By Mid-November 2021 I had begun to feel like my rupa contemplations, spurred on by pandemic living, were gelling into a more comprehensive understanding. I reached-out to Mae Neecha to give her an update which I will share here. Given the length, I will divide my note to her, as well as her reply, into a few blogs for ease of reading. Hey Mae Neecha– I sure do hope this…
OK, so a little background first…over the years of my practice I had repetitively returned to one of those crazy pervasive wrong views that I just couldn’t shake: A fit body = extreme willpower. Of course, I knew it was a wrong view, that it was permanent; I had done countless exercises gathering evidence of all the times a fit body doesn’t equal extreme willpower (how easy was it to…
I was in the bathroom, standing in front of the mirror, doing my usual morning beauty routine — lotions, positions, facercize, hair removal — and going through my usual mental exercise as well. Regularly, as I attend to my body, I try and remind myself that the reason I labor, I suffer, so meticulously beautifying and grooming is because of my delusion that this face, this body represents me, it is who…
I had been reading the NY Times and I came across an article that completely blew my mind: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/09/science/what-makes-sand-soft.html — it was about sand. Apparently, this seemingly simple, everyday substance poses one of the deepest challenges to physics, so much so that despite the efforts of some of science’s greatest minds, there exists no ‘general theory of sand’. Even in a closed system, like an hourglass, where you know the shape…
In the fall of 2020, with Covid still raging, and Eric and I still ‘sheltering in place’, we decided it was time to rent a country home — at least if we were going to be isolated, we could do it with plenty of space to spread out in. We found a nice sized home in Northern CT and signed a lease. Suddenly, all of my thoughts were consumed with…
I started thinking that this Alana life — the body and the samutti that is Alana — is like a hotel room. While I am a guest, I get all the accompaniments to the rooms: I can use the pillows, robes, slippers, objects that ‘belong to the room’ (i.e self belongings) and I receive the status of being a guest at the property with the accompanying treatment (the way I get treated…
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 Part 2 – Second Email I wanted to follow-up on my email yesterday with just a little more deep dive on 1 issue that has been weighing on me –the idea that because I can be a cause I am somehow special, or my objects (especially body) represent…
Following my retreat, I sent a few updates to Mae Neecha about my contemplations, progress and ongoing work; here is a recap of those messages. Part 1 — First Email Last night I was thinking back to a very strong childhood memory: as a young kid, my parents would take me to Disneyworld and I would rush to my very favorite ride –20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. It was a Jules Verne…
I had an adorable pair of socks, they had a little cartoon apple on them and below the smiling apple face, they said ‘bite me’. When I saw those socks in the store, they made me chuckle aloud; I bought them imagining all the platies and yoga classes I would attend, where everyone could see my socks and laugh along with me, basking in my cleverness and my rye sense of…
After days using the exercise from the Anatta-Lakkhana sutra to contemplate my belongings and my body it started to become increasing clear to me that each object I contemplated on –every object in the world — is just marching through the shifting states of rupa. Clearly it isn’t you, you cant say that any of the 4 elements in any given combination, that will definitely disaggregate, is you. It isn’t representative of you either — it…