Choices
The hound and I have been out and about this week. Temperatures soared once more. At times the light had a flat brightness that could cut glass. The hound’s white patches glowed ultraviolet and the newly bloomed purple and red flowers on our street flaunted their raiment with proud abandon.
I treated the Manjushri School’s pupil to a week of spring vacation. She and I have existed happily in that space where a pause is taken from tasks which will be resumed before too long. It’s hard to believe that we are approaching the home stretch of our second year of home education. The decision to end our connection with the American schooling system is one which has impacted every corner of my life. I know that it is one particular choice which even my scapegrace mind will never regret.
A dear friend and I, meeting weekly on FaceTime as we have for over a decade now, were musing recently on the power of choice. In our human realm it is this freedom which endows us with the power to practise the dharma. As I grow older, I see and feel the power and the lasting effects of choice. It seems to me that living with and understanding the consequences of our decisions both good and bad is one of the only ways in which we creatures of a day can hope to gain any maturity in our fleeting existence.
Nowadays the pulpits of modernity scream the virtue of changing one’s course as soon as the results begins to impinge upon one’s self comfort. As a result people are often prevented from experiencing the consequences of choices in this life. From the Buddhist perspective this simply creates worse problems for the future; we can never outrun the shadow of our actions.
But for the moment, with our children ring fenced from the diseased influence of modern culture, life is good and the hound basks with one eye open in the afternoon sun. I’ve had cause to reflect upon the phenomenon that is our four legged family member once more in recent weeks. When a family dog has been a presence for so long, it’s the quirks in personality, the idiosyncrasies and the irrational behaviours that generate an ever deeper love and affection. Standing with Duke now, he deliberately lingers in the sunshine longer than I had planned. Later, sitting beside my husband on the sofa, I laugh as Duke pushes his way between us quite literally; desperate as always to be central to any perceived moment of affection.
Whether I’m watching him lose his head over a squirrel or patiently enduring any rough housing our daughter can devise, I feel a bone deep love for this helpless creature whose positive karma seems to be his ability to give love to humans and receive it ten fold in return. His tragedy lies, as with all experiencing animal rebirth, in his surrendering to the forces of instinctive behaviour rather than the exercising the muscles of positive choice.
With children, choices and hounds circling around in my mind I sit in the sunkissed air. Summer is coming and I can hear the voices of Europe calling through the breezes. I can’t wait to be flying across the water towards those days of endless gold.
