Little Buddha

“In the magical world of Tibetan Buddhism, it is said that the tulkus, or “awakened ones,” are able to take rebirth in any form, including that of an animal. They do so as a way to benefit others. I have no idea if this is true; however, I do know that I am in need of benefit, and that there is much that my dog Tashi has taught me. I often look at Tashi as my little Buddha, and I do my best to stay open to his teachings.

Tashi, a fourteen-pound ball of cotton (hence the French breed name Coton de Tulear), has delivered many silent sermons over the years. I realize that I am anthropomorphizing — or in this case deifying — his behavior and projecting my own lesson plan upon his actions, but I’ll take a teaching wherever I can get it, even if it’s one that I project.

The main lesson Tashi conveys, as many pet owners can attest to, is that of unconditional love. He doesn’t just love me unconditionally, he loves everybody. Tashi greets my sweet neighbor Bill, whom I like, the same way he greets my grumpy neighbor Fred, whom I can’t stand. That’s real equanimity. I can’t do what Tashi does. It doesn’t matter who we bump into on our walks; what I perceive as good, bad, or ugly, he perceives as a long-lost friend. I aspire to attain his balanced approach toward everyone.

Tashi greets me with wild enthusiasm every time I come home. If I’m feeling good, bad, or ugly, it doesn’t matter to him. I don’t greet (or treat) myself with the same zeal and equanimity that he greets me. Tashi always lifts me up and helps me remember the maxim, “May I be the person that my dog thinks I am.”

Tashi takes this maxim a notch higher. In my study of Buddhism, I work with the practice of pure perception, which is about seeing the world and the beings that inhabit it as sacred. It’s a potent “fake it until you make it” practice. Pure perception is about not getting caught up in profane superficial appearances but seeing through that veneer into the innate purity that lies below. With his unconditional love toward me, Tashi reminds me of this celestial-view teaching: “May I be the divine being that the Buddhas know I am. May I see through the profanity of mere appearance and into the sacred truth within.”

I’m a complex guy with a convoluted mind, someone who tends to get lost in a disembodied headspace. I’m working on it, but I’m afraid I’m still a fusty intellectual. Tashi punctures this inflated complexity and brings me back to earth. His simplicity is disarming, a kind of mind-eraser for me. He shows me that complexity doesn’t stand a chance against simplicity. When he darts around in sheer delight with his stuffed “piggy” squeaking in his mouth, I can’t help but drop all my snooty thoughts, fall into the preciousness of the present moment, and squeal with my own delight as I run after him and into his pure, embodied world. My furrowed brow is replaced with an impish grin as he liberates me from my self-importance.

Tashi takes it further — delivering another significant lesson. He reminds me, as both the Hindus and Buddhists assert, that the absolute nature of reality is one of play (lila in Hinduism; rolpa in Tibetan Buddhism). Play is activity done without purpose — for the sheer heck of it — and is always defined by a sense of embodied presence. When I am being playful, especially with my dog, I discover that I’m not thinking about the past or worrying about the future. I’m fully participating in life, bolted into the present moment, free of all concepts. When I reflect (and none of this reflection happens when I’m actually playing, of course, which would defeat the spirit of play; it happens when my silly mind steps in later), I’m temporarily plugged into something primal, a faint echo of the play that is this very cosmos.

Tashi is also a rivet into reality when he brings me back to my senses. His world is a highly sensual one, and our senses only operate in the present. I can’t smell the future or see the past; I can’t taste the future or hear the past. My senses are forever nailed into the present moment, which is where life happens and which is where my time with Tashi takes me. He holds the leash when I follow his lead into the fully embodied present moment, which is where he always walks.

I have a very sticky mind, like Velcro. I glom onto things, mostly negative, and tend to catastrophize even the smallest events. It’s embarrassing how I keep situations alive long after they should be dead. Tashi continually teaches me how to let go. Whenever he gets hurt, like when I inadvertently step on his paw, there may be a brief yelp. But he tosses it off, the same way that he shakes off water when he steps out of a pond. He doesn’t spin the momentary insult into a drama or hold a grudge. I occasionally mimic this physical gesture when something really gummy is getting me down. I’ll physically “throw it off,” like Tashi does the water on his back, and often feel lighter because of the “Tashi toss.”

Like any pup, Tashi has his quirks. One in particular is very revealing. When it gets dark, he barks at the slightest hint of someone or something outside. If I take him for a walk at night, he often barks at trash cans and various shadowy forms. He projects a dangerous entity that is not there. It’s so sweet, because he’s just trying to protect me. Or maybe that’s my projection? From my perspective it’s endearing and often hilarious, but from his perspective it’s deadly serious. His fear is real, even though the objects that trigger it are not. When I’m in the house at night, he’ll often bark at absolutely nothing outside. I used to check the door to see if somebody was indeed there, but it was always nothing. He’s afraid of something nonexistent. Out of fear, he’s defending me from nothing.

Here’s the dharma behind this, and it is weighty. At the heart of Buddhism lie the profound teachings on emptiness, which proclaim that if you look closely at anything, you will find no inherent “thingness.” This is because things are empty of inherent existence. Emptiness doesn’t mean nothingness (which would be nihilistic); it means no-thingness. It means there’s a big difference between appearance (the way things seem to be) and reality (the way things truly are). The path is about bringing appearance into harmony with reality. Human beings suffer because we take things to be truly existent, exactly the same way we suffer from a nightmare when we take the contents of the bad dream to be real. The Buddha (“awakened one”) woke up from the façade of mere appearance and into the truth of reality. He woke up from the nightmare of imputed existence.

When it comes to Tashi’s fear of what he sees in the dark — the way he projects threatening entities where there are none, and the way he barks at absolutely nothing out there — he drives home an important lesson on emptiness. When I mistake things “out there” to be real (which gives birth to duality), imputing existence and potential danger upon illusory entities that arise out of the darkness of my ignorance, I realize I’m not so different from my dog. Hinduism’s Upanishads proclaim,

“Where there is other, there is fear.” So, when I bark at the mere appearance of others out of my fear that there’s something really out there, I realize my bond with Tashi. We share the same primal fear.

There are important differences, and the depth of this lesson continues. In order for Tashi to evolve out of the animal realm, he needs his fear. In order for me to evolve out of the human realm, I need to transcend mine. Otherwise I will continue to howl at things that aren’t there and defend an illusory entity (ego) that’s actually hurting me. In order for me to go from ego (the archetypal “thing”) to egoless (“thinglessness”) or from beast to Buddha, I need to evolve past the very fear that got me to this evolutionary point.”

~ Andrew Holecek from ‘The Dharma of Dogs: Our Best Friends as Spiritual Teachers’ edited by Tami Simon

 "The Dharma of Dogs includes contributions by Alice Walker, Eckhart Tolle, Pam Houston, Mark Nepo, Roshi Joan Halifax, Adyashanti, Julie Barton, angel Kyodo williams, JP Sears, Lama Surya Das, Diane Musho Hamilton, Allan Lokos, Andrew Holecek, Bonnie Myotai Treace, Chris Grosso, Geneen Roth, Jeri Parker, Joan Ranquet, Lama Tsomo, Laura Pritchett, Mirabai Starr, Sarah C. Beasley, Stuart Davis, Susan Martin, Susanna Weiss, and His Eminence the 25th Tsem Rinpoche."