Years ago a friend of mine fostered a dog and said he wanted to write a book, Everything I Ever Needed to Know I Learned from My Dog. At the time I thought he was, well, whacky or, at a minimum, highly hyperbolic. Then I adopted my own dog, Jack, and have come to appreciate the wisdom of Todd’s words.
For decades I’ve been trying to learn how to live in the moment. I’ve read books (The Power of Now-Tollé, Be Here Now-Ram Dass, etc.), gone to the ashrams, sat uncomfortably in the half-lotus positions, watched my monkey mind crawl all over cerebral creation, yada yada yada, and still not much closer to knowing how to live, as the Zen masters say, in the space between the claps. Then Jack showed up and showed me how, just by being his un-self-conscious self.
When Jack awakens he does a couple of downward facing dogs and is completely absorbed in that movement and stretch. When he runs, he’s all about running; when eating, eating; when drinking, drinking; and when sniffing butts, sniffing butts. He never multitasks. When he poops you can tell he’s totally into that, too. And, significantly, when he gets bathed, he hates it in the moment and then it’s forgotten in the next; “twas but a passing cloudburst” would be his thought bubble. As a result, Jack shows up for every experience, in every moment, wagging his tail. He lives in the space between the claps, and it looks fun! ❤️
