Following my retreat, I sent a few updates to Mae Neecha about my contemplations, progress and ongoing work; this is the second blog  recapping  those messages

---

1) Beaver Dam and my Finger on the Scale Deciding What Causes Mean Someone is ‘Valuable‘ and What Causes are Insignificant  — a while back I came across a beaver dam hiking. It was a good looking dam as dams go, and that is when it dawned on me: The beaver causes the dam, but I am never super impressed with the beaver. I think nothing of it. Which was my first glimmer into the problem that my nama is a choosy narrator. I select which causes to ‘pay attention to’ and interpret as somehow meaningful/indicating some deep or great quality that exists in the  causer. I don’t care about sports, so I am not super impressed with a basketball player causing a score, but I love art, so the painting an artist creates makes that painter a great artist. The truth is, the world is full of beings who are causes, that isn’t something so special. But I choose which beings, which causes to assign value to. This was really my awakening that my finger is on the scale.

2)  Rosacea Flare-up and the Difference Between Being a Cause and Guaranteeing a Result:  My rosacea  was flaring (a  4 e process) and I wanted to ‘fix’ my skin, so I exerted my control — I called my doc and got her to prescribe a cream that ended up helping. As I was standing in front of the mirror I started to feel proud, of my skin and of the results I got in my fixit attempt. I realized though, that this time around, I put in place a cause and got a result I wanted. But there have been other times I called the doc and got a script that did, seemingly, nothing at all, times I have called the doc and got a script that made the rosacea worse, and 1 time that I got a script that made the rosacea better, but it had horrible side effects and I had constant headaches. It made me see that I can absolutely be a cause — I can change the course of my 4-e body’s march through shifting aggregated elemental states — but I can’t guarantee that I am going to get the results I want. At the end of the day, it is really the results I care about. Continuing to build identity around being a cause, or believing that because I can be a cause for my objects they will represent me, doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given that I can’t control the effects that my causes help to put in place.

3) Fit or Flabby, Alana has to Die — I know that rupa may only contain 4es, but its particular state does reflect the causes that brought it to that state –so boiling water does reflect the process of heating that brought it to the boiling state.

This got me very stuck on how a particular state of my body does in fact reflect something about the Alana nama that brought it to be in that state. I was thinking about a time when I was super fit. In my mind, that level of physical fitness reflected my extreme will power –to manage my diet, to manage my exercise –it made me proud. Though that level of fitness is long gone (showing its impermanence already), in my mind, I can’t help feel like, even if just for a moment, my body represented something important about me, a trait that I so deeply associate with myself. That with enough effort (which is always what I think I can bring to the table), I can at least momentarily get this body to represent me.

Honestly, I got so stuck on this I almost reached-out for help, but I gave myself another week to figure it out before I bugged you. Then Chadwich Boseman died (Black Panther actor). That dude was beyond fit (not to mention hot, talented and successful), but he died anyway. I imagine that his body, his career, all reflected his discipline, but it didn’t keep him for death, and death at a young age to boot. Somehow, this made me see that these brief moments of arrangement I fight so hard to obtain, so I can reflect something about myself, are sort of dwarfed by the end state we all come to. Its not exactly a perfect fix for this issue of body representing me, but it is the reason I have started thinking more ardently about death — the end, the fact that no matter what, I part ways with this body, is sort of the most persuasive argument I can come-up with that it is not really mine, it can’t be depended on, and if it isn’t mine or dependable, it is hard to make it  reflection of myself. Anyway, this is still a work in progress, but at least I think it is moving.

4) Wrong View as The Cause — A friend was talking to me about her many issues at work, and she didn’t even know where to start fixing them. But when I looked at her list of stuff — not speaking up, asking the same questions repeatedly, not leading — I realized that while I didn’t know her exact underlying wrong view, it sure looked like her issues were arising from one wrong view, or a wrong view and its kissing cousins. It made me remember something I somehow had lost sight of — all of our behaviors arise from our views (ahh the ole 8 Fold Path).

It got me to consider my own fit body represents ‘extreme willpower’ view.  I have already spent so much time contemplating how I don’t control my body (nothing like pissing myself to really drive that point home) and it is pretty clear that extreme willpower is a kissing cousin of control. When I think about it this way, it seems hard to ignore the causality chain — if fit body represents what I perceive to be its cause, my extreme willpower, doesn’t it also need to represent the cause of that cause — Alana’s wrong views about control and my body?

 If my behavior represents who I am, and my behavior is driven by my views –many of which practice has helped me understand are wrong — than am I not saying that who I am is a bundle of views, many being wrong? Is that really the me I want to be/claim? And if I am my views then how do I reconcile being a fixed me with clear evidence those views are continually changing?

I know this one maybe a little past the rupa basics — proving rupa can’t reflect the nama not just because rupa changes, but because nama is so changeable too, both sorta changing at their own rates, marching off in their own directions.

But, all together it gives me a real check at the door, for the belief that some physical trait, that my own choosy narrator has decided to elevate, that can be a cause but can’t guarantee a result (I mean seriously I have so many fitness injuries), that is temporary and can’t defeat death, and that has a shadow cause I may not really want to claim as  the ‘me I want to be’, is going to represent a good/special Alana.

Anyway, all a work in progress, but I wanted to send a deeper drill-down on this particular topic because it has been a bit of a hang-up for me.