The Story My husband’s boss up and quits — it wasn’t exactly unexpected, she had been unhappy for a while. But what was unexpected was that my husband wasn’t immediately promoted to her position; he was the most qualified, had been groomed to be her successor, it was, we thought, ‘in the bag’. Only, it wasn’t ‘in the bag’, and now my husband and I started to stress about his career and what came next. Not getting the big boss job…
Wandering around a cute little town in Napa, starving, my yelp app navigated me to what looked like the perfect lunch spot, a restaurant called Ad Hoc. I walked up the front steps to peek out the menu and I saw a huge sign above the door that read, ” Ad Hoc — for the temporary relief of hunger”. After lunch, once my hunger was temporarily relieved, I started thinking more about that sign…here I was in a fancy foodie…
I was sitting on the beach in Maui, surveying all the stuff I had brought along on my sun and surf outing: sandals- mine, hat -mine, kindle – mine, beach chair – borrowed, beach towel-borrowed, beach games -borrowed. All these objects –mine and borrowed — just jumbled together, it made me start thinking what exactly is the difference between the two? I know, I know, in a conventional sense the mine stuff comes back home to SF, the borrowed stuff…
In this weeks blog I will share notes from an exercise I did exploring how I might apply the technique I successfully used to kill my obsessive fear to greed/desire for my belongings. Since this draws directly on my past contemplation it will be helpful to you, Dear Reader, to go back and re-read the Killing the Fear blog here. After I saw fear wasn’t fixed/didn’t live in a situation, I was able to conquer it by realizing 2 things:…
I spent much of the 2017 retreat racking my brain for evidence about myself and this world that might be found in my objects. Finally one object, another article of clothes popped into my mind — a special shawl that was worn by members of my Tibetan Buddhist community when we practiced. I remember when I got that shawl, I was so proud to put it on, so excited to go to the temple to pray wearing it, proving that I was…
Normally, I love my 911 Porsche convertible. I like to drop the top, cruise to all the fancy neighborhoods in NorCal and imagine people’s jaws dropping as my sexy self, in sleek sunhat and black dress, rolls by rockin out to my favorite tunes. In my mind, the car shows I have made it. It shows I am wealthy and sexy, chic and sleek. It is the ultimate accessory to the successful, vibrant 30-something Alana I like to imagine myself…
I was on the 2017 KPY retreat and I suddenly remembered how, as a kid I used to love to play with Barbie dolls: I would come-up with a story line — Barbie the doctor who saves lives, Barbie on beach vacation, Barbie the princess going to a ball to meet her prince — and then I would dress-up the Barbie dolls to fit the story, to become the characters. Each article of clothing I put on a doll was…
The Home Owners Association fees at my friend’s condo went way way up and she and her husband could no longer afford to live there. She knew she needed to sell, sooner rather than later, but she absolutely refused to consider a listing price less than $X00K. The reason: $X00K is what she believed she would need to buy a new house in cash, in a new neighborhood where she liked the school district, that had at least 3 bedrooms…
We had a meeting at work to talk through a multi-team project, but I was feeling a little philosophical and started talking about a ‘big picture’ problem I hoped the project might solve — poor communication in my workplace. I gave around 3 examples to illustrate my ‘poor communications’ point, one of which involved a mistake by the Marketing Team, made months ago, communicating survey results. I left the meeting feeling like I had brilliantly ‘illuminated’ everyone. The next day…
I was out to dinner with a friend and when the waiter came to take our order, my friend invited me to go first. “I’ll take a salad and a side of fries” I said. My friend proceeded to order her meal, but –wah wah wah — she did not order fries. “Fuck” I thought, “I can’t believe she didn’t order fries, she loves fries and now she is totally going to hoover down mine.” Sure enough, no sooner had…
I was in Thai class today and we read this soppy-Thai story that went something like this: A teenager fights with his mom over something little. Then, to hurt her, he runs out of the house and runs away. As it gets dark the kid gets hungry but has no money for food. A noodle shop owner, who sees the kid standing outside looking longingly at the food, feels bad for the kid and invites him inside for something to eat. The…
After a stressful day at the office I decided to stop by my favorite thrift shop on the way home for a little ‘retail therapy’. I found myself walking down the aisle, looking at each frilly, fancy, colourful dress and thinking to myself, “Will this one preserve me?” “Will this one make me stay young? Return my lost beauty? Make me thin?” I watched how my imagination went to work conjuring images of the party I would wear the…
As I was reviewing past notes, I came across a teaching from LP Thoon that had always really moved me — it is a story in which he instructs a man named Singh on a specific set of contemplations/questions that ultimately result in Singh becoming a Stream Enterer. After re-reading the story, I had a new set of insights on the way my objects cause me suffering. Those insights are presented in the blog below. For those of you who…
My car had to go to the garage for servicing so the garage offered to let me borrow one of their loaner cars until mine was ready for pickup. I gave them a credit card, I signed the paperwork, I took the keys and before I knew it I was cruising down highway 101 on my way back home. The car I borrowed was the same make as my own and I noticed quite quickly how easy it was to get used to; all the…
As I started the process of organizing my thoughts, my notes and my stories to write this blog, something became abundantly clear: My practice is a path, it has a particular progression to it. I suppose, on some level, I always understood that practice wasn’t just a random series of flashes from the darkness. But, it wasn’t until I started to really outline the first chapters of this blog that I saw that new stories built on old stories, new skills…
Once I had decided to become a Dharma Blogger, I faced an interesting question: What the heck was I going to write about? I started by going back through my very first notebook: reviewing, rehashing, rewriting old stories to turn them into blogs. As I immersed myself in all the old stuff, something crazy happened, I started powerfully seeing so much new stuff in all my old stories; it was like my practice was supercharged, like I was looking at everything…
Dear Reader — this is the second of two exchanges with Neecha that took place around the Dharma Meltdown period which I would like to share prior to entering the next ‘chapter’ of this blog. The entry here is a question about a Buddhist concept called Sammutti, or ‘conventional forms’. I was helping LP Anan edit his new translation of the Uturn sermon and it prompts me to ask, about a term/concept from the sermon: The term is Sammutti, usually translated…
Dear Reader — this is the first of two exchanges with Neecha that took place around the Dharma Meltdown period which I would like to share prior to entering the next ‘chapter’ of this blog. The entry here is a question for Mae Yo about focus: Question: I know that practice has 2 important components, wisdom and focus. I am clear on the wisdom part and, it feels like I become more and more clear on it with time. But the focus…
Before we move to the next chapter, present Day Alana, wants to share a few final thoughts. Mostly, I want to admit that the issue of my fear that I am a bad Buddhist has softened, but it is not gone entirely. I still don’t particularly enjoy going to temple and I still feel a bit guilty about it. Sometimes it is because I find temple distracting from my personal practice (too many random topics in a teaching when I…
