KPYUSA Student blogs

Dear Readers — I am going to go ahead and move the continuation of this blog over to the site https://alana.kpyusa.org/. The very next blog ‘Death is a Symptom of Life’ can be found here:  https://alana.kpyusa.org/pain-is-symptom-of-life/.  This puts all of my blogs in one place, and hopefully makes it easier for me, the writer, and you, the reader, to keep up with the lates installments. Same blog, same stuff, just a new…

A note from present-day-alana (April, 2023): In recent years, the concept of ‘arbitrariness’ has, over time, become a core point of contemplation in my practice. As I consider the idea of ‘identity’, where it arises from, and, ultimately its hollowness, considering arbitrariness has been a key tool for me. Afterall, if the characteristics we choose to build our uniqueness – our identity— from are just arbitrarily selected, could have been…

I recently had begun making chanting a daily practice and, after enough rote repetition, I stated getting curious…I started reading the English, considering the meaning of the passages more closely. There were a few that really struck me, but over and over I kept coming back to a part of the morning chanting that talk about the five aggregates of clinging. Per the Buddha, those bitches bring about a whole…

During my daily doom-scrolling of terrible world news, and troubling medical studies, an article had popped into my feed talking about a new study establishing the link between walking speed and longevity. A few days later, Eric and I were out for a hike –I was rearing to go for an uphill sprint, Eric however was, as usual, ambling along at a snail’s pace. Recalling the recent article I had…

With that tooth pain gone, I got to thinking more clearly, and I couldn’t help think more about what it was that tooth could teach me. Specifically my mind turned toward the relationship between form and imagination. You see, in the weeks prior to the tooth extraction I had begun to consider the question of where my stress in life comes from –what exactly is the cause of my dukka?…

Yesterday, I finally had my long-suffering, cracked tooth extracted. It had been all panic leading up to the extraction: I feared the pain, I feared infection, I feared catching covid all masks-off-vulnerable in the dentist’s chair. But the tooth had reached the end of its life, and an infection of a top molar could endanger mine, so it was, at long last, so long tooth. After she had pulled it…

I was sitting in the kitchen while Eric was preparing lunch, watching as he tossed the shrimp peels, the lemon rind, the parsley stems, into the trash. Eric loves to cook. He derives so much of his value — his sense of identity — from his ability to feed and nourish others, to prepare food as delicious as it is wholesome. Cooking isn’t just what Eric does, Eric IS A COOK….

It was early 2021, vaccines came on the scene, and a faint light at the end of the Covid tunnel came into view. For over a year, I had almost totally isolated myself, I had practiced will, patients and fortitude in the name of protecting and preserving my health. Just as the world was starting to seem like it could be a safe place once again, I got quite a rude awakening; it…

As promised at the start of this blog chapter, we will not be closing this part of my story with Alana the Great Understander of Karma. The truth is, the more clearly I understand karma, the more I suspect that a complete understanding of how karma operates is synonymous with enlightenment. That’s because, my most recent contemplations (March 2023) have helped me realize that not understanding karma is just one…

AD: So I just finished reading LP Thoon’s sermon Line of Practice for Developments — in it he talks about how being born in a human body is like building a house. When the time is right, when you have sufficient materials, you will be born/ build a house. If you have lots of assets, it’ll be big and fancy. If you have little, it will be modest. The ‘materials’ are…