My Dog Is A Buddhist
by Jessica Pratt
My dog Sophie is a beautiful Fawn English Mastiff. I am certain that she has the right idea about life. She eats, sleeps, gets a lot of love and she chases crickets. Simple, I’m sure that she is a Buddhist. Everything my dog does, is with complete attention, and she only does that which she chooses in great joy. I call her "Stalking Cricket" because she loves to chase the crickets that somehow manage to get into the house. She doesn’t eat them (thank goodness), but she does mangle them half to death and by morning they are belly up. I feel that this is in the natural order of things and she is just doing her dog thing.
The point here is that dogs live fully aware; and we say that humans are the only knowledgeable beings! My dog takes joy in the simplest of things. Her rope chew toy looks rather like a mop now that she’s put intent time on it. I throw the rope and she retrieves it, but not before tossing it in the air and then running through the house and sometimes up the stairs then brings it back to be tossed again. When she lays on her doggy blanket, there is no TV to watch, no books to read, no chit-chat or phones. When she wants whatever I’m eating she watches with rapt attention. Affection is another thing she does completely. She lays her head on my lap and snuggles as if I am the most wonderful thing she’s ever known. I think we can learn something from our Buddhist buddies out there. It seems to me that all dogs are like this. Everything dogs do is always and forever; no yesterday, no tomorrow, just the here and now. Imagine the stress we would be freed from if we lived in the doggy now.
