It has been six days since my dog unwittingly faced his potential death, and I strove to save him in a manner that belies my age, weight, and natural tendency toward non-competitive activities.
I think about that snake some portion of every day. It’s weaving; coiled body, and its small mouth, open wider than could be imagined – given the size of the neck that supported it.
Along side the memory of the fear that it induced in me, and the emergency response necessary to save my animal, is an extremely odd fondness. I assume it comes primarily from the gratitude that I feel due to the fact that the snake chose to issue warnings, rather than seriously attempting to kill my dog… who was left alone and entirely vulnerable, for the two or three minutes it took me to get to the dining room.
As with all near misses, I am more aware of my lovely red dog than I am normally…I pull on his soft ears and move my fingers thru his copper colored fur, much more than I did seven days ago. I notice his brown eyes, and I am so glad for the way they are still able to follow me around the room.
The moment of entry that morning, when I came around the corner of the dining room wall and found that most arresting tableau, is etched in my memory as clearly as the one that houses the death of my parents. Looking back in review, it is almost comical how unconcerned and utterly relaxed the cat, who started all this trouble was. She was interested… certainly… alert, focused and quiet…but utterly and completely relaxed, there was nothing in her demeanor, stance, or posture that suggested anything at all was occurring, much less the threat of mortal peril. It must be noted that she was as close to the snake as was the dog, perhaps even a little closer…but the snake’s entire attention was riveted first on the dog and then on me, both of us aggressors to the snake’s point of view. I point that out because I believe it is relevant for the manner in which we deal with the difficult and demanding people in our lives, the ones who we do not trust or understand well… as always, all things return back to us and our reactions to events rather than the event itself.
The cat got a collar today…one with extra bells. I am not sure that snakes can hear, but I am sure they are sensitive to vibration and I am hoping that her hunting days are behind us. The very next day she brought a salamander into the house, and I knew that I could no longer allow her native instincts to rule. I am sorry for the bell, and the irritation it will cause her… but restrictions must be placed on behavior that has gone from being a nuisance, to being a threat to survival.
I have been very interested in the responses I have received from relating the story to various folk. My next door neighbor’s wife allowed as how her husband was home and still up, and that I should have come and got him because “he would have killed it”…and more than that…”why did you put it over the fence? It will grow up over there”, she said… and was clearly upset by the idea.
I can’t imagine choosing to kill it, and never once entertained the idea…even in the midst of the five-alarm fire it sent rocketing thru my veins.
It’s not just that the snake was minding it’s own, very primitive business, when my cat stole it from under whatever rock it had been quietly slithering beneath. And it isn’t just that I am eternally grateful, and I am, that it merely warned my dog rather than seeking to kill it. The very notion of killing it - just because a person - in this case my neighbor’s wife, is uncomfortable with even the concept of a snake who lives in the field next door, seems unconscionable to me.
Here is one of the most fundamental errors that human beings continue to make, no matter the mounting evidence to the contrary. We are not the pinnacle of creation…we are merely the first self conscious beings to arise, and we have almost entirely lost our way in the back waters of this magnificent tool we have been given, that of the thinking mind, to the degree that all else seems subservient to our needs, wishes, wants, desires and decisions.
We are entirely out of harmony with the rest of creation, when we use, misuse, and even abuse all other sentient beings and the earth herself for our immediate and selfish gain.
I reflect on my encounter with the snake, some portion of every day, because it so potently brought my spiritual understanding to a new and much deeper level. For many months now, I have been working to deepen my commitment to the Inner Realities. I have stepped out on faith, sealing myself to the notion that my work here on earth needs to focus on my reactions to life just as it arrives, rather than the constant and fruitless search to change life to suit my personal and quite flawed desires.
I am put in mind of a Buddhist story that speaks so eloquently to this notion. (I may have already shared this with you, and if I did, please forgive… but it bears repeating none-the-less.)
It seems that the villagers gathered in front of the elder leadership, complaining of the rough ground they must walk about upon. They vividly and vocally, described the many stickers and tiny rocks that made their daily travels uncomfortable and unpleasant, and they wanted…no demanded something be done about it. So after much scholarly thought, debate, and long-candle-burning-nights…a plan was devised to ease the villagers’ discontent. The elders had decided to cover the whole world round, with leather…every where the villagers were required to trod, from work, to home, to social gatherings, their feet would be protected and cared for by a leather clad world.
Happening into the village, just as work was begun on the elders’ plan…was a shoemaker and a Teacher of the Ageless Wisdom Traditions. He gathered the complaining and childlike villagers, the leadership and all those concerned, and explained to them the value, simplicity, and wonder of…shoes…
We are in a very damaging, and desperate, and lost, frame of mind when we are attempting to cover our world with leather. When we hear it this way, in the form of a parable…we think…could the villagers really be that stupid and clueless, that they didn’t understand the concept of shoes? Could they really endorse an idea costing huge sums of wasted economic power and human potential, as to cover the world with leather…rather than fashion shoes for themselves?
But the truth of the matter is…we do the same thing almost everyday.
Each and every time you believe that some change in your outer world, if some goal or other can only be achieved, some magical summit reached, that then…oh praise god…then, you will be safe, secure, happy, content, and finally satisfied. Every time you move in that direction you are exhorting someone or something, to cover your world in leather… an entirely unrealistic and unachievable desire….whose only possible outcome is a broken heart, an exhausted will, and a mind filled with sorrows and regrets.
Unfortunately we do not live in a culture that supports the fashioning of shoes. We live in a culture that thrives on consumption, and consumption requires need, and need requires fear…and thus we are pulled away from the Internal Wisdom and rhythms, and cast out rudderless and alone… in the world of illusions, with only hyperbolic and entirely false promises to guide our way.
Marcus Aurelius, philosopher-king, who ruled the Roman Empire in the first century was one of the clearest and most astute voices for the undiscovered truth that we all must eventually come to, if we are to free ourselves from the tyranny of the conditioned mind…and become capable of making for ourselves a worthy pair of shoes. He wrote almost two thousand years ago…” You have power over your mind – not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.” (Emphasis mine)
You do not shape external reality, no matter how many Secrets may be shared with you in books and CD’s, or if we do shape external reality…it is at best, a shared and collaborative creation. I am not speaking of the Quantum Mechanics discoveries that allow us to know that our simple observation coupled with expectation, can change a wave into a particle or a particle into a wave. This Idea is one of the great Mysteries, and as such is well above the purposes of this essay. I am speaking of the notion that we affect outer reality so dramatically that we can manifest parking places, wink clouds out of existence with our minds, and various other types of wishful thinking ideas. It is the undisciplined mind that wants only to experience what it perceives as “good” to which I address these remarks. At the level of undeveloped mind and heart that actively engages in illusion and fantasies of every type, we are not capable of knowing what is truly “good or bad” for us, or for anyone else.
We are fundamentally meant to be receivers, you need only look to your own body to understand that…sight, sound, touch, taste, hearing…all come to us born by the Creator’s decisions and delivered without haste, efforting, or difficulty. We are meant to take in the world around us, and to use that experience, as the mechanism by which we learn to craft shoes.
My cat was the very embodiment of that notion. She lay there spread out on the carpet, as only a cat can do, appearing to have no bones in her body…yet somehow keeping her head erect. Her ears were pointed toward the hissing sound and her citrine yellow eyes were focused on every tiny movement. She could not have appeared more relaxed and yet more alert, at the exact same moment.
By contrast, my dog was vigorously protesting the creature who had entered his domain…barking and lunging and barking some more. Only good sense made him stay out of reach, and therefore out of terrible danger.
And as I look back on the moment…I know in my heart of hearts, it is possible to react as my cat did…languid, composed, aware and alive…but utterly unthreatened. I know, because I have seen someone who can…and I know, because I have read about the Great Beings who have realized the truth for themselves and shod their feet, even as all others around them, cry and lament and continue to believe that changing the world is the answer… rather than changing ourselves and cultivating a disciplined mind and heart.
C. G. Jung said, “The pendulum of the mind oscillates between sense and nonsense, not between right and wrong.” No matter how long you have searched, no matter how lost you may feel, no matter how close you may be to the end…and no matter how discouraged you find yourself to be. You can take heart in the knowledge that the human mind is forever oscillating between sense and non-sense. And it is therefore possible, for you to find and follow the senses’, back to the grounded and whole human being you were designed to be.
Dr. Jung was, as Marcus Aurelius before him, trying to draw our attention away from outer phenomena and the moralistic approaches to life that lead us to be endlessly mired in right and wrong or “good and bad”, and instead moves us back to our senses and a world experienced without filters and erroneous judgments. No matter how lost you may feel, somewhere inside your heart and soul the voice of sense calls out for you, attempting to turn your attention away from the outer and into the deep reaches of the heart, that knows life lived for the acquisition of outer, material gains only, is a life spent entirely in the pursuit of Jung’s “non-sense”.
The Buddha knew almost 3 thousand years ago, the true nature of the mind… “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think. When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” Uncaused Joy is the gift received by all who follow the inner path to the deep dwelling place of the Oneself, to the shared domain in which all life takes on the hues and colors of the Family of One. Where all sentient beings are brother, sister, son and daughter, the place where, should we so commit ourselves to discovering our most important journey, we will benefit all who have lived, will live, or have already departed.
It begins with so simple a thing as can be accomplished by a cat.
Alert, intense wakefulness, non-judgmental and uncensored witnessing, a relaxed yet head up posture that keeps us ever available and ever present. A simple non-reactivity that is so powerful as to be staggering, and a calm and peaceful acceptance of the What Is of any given moment.
If a cat can do it…you can rest assured I am willing to spend the rest of my days on planet earth practicing it….
I have already glimpsed the Buddha’s promise, that uncaused Joy will shadow my every step…a disciplined mind seems like a very small price to pay indeed…
These essays are a part of that discipline.
In Gratitude.
Adayre R. Miller
9/1/10
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