Grape Leaves

Welcome to Sutra a Day.

Yesterday, I sat in a Lebanese restaurant in south Milwaukee with an old friend. I’ve been friends with this person for 25 years now, although not consistently. In our early twenties, we were both on the fringes of a hip and edgy group of waiters, waitresses, comics, models, possible future creatives, band groupies, band members – you get the picture. Each of us was, in our own way, trying to belong with these beautiful and interesting creatures. Each of us had close relationships with some of them, but neither of us really belonged. Now, it is us who remain in contact. 

She may remember this differently. We all remember the stories of our past differently. In Milwaukee, I was a dreamer.

Each place I’ve lived has made me re-evaluate who I am and what it is I want from life. Some day perhaps, I’ll land. I’m getting old. I read an article in the Atlantic that posits adults over 40 on average perceive themselves to be 20 percent younger than they are. Glad it’s not just me. 

The Lebanese restaurant brings up an entirely different set of places and people. The friend commented that she’d never had Lebanese before whereas I was pretty excited, having never met a Lebanese restaurant I didn’t like. I remembered once upon a time living in Washington D.C. – never tiring of the smells and tastes and spices that I had at my fingertips. (no wonder I could never save any money). In D.C. my hopes and dreams had evolved, tangled, become influenced by the culture of the city – some of it positive – a world existed there – some of it negative – ambition and success were clearly defined in ways that may not really be productive to one’s mental health. 

We ordered grape leaves. I always order grape leaves, when I can. But it’s been a long time. Don’t get me started on those. Grape leaves remind me of Akram, the first person who made me feel cared for, the giant crush of my early twenties, a teddy bear of a Pakistani man with liquid brown eyes and Maybelline-worthy lashes that I met in my Arabic class, who grew up in Kuwait and who brought me the first grape leaves I ever tasted once when I was sick. Homemade by his sister. I still love grape leaves.

I Taste the Past

11. Anubhuta visayasampramosah smrtih. “When a mental modification of an object previously experienced and not forgotten comes back to consciousness, that is memory.”

And so, here we find ourselves at our fifth and final mental modification. On some level, I just like saying those words: “mental modification.” Okay, now twenty times, as fast as you can. Kidding. I find the phrasing of this sutra curious.  It doesn’t state that memory itself is a mental modification. It doesn’t say, memory is a mental modification… and imply that perhaps there was some reality in the past that time and emotions and circumstance then warp to modify how we perceive a past event (or object).  It says that memory is the return of a mental modification to our consciousness. So, it’s not memory that’s doing the modifying. The modifying already happened when we experienced the object or event. Are all life experiences then misperceptions? Verbal delusions? 

They are all colored by our emotions and our mind, which is the root of it all. Why is it that a Lebanese restaurant brings me back to Mama Aisha’s in DC, sitting with a friend, talking about memories, once again, shared experiences and shared hopes, while idealists and power-seekers walked by on their way to somewhere in the bustling neighborhood of Woodley Park. Hopes and dreams. Grape leaves. Love. Connection.

Anyhow, Sri Satchidananda tells us that memories come in two ways: dreams and daydreams. I think Satchi likes twos and dichotomies. There is so much wisdom in the sutras, but the categories are murky. Memories come through a shared moment, through a smell, a taste, a bar of music. They come through the senses we associate with feelings and times in our lives. Memories can be precious and come through dates we associate with a person. Another friend mourns the death of her beloved mother every year on her birthday (and I never know what to say). She  loved, I should say loves her mother above anyone else in life – including herself. She has never been the same since.  Dreams and daydreams? Please. It’s so much more than that.

He concludes by saying “So these are the five kinds of vrttis, or thought forms, that must be controlled to make the mind void and to allow the inner piece to show through.” 

Circling back, it’s true, this last statement. Are these the only five or the right way to classify how we muddy our senses of the world and of reality – who knows. But it’s clear that peace is found through letting go, one of my least favorite expressions because there is no manual for “how to.”

Except maybe that’s what the sutras are. A manual for letting go by connecting to. 

Food for thought. But not too much thinking.