I woke-up the day after thanksgiving to news of Omicron. I was devastated: Just as I had begun to taste a little post-vaccine freedom, I was now imagining a newly locked down life. One of the things stressing me out the most was that I would need to cancel an upcoming trip to see my family in January. I have barely seen them since the pandemic began, particularly my brother and his family. I feel not just disconnected, but derelict…
After some of my initial contemplations on everything is suffering, I reached-out to Mae Neecha via Line with an update. I want to share that conversation as her response — particularly her comment about how our desire to maximize, even when we are already happy, proves dukkha — helped guide my investigation into considering increasingly subtle forms of suffering. Alana: I have been thinking a lot about this idea everything is suffering, turning it over in my mind and I now see…
I was watching a bird yesterday struggling to fly in the wind. I realized it puts so much effort into just getting where it wants to go. A place it only stays a little while before needing to struggle to get somewhere new. To achieve just temporary enjoyment, the bird has to struggle. Which is to say, enjoyment is born of struggling. No struggle no enjoyment. On some level, we all know this: If you want a delicious meal, you…
A while back, my rheumatologist recommended I go on fasting cycles to help regulate my immune system; every 4 to 6 weeks I have been doing 5 day modified fasts. On the final day of my most recent fast, I started contemplating on my hunger, my joy at getting to eat the next day, and how to consider all of this in terms of the topic that ‘everything is suffering.’ As I fantasized about my break-fast meal, I felt a…
From the beginning of my practice, the former abbot of Wat San Fran, Phra Nut, has been a true teacher and dear spiritual friend (kalyanamitra) to me. In 2021 he decided to leave his role as abbot at Wat San Fran and return to Thailand. Before he left the US, he took a trip to a sister temple in New York to participate in a Kathina ceremony. I feel deeply fortunate that I had the opportunity to visit with him while…
Mae Neecha’s reply to my question how everything could be suffering: Yes, it’s the feeling of relief (that you’d call happiness) over Eric’s kidney stones that embodies the concept of everything is suffering. Happiness is relief from suffering, or just less suffering. They are on different sides of the same scale… the scale of suffering. Just like how hot and cold are on opposite ends of the same temperature scale. Or how 0 and 100 are on opposite ends of a number…
Mar Neecha’s Reply to my reflections on Sammuti: The idea is, sammuti starts out arbitrary and then we build on that arbitrary until it feels permanent. Where initially we recognize the arbitrary nature of sammuti, after growing used to it, it becomes real and permanent for us. So much so that after we are removed from the situation we persist in seeing things according to that sammuti. Even being told or seeing for ourselves how something has completely changed doesn’t…
OK, I was so going to quit while I was ahead, but one more observation is in order: WHY it is that things in this world won’t just follow my rules/expectation/concepts of what they are; man, I am like a whiny child that can’t be mollified with a ‘just because’. “But why, but why, but why”… anyway, re-enter the snowflake. Many years ago, I was at my favorite hot springs resort, on a Wednesday. Out of the blue, the distinct odor…
In his Autobiography LP Thoon explains, “The term moha, or delusion, is the mind that is deluded by sammuti (supposed form). Avijjā, or ignorance, is ignorance of these sammuti (supposed form).” this one line — and his explanation that sammutti operates hand-in-hand with the 4th aggregate of immagination — has really been weighing on me. It makes some sense though; for our imaginations to function, to fabricate imaginary futures, imaginary belongings, and imaginary identity — imaginary stillness in an actually ever-shifting world — …
The following is an email exchange with Mae Neecha on some of the details of my samutti contemplations. It is very long, so I will be breaking it up into a few entries for ease of reading. Seemingly out of nowhere, Eric started peeing blood. Unexplained blood in the urine is cancer till proven otherwise (though in his case also very likely kidney stones given his history of them), we are waiting for all the tests and labs to get…
Thinking further on bubbles and anatta… I realized that with physical objects, I want to affix things — make them still — hold them in a state I like, with characteristics that I like. But what is true of simple stuff, houses and cars and even faces, is true of what is more complex too, like mothers. The mechanics are the same. I create a concept — of something narrow and fixed — and I expect the world will oblige my supposition. …
Dear Reader: The following post draws upon an old ubai, a bubble (like a kid’s bubble or a soap bubble), which had been a critical tool for my contemplations on physical form, samutti (supposed form or conventional form), and annatta (no self/ or the nature of everything in this world that aggregates to become disaggregated/ or the un-clumping of what seemed, or was temporarily, clumped) for years prior to the present contemplation. As a reminder, an Ubai is a tool, an…
In October 2021, Mae Neecha sent me a draft of LP Thoon’s Autobiography, that she had been working on, for my help with some editing. My reading of the Autobiography ultimatly spured me to do a deep dive exploration of Dukkha. But before that, it stirred-up, and casued me to revisit, a number of old contemplations, particularly on the topic of samutti – supposed form. Below are some of my initial thoughts on sumutti, which I shared with Mae Neecha….
Recently, I had been having a Line conversation with a Dharma Friend. She asked for some practice advice and I kept emphasizing to her how critical it is to identify our wrong views. This is, after all the heart of practice, but it is also something I see my friend struggle to do time and again. I get the struggle, frankly, its easy to get caught up just analyzing a story or a situation, while missing the wrong view. I…
It is now early 2024 and Eric and I have spent the last few months doing some extensive traveling. As I write these blog on my old snowflake ubai, I can’t help but see new evidence of the sameness of snow all around me. Here, I want to again break with the orderly chronology of the blog and share a few of my current thoughts on that old ubai — there is no such thing as a special snowflake, snow…
Lately, I have been super stressed about going to get a Covid booster shot; I don’t technically fall under the immune compromised category of folks currently eligible, but in light of the autoimmune blood markers I have, I worry I am at increased risk of bad Covid outcomes. When I spoke to my doctor, he agreed, and thought a booster was a good idea. Still, I feel bad going to take one, like I shouldn’t do it because not everyone is eligible, and technically, under…
But wait….there is more… How I use details like those little horse blinders — zooming me in, myopic in sight, fixated on moving forward in the world. Lately I have been considering another problem of my details-fixated view: It keeps me myopic, zoomed-in, constantly engaged with/dazzled by what is right in front of me. Last week — as Eric and I were talking about if we have enough money for him to retire soon (again) — I was considering a…
In fall 2021, I had been digging deeper on an old Ubai: The special snowflake. Below is a synopsis of my thoughts on this topic that I shared with Mae Neecha. As it is a fairly long synopsis, I will divide this into several entries. Before now, I saw clearly that when I consider the fact that each snowflake is special and unique in small ways, I miss the greater commonality — that all flakes arise when water reaches a…
Recently I thought back to my days as a Candy Crush addict. For over a year, I played in much of my free time. I wasn’t just good, I was great. I grew-up playing puzzle games as a kid and with Candy Crush, I felt like a natural. Of course, lots of bucks that I could spend on extra lives, 99 cents at a time, helped as well. In time, I reached level 900+ and then, suddenly, I grew bored….
