If self is the storyteller, self belongings are the props that help make the story believable. They are the accessories that make the outfit, that make the whole thing pull together…Enter, the pink skirt:

With my organization’s big annual gala in mind, I start trolling ebay looking for the perfect outfit. As soon as I saw that neon pink, silk, Oscar De La Renta  skirt, I knew it was mine. In my mind, I was wearing it before I even paid for it — thinking of the shoes, the purse, the shirt that would match. Thinking of the look I wanted so that everyone would  see me as fun, young but professional, stylish. Above everything, so people would see me as pretty, someone worthy of adoration, someone worthy of love and attention, someone valuable. A good Alana.

The skirt arrived a few days later, my excitement high as I tore open the package and ran to the bathroom to try it on. Wooohooo.. Yikes, fat, frumpy, cotton candy ass was totally not the look I was going for. I banished that skirt straight to the give-away-pile, it’s just totally not me, its not mine at all (or if it is, its my burden to carry over to the Goodwill)

That give-away-pile, was filled with stuff I gathered to sell the story, to dress the part of the Alana I wanted to be. But it was all stuff that failed to do its part in the end. It was props that made me look dated instead of fashionable, fat and frumpy instead of beautiful and thin, cheap instead of rich, whorish rather than sexy. That then is the truth, these props, these self belongings, they don’t do what I think they do, at least not all the time, forever, with everyone. If they did, that pink skirt would have made me a knockout..no further shopping required. And if the storyteller’s props are a sham, what about the stories?

I set-up these stories, these standards, these “refuges” –beauty is a certain thing, moral rightness is a certain thing (like not being a cheater) , likability is a certain thing (adventurous rhino survivor). With these ideas, these parameters, which I myself define, I create a narrative of a structured and predictable world and an Alana that deserves the best that world has to offer. These stories keep me safe from a chaotic world, just like a fit body keeps me safe from death, and a pretty face keeps me safe from being abhorred. But beauty fades, the face sags, the moral standards change (vegetarian Alana versus meat eating Alana), what is likeable to one person isn’t to the next. And besides, 1000 times I have seen pretty young people die, horrible people have good fortune and good ones face suffering. I have seen people safe and stable in one moment and then swept-up in a landslide the next.

All this time I have been looking for the wrong thing–to be safe. Beauty to keep me safe, money, love, my family, my friends, popularity, clothes, my body, health, food, all things I look to to keep me safe from what exactly? No matter what things I have, no matter what stories I tell, I’ll still grow old, suffer, die.

The truth is my ‘refuges of safety’ —  the stories my self is born to tell — are lies that keep me safe from nothing at all.  Impermanence is the final word. And now I at least have an inkling as to why all those wise Buddhists before me have said, the only source of refuge in this world is the Buddha, the Dharma, the Sangha.