My kitty is truly the best zen master. Every day my little cat meows like crazy to get me to let him go outside. When I let him out, all does is sniff EVERYTHING, and experience EVERY LITTLE THING, in front of the apartment. He sniffs every bush, every mulch stick, every blade of grass. He tastes the leaves without really eating them, tastes them and experiences them. I was just watching him being SO immerse and curious and investigative and wondrous he was and then it dawned on me. I started thinking about how kitties and puppies and babies are so much happier than most humans. Then it hit me - ALL they live for is to take in, experience and appreciate/love the moment as FULLY and as JOYFULLY as possible. They are not burdened with the excessive self talk that humans are. They are not raised with the conditioning of language, logic, right/wrong, acceptable/unacceptable etc etc. So they do not filter and dilute their full and total experience of reality, the One long continuous [eternal] Moment, with arbitrary judgements, fears, hopes, perceptions and projections, concepts. There is just PURE VIVD awareness and experience. I don't know how many of you guys have meditated before. But when I do chanting meditations with a friend/partner in the sun on the grass for 45 mins straight, eyes closed - after 45 mins of that absorbition, the state of mind that you are in feels very much like your infant-like, childlike, puppylike state - the normal chatter and old feelings of physical/emotional limitation that used to cloud the full vivid joyful continual experience of the One eternal moment that is reality, is just gone. And I just feel like my 10 year old self again. I run around like hell, don't have a trace of anxiety or sadness or worry or anything, just in peace. I call it the Bob marley smile, you know. just happy as a mofo. There are no two moments. Ever. Therefore there is no time. There is only perpetual movement and potential and probability within this one moment. And this moment is not bound by so-called "space" because space does not exist, there is no distance within the moment, the moment is everything. And all appeareances within the one moment occur in the mind of the one moment - it is one eternal conscious. So when we step out of our conditioned (is the term... the mental habits are just running on momentum, they can be slowed and stopped) mental boxes, we can experience the reality like my cat, who never gets bored, even with the same thing twice. Cats and dogs and babies live in perpatual "beginner's mind". Everything is always fresh and new. The problem with us as we get older is we start to think we know everything, and our mental label system starts boxing every single new version of the moment with categories and time (past present future) and space (here, there, separate) - these mental processes block the pure experience. Now, beyond even just experiencing a pure state, the reality of the ONE-MOMENT that is the one unchanging consciousness (essentially dreaming itself infinintely) is always true whether there are thoughts present in our experience or not. But when we are able to do things like chant, shamatha focusing meditation and such concentration practices to reach such high levels of clarity and bliss and wonder and peace...... then we are as cool and curious as cats and babies - and them is some cool cats Daayuum I'm blazed
Sometimes I get envious of pets for this reason, but then I think about how repetitive and enclosed their life is.. of course humans get repetitive also, but we have broader options and more freedom to express ourselves, while they get trapped in this tiny universe (house). Wild animals have the life though.. but I'm still very happy with what the human experience has to offer, it's just different. I'd say we have more options to experience new things.
It's beautiful to watch animals, they are always in the moment. The moment doesn't always bring them bliss though, but it is still interesting to watch an anxious animal, to see how it copes. There is instinct, yet a definite character in every animal, from birds to dogs to cold-blooded animals. I've noticed dogs are much more prone to anxiety and irrational fears than most other animals, probably because they've been constantly living next to anxious humans with their strange thinking for the past few thousand years. It's much easier to help an anxious dog than an anxious human, because dogs always accept whatever the moment brings. But the human is too caught up inside his thoughts, the human doesn't let himself surrender to the moment.. This is something dogs and cats- all animals, could help teach us to do.
This is very true indeed. When I'm home alone with my cat I just chill with him and communicate and learn from his ways. I just shut up and hang out with him, it is so awesome. The best meditation, not even trying, just chillin in the moment. So peaceful. Nothin like the mary jane to take u to that special plane
Well I've taken a few more steps than this but I never tied it in with animals like this before. But thanks. And thanks for the compliment guys, glad you enjoyed this/could relate. I had fun writing it.