Dear Reader, here we have the contents of an email I sent to Mae Neecha rehashing my contemplations during, and just following, the 2018 retreat. This is looooonnnggggg, and made longer by a rather generously portioned ‘later day note’, so I will divide it into 2 blogs.
A little background:
LP Anan was telling stories about the Buddha’s wife and before he really got started he said something that set me off – Siddhartha abandoned his family just after the birth of his son. I caught that judgey voice in my head instantly, “abandoning your infant is sorta a dick move.” “Uggh, come on Alana, judging the soon-to-be-Buddha…I’m riding my high horse but he is already enlightened, so who gets the last laugh here?”
Rewind a little…the night before LP Nut had been talking about Angulimala’s enlightenment and that teaching popped back into my head. As always when I hear that story, I had found myself wondering how exactly a mass murderer (another pretty dick move), who had tried to kill the Buddha, heard the words “I have stopped, it is you who keeps going” and became enlightened. As I re-read. I mean what does that even mean?
Something between what LP Nut actually said and what I realized upon hearing it started gnawing at me: It was that Angulimala saw that he couldn’t change the past. His murdering arose based on specific factors and circumstances (the karma from when he was a giant turtle, the bidding of his teacher and countless other things I will never have a way of knowing) and, in light of those, it couldn’t have been different than it was. But, those circumstances/factors were done, new ones had already emerged. He was a person who murdered and then he stopped. Like a bolt of lightning it hit me with such crazy clarity: That was then and this is now.
[Present day note 12-2-2020 I have recently revisited the Angulimala story and the stories of his past births. I do want to add a few points here: The first is that he was not enlightened instantly upon meeting the Buddha, that came later. But he did see the truth of the path and put his old life behind him; I think the core learnings from this old contemplation — that what is to come is different than what was before, that factors and circumstances change, and that we can too – are still applicable. In fact, more than ever, I see that the promise of salvation, escape from suffering, that Buddhism offers hinges upon the reality that everything changes. That by changing our views, and deeply understanding the changeability and consequence inherent in the world, we can end the habits/repeated mistakes/wrong views that bind us to the cycle of rebirth.
My recent re-readings have also brought to my attention a number of prior rebirth stories in which pre- Angulimalas were a human eating ogre and then a king turned cannibal. In both of those lives, he killed and ate people and then he was persuaded by the Bodhisattva to turn away from killing. Which is to say that just as past factors and circumstances shaped Angulimala the murder, they also shaped an Angulimala primed for wisdom and the ability to see the truth of the path. From this I reflect that though new factors and circumstance are always shaping us, and allowing us freedom to change, we are also shaped by our past tendencies. If everything that arises does so based on a cause, then cause for our enlightenment – the work we do to plan, prepare, acquire the right tools, skills and knowledge for our escape – must also have been put in place if we hope to be successful leaving this world’s cycle.
Upon reviewing, now, it seems my past contemplation told half the story really well, but was incomplete. Nonetheless, this blog is a recap of my path, and it is a one-step-at-a-time sorta thing, so without further ado, back to the original contemplation we go.]
That was then and this is now (more commonly called arising and ceasing; but that was then and this is now was the lightbulb phrase for me):
I remembered a long time ago, I asked Mae Yo about the relationship between impermanence and suffering. She replied, “suffering comes from something stopping, impermanence is movement. Suffering is like you want it to stop but it moves. Its like putting a stick in the water and causing ripples.” For years, I have had no friggin clue what this meant. But, now I see: That was then and this is now (arising and ceasing).
Then: Angulimala was playing the role of murder based on all the factors/circumstances that made him murder. Now he stopped because new factors/circumstances had arisen. Then Siddhartha was in the role of a householder and Now he was in the role of a renunciant. Neither were ever a fixed thing, both were dependent on factors/circumstances. They saw it (duh, enlightenment and all) but I thrust a stick in the water, I got stuck on a fixed idea of “father” or “murderer.” I took a snapshot of 1 moment’s Siddhartha, 1 moment’s Angulimala and so I suffer when these aren’t fixed, I am perplexed by how someone could be a murderer and then an Arahant. And worse, because I let myself get fooled by the rupa, the form of an Angulimala who I couldn’t see change from then to now, I am like the asshole villager throwing stones at an Arahant, judging the soon-to-be Buddha as a dick.
Bringing it back to me:
I basically started pounding out examples of that was then and this is now in my own life, in my own body. Finally I hit on one that was so clear: When I started noticing the effects of puberty — boobs, hips — I was devastated. I cried and cried, I was so embarrassed I refused to leave the house, to see my friends, decades later and I still remember the pain so clearly. I didn’t want my body to change, I wanted the beanpole figure I had for as long as I remembered; that was my body. This new curvy thing I saw in the mirror was ugly, contorted, fat, it was unrecognizable. I suffered because I didn’t understand that was then and this is now.
I was born a girl, the seeds of a female form, of puberty and menstruation, were always there, just waiting to be germinated, to be triggered. I don’t know the exact thing/ mix that threw my body over the puberty edge — diet, sleep, genetics, hormones, environmental chemicals. But I do know that before (then) my shape was based on a certain set of circumstances/factors (diet, genetics, activity, etc.) and when those new factors and hormones kicked in (now) the only possible result was the figure change that ensued.
It is like rupa (and probably everything else, but I haven’t thought about it as hard) has rules. Rules of rupa, and even for my own body, all the desire and discipline can’t change the rules. When the conditions for a change of form (like puberty) have been reached, the change will happen. Before that point, it won’t happen (i.e. that was then and this is now). When the conditions for sunspots, sagging boobs, grey hairs have been reached, I get sunspots, saggy boobs and grey hairs. Before there are none of these things, just the seed, the propensity for decay/change that lives in each object (that would definitely be a rule of rupa).
My suffering arises based on a cause (I feel like I have heard this one before…)
You are getting the very condensed version of this contemplation, but after hours of just looking at how many times my life has shown me that there is then and there is now (i.e. arising and ceasing or cause and effect), they each have a cause and couldn’t have been other than what they are/were based on those causes, I realized something…
I was on the topic of how I used to fear the dentist: I worried that my new experiences (now) would be like the abuse I suffered at the hands of my childhood dentist (then). The Rupa “proved” it, that chair, the drill, the chemical smells… It was only when I considered all the ways that that was then and this is now (different dentist, adult Alana versus kid Alana, different technology, different pain tolerance, etc.) was I brave enough to go get my teeth taken care of. I saw that all of my fear, my worry, its based on not understanding that was then and this is now. In fact, all my standards and judgments (like of the Buddha and Angulimala), my guilt, anger, hate, my fucking desire…basically, all of my suffering, arises because I don’t understand then and now. Or, I suppose (and will get back to in a sec.) that what will be will be.
This NY life shit is still raw, so I started thinking about it more carefully. Though there are a ton of things I don’t like about NY, one thing really hurt me more than others: I felt like chill, sweet, expansive, laidback, considerate SF Alana was under attack. The Alana that had served me so well for so long, that I identified with and wanted to be, simply couldn’t survive in NY. You can’t walk slow and chill in Midtown or you will get runover. You can’t take time for niceties in a coffee shop or the person in line behind you will claw your eyes out. I started to hate the place, the people, in order to protect myself from becoming a ‘New Yorker’ –because hate is such an effective way to avoid becoming something 😉 (I wonder if I can just hate getting fat or old and avoid it all together…). But the thing is, all that angst and hate, its because I didn’t see the simple truth that that was then, an SF Alana shaped by SF circumstances to be appropriate in an SF environment. But this is now, new environment, new New York circumstances, new me.
What will be will be:
From that was then and this is now, my mind made a leap that felt logical to me: What will be will be.
I think about my fantasies(‘plans’) for the future: I imagine Eric and I retired, in a lovely mid-sized town, or maybe with a city place and a country place, traveling, being together all the time. I think about the dog (a goldendoodle) and the long walks we will all take on the beach. I think about koi pond and the flower garden that will be in my yard…you get the point.
But…here is the thing, before I moved to NY, I imagined it would be a fun new adventure. I would get to be a sleek, sophisticated Manhattanite, going to shows and gallery openings, meeting the coolest, most interesting peeps, etc…That is not my Manhattan experience. And the reason is 1000% clear — what I want, what I imagine, is totally not the determinant of what actually will be. Instead, what will be (just like then and now) is shaped by factors and conditions way beyond my control. It has rules that govern it.
Manhattan may be a lot of things, but with 8 million people on a small island (1 of many factors), it is loud, it is crowded (result). And, with all the competition for resources, for fame, recognition, etc.(1 of many factors) it is fast and aggressive (result). And Alana (at least the Alana that moved to NY) seriously hates loud, crowded, fast and aggressive. Since my happiness depends on being in an environment I like and, at least at this moment in time Manhattan is an environment I dislike, it is not ( and couldn’t have been based on the factors at play) a “fun adventure”, no matter how hard my #4 worked to make it that way ahead of time.
Stay tuned: Next blog will be where I plan to take my contemplations from: