Recently I was sent a video of a young girl walking her dog,
and was inspired to watch it due to the tag line…”the cutest thing I have ever
seen”.
So I opened it and began to watch.
A very large dog and a very small girl were walking down a
paved, but clearly, country road. The little girl was just at the age where she
could walk reliably and without teetering on her small feet. She was blond and adorable, the dog,
also blond, stood a good head or two taller than the girl, and must have
outweighed her by three or four times.
Connecting them was a bright red leash, which the girl held
in her tiny fist with great commitment and concern. As they walked slowly toward the mom or dad who was filming
them, the girl noticed a tire size depression in the road that was filled with
three or so inches of water. As
soon as it caught her attention she felt compelled to investigate the sparkling
and reflective pool. As she moved
toward it she was pulling on the leash of the great dog, in an attempt to get
him to join her in her alteration of direction, toward this curious and
fascinating opportunity.
The dog would not be budged.
The most she could manage was to move his head slightly in
the direction of the intriguing water, but she could do no more than that, to
entice him to change his forward momentum.
So she walked the short distance the leash required, to
stand beside him, and then with the care a neurosurgeon might show, removing
tissue from a brain, she laid the red leash on the ground... just so. Her concentration was absolute. Once
the leash was placed on the ground, she inspected it carefully, to make sure it had been placed correctly, before
moving away …
The dog stood immobile exactly where she had left him, as
she went over to the depression and stepped immediately into the water. Her
head down and her gaze fixed on its splashing contents, deep concentration and
observant joy were written across her features. The first splash was, I imagine, quite satisfying… but as we
all know, “you can’t eat just one”…and thus she walked in and through the pool,
twice more. This too was deeply
satisfying, but it needed just a small enhancement. So this time she ran several feet past the pool, at
this point, her giant companion of a dog, turned his head to see where she was
going and to assure himself she was not moving too far away. Then she took a running jog at the
pool, as she splashed through it making the water leap over the top of her
small high top tennis shoes, this – her third trip through the water – was
apparently just the right amount of joy…
She came out the other side, and walked slowly to where she
had so carefully laid the red leash upon the ground, bending down to pick it up
with the same deep attention to detail, with which she had relinquished it.
The short film ends with her strolling along side the
massively large dog just as before, holding her end of the red connection and
moving toward home.
It was indeed one of the “cutest things I had ever seen”,
but it was also a deep reminder of the Bible’s injunction that… “I tell you the truth, unless you change and
become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Therefore, whom so ever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the
kingdom of heaven.’” (Matthew 18:3-4)
The
humbling that Jesus is speaking of, is a renunciation of believing in the mind
that “knows”. We lose ourselves so
completely in the thinking mind that we grow into adulthood, with little or no
capacity to recognize a moment of joy where and when we find it. Joy born of curiosity, wonder, and
exploration…by the way… kudos to the mom or dad, who had the good sense to let
our young dog walker follow her intuition, and get her shoes well and truly
soaked, allowing her to remain in the innocence of childhood, and without being
taught that getting your shoes wet is “wrong”.
I
had a moment like this, just the other day.
It
stands in stark contrast to the thousands of other moments that I have had all
the years of my adulthood. I can
recall having two others like it before, although I must have had many more
than that, back in the days, when I too, would not have been capable of walking
by a small pool of water, without getting my feet well and truly soaked.
It
started with no more preamble than paying my bills. I had my computer on and logged onto my bank’s website, I
was checking my account balances and intending to write in my register, that
days expenditures.
I
am neither right nor left handed, I use both hands to do all the tasks my life
requires, but I most often write with my left…(while I eat, paint, sew, and
bead with my right), and I am a bit of a pen and pencil snob. I must have just the right sort of pen,
if ink is my need, it must flow smoothly from the nib having no resistance as
it flows onto the paper. If it is pencil,
it must be mechanical and be filled with a .09 size of lead, all other sizes of
lead routinely break as I grip and push my pencil across the page. (I do not hold my writing instruments
as most left-hander’s, curled over and around it, so that I am pulling the pen
across the page as a right handed person would do. Rather I hold the instrument, just as a right-hander would,
and push it across the page, thus it
must be smooth functioning or it creates frustration for me).
On
this day, I was using my favorite orange mechanical pencil.
I
had my calculator out and my check register open to the appropriate page,
intending to log my recent purchases and tally up the correct results, I pushed
the pencils lead feed and the lead extended just the right amount.
As
I placed the lead onto the sheet, taking care to stay inside the boundaries
indicated by the soft blue lines of my check register, suddenly, and without
warning, my attention became so focused that my experience of the action,
became exponentially enhanced.
The
feel of the lead as it made its way across the paper, the sound of its soft
scratching as it laid down a track of gray lines and circular shapes, the
uneven point of the mechanical pencil’s lead…all captured my attention with
such a fierce totality that it would not have surprised me in the least, to
look up from my task, and find the whole world had dissolved…leaving only my orange
pencil and me, in its wake.
Twice
before, in my adulthood, I have had a moment like this.
The
first time was the moment my mother took her very last breath. I was kneeling beside her, witnessing
her leave taking, as I had assured her I would be…and the world stopped turning
entirely. I felt as though I could
see out of the back of my head. I
was aware of every nuanced sound in the room, and of every sound that had
ceased as her breathing stopped. I
could feel the life in my body in a way, and to a degree, that I would not have
imagined possible prior to that day.
I felt more truly alive than I had ever been before, and I became
entirely free of the fear of death.
The
next time was many years later, I was standing in the grass at the front of my subdivision,
having just walked my dogs to it for their evening walk. I had my head down looking, without
seeing, and pointed at my feet. I
was telling myself some story or other, about the upset of the day. Of course, I cannot remember even
a little bit, what my mind was speaking to me about – I only know that it was
some sort of unhappiness – when my attention became laser focused on the view of my
feet. The grass whose green was
still visible as the light was fading from the sky, the way it stood up all
around the imprint of my sandal, like haphazard green toothpicks sticking up this
way and that, the slight haze of humidity that was still clinging to it from
the watering that could not have been long ago, as I could still feel it on my
toes and heels, all this and much more, tumbled into my brain…as I realized
that my mind was entirely silent inside me. The “inner voice” of me was absent, just as it had been when
my mother drew her last breath, but this time, I was acutely aware of its absence.
That awareness rooted me to that spot, as though my feet had been
encased in concrete, and I was about to drown in a sea of small green twig
shapes.
And
now… the sound 0f lead inscribing small gray lines
and circles being drawn into a tiny window of off-white, bordered by soft blue
lines…
This
is who we are meant to be.
Not
captains of industry, nor winners of prizes; not hikers of mountains, nor
planters of flags…but rather simple receivers, of the elegance and wonder, of
the current moment we find ourselves in.
I
do not mean to say, and I hope you do not hear, that giving up the roles we
play in life is somehow necessary.
If you run a business, then run it. If you are intent on winning an academy award, or a Rhodes
scholarship, then by all means do the work.
I
am only here to say… that if you are interested in discovering the kingdom of
heaven, here on earth, then your attention must flow into the current moment,
with as much concentration and commitment as the young girl whose great dog
waited patiently for her, while she discovered the wonder and joy of wet feet.
“Be
ye like little children”, so said the great one.
And
I can tell you that these three moments that I have been graced with, are far
greater than anything my mind has ever told me. Far more valuable than anything I could have
ever imagined. Far more important
to my life, and to Life itself, than anything I have ever dreamed about, hoped
for, or prayed to get.
I
have painted above the door to my home this credo: “Fear nothing, but the
failure to experience your true nature…”
Your
true nature is Simple Awareness… writ large enough… that last breaths, green
grass, wet feet, and charcoal gray pencil lines, can bring you home to yourself, and end
the long and utterly fruitless search, for more or better or different.
If
I could bless you with anything, it would be that your attention finds itself
so engaged in life, that a tiny moment fills up the Universe and bestows upon
you the grace to understand that your pursuits, longings, desires, and dreams
are the scraps of life, while the banquet and the feasting of your life goes unnoticed and
unclaimed…and worst of all, well within your reach...
Adayre
R. Miller
2/22/12
photo courtesy of Miss Chien and flickr photo sharing to see more of this artist
work, please follow this link: www.flickr.com/photos/57734740@N00/3145141308/
Miss Chien
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