In July 2020 Mae Neecha sent over a video for me to view to aid my practice and fuel my contemplations. I am going to share the video below as well as and my reply to Mae Neecha (edited a bit for clarity) and her comments back to me. Though this video came from Mae Neecha, as opposed to Mae Yo, I am going to use the Mae Yo sequencing and tag in order to enhance searchable and organization of these blog types.
The Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnshlMG6eBI
Alana’s Response to Mae Neecha: Unusual beauty: As the video went through the series of beautification practices across the world, it felt like the message was ” look at these freaks, doing these extreme, painful, frightening (using traditional tools, no anesthetic, etc) things to achieve a look that, from a western perspective, isn’t even beautiful at all” when my mind followed that narrative, I came to the conclusion that it is so much pain for nothing, it is crazy.
But then, none of beautification rituals we do here in America, ones I have certainly done, show up in the show. Botox, surgery, fat loss machines and dermarolling. Even less invasive — how about ‘stinging lip glosses that make your lips plumper, diet pills that make you feel like a pixie on crack but make you thin, extreme workouts, starvation diets…These things are so painful, some dangerous, hard, time consuming. But these, familiar Western beauty rituals, to achieve Western beauty standards, these I think are “worth it” somehow. At least these make sense to me, they don’t seem freakish or grotesque like the rituals shown in the video.
But what is the difference really? If those folks filing their teeth or putting rings on their neck are crazy for their beauty enhancements, so am I for my botox and fillers and extreme workouts. It is my delusion, my desire to achieve some ideal, identity, advantage that I think a particular look will provide for which I so freely suffer. The kicker of course, which the video makes clear is the ideal –like beauty standards across cultures — is constructed anyway. Not absolute. And certainly not enduring because time will undo any efforts anyway.
Sometimes it’s longer duration, but sometimes it is sudden or unexpected duration…all it took was a lockdown order and now my botox has worn off; wrinkles I never thought I would need to contend with, never thought I would need to face, are appearing on my forehead. Why can’t I put down this obsession with beauty? What is the benefit I think is so great that I am willing to keep enduring my own beauty rituals for? Enduring when their effect is only temporary anyway.
The other night a scene from a show I was watching popped into my head: In the show, an adult son, is literally being whored out by his parents for money. The son is given an opportunity by a friend to leave, he would be given a job and a home and a new life away from his crazy parents that whore him for money. But the son won’t go. He says he can’t leave his folks because they can’t make it without him.
It was a scene that really bothered me, I couldn’t figure out why the hell the son wouldn’t just leave — I would. I contemplated on it for a while and finally I realized for the son, the identity of being the person who was needed, depended on, was the reason he endured actual torture, even when given a way out. That is why he didn’t just put down his old life and leave. Same as I can’t put down my own torturous beauty rituals and be done.
Even when there is a steep cost, the need to affirm ourselves, who we think we are, is so profound we persist in the arbitrary activities we believe will affirm us. Even through the dividends I get from any painful efforts are temporary, I persist. So the question is – how do I stop? How do I stop if I already know climbing up the mountain sucks, being on top is short ( and distracted by thoughts of preservation of the high and climbing higher next) and the down sucks even more?
Response from Mae Neecha: More Tuk Tot Pie (suffering). Stopping comes from seeing enough Tuk Tot Pie, in both the worldly and dhamma senses
Further thoughts on the topic of beauty and self: I realized the other night that the reason I care about beautifying the body so much is because it is a litmus test for my desirability. Like a fish tank strip — the strip itself isn’t acidic or basic, it doesn’t have an innate acid/base quality, but it ‘proves’/reflects those qualities in the water. It is what makes them visible and knowable. So I know I am not my body, but the body –all my belongings– are a required tool to prove something about myself.
At the end of the day, for something to reflect me I need to be able to control it don’t I? How can I take pride in and depend on something like a body to represent me if I can’t even make it do what I want? If my ability to mold it is constantly superseded by reality, time, rupa rules and circumstance?