One of my UBBT8 goals is to take my dog to intermediate obedience training, and then agility training classes. One might wonder what this goal might have to do with my kung fu journey.
At first, I thought that challenging myself to focus on my dog would give me the opportunity to learn more about 'living in the moment'. Agility classes require that my dog be fit. I would have to take my dog for long walks, exercise her with games of catch, spend at least 20 minutes per day practising the obedience training. It would force me to slow down my own life, adjust my day to day priorities, be home more, enjoy the outdoors more, and watch and learn how a dog 'lives in the moment'.
The trainer at the obedience classes told me that dogs don't live in the moment. They live in the second. I argued with him that a moment is not to confused with a minute. When he looked at me askance, I referred to philosophies such as zen buddhism. The obedience trainer would have none of it. He had no time for philosophy, and 'living in the moment' mumbo jumbo; he'd rather spend time with his dogs.
Today, Lizzie (my dog) and I went for a one hour walk. Actually, for me, it wasn't walking, and it wasn't snowshoeing, so I would have to call it snow-booting. As we walked and snow-booted, I got to thinking. Lizzie is helping me profoundly with this 'living in the moment' thing. Not for the first time this year, I had adjusted my plans for the day on account of her. I'm not much of a winter outdoors person - so getting motivated, or adjusting my day, to go outside and just walk, and think, and clear the cobwebs out, relax, enjoy the freshness, and live in the moment is a challenge at this time of year. Lizzie has indeed provided the reason, the perspective and motivation I need. And in doing so, she has provided me with the opportunity to explore another of my UBBT8 requirements; Kindness.
I am currently reading the book, 'On Kindness', by Adam Phillips and Barbara Taylor explores the origins and history of kindness in our instincts, our religions, and our philosophies. The authors argue that kindness is an instinctual, but in society we have come to be suspicious of it and view it as dangerous.
The pleasure of kindness is that it connects us with others; but the terror of kindness is that it makes us too immediately aware of our own and other people's vulnerabilties.
Dogs, like humans, are social animals. As I spend time with Lizzie, I watch her give and recieve kindness instinctively. Is it because she has not lost touch with that inter-connectedness that we all crave, or is it the other way round? As I bring loads of wood in for the wood-burning stove, and Lizzie dances around me, I begin to wonder whether there are few things you can't have without the other - the ability to live in the moment, the pleasure of kindness, and the acceptance of both our interconnectedness, and our vulnerabilities.
"So it is not that real kindness requires people to be selfless, it is rather that real kindness changes people in the doing of it, often in unpredictable ways"
From "On Kindness"
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