For three months in 2009  I attended satsang in Tiruvannamali, India, with some of the world’s most prominent advaita vedanta teachers.

But some of my greatest lessons came from dogs.

One balmy night I remember sitting under a full moon with a satsang friend who was a devoted dog rescuer. In fact her entire Indian sojourn had been consumed by trying to befriend the community’s wild dogs—that is, if friendship meant not just feeding them, but falling into the complex web of canine social intrigue. For example, whenever a pack of dogs started fighting, she’d feel compelled to join in the drama (ostensibly to referee), but her well-intended scoldings seemed only to fan their fangs further. (I later learned that my friend had suffered severe abuse in early childhood and perhaps that had somewhat accounted for her overemotional identification with keeping the peace.) 

But when, during a profound late-night chat, rudely interrupted by my friend jumping off our bench and throwing herself full-body into the middle of yet another canine hissy fit, I just had to say something.

“Sumari,” I said as gently as I could, “don’t you see how much these dogs have control of you? You constantly lose your temper in the name of their cause. Yet it only seems to make them madder.”

She looked shocked. She genuinely thought she had been acting nobly. After all, few in the vicinity even cared about Tiru’s wild dogs.

But suddenly I had an idea. When the dogs started up again, why not try sitting absolutely still and not respond at all? You know, just to see what happens.

She looked skeptical but half-amenable.

And we didn’t have to wait long. Soon enough, the mutts started barking again. Out of habit, my friend started to leap up from her seat to bat down the fangs, but this time I held her down, softly reminding her that she had committed to non-response. At first the dogs, consumed by territorial anger, kept up their vicious nipping and gnarling.

But we didn’t move.

And suddenly, after a few seconds—like magic—the sweetest Pure Silence.

In fact, after about a minute, the once-jabbering dogs actually sauntered away, totally bored - as if nothing had ever happened. This seemingly magical effect astonished both of us, and if it had also slightly threatened my friend’s ego (that is, the ego-idea that her motherly scolding was essential to establishing the peace), the lesson had been well worth it.

Because, in that instant, both of us learned that refraining from stirring one’s own mind could truly bring about peace—and not just in ourselves, but in others as well. These dogs, to whom she had been deeply attuned, had in fact - so I believe - felt her consciousness shift to neutral and immediately reflected it back. Further supported by my noninvolved state of mind, Sumari was able become a witness, rather than an active participant, in their drama. Instead of adding to the fray, we had together supported their awakening, rather than demanding it.

Starved of our neurotic support, the gnarly dogs just wound down and departed.

Of course, anyone who has participated in an awareness practice might immediately recognize a certain resonance with vipassana-based meditation experience (although personally, it took me years to discover this insight in real-time). Thoughts arise, thoughts dissolve, and if we get involved in them, like trying to scold wild dogs, we find ourselves smack dab in the middle of drama.

But remain a dispassionate, neutral, uninvolved Witness and the anger and the passion, even the ignorance, start to dissolve.

So goes the Tibetan proverb often quoted by Sogyal Rinpoche, author of The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying:

“Water, if you don’t stir it, will become clear; the mind, left unaltered, will find its own natural peace.”

And as the Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh puts it:

“If we are peaceful, if we are happy, we can blossom like a flower, and everyone in our family, our entire society, will benefit from our peace.

Truth is, Tiruvannamali, India, is a place where crazy things happen, and teachings come in all sorts of wrappings. The seat of the ashram and eternal sadhana of Ramana Maharshi, one of India’s greatest all-time saints, Tiru is also the site of Arunachala, one of India’s most sacred mountains. Even a first-time visitor learns that Tiru is a place that magnifies whoever you are. If you’re into bliss, you first become more blissful, then certifiably spacey. If you’re hiding a bit of anger, it eventually explodes. In Tiru I went through a tsunami of emotions. In fact every childhood wound I ever had managed to get triggered. Not on a few days did I just want to flee.

Until…another I had another canine intervention.

Honestly, before I hung out with my friend, Sumari, I never even “saw” the dogs in Tiru. They looked dirty and scrawny and being a city girl I was afraid of rabies. Then one cute white little fuzz ball stole my tennis shoe right off my porch and we had to dig it out of a ditch late one night. I felt violated and thus suspicious and that’s when I really got on the defensive with Tiru’s canine population. “Don’t you dare even think about that again,” I told the mischievious, seemingly smiling pup in no uncertain terms.

     

That’s why I wasn’t prepared for Raj to enter my life. Once a wild denizen of the streets, this black-and-white mixed mutt had been taken in by a year-round Western resident and was living the good life—for an Indian dog. I first came to recognize Raj from our early morning walks, when a group of us would traverse around the mountain to a chai shop, where the wonderful spiritual teacher Mooji would hold intimate satsangs. The epitome of an alpha dog, Raj would appear for these sunrise walks even when his mistress didn’t, trotting out ahead of the pack of us Western sadhus and welcoming other dogs into the group. When Mooji began satsang, usually under a big tree near an outdoor chai shop, Raj would often sit right in front, posture perfect, tail wagging. I was convinced he was hearing every word.

But one afternoon, I came upon Raj cowering and sniveling on the “wrong side” of town. He had apparently strayed over a meadow and found himself facing a  group of territorial mutts who had lined themselves up in his path. Determined not to let them pass, they were baring their fangs and growling with a viciousness I had never seen, even in India. Proud, happy, energetic Raj was paralyzed with fright.

    

Suddenly, words from one of Mooji’s earlier satsangs came back to me. “There are 6 billion ghosts wandering this earth,” he had said, “all believing their own thoughts.” Against the backdrop of these words, the scene, which had entered into slow motion, felt wholly surreal. With the growling on one side, and Raj cowering on the other, it seemed as if all of us--the dogs, the other onlookers, me--were just ghost beings, erroneously convinced by our own thoughts that we were solid. In that moment I actually “saw” the transparency of thought—mindless jibber-jabbering meaning nothing.

      

But fangs are fangs. So I was surprised to hear these words come rolling out of my mouth:

    

“Okay, Raj, this is nothing. You’re with me. And these dog thoughts don’t scare me. I’m taking you home and we are going to walk right past these ghosts. Just follow.”

     

The weird thing is, I had never spoken to a dog so directly before. But something strong must have been in my voice because as I started to walk, this dog, with whom I really had had no relationship, jumped up and walked at my heels as if he was stuck to me with glue. Like he was on a leash! Through this valley of shadows we walked, our heads held high, heel to toe, the snarling now behind us, and when I stopped for a minute to talk to someone, Raj sat right down at my foot, patiently waiting.

    

He seemed a very trained dog.

    

Yet when I finally knocked on his owner’s door and explained what had happened, she couldn’t believe it.

    

“Raj has never, ever, followed a “heel” command,” she said, laughing through her crying that her dog had survived the ordeal. “We’ve tried to teach him but it never clicked. He’s a street dog that doesn’t know how to heel. I don’t have a clue how he did that.”

    

And neither did I. But Raj had certainly made my heart sing. While he may have not known how to heel, I became convinced he did know the dharma. After all, we were in Tiru, a place where sinners become saints and dogs become teachers and monks wander into your apartment late at night. In fact, I wouldn’t even be surprised if Raj turned out to be the reincarnation of some very great being, who was just playing at being a scared little dog facing a phalanx of his own devoted disciples, who themselves were perfectly playing their own fang-bearing parts…

  

.Just so I could...what?...learn to let go of my fears, liberate my mind and learn how to heal?

Okay, as I said earlier, Tiru can make anyone go a little crazy….

                           THE KING DOG RAJ