My cat The Bear died yesterday morning. I’m pretty sure I know the exact moment he died because at about 2.40am I woke with a full body jolt that felt like a benevolently intended electric shock and my house felt very different to how it had ever felt before. A few hours later, as the lazy winter sun was finally beginning to rise over the line of bare trees overlooking my house, I went downstairs and found him on his side in the hallway, lifeless. I wrapped him in the towel I’d been recently using to dry him after cleaning his increasingly matted fur, and buried him in the garden.
Tim Cox blog
A dear friend, Angie, sent me the link to this post and said, You might be interested to read what Tom Cox wrote when his old puss died as it is very moving. Quite long though so when you get time! It’s about the best account of the death of a companion animal I’ve ever read. I thought at first it was her voice and story, it could have been. However as I read on, drawn in, I realized it wasn’t mainly because the back story didn’t fit what I knew of her. Writing books….you could do that Angie….
This post stands in memory of all those animal friends we have buried after many years of companionship. I’m remembering Petrushka dog and Max cat both late of Shasta Abbey.
Thank you all for leaving comments pointing to the sections of the video I linked to in my last post. So grateful we now have some time markers to go to although listening/watching the whole things is good too. That gravel voice is attractive in a certain kind of way. Here at 9.16 mins into the video Cohen voices what many of us know about. Namely the intensity of energy that floods ones body and mind while sitting zazen/meditation. Sometimes refered to as sitting in the midst a fire. Obviously not an actual fire. PLEASE! Later, around the 11.00 mins meditation is mentioned again.
Things arise that are very disturbing and there’s no way around it… you have to sit in the very bonfire of that distress and you sit there until you’re burned away.
–
What he says does indeed reach the heart. In gassho, Matthew Thanks to Matthew for this quote. We met, briefly, at Throssel where we, along with many others. remembered Rev. Master Jiyu. The 20th anniversary of her death November 6th 1996. Also thanks to Nigel for his poem, yet to be published here. The video seems to have hit the spot.
And there she is, the lovely Bess up there on the tops in snow on the 10th November. You can see how popular she is if you follow the link text to a Facebook page edited by her ‘person’, an equally wonderful person. (My mother always talked to dogs by saying something like ‘what a lovely person’!) Anyway dear Bess, and all who know her and Rachael, were is a bit of a concerned state following news that Bess had ‘a lump’. Turned out to be a consequence of something that happened during her routine procedure to be spayed. Not go into the details enough to say Bess has nothing life threatening and now sports a fast healing scare on her belly. (Cousin Jess in the US, no stress please. All is well, your vet hat can remain happy on your head.)
The other day there was a bit of a gathering in the place where I am staying at the moment. There is always a space for Bess, and a bowl of water for refreshments too. We had a few quiet moments together and, unusual for her with relative strangers, rolled over to reveal her wound patch. Just a small window of opportunity to hold the palm of my hand over the wound to ‘bless’ it. We are taught in our tradition to do this. Bit of love offered to the lovely Bess and also to seal up the hole created my the surgery. Similar to making sure the door is closed and locked when you leave a building, only this works on a subtle (spiritual) level.
Yep. Bess is best. Collie dogs are very loyal and Bess is no exception joined as she is to Rachael.
SAD. Slowly as the light of the world dims, starting around about now, Seasonal Affective Disorder settles in for the long haul towards Spring. That’s April for the fortunate.
The leaves fall from the trees in profusion and at first all seems fine. It’s Autumn, the colours are brilliant – red, gold, orange, browns of every hue. But the sun rays are weak and for those who are prone to SAD need to supplement with extra light to keep away those all too familiar Winter Blues. For some the situation moves past feeling low to being more or less dysfunctional.
This post is for a friend in Canada who is heading into the SAD season vowing to keep up a regular meditation practice every day and to supplement with light each morning. One can get lonely in the low light time. Depression is isolating. Pain is isolating. Know you are not alone. I for one will be drinking in extra light each morning and offering merit for all who suffer.
The following is from a chap who has just had a tumor removed from his brain and is now inevitably contemplating mortality and how he approaches the life he has left to live.
The story which seems to make more sense to me than at any time in the past is this one:
A man walking across a field encounters a tiger. He fled, the tiger chasing after him. Coming to a cliff, he caught hold of a wild vine and swung himself over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Terrified, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger had come, waiting to eat him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little began to gnaw away at the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine in one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!
Practice Within The Order of Buddhist Contemplatives
