Dog Nature Buddha Nature

Strange and wonderful how "opposite" emotions are layered in emptiness, without the slightest conflict, repression, or confusion. One does not "by-pass" grief or pain to enter the Transcendent, for immeasurable empathy and compassion are already there. I learned this teaching of the Buddha, concerning The Four Immeasurables, from my dogs.

My heart still reverberates with tears of grief after the loss of Bowie on a beautiful golden evening in May. Today I go into the woods, near the place where he chased a rabbit, instantly leaping into the realm of souls through the neck-snapping portal of a coyote's jaws. I build him a shrine, write his name on a stone, bury a clump of his unforgettable hair, chant the liberating Maha-Mrityunjaya Mantra, and wish him farewell. Again and again...

I will never get over this grief. And yet, precisely in the heart of mourning, I sparkle with joy, because on a golden Father's Day in June, we picked up our new 8 week old puppy, Finn, a squirming red medicine bundle of love.

And yet through these seemingly opposite textures of emotion, there is all-pervading silence, the dispassionate Witness. He is Willy, Dogen of my original nature, Pooh-like companion night and day, in cloud or sunbeam, the gentle, wise, cantankerous smile on a mossy ancient Buddha stone. Willy reminds me that, in the blossoming or withering of the flower, I remain who I already Am: the hollow in the seed.

Buddha taught The Four Immeasurables to answer the question, "Does a Buddha feel emotions?" The answer was, "Yes, infinitely."

Vast love (Metta), boundless sorrow (Karuna), limitless joy (Mudita) all cohabit groundless dispassion (Upeksha). Cosmic yet intensely personal, these emotions dissolve into Bodhichitta, the essential space of awareness.

Just as sugar, salt, and yarrow dissolve in clear water, yet sweet, alkaline and bitter tastes are still there. Just as the rainbow's vivid red, blue, and yellow are suspended invisibly in a beam of white light. Just as, in quantum physics, the multifarious universe apparently springs from the emptiness of the vacuum; although "emptiness" is also a mere appearance, for the Void is cornucopia, a chaos of abundance, where stillness vibrates into virtual particles of matter, pre-existent photons of un-created light.

Similarly, joy and pain co-exist in the transcendental clarity of the Witness. No feeling is ever "bypassed" in the lucidity of true meditation. All layers of emotion are available in the empty brilliance of sat-chit-ananda. I Am both full and hollow.

To touch these feelings, which are the threads of silence itself, is not a withdrawal from the world, but a treasuring up of love.


I write this at 3 A.M., grieving for my lost friend, Bowie, yet stroking the deep red fur of my new companion, Finn, while Willy lies snoring on the floor.