The Animal Within Us

I don't have a large house by any means.  But there's plenty of room for three cats and two humans.  In addition to our first floor, we have a basement, an upstairs, and an attic space.  

If our four-legged children wanted, they could divide the house up into sections and never see each other.

Instead, they follow each other around the house in a slow-motion chase.  Every now and again the chase is interrupted by loud hisses and swats when one cat catches another unaware.  

They stop for a moment, panting, wondering what just happened, and then the chase begins again.

There's no reason for conflict, no justification for their ongoing struggle for dominance.  There is plenty of food, water for everyone.  And my partner and I are generous with belly rubs and head scratches.

But there is something in them that wants/ needs to fight; a thing that requires the chase, the pounce, the contest of tooth and claw.  And once its appetite is sated, the cats live peacefully until it rears its head again. 

It's easy to shrug off their behavior as "animals being animals".  But humans aren't so different.  On our worst days we're as silly as house cats.

I ponder this sometimes when I look at the state of the world. We have reached a post-scarcity era of human history.  Our technology allows us to produce more food, clothing, and shelter than any time in human history.

But we won't stop fighting.

There's a thing within us, and it needs to test itself against others.  It requires that we create a pecking order, even if we end up on the bottom.

That's the reason we cut people off in traffic and leave our shopping carts in the parking lot. That's why there's a part of us that recoils anytime someone asks for a favor. 

Like cats, looking for a fight, we have a thing within us that lives off of conflict.

Buddhism offers us many tools to overcome this thing, this object of violence and lust.  It helps us turn away from the animal part of ourselves in favor of the divine.

But we must choose to walk that path.  We must decide to stop living like cats who lick their hind quarters and fight over a can of food when there's an identical can next to it.

Sadly, most people never make that choice.

They sacrifice their happiness, and the happiness of others, to satisfy that part of themselves that wants to eat, and rut, and kill.

But Buddhists are different.  As a rule, we don't do what most people do.  Most people wouldn't have abdicated the throne like Buddha did.  They wouldn't have walked the path that led away from the palace, away from the pleasures and glories that come with being a king.

But he did it anyway, and we're all better off as a result.

So, it falls upon us to walk the same path he did, to climb the higher, harder path of Dharma.  We must do the right thing, even when it hurts.  We must be kind, even when people break our hearts.

When we're surrounded by animals, we must choose to live as Buddhas.

Namu Amida Butsu

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