the world, paying attention to the 2 sides of everything, impermanence and the suffering– so that my mind overwrites my old memories #3 with new ones that are more accurate and aligned with the truth (impermanence). With new memories, I will have new beliefs, new imaginations, that can, ultimately change my emotional responses (Vedana) of love/hate and bring my to neutral.

 

Why Do I do all this?

It is so hard to peel back these tendencies and beliefs and find the why. Still, I think I have found at least a few reasons that play out in my tendency to imagine and seek “zones of comfort”, as well as in so many other wrong views:

One: As I have already reflected in past entries, my self seeks safety. It creates narratives and interprets the “data” of my experiences in order to tell me a story that I am safe, that I can be safe, that if I do the right things or play by the right rules to be safe, I will be. I plan a Japan trip because I need to believe there to be someplace /space in this world exempt from the daily sufferings, somewhere worth it, somewhere fun and exciting and new, somewhere I can replay my positive experiences — some place, some zone,  where I am safe and comfortable. With the effort of planning, the effort of going, I can find it. And when I do find it, or narrate to myself that I have found it, it reinforces my sense of self as someone who deserves the happiness, who deserves the safety that I have found. I play into the lie loop #3 from the last blog , self creates self- fulfilling prophecies.

Two: I do it to achieve other ends that I think are important (often incidentally for my safety). This is especially true of travel, because I see it as a way to spend time with Eric and therefore strengthen our relationship (which I rely on for a sense of emotional and financial safety). So even if I see the pain in setting-it up, of losing it, I suppress the pain in order to muscle through and do what I think needs to be done to achieve my aim.

Three: I think I construct this imaginary line of crappy here and awesome over there (but achievable there, not far off there), to make life and all my struggles in it seem worth it. I catch myself rationalizing weird things to this end — just the other day I was thinking even though having our life and home in this expensive city, with Eric’s crazy job and my boring one are so hard, I wouldn’t want to go back to Houston or have less house, less money, different job because I don’t want to go back to my old types of suffering. I feel like at least my new suffering is progress. If I go back to the old, it proves that all the struggle in between was for nothing.

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Interjection from present day Alana: Back when I wrote this homework I didn’t want to go back to Houston. But now I do want to go from NY back to San Fran. I see that it is not just that I don’t want to ‘go back’ to old sufferings — it is not about ‘progress’– it is that I prefer certain Alana selfs, and that self’s particular type of suffering (a suffering that in fact helps define that version of myself). Sure I had SF self suffering — the suffering to be a good attentive wife to a husband who works too much, the suffering of a stable job that bored me, the suffering of needing to preserve wealth and beauty. But that suffering came with being a certain Alana — good wife, smart employee, wealthy and pretty, and capable of managing my active, slightly stressful life like a good mature adult. NY Alana suffers as a hater, as a bad wife who is dragging down her husband’s career by being so emotionally unstable, as a bad Buddhist who can’t just be all fucking zen about the situation. I much prefer SF Alana, and the sufferings that shape her, show her ‘true’ colors as a steady suffering saint than the eratic, harmful, crazy-ass NY Alana. Obviously, this brings me right back to the prelude for this blog, can there be 2 diametrically opposed Alanas I can pick from? And a new topic for further future contemplation: Not only does my sense of self create my suffering, but I then take my suffering and interpret it in ways that further support my sense of self. Anyway…back to the blog at hand…

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It’s like I’m not yet ready to give-up on the world –in part because I really want there to be fields of frolicking unicorns and rainbows just waiting for me to find them. I still think I have control to find them and if I can’t exactly “will it” there are things I can do to “deserve it” (I know ironically that I am likely the one who determines what this is too, my own lawmaker and  judge). But also because it’s so hard to just call so much effort a sunk cost–like all my own suffering is money I spent gambling and I just can’t quit because I am already in so deep.

Anyway, I think this was a very long, 4-part blog, to say I know I have a problem. A problem with my view and a problem that I suffer. Now I need to gather enough evidence to see the truth,  sukka’s rightful owner is dukka. If I make the problem of suffering my number one priority, if I can stop quests for ‘zones of comfort’ and focus on final escape, maybe I can solve the problem with my view along the way…

But, the solution will really only come with gathering evidence, looking at my life, and seeing how the suffering pans-out.

Dear Reader — this blog is a direct continuation of the last entry, Wrong Views on Suffering and Happiness —What, How, the Lie and Why Part 1 and Part 2 — if you have not yet read that post yet please head back there and read it before you continue.

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The Lie: The problem is that my 3s and 4s (memory and imagination) –my self — is a liar. I know this because I have watched and gathered so much evidence of it. My favorite story though is about the way I always viewed my Mom and Dad. Mom was evil, Dad a saint. Every story I remembered from my childhood supported this narrative, the way I interpreted, the things I chose to remember–it all served to strengthen my resolve that my parents were flat characters, they were one particular way. It was only after I began contemplating gratitude for my Mom that I remembered times she was good and my Dad was a dick. Stories where she cared for me, where she supported me, where she made me feel happy and loved. It makes me see that there are a few particular ways in which the lie unfolds:

1) I am always the reference point –I just caught this one as I was writing. I read what I thought was good behavior from my Mom and its all about me. She cared for me, she made me smile. I was in a review with my new employee today along with my supervisor. We were both giving her feedback of the positive qualities we think she brings to the job and all mine were about the things that make my life easier. All my boss’ where about the things that make her life easier. So what exactly are the good qualities of my employee? If my priorities change what happens to my sense of her goodness? If I am the reference point, and I continually change, then how can there be an absolute good, a safe zone? Worse, it means that as my expectations change, as they grow –my employee’s virtues, the  things Mom does to make me smile, the ‘zones’ I think are happy — all these things will need to grow too in order to adapt to a changing standard.

2) My 3s (memory) and 4s (imagination) have an agenda — when I look at the way I  construed my Mom and Dad, I see the way I kept gathering evidence to “prove” the point I already “knew” –Mom was bad and Dad was good. Information that went contrary to this I sorta just forgot about, or I ignored it as an outlier. I do this so often. I think of the guys that park my car at work very fondly. I think they are efficient, they are always on time. But sometimes they are not, so I give them a pass –I think they are having a bad day, its a one off, but I “forget about it” and don’t let it erode my sense of their goodness.

 

3) My 3s and 4s self confirm/self fulfill prophecies — this is similar to #2 above. But its worth a separate note because its such an active process. Here is how I see it working: I associate being on a trip with being relaxed, therefor on a trip I tend not to do things that stress me out like checking email or making appointments. It is like, in my mind, the trip gives me permission not to worry or do worrisome things and, in turn, I record to memory that trips are stress-free times.

4) The only way my 4s (imagination) are able to interpret and value my experiences is relatively. In Japan we stayed at a disgusting hotel one night. The bathroom was moldy, the bed hurt, the heater was broken. We couldn’t even make it all night (it was not up to our standard, not what we were used to) so we went and found another place. The second place was so much better than the first we felt such relief and slept with ease. Eric and I remember the time there fondly. But in truth the 2nd place wasn’t nearly as nice as many places we often stay at and the first was way less bad than places we deemed acceptable in the past (you should have seen some of the hotels in Morocco when we were broke grad students). When we moved on to the next hotel our affection for the second place faded  a little because the new place was nicer. This I guess gets back to the suffering, which is there is no way to ever hit a zone of comfort and stay there because not only will it change, and I will change, just having it as a new point of relative reference means that I will go reinterpreting it as soon as a new experience comes along. So the big question…WHY DO I DO THIS ALL?