I walked into Starbucks today and there was a homeless man making a mess at his table near the door, I felt myself move to give him wide berth, going to stand as far from his table as I possibly could while still holding my place in line. The truth is, the man, his rupa (physical form), disgusted me — the smell of filth mixed with urine, the look of his matted hair and scabby skin, his behavior of strewing the table and floor with torn sugar packages, crumpled newspaper, making no effort to keep his surroundings in the restaurant clean.

As I try to place physical distance between that man and myself, I realize I was trying to place emotional distance between the two of us as well.  I so desperately need to believe that that man –with his filth, poverty, inconsiderate behavior — that is not me, that is something deeply ‘other’ to what I am. But, the more I consider it, the more undeniable it is that in many ways, that man and I are more alike than different.

Fundamentally, it is that man’s rupa that sets me off, that jolts my deep sense of unease, that my heart uses to ‘prove’ our deep difference. But isn’t that all surface rupa I am fixating on? More fundamentally, don’t he and I share the same genesis and the same disintegration of our rupa:  We are, after all, both formed from the union of sperm and egg, both gestated in in the wombs of our mothers, born to spend some finite period of time in this world before both our bodies disintegrate back into the very same dust of the earth.

After he and I are both  dead and gone, will someone be able to pick up a fragment of bone or a spec of dust that was former flesh and be able to say, “oh this one was that Alana chick, but that little scrap nail or hair over there, that one was the homeless dude from Starbucks.” Of course not, because that man and I have fundamentally the same rupa, the same organs, hair, eyes, skin, arms, legs and head; our bodies –and the composites upon which they are built — are basically the same. His body wears down, I look down at a busted thumb joint, feel the dull ache of a nerve issue in my arms, hear the creaking in my hip, and I can tell you my body is wearing down too. He is dirty, but I am just a few showers away from being exactly as dirty as he is. I am in line at Starbucks –why? Because I need food and drink to live, same as he does, sipping on his beverage. He closes his eyes and sleeps at regular intervals, I am freshly awake from my own last sleep.

In my mind I focus on our differences specifically so I don’t need to grapple with our sameness, a sameness that scares me.  I don’t want to feel the same as someone I see as dirty and disgusting and, frankly, a failure at life in our society. I don’t want to contemplate on how my body can reach the same state, or my life could take a similar turn. So I focus on the superficial physical difference that I use to gauge his ‘fundamental constitutional difference’ (ie. the personality traits and tendencies that made him homeless in the first place).

But isn’t this mental exercise of mine –to seek difference in the face of overwhelming, albeit uncomfortable, sameness — is about as meaningful as fixating on the subtle differences in the shape of each snowflake and ignoring the fact it is all snow: Derived from water when it reaches conditions below 32 Degrees and subject to melting back into water when it reaches temps above 32 degrees. No one shoveling the driveway gives a damn about which flake is pointy and which flake is round-tipped, they are just happy salt seems to help with them all.

Really we are the same. Physically we are indubitably more alike than different. And one thing my practice has really started showing me is that what can be seen in the physical world is often mirrored in the intangible one. After all, impermanence rules it all. My luck, my fortunes, my safety net, my behaviors, all these things (denominated in rupa btw) can change. They will change. Shit, they already have changed — most recently, my move to NY making me feel low, loosing the status, identity and social circle that kept me feeling happy and safe in SF. If I can loose, be brought low, why do I assume I am safe from going lower? If an Alana can go from an SF high to a NY lower why should I believe my self exempt from a homeless lower still?

In a world of inseparable pairs — where wealth and poverty, status and infamy — come together, cycling through states of both is inevitable.  My life hinges on the 8 worldly conditions, just the same as that homeless man’s. I reap the fruits of my causes, just the same as that homeless man. Both of us subject to our ever-evolving-karma. The only difference between that man and I is it is his turn to be low and my turn to be high. Time will change that as it changes everything else, just as surly as snow starts to melt at 33 degrees.