After a stressful day at the office I decided to stop by my favorite thrift shop on the way home for a little ‘retail therapy’. I found myself walking down the aisle, looking at each frilly, fancy, colourful dress and thinking to myself, “Will this one preserve me?” “Will this one make me stay young? Return my lost beauty? Make me thin?” I watched how my imagination went to…
A New Layer of That Old Suffering
As I was reviewing past notes, I came across a teaching from LP Thoon that had always really moved me — it is a story in which he instructs a man named Singh on a specific set of contemplations/questions that ultimately result in Singh becoming a Stream Enterer. After re-reading the story, I had a new set of insights on the way my objects cause me suffering. Those insights are…
The Making of Mineness
My car had to go to the garage for servicing so the garage offered to let me borrow one of their loaner cars until mine was ready for pickup. I gave them a credit card, I signed the paperwork, I took the keys and before I knew it I was cruising down highway 101 on my way back home. The car I borrowed was the same make as my own and I noticed quite quickly…
On Self Reliance
As I started the process of organizing my thoughts, my notes and my stories to write this blog, something became abundantly clear: My practice is a path, it has a particular progression to it. I suppose, on some level, I always understood that practice wasn’t just a random series of flashes from the darkness. But, it wasn’t until I started to really outline the first chapters of this blog that I…
New Beginnings: Life as a Dharma Blogger
Once I had decided to become a Dharma Blogger, I faced an interesting question: What the heck was I going to write about? I started by going back through my very first notebook: reviewing, rehashing, rewriting old stories to turn them into blogs. As I immersed myself in all the old stuff, something crazy happened, I started powerfully seeing so much new stuff in all my old stories; it was like…
Intermezzo 2: What is Sammutti
Dear Reader — this is the second of two exchanges with Neecha that took place around the Dharma Meltdown period which I would like to share prior to entering the next ‘chapter’ of this blog. The entry here is a question about a Buddhist concept called Sammutti, or ‘conventional forms’. I was helping LP Anan edit his new translation of the Uturn sermon and it prompts me to ask, about…
Intermezzo 1: Question on Focus
Dear Reader — this is the first of two exchanges with Neecha that took place around the Dharma Meltdown period which I would like to share prior to entering the next ‘chapter’ of this blog. The entry here is a question for Mae Yo about focus: Question: I know that practice has 2 important components, wisdom and focus. I am clear on the wisdom part and, it feels like I become more…
To Close-Out This Chapter On Where We Started…
Before we move to the next chapter, present Day Alana, wants to share a few final thoughts. Mostly, I want to admit that the issue of my fear that I am a bad Buddhist has softened, but it is not gone entirely. I still don’t particularly enjoy going to temple and I still feel a bit guilty about it. Sometimes it is because I find temple distracting from my personal…
Flashback to the Beginning
So Dear Reader, we have finally made the first of our great catch-ups — here is the moment in my practice’s timeline where I decided to become a Dharma Blogger. Since it was so so so long ago that the prelude to this blog was first published, this week I want to offer a flashback to the beginning. Here it it again, A Prelude to This Blog. So, Neecha and Phra Anan actually…
Meltdown Recovery
As I promised, I went home from the retreat and I really considered exactly what my meltdown was about (since a little dirt on pants is usually something I’m pretty calm about) and if my deep dark concerns were really rational. I typed-up my initial analysis and sent it to Mae Neecha. You can read the email below: Hey Neecha, I hope you are doing well. I really want to thank…