The Best Bye-Bye Ever

I think we all have a core that's ecstatic, that knows and that looks up in wonder. We all know that there are marvelous moments of eternity that just happen. We know them. - Coleman Barks in the Zen Calendar (October 11, 2007)

Day 75. Three quarters of the way to One Hundred days. I've always kind of liked fractions. They are very symmetrical.

It's a cheesy way of saying it, but when I get my dogs' attention before an outing, I say, "Want to go on a bye-bye?" As they dash to the shelf where their walk collars are kept, clearly they know exactly what I mean. The Bye-Bye Rules are simple and consistent: SIT without being asked while collars are snapped on, leap into the back of the Xterra, hang heads out the window with flapping ears and wide dog grins, stand patiently when the hatch is opened, quivering from tip to tail with joyous anticipation until I give the "Okay!" and then bound into freedom. Point Twelve at an Oklahoma city lake is Doggie Disneyland. We go there often.

We had the lake to ourselves today. It was cool, overcast and muddy from three days of rain, with light drops still falling from the sky. We headed around the point, following the shore and the broad expanse of "beach" exposed from a long dry spell.

As we continued along the uniquely Oklahoma red-mud sand, both dogs melted into liquid joy. They are always exuberant wild things at the lake, but today they seemed especially blissed out. I walked along gulping deep swallows of the crisp, rain-cleansed air. I couldn't help but beam as I watched such supremely happy canines. We rounded another point, this one with toppled trees that had leafed out in the few days since we'd last visited. I paused and leaned against the damp bark, breathing the clean air deeply into my lungs.

Unlike yesterday, I consciously observed my breaths. Each was its own protracted and significant event. Five breaths in, another miracle. My mind and body may have dissipated for just a second, right out over the lake. I glanced over into the edge of the woods, where the dogs frolicked in the wet grass. Odd as this sounds, I'm reporting exactly what happened: I could feel their movement with my body. As I watched, the boundaries between us disappeared, and their motion flowed through me. They leaped over a log, and I felt the effortless take-off and landing. I could feel the wet sand under their paws, and the wind blowing under their ears as they tore around and around and around on the lake's edge. The air and earth and water - nature's grays and greens and browns and brick red - flickered and glistened, merged and bore me up and into them. No thought, no perception. At an elemental level, I joined the Moment, rather than observing it. Me and Ruby and Katy became the Now - we weren't just participating in it. They appeared unchanged; dogs always exist in their Buddha nature. I, on the other hand, was ecstatic.

We turned around and began the trek back to Point Twelve. Sights, sounds, and sensation remained heightened and brimming with joy. Ruby, who can singularly sound like the back stretch of the Belmont Stakes, came thundering up behind me, only to turn on a dime and careen belly deep into the water. Katy raced back and forth, back and forth, from the tree line to the shoreline and all points in between. I strolled along in my ratty jeans, splattered jacket, and old running shoes caked to the instep with squishy red mud. In my nearly half century of walking the earth, I never felt lovelier.

I was nonplussed to discover that my mind refrained from analytic ruination of the adventure. I credit my practice and clean, fresh air with this Best Bye-Bye Ever. How delightful to smack headlong into Zen in so many places off my cushion. I've been looking for Nirvana Out There, and it was Right Here all along.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc