A relationship acronym: APTPB - Apartment Peanut Butter

 I used this, perhaps not consistently enough, as a relating framework when things get rough.

1. "All of me, All of you". We show up with complete selves. We don't hide. (Ok to pause to find good timing, but not okay to hide)

2. "Put yourself first." I often translate this to "neither of us owes each other to the extent to put ourselves second." Each of us owns our self, self-care.

3. "Team". When things get confrontational, remember that you want to be on the same team.

4. "Practice". Embrace mistakes and struggles as practice, to do good relating processes.

5. "Bullets". Use the right bullets for your issue. Logical problems can be approached with logical bullets. Emotional problems with emotional problems.  If you try to use logical bullets for an emotional problem, don't be surprised if it is ineffective or makes it worse! And vice-versa.

Shorthand is Apartment Peanut Butter, or APT PB.

I want what I want

(KK is one of the people I know quite well. I've spend hundreds of thousands of hours with KK.)

A lot of things for KK come down to "I want what I want" and the corrolary, "I don't want what I don't want".

 In behavioral economics, one scholar I knew reduced some things down to "de gustibus non est disputandum", often translated as "there is no accounting for taste". Which means different people just want different things. There is no use disputing that.

Yet dispute I do. And, in some ways, dispute the Buddha does.

First, the Buddha. The Buddha disputes that the taste for things is the essential thing. Taste relates to the flavor, the appeal, the craving (tanha). Taste is part of a process. Perspective, consciousness, etc are part of the causal chain (12 steps of dependent co-arising). Importantly, the chain can be broken or adapted. There are feedback loops and control variables.

The idea of Karma is exactly about the fact that we have choice and that choice can affect this chain. Think of a person trying to quit smoking. One day they decide smoking is worth it. Another day, their intention shifts: smoking not worth it. That volition is choice. That choice has consequences. 

The reverse choice, deciding to start smoking, is also an example or Karma and intentions.

If one chooses to enter the Buddhist path, the path leads to dispassion because the path points out that all clinging leads to suffering. So our enjoyment of gummy bears is not the essential thing. As we learn and decide that gummy bears or smoking has drawbacks, we can let go or loosen that "taste's" hold.

It's funny and instructive to hear that some of the great Thai Forest masters were addicted to smoking or to chewing betel nut. But, at some level, the action isn't the issue. The issue is the phrase "I do what I want." And the Thai masters, to the extent that they developed the path, we're not bound or fooled by that notion.

For me, even pre-buddhism, I was heavy on reflection and re-evaluation. If something I did didn't make much sense, I would change it. Like, right now, I am struggling with laziness fueled by rewatching old TV shows and playing dopamine-spiking blitz chess. I can see it doesn't serve me well, and I can change it.

But for KK, the phrase "I just like what I like" is the answer to internal conflict: I do things in X way. But I know X way doesn't work.  (I'm not sure I'm being fair... They may just be pointing to the allure side of X and that they are drawn to it. Down the line, they may be seeing the drawbacks and working towards a shift. So this may not apply to KK or all who say "I like what I like".) There are those (including my past selves) that used that justification to blind themselves to the drawback. And, accordingly, they just say stuck.

Being stuck is mostly awful. It is also comfortable, because it is familiar. But being stuck is a dead end. The worst dead end. A comfortable dead end. Like the Sirens luring in Odysseus to his demise. 

 For those who feel their tastes define them, they are painting themselves into that corner. By choosing not to see other options.

Novelty and Spectacle

Novelty and spectacle are two related ideas of feeding, upadana. And they both have very obvious (when you look at it) routes to suffering.

Novelty is newness. It can be an old favorite with some extra pizazz, like truffle oil Mac and Cheese. Or it is a new song or TV show. There are also less capitalistic / consumption focused elements of novelty. Like going to a new city. Or noticing a new plant. Or getting a new book from the library.  There is a neurological neurotransmitter pathway related to novelty. Some mix of serotonin and dopamine would be my guess. For me, I just think of it as "NEAT".

Spectacle is over-the-top-ness. Like 100 cheese Mac and Cheese. Or the world's biggest pizza. Or an action movie with more explosives. Drama that is even more drama. You find spectacle in cities. Like the downtown area of Kansas City with the jumbotron and huge amount of shops. The key ideas here are "overwhelm" or "WOW".

I share these in this Buddhist blog because I've found it useful when looking at the allure (5 parts, deconstruction) of things I crave and feed on. I have to be careful to notice both. Some things are spectacular, but not new. And some things aren't very spectacular, but they are new. And sometimes the same thing can be novel on some occasions and spectacular on others. It's not just a feature of the thing itself. It's sometimes (often?) a feature of my taste buds.

Once I notice spectacle or novelty, I need to also look at it's helpfulness. The word WOW is a very Gil Fronsdal approach to developing mindfulness. We might look at mundane things and our reaction and say WOW. The biggest WOW is often about how chaotic our minds are.

But escapist spectacle and novelty (TV, usually) are not so helpful. There are exceptions. Some PBS is super helpful, bridging, exploratory. I don't think the Power Rangers kids show was ever helpful in itself. But watching how fascinated I was with it was helpful. And, in a sense... kids that obsess and hyperfocus... that's sometimes something they need to play with. It depends on the person, their context, and what their goal is. Even PBS is not useful sometimes. Just like the Dhamma teachings as words and opinions--these grow less useful once one has a direct experience with practice.

The suffering from WOW and NEAT come from the feeling fading, and our wishing it could stay forever. In my former dating life, that new realationship novelty is something that is so intoxicating and addictive, and it always fades. Part of Buddhism is an acceptance that nothing lasts, and so we don't want to hang our wellbeing on the hook of things that don't last. So WOW and NEAT are good lessons on anicca/impermanence. It's fine to be wowed by or tickled by an event. 

But trying to keep it going is always complex, and often not under our control, especially if it involves the world (and not just our mind).