I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Tuesday Book Club, I share an idea from a book.
Amidst the fleeting clouds of illusion dances the lightning flash of life. Can you say that tomorrow you will not be dead? So practice the Dharma.
Shechen Gyaltsap, quoted in Pema Chödrön’s How We Live Is How We Die
What does it mean to practice the Dharma? It means many things, but one part of it is to be here now: to live in the present moment, not ruminating about the past or fantasizing about the future.
I walked dogs today at the local dog shelter, and I practiced being present. I walked four of them: Otis, Maui, Boo, and Dorene. Otis was a gorgeous overgrown German Shepherd who knew how to “sit” and “shake.” When he shook my hand with his giant fluffy paw, he let out a sad whine, as though it made him remember his last home. Maui was an incredibly strong young lab-pit bull mix. Even though I wrapped him with the leash around his chest, to fashion a kind of harness, I still could barely control him as we bounded around the Friendship Circle. Otis and Maui aren’t available to adopt yet, so I don’t have pics of them. I forgot to put my phone in my fanny pack so I couldn’t get photos or videos of any of the animals.
Boo was as strong as Maui, and got out her energy by chasing after tennis balls in the play yard.
I walked Dorene last week. She was in the back behavior kennels lounging with at least five puppies. This week she’s available for adoption. A gorgeous hound dog, I know she’ll find a home quickly.
I find I can be fully present for only four dog walks. The shifts last three hours, but I usually only make it about two—thirty minutes for each dog. It’s physically and emotionally draining to walk the dogs and confront some of the terrible situations they are in. Every dog walker has their favorite dogs. It’s heartbreaking to see them every week, not having found a home, or sometimes, having found one, and then been returned, like darling Russell. Russell reminds me of my own dog Bo; he is handsome and friendly like that, but perhaps a bit more rambunctious.
I’ve heard people say that dogs live in the present moment, but I’m not so sure that’s true. I thought Otis remembered sitting and shaking with someone else, with his family. I know Bo didn’t want to be with me when I first brought him home as a foster. He tried to escape every chance he got, jumping over my six foot tall fence and running away. Now he wants to be with me; he doesn’t try to leave.
Chödrön writes that our uncomfortable feelings come from the kleshas, destructive or pain-causing emotions. The three main ones are craving, aggression, and ignorance. The Dharma gives us ways of dealing with the kleshas:
The Buddha taught three main methods for working constructively with our kleshas, which I think of as “three steps to courage.” He presented them in order of increasing subtlety and profoundness. The first is refraining from reacting. This is based on the sense that there is something negative about the emotions, so we should do whatever we can to avoid making things worse. With the second method, transforming the kleshas into love and compassion, we adopt a positive view of the emotions: if we use them in the right way, they bring benefit rather than harm. The third method is using the emotions as a direct path of awakening. Here we transcend the duality of good and bad and let the emotions be just as they are.
Sometimes when I’m at the shelter I feel uncomfortable emotions. I wish that there weren’t dogs without homes, dogs too aggressive to be homed, old dogs living out their final days without a beloved family to care for them. That is the klesha of aggression, where I want something different than what exists; I reject reality. Instead, I can work to transmute that into love and compassion; it’s a kind of learning to accept what is rather than reject it.