Meditating On Life & Death

Through meditation we learn to understand and train the mind. Emotions are a whole other arena. I have to admit that I have been somewhat surprise by the level of grief I am experiencing since the four-legged member of our family  Samantha  died yesterday. I guess sometimes you don’t realize quite how much you love someone until they’re gone.

Sam was actually my wife’s dog, coming to her as a wild stray while my wife was a monk at a Zen Buddhist monastery in the hills of California. She had clearly been abused, and for the rest of her life whenever she saw someone holding a broom would cower. At first Sam wouldn’t even come into my wife’s hermitage to sleep, in fact she wouldn’t even let herself be covered as she slept outside.

By the time I met her 4 1/2 years ago Sam was fully domesticated and the most gentle and loving dog I have ever met. There was a deep bond of love and loyalty between Sam and my wife. It was clear that I was a definite second in Sam’s affection, and to be honest I sometimes felt in my wife’s too. Once our son was born, I slipped down to third place.

Probably because of this, and really being a cat person, I wasn’t always as loving and tolerant of Sam as I could have been. But life is always teaching if we are willing to learn, and my wife is a great teacher to me. She models to me patience with tenderness, as Sam so often did as well.

With Samantha’s death I find myself reflecting on how important it is to appreciate and value those that we care for, and how much good we can do by being respectful and kind. The choice is always there. The future is unknown and unpredictable, when we take those we love for granted, we are already losing them.

I have also noticed that my mind has not gone into what if’s or if only’s. From so many years of meditation I see that my mind naturally lets things be as they are and lives more and more comfortably in the present, grief and all.

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