Our Animal Teachers

 

11.19.2021 OUR ANIMAL TEACHERS The meditation room was perfectly quiet. The thirty-plus meditators, including my husband Adán and I, were all taking our practice very seriously — breathing in and out, a statue of the Buddha looking serenely down on us. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted a spider lowering itself from the ceiling on a thread of silk. It was dangling exactly between me and the man to my left. But subtle, virtually imperceptible shifting air currents were enough to blow the spider into my space. Wanting no part of those tiny legs, I leaned to the right, toward Adán. He noticed and now neither of us were meditating. What were we supposed to do? We couldn’t disturb the sacrosanct silence. Suddenly the air current forced the spider sharply left so that it almost landed on the man’s arm, but he had his eyes closed and had no idea. When I saw Adán’s eyebrows raise in alarm, the situation struck me as terribly funny, and I had to struggle not to laugh. My laughter infected Adán, and until the bell rang we shook in silent, heaving hilarity as the spider swung like a pendulum. For the rest of the day, I didn’t take myself so seriously. The practice felt as light as a silk thread. I don’t believe that the spider’s purpose was to teach me anything. That spider, like every animal, has its own personal trajectory — its own concerns about food, shelter, and reproducing that have nothing to do with me. But sometimes on the path we meet an animal like the spider, and we learn from it. This Weekend Reader features Buddhist teachings and stories about our animal teachers. —Andrea Miller, Deputy Editor, Lion’s Roar magazine

Hush, Puppy! Training her mind, training her dog. Mary Rose O’Reilley on the pleasures and pitfalls of learning to sit without barking. Some would say that dogs have no spiritual nature, but I am too much of a Franciscan to believe that. When I lead my animals into the meditation room, I go with them not only as a teacher, but as a member of an eccentric sangha. Our training in stability and inner quiet evolves as a kind of mutual illumination. When I am calm, riding the current of breath, the dogs pick up on it, and when they are at peace, I let their rest quiet me.

“Quick! Who Can Save this Cat?” Zoketsu Norman Fischer's commentary on Mumonkan Case 14: Nanchuan's Cat. The Case: Nanchuan saw the monks of the eastern and western halls fighting over a cat. Seizing the cat, he told the monks: “If any of you can say a word of Zen, you will save the cat.” No one answered. Nanchuan cut the cat in two. That evening Zhaozho returned to the monastery and Nanchuan told him what had happened. Zhaozho removed his sandals, placed them on his head, and walked out. Nanchuan said: “If you had been there, you would have saved the cat.”

Let It Bee A divorce and a bee infestation — these are things that can sting. Jennifer Lauck on learning to embrace what is, just as it is. I sit with my elbows on my knees on the bottom step of the back porch, just a few feet south of the nest, and I watch bees lift off, fly over to the hydrangea and beyond, and return. Bumblebees, according to the law of aerodynamics, are not supposed to fly. The body is the issue; it’s just too big for those tiny wings. And yet, there they go — over and over again. Apparently this is about wing speed. They are the hummingbirds of the insect kingdom. A bumblebee, therefore, defies logic and science.

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