One of my coworkers has a dog, named Pizza, whose frequent trips to the office are a delight for everyone — he is so cute and loving, always ready to play and help take the edge off a stressful workday. Pizza is my doggie ideal; a fluffy little Schnauzer mix, that is more fur than dog. Until, one day, when he wasn’t…
One morning, I heard the jingle of Pizza’s leash and went out to the hall to greet him. I met what looked like a totally different dog: Pizza had been to the groomer the evening before, and today he was fluff free, looking nearly half his old size. He trotted over for a morning treat and suddenly I realized, I’m just not as excited to see him. I thought to myself, “It is just hair, it will grow back, it is not like the dog or his personality have changed.” But, I couldn’t deny the truth in my heart, less fluffy = less doggie appeal.
I started wonder, which dog is the ‘real’ Pizza’. The answer: both of them obviously, just at different points in time. So maybe the more precise question: Which moment in time ‘counts’ the most for me? Which is the ideal, from which every other state is ‘off’? For Pizza, because I love fluffy dogs, his shaved state is off, it is less desirable.
But it isn’t just dogs. The food I am served at a fancy restaurant I judge to be desirable, delicious, in its peak and perfectly prepared state on my plate. I don’t consider the states before, while it was being prepared, or raw and I don’t consider its states after, being decayed in the compost bin or turned to poop in my digestive track. What about my own body, I had a peak state, one I considered ideal , sometime back in my 20s. Before then, in my girlish form, I waited to become a ‘woman’. After, I fretted over each wrinkle and sag and mark. Intellectually, I know all these are just states of my body, but I feel so differently about them. I value them different, want them different, I have an ideal and then I have before and after –off states.
It is so clear that the interpretation, the assignment of value and desirability to a particular state or form exists in my heart. I favor a particular arrangement as cute, pretty, delicious, mine. But the truth is that each object continually shifts, going through many states. I suffer because I play favorites, states I like the best. But states are so fragile/changeable they can be lost with a single trip to the groomer, and suddenly I am disappointed, stuck enduring an object that seems ‘off’ to me. My joy at one state is my suffering at another.
I mentioned all this to Mae Yo and her response was so poignant: She asked if I didn’t understand how much work and suffering it was to take care of a fluffy dog, matted and shedding all the time, of course the owner brought it in for a hair cut. There is the answer to all my rupa attachment: Suffering even in states I like and more suffering when the state inevitably shifts to something new. For me and my clinging ways there is no escape from suffering if I just pay attention.