Just Listen
Sometimes we try too hard to find the answers. We think, the harder we search the more likely we are to discover what we seek. But more often than not the truth comes to us from the most unlikeliest of places. From the most unexpected teachers.
While my dad and stepmom have been gone on their transcontinental cruise through the Panama Canal this week, I’ve been looking after their house and their “child”, a mutt named Jake. My father is very attached to Jake, and my stepmom and I often joke that Jake is really my half-brother in a dog-suit. Jake’s a mix of at least three breeds, one being a chihuahua, another a terrier and who knows what else. He’s an odd dog, prone to spontaneous and wholly inexplicable yelps. We think he might have a doggie form of Tourette’s Syndrome. You get the idea.
Regardless, with his “mama and papa” away, Jake now sleeps in my bed. And he’s quite a sleeper. He’d put a prisoner to shame with the amount of shut-eye he can rack up. But ever since he started sleeping in my bed he’s woken me up early in the morning by licking my face. Not just once, but continuously, along with my hands if they’re exposed. At first, I thought he just wanted me to get up, or to feed him or to check his puppy pad. But even after doing all these things, if I lay back down he’d nuzzle himself up to my face and start licking it again. It was almost as if he was giving me a morning bath or something.
Well, this morning I solved the mystery in what can only be described as a moment of puresatori (a Zen Japanese word akin to a moment of spontaneous enlightenment, probably best compared to the feeling you get when you suddenly solve a mathematical equation after hours of struggling to grasp its principle. In other words, that “aha!” moment). But more than simply a moment of clarity, it was also a moment of absolute connection, of perfect realization. It’s hard to describe in words, actually.
This morning at about nine a.m. Jake began his daily ablutions of my face and hands. But this time, I didn’t move. I simply lay there and let him do what he was doing. And I suddenly realized there was a deeper meaning to his behavior. Something he was trying to communicate to me. He just didn’t have a way to do it other than by example. When I finally understood what he was doing, a feeling of absolute compassion and understanding flooded into me. I actually cried when it hit me.
What was he doing? Heh. After he thoroughly licked my face and hands, he looked at me and nudged his head under my hand like he wanted me to pet him. So I did. And in that instant, as I stroked my hand down his body, continuing the motion over and over as if my hand were a giant tongue, I understood: That’s how his mother washed him when he was a puppy in the mornings and he wanted, needed, to feel that again. It was an epiphany of understanding. In that moment I absolutely grasped what he needed, what he was seeking from me, and I was able to respond. Something told me he’d been taken from his mother too early and he missed that togetherness, that bonding. I couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down my face as I stroked his soft fur again and again. His expression was one of pure contentment. Someone finally understood him. It was simply amazing.
We all just want to be held in our mothers arms, after all. To feel that safety and comfort. Jake told me what he needed the only way he could and I consider myself very fortunate that I was able to listen. To understand. Even now I tear up thinking of that moment of pure communion with another being who just wanted to be accepted and held and reassured. So simple.
He taught me a lot this morning. Not bad for a mutt, eh?
Taken from: http://yojinbo-san.blogspot.com/2010/04/just-listen.html
