Desire

"Beware of thirstiness lest your wishes become desires and desire binds you."

This is Tristan. He is a Border Collie. Like many Border Collies, he has a number of compulsive behaviors endearing idiosyncrasies.  One of them is psychogenic polydipsia, which is obsessive water drinking. No matter the size bowl or how recently he has had a drink, Tristan, if you do not stop him, will try to empty a water bowl any time the thought crosses his mind to do so, which is often. This is followed by a forceful paw to the back door, his frantic request to be let outside to relieve his overfull bladder.  Once outside, the dog relieves himself in a session so long, he has to switch legs mid-way, sometimes several times, because he's been standing on one leg for so long. One time I clocked him at 3 minutes. Probably real good for his kidneys. The more he drinks the more he wants to drink and the more he has to pee. Like thirsty ghosts, we're the same way, ever drinking with thirst never quenched. The more we get the more we want and the more we want, the more we have the more we pay a debt for what we have accumulated. The way we try to help Tristan with his particular disorder behavior is to keep him engaged in his environment. In the same way, we need to be engaged in our environment, not distracted by wanting to have but instead having what we want.

The Elephant

"Do not carry with you your mistakes. Do not carry with you your cares." - The Dhammapada

"Perfection is the lowest standard a human could ever take on because it is unattainable; therefore you ultimately have no standard at all." - Anthony Robbins

For years when I played dog agility, if I would make a mistake, and I would always make a mistake because there is no such thing as a perfect run, I would focus on it, obsess over it, let it weigh on me, let it color the whole rest of the trial. Then I learned about the trap of perfection - that if our goal is to be perfect, you set yourself up for failure and will never be happy. I confused perfection with progress and with satisfaction with what went right. Now, when I look at the results of a run, I focus on what went right. I think about things in terms of what percent of the run went well. Instead of all or nothing, it's shades of gray. I don't ignore when things go wrong, but I look at them as pointers of what I need to focus on in training instead of personal failures. It's much more fun that way. As we enter the second week of the Winter Olympics, my favorite moments have been watching athletes just be happy with their performance, regardless of place.

A Cat Pile

After yesterday's intense post, I offer you now, a cat pile:

The Dark

"Feel shame only where shame is due. Fear only what is fearful. See evil only in what is evil. Lest you mistake the true way and fall into darkness."

Growing up, I spent a lot of time with my grandmother. She subscribed to the guilt and fear model of parenting in order to "protect" us from the world. In this world there were "drug fiends" on every corner just waiting to inject us with heroin and get us hooked. There were strangers who wanted to give us poison candy before kidnapping us. If I didn't look two ways before crossing the street, I would surely end up like my grandmother's childhood best friend, wrapped around the front tire of a delivery truck.  For a period of a few hours, I literally believed that Hitler lived in my neighborhood and that I had to find a good hiding place for when the SS came knocking on our door. If I wanted anything, I was spoiled. If I didn't want something, I was ungrateful. Cab drivers and movers will always try to rob you and so on. And all of this information was communicated to me by the first grade.

I had my first experience with anxiety the summer between first and second grade. I just woke up one day and didn't want to get out of bed. I had a tightness in my chest and a knot in my stomach and just didn't know why. I felt guilty about things that had nothing to do with me, like news items that I pictured I was somehow implicated in. Looking back, I can see the connection between my grandmother's "schooling" and how I internalized it.

What finally got me over that first episode was my father repeating Roosevelt's words: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself."  Sure, it might sound trite, but for a second grader hearing those words for the first time, it was quite comforting. It brought me back to the fact that there was nothing really to be afraid of or feel bad about.

If we look at the things we feel shamed about, are afraid of, demonize and question those thoughts and underlying assumptions, I think we'd be surprised that there's nothing to back them up: "There is nothing to fear but fear itself."

Out of the Forest

Sit.

Rest.

Work.

Alone with yourself, never weary.

the way

"Everything arises and passes away. When you see this, you are above sorrow."

I dropped a casserole dish on my toe once. Hurt like the dickens. Went to the doctor. Got it x-rayed. Confirmed: broken toe. The treatment: go easy on it, and over time, it will heal, and so it did. Later that same day, was on the phone with my mother, who was in the hospital, right as the oncologist came in and let her know that she had leukemia. Within 16 months, she was gone.  Hurt like the dickens. Went to the Buddha. Meditated. The treatment: go easy on it, over time, it will heal, and so I did.   Pain comes, pain goes. Joy comes, joy goes. The thing is, we all experience pain and joy. What makes us different is how we let it affect us.

The Just

"If you determine your course with force or speed, you miss the way..."

I love this quote and I started this post yesterday trying to figure out what the most appropriate metaphor was to illustrate the gist of it. Now I'm on day two, mulling it over. Just as pulling your leftovers out of the microwave when you still have 30 seconds left on the clock because you're hungry doesn't mean that the food will be warm enough to eat, I am learning not to rush things just because I want to accomplish something NOW. That includes this post, which, on any other topic, would have taken me maybe 15 minutes.

It took 2 years for one of my dogs and me to progress from one level to another in agility. We had "faked" our way through the initial levels, never really learning how to work as a team. Speed, luck, and ease of course design had more to do with our success than anything else. We finally reached a point where could no longer get away with that and I had to go back and teach a steady foundation as well as undo the mistakes I made with accepting poor performance.  This is an ongoing process.  We are now starting to progress again, but I am now focused on doing it right vs doing the bare minimum to get by.  This means it is in some cases taking us longer to advance in the agility world, but I believe in the long run we will be rewarded by better communication, a better relationship, and ultimately, better performance.

The end results of patience being awarded by better communication, better relationships, and better performance  probably hold true outside of the agility world as well. That, to me, is the true value of this quote.