Day: May 15, 2016

Today, Eve Marko, a close friend and Zen teacher, came to visit us, we went to Pompanuck Farms planning to have a meditation day, but it turned out to be an even more meaningful and beautiful day, we had lunch, we walked outside, we talked and talked, and listened and listened and shared and shared.

The dogs entered in the spirit of things, Fate chewed on her bones, raced around outside (she only got into the compost heap once) and kissed everyone on the nose at least once. Red sat quietly by.

We only meditated for a short while, but our talks were a kind of meditation all of their own. Eve is a precious friend.

Conversations like this are wonderful and rare, especially in so beautiful and comfortable a space, and Maria and I both felt them deeply and appreciated them so much. We talked about the day all the way home, and are talking about it still.

Eve is a remarkable person, a wonderful teacher, animal lover, a deep and committed friend, she has a wonderful blog.

She shares her life there, authentically and beautifully. These says, she is often sharing the experience of coping with the illness and recovery of her husband Bernie, also a well-known Buddhist scholar and teacher. They live in Massachusetts, about two hours from us. He had a stroke a month or so ago. To me, Eve’s writing reminds me of Joan Didion, she has great depth of feeling and perspective.

We talked much of the day about letting go, an idea I have struggled with for much of my life and am only now beginning to grasp. Letting go is important, I know that. I think that before I can live, a part of me has to die. Sometimes more than once. When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be, said one philosopher.

Maria is very much at ease with Eve, she can be shy, but she and Eve have a connection you can almost touch, they talked for hours and could have talked much more about life, family, peace of mind.

We also talked throughout the day about the idea of letting go. Eve said as we get older, it is more and more important to grasp the idea that life is so much bigger than we are, we cannot control life and death, it controls us. Letting go as essential to my growth and evolution. I first heard a version of this idea from the Rev. Billy Graham, who told me to never speak poorly of my life or lament it – politics will always be troubling, taxes will always eventually go up, as will the cost of gas and food.

Eve believes it is possible to learn at any point in life, never more so than when we age, even when we die.

I let go of my mistakes. And of the hurts and cruelty of others. I let go of my reluctance to ask for help or receive it, to show my vulnerability, to hide the true nature of my life and being. I let go of the dumb things that I have done, the people I have hurt, the mistakes I have made, the times I feel used.

I let go being fearful of life, for what, really is the point? I have always feared the wrong things, the things I feared the most have never occurred, the most fearful things I have experienced are things I never once thought of. Fear was one of the first things I let go of. Anger is another, arguing my life, the first cousin of anger, yet another.

The things I have let go of have made me lighter, freer, more creative. Letting go is important.

The space in my head is so precious to me, a writer. I will not waste it on fear, anger, regret or hiding any longer. I learn something every day. I change every day. Eve said she was tired of always being strong and independent, she wanted to open up to different ways of thinking about life.

(I love how dogs, given the chance, can enter into the spirit of things. Fate, an active curious creature, sat crunching her bones while we meditated and talk, then systematically greeted each one of us, and went to sleep. Red never once moved.)

Maria and I have been there, we have both changed in ways sometimes unimaginable to us. It is so important to talk about these things and think about them. I think I have let go of a whole world sometimes. There are all kinds of ways to meditate, this one was special.

Photo by Maria Wulf

Fate is a bad influence, the Pirate Dog. First off, she is not allowed on the furniture in the house, but she somehow manages to slither up into my lap and wriggle upside down there. She just cuddles sweetly for a couple of minutes, and then I see the Pirate gleam in her eye.

She lulls me by licking me and cuddling up and then turns her pirate eye to me and starts trouble, then she strikes.

She grabs my hand and finger – lightly – and tries to catch and capture my hand in her paw. I move my hand up and down and back and forth and she tries to catch it. Sometimes, she catches my hand in her mouth, but she never harms it or grips it hard. Sometimes I move it back and forth and drive her mad.

She loves to lie in my lap upside down. Maria laughs and says we are ridiculous. This is all the dog’s fault, I say. She is trouble, I have nothing to do with it..

We wrassle. This can go on a long time, Maria says Fate and I are much a like and deserve one another. This happens two or three times a day and eventually I toss her off of my lap and one of these days I will scold her for causing so much trouble. Maria says we each tap into the crazed parts of the other. I deny this.

She is just a bad influence. A Pirate Dog.

A friend of mine, a Buddhist teacher, asked me what I thought of when I saw my camera, the new monochrome purchased with donations from some of you. She said the bag and the camera are empty, but the people who contributed to my buying it fill it up.

I loved this idea and was touched by it. Whenever I use or look at my camera, I think of you, the scores of people who sent me contributions so that I could purchase my black and white monochrome camera. In exchanged, I promised to share the photos and what I have learned taking them, I have been doing that.

The camera is just a device but my heart fills up when I think of the letters, the envelopes, the cash and checks that so quickly filled up my post office box. The letters were from everywhere, all over the country, too many people to name here, but they all grasped the importance of learning, growing, changing, and also of the joy and power of sharing creativity with people who grasp its meaning.

They went to the trouble of writing checks, putting cash neatly into envelopes, writing me notes of thanks and appreciation. Think of it, people thanking me for taking money from them. Some people, perhaps made hard and cynical by life, could not grasp the beauty of it. I will not forget it.

So I wanted you to know that whenever I look at the camera, I think of you, your letters and names and good wishes flash through my mind, they sit in a big basket so that I can write back to each one of you and thank you personally. I have begun doing that.

I also hope to thank you by taking good and interesting photographs and giving them back to you, as promised. I think of you.

(I am grateful and overwhelmed by the response to this series and I thank you for it.)

Is choosing a dog a moral issue? And if so, how does the poor dog-seeker choose between the many different moral issues thrust upon them by the many righteous and even rabid, quarreling elements of the animal world?

Is rescuing a dog always a noble choice, and is it true that conscientious breeders keep the best, not the worst, traits of dogs alive? Is there only one way to get a dog? It is a sin to buy one or pay money for a dog? Sometimes I think ethicists and philosophers are more relevant to the dog-choosing process than any veterinarian or behaviorist.

The great ethicist and moral philosopher Hannah Arendt has always been my best guide when it comes to making moral decisions, and when it comes to deciding how I will choose an animal.

For me, the moral challenge is not in where I get a dog, but in how I get a dog. My first obligation is to the dog, not to my own search to be righteous and superior. Anybody who tells me what I must always do is not, to me, a moral person, but an unethical manipulator. There is no simple path to morality and righteousness, getting the right dog is hard and tedious work, there is no one or magical way to do it.

The person who loves me and cares for me will always tell me to look within myself to answer the questions I need to ask in life. Thanks in part to the ideologues who increasingly dominate ort culture, we are always being told what we must do and ought to, and rarely are asked the truly fundamental question: what is it, in our souls, that we really wish to do?

Sometimes it seems we are becoming a people of weak minds, too timid or intimidated to think for ourselves, and our our own moral decisions.

Getting a dog or any other animal is, in the final analysis, a joint decision of the heart and mind. No one outside of you can make it. The moral obligation comes from how we love the dogs, not where we go to look for them. In my mind, it is immoral to get a dog for any other reason than that it is the best choice for you and the dog.

The millions of dogs languishing in shelters and rescue facilities all over American call out to us to think clearly and bravely and honestly about what it really means to be moral in our lives with animals.

How do we decide how to do it? Do we listen to the people who insist there is only one way to get a dog, and make that the point and meaning of it. Or do we listen to the people  who say there are many good ways to get a dog, and we must first and foremost think not of ourselves,  but of what is best for the creature who cannot speak for him or herself. He depends on us to be a faithful advocate.

Or even better, do we listen to ourselves, not the legions of self-appointed gurus who try to force their beliefs upon us?

Moral conduct, writes Arendt, depends primarily on the intercourse of man and woman with him or herself. We must not contradict ourselves by making exceptions in our own favor, we must never place ourselves in a position where we will end up despising ourselves.

“Morally speaking,” she writes in Responsibility And Judgement, “this should be enough not only to enable us to tell right from wrong but also to do right and avoid wrong.”
It is not a matter of concern with the other but with the self, not of meekness and bullying but of human dignity, and even human pride. It is not how others tell us we must choose a dog, rather it is about what we tell ourselves we want and need, and can care for.

Our moral obligation is not to get a dog from one place or another, but to give the dog the best, safest and most loving life no matter where it comes from.

The standard is not the love or approval of those who presume to tell us what we must do, nor is it self-love and self-interest. It is self-respect. I do not get a dog to rescue something or to use a dog to make me feel righteous and superior to others. I get the dog and live with a dog in a way that gives me satisfaction in carrying out my moral responsibility to a dependent living creature.

There is no one way to be moral or do the right thing, and such wisdom almost never comes from the dictates of other people.  No one else lives in our life, our family, our home, our hearts, psyche and souls. We are individuals, we are all difference, there is no one way for all us to do a single thing. If dogs teach us nothing else, they teach us that.

Our world is filling up with people who would tell us what to do, how to live and how to feel guilty and poorly about ourselves. They are manipulators, they have their own interests at heart, not mine or yours. The people who love me want me to find my own way.

So, ironically, and this is a strange thing to write, even in our time, it takes strength and clarity to choose a dog well. It is no longer a simple matter, as it once was.  We must navigate very different ideas, emotions and beliefs. We must do our homework and learn as much as we can about the dogs we presume to bring into our lives and be responsibility.

We must look inward, not outward, for the sense of what is right for us, what we can handle, how much love we have to give and wish to receive. Our moral responsibility to living animals does not begin and end with where we get them, it begins and ends with making the right choices for them, and for us. Sometimes that is a shelter. Sometimes a rescue group. Sometimes a breeder.

We begin this journey with the understanding that no one holds all of the high moral ground. There are awful shelters, rescue groups and breeders. There are wonderful shelters, rescue groups and breeders. Sadly, it is your task and responsibility to sort out one from another.

(One tip: don’t trust anyone – breeder, shelter worker, rescue group – who tells you there is only one way to do this. They are destroying the process that most benefits you and the dog you want.)

Anyone who tells you that they alone are moral and righteous and superior are not your friends, they are the enemies of you and the animals they should be representing in a more honest and ethical way. Anyone who tells you that you are killing other animals by choosing the one you feel is right for you is not a friend of you or of animals, they are enabling a system that can be especially cruel to animals and people.

I remember a contractor who stopped by my farm one day and told me if I didn’t upgrade my electrical system the farmhouse would burn down. Think of my family and the dogs, he said. He could fix this for $1,000. A good friend who is also an electrical contractor came buy and said the work I needed was minor and would cost about $100. Be wary of people who use fear and guilt, he said. Fear and guilt are the greatest persuaders and manipulators. I would not care to look in my mirror if I ever did that to other people, whether it is about getting a dog or fixing a conductor.

Listen to people who listen to  you. Listen to people who leave you feeling good and nourished, not guilty and diminished. Look into the mirror when you make your decisions about how to choose a dog, and if you respect the face you see, it is a good decision, the best one you can possibly make in a polarized and confusing world.

I guess my advice is this:  be your own guru, your one wise man or woman.  You know the kind of dog you want. Find it and bring it home, that is the miracle of dogs.