I have chosen to share my life with an animal. Not exclusively, of course. I’m not so sure that he has chosen the same life, but he seems to be abiding. We have a relationship, Beefy and I. He’s adapted to my schedule. He’s utterly dependent on me for eating and going to the bathroom. We communicate non-verbally and if I may say so myself, we do a fine job of it. I’ve started to understand when he’s asking for water on our walks, when he’s nervous… He sits when I ask, stops at the curb and waits to cross a street, looks to me to decipher whether or not someone who wants to pet him is ‘okay’. Still though, it’s an odd thing we’re doing, this co-habitating, this bonding. Why would I choose to do this? Why is it so common? And what makes people think that dogs prefer this arrangement to living wild and free?
Recently, I’ve been leaving Beefy in the main room instead of his crate in my bedroom. This is new for us. I went to my friends house to watch a football game. I told my friend how I don’t like leaving Beefy for extended periods of time. His response is, ‘Why? Dogs just sleep all day…’ And I get why he would say that, because when you are around them that’s what they do. But it’s not what they do all day. I know, because I’ve watched Beefy when I’m not in the apartment with him. (Creepy, I know)
When I first got Beefy, I installed a camera. The main reason was so that I could speak to him through the microphone and tell him to stop barking if he were to bother my neighbors (I live in an apartment complex and I want to respect the rights of my neighbors to not have to deal with a dog. If I’m being honest, I just want to stay a tenant in my apartment, and getting a dog was a big deal for the complex). But I also use it to make sure he’s okay. Since I started letting him roam free in the main room when I leave, I’ve observed him through the camera. He relaxes for maybe 30% of the time. He wanders to the window, wanders across his dog bed, noses around in his toy box. Mainly though he sits by the door waiting for me to return, panting. When I get home, once his excitement dies down, then yes, he sleeps and sleeps until the next event. But he does not sleep all day, contrary to my friend’s opinion, not unless I am there and he feels safe. I mention this because I think we have it wrong about animals. I think we’re wrong about what they want for their lives.
Initially when I started writing this post it had nothing to do with Mindfulness. I simply wanted to share how perplexed and conflicted I am about domesticating an animal. But now that I think about it, what it makes me think in relation to mindfulness is how presumptuous we can about our minds, in the same way we are about our pets. How do we forge a relationship with our own minds? Should we? And why? I would lean towards yes on the ‘Should we?’ To me it’s a no-brainer (bah-dum ching!) To me, it’s required component of one’s mental health - this relationship to ‘mind’. But, hey, to each his own. The question that interests me the most and seems of utmost importance is how open can we be in our approach to our own minds? I say this not because one of the tenets of Mindfulness and spirituality in general is openness, which it is, but because I want to know how honest we are being with ourselves when we sit, or when we describe what we know about our own mental processes to other people. Or even when we journal. Often I think we’re as misinformed as my friend was about what dogs do all day.
Our minds are not logical, they are not predictable or programmable and they may not even be containable in any real way. Are we willing to sit and observe the utter chaos that the mind might actually be? The ever changing, ever evolving phenomena that is what we call ‘mind’? Is it possible that our minds might be as uncharted and volatile as the universe at large? Are we willing to allow that to be true about us? Could we live with that? Would we be okay if we knew the irrational, wildness of that organic matter in our skull that dominates us all day and night? Can we be cool with that? It’s a tall order. Most of us have a hard time dealing with uncertainty let alone what’s completely unknown. Even more people are terrorized by the idea of a sub-conscious or collective consciousness. When we live with an animal, a pet, we give it structure and define its dynamic with us by the narrow view we have of it. That’s why we’re so amazed when we see dogs doing all sorts of tricks and things we could never imagine a dog can do. That narrow mold we have created as a concept of it, the pet, is suddenly blown to pieces - ‘How’d you teach it to do that?’. Same goes when it’s violent behavior seems errant and unpredictable - ‘But he’s never been anything nice at home.’
A teacher of mine would always say when someone realized something about themselves that was surprising, limiting, frustrating or even disappointing, ‘Good to know who you’re living with…’. I couldn’t agree more. It is good to know who we’re living with. But are we spending most of our time trying to domesticate ‘who we are living with’ like the animals we keep. We frame our minds with a narrow concept of what we think it is rather than spending time simply knowing it for what it actually is? Is our mind only as wild and free as we allow it to be? Like our pets?
Who knows? I don’t. But I like the idea that whether or not you’ve ever lived with a pet, you’ve been living with a wild animal your whole life. And if you haven’t yet, maybe you oughta get to know it. Hopefully for what it really is, rather than than what you think it’s supposed to be.
