True happiness is found in simple seemingly unremarkable things. But to be aware of little, quite things, you need to be quiet inside. A high degree of alertness is required. Be still. Look. Listen. Be Present.
Bring awareness to the many subtle sounds of nature –
the rustling of leaves in the wind,
raindrops falling,
the humming of an insect,
the first birdsong at dawn.
Give yourself completely to the act of listening. Beyond the sounds there is something greater: a sacredness that cannot be understood through thought. Look at a tree, a flower, a plant. Let your awareness rest upon it. How still it is, how deeply rooted in Being. Allow nature to teach you stillness. Everything natural – every flower, tree, and animal – has important lessons to teach us if we would only top, look, and listen. Just watching an animal closely can take you out of your mind and bring you into the present moment, which is where the animal lives all the time – surrendered to life. It's so wonderful to watch an animal because an animal has no opinion about itself. It is. That's why the dog is so joyful and why the cat purrs.
When you pet a dog or listen to a cat purring, thinking may subside for a moment and a space of stillness arises within you, a doorway into Being. The vital function that pets fulfill in this world hasn't been fully recognized. They keep millions of people sane. They have become Guardians of Being.
Most of us live in a world of mental abstraction, conceptualization, and image making – a world of thought. We are immersed in a continuous stream of mental noise. It seems that we can't stop thinking.
Just as the dog loves to chew bones, the human mind loves its problems. We get lost in doing, thinking, remembering, anticipating – lost in a maze of complexity and a world of problems. Nature can show us the way home, the way out of the prison of our own minds.
Close your eyes and say to yourself: I wonder what my next thought is going to be. Then become as alert as a cat watching a mouse hole. You may find that, as long as you are absolutely alert, the next thought does not arise…
I have lived with many Zen masters, all of them cats.
Millions of people who otherwise would be completely lost in their minds and in endless past and future concerns are taken back by their dog or cat into the present moment, again and again, and reminded of the joy of Being. We have forgotten what rocks, plants, and animals still know. We have forgotten how to be – to be still, to be ourselves, to be where life is: Here and Now. The dog is in the Now so it can teach you or remind you.
Be alert as you watch a dog at play or at rest. Let the animal teach you to feel at home in the Now, to elebrate life by being completely present. The dog is still in the natural state. And you can easily see that, because you have problems and your dog doesn't. And while your happy moments may be rare, your dog celebrates life continuously.
You just watch the tail… with some dogs you just look at them – just a little look is enough – and their tail goes… Life is good! Life is Good! And they are not telling themselves a story of why life is good. It's a direct realization.
The human says, "I love myself," or, "I hate myself." The dog says, "Woof, woof," which, translated, means I am myself. I call that integrity – being one with yourself. The dog has no self-image, good or bad, so he has no need to play roles, nor does he love himself or hate himself. He has no self! How to live free of the burden of self – what a great spiritual teaching.
"The key to transformation is to make friends with this moment. What form it takes doesn't matter. Say yes to it. Allow it. Be with it." Oh, that was the dog's teaching. I'm just translating it into words.
Allow your dog to take you for a walk every day. It's good for the body and it's good for the soul. Dogs emanate a goodness that people respond to. One of the joys of walking your dog is that often people come up to you and immediately their hearts open. They are not interested in you, of course. They want to pat your dog.
Dogs are often the precious opportunity, even to people who are trapped in their egos, of loving and being loved unconditionally. They have been with humans for thousands of year, and now there is a link between dogs and humans much closer than it has ever been. So part of their divine purpose is to help us. But it always goes both ways. Because by living with humans, dogs also grow in consciousness; it is reciprocal.
Because dogs and cats still live in the original state of consciousness with Being, they can help us regain it. When we do so, however, that original state deepens and turns into awareness. We don't fall below thinking, we rise above it.
Nature will teach you to be still, if you don't impose on it a stream of thoughts. A very deep meeting takes place when you perceive nature in that way, without naming things.
When you don't cover up the world with words and labels, a sense of the miraculous returns to our life that was lost a long time ago when humanity, instead of using thought, became possessed by thought. A depth returns to your life. Things regain their newness, their freshness.
What is it that so many people find enchanting in animals? Their essence – their Being – is not covered up by the mind, as it is in most humans. And whenever you feel that essence in another, you also feel it in yourself.
Every being is a spark of the Diving or God. Look into the eyes of a dog and sense that innermost core. When you are present, you can sense the spirit, the one consciousness, in every creature and love it as yourself.
Love is a deep empathy with the other's Beingness, You recognize yourself, your essence, in the other. And so you can no longer inflict suffering on the other.
You are not separate from the whole. You are one with the sun, the earth, the air. You don't have a life. You are life. The one life, the one consciousness, takes on the form of a man or woman, a blade of grass, a dog, a planet, a sun, a galaxy… This is the play of forms, the dance of life.
We are ultimately not separate, not from one another nor from any living thing – the flower, the tree, the cat, the dog. You can sense yourself in them, the essence of who you are. You could say God. There is a term, a Christian term which is beautiful… loving the Creator in the creature. ~Eckhart Tolle
