I had lived in relative solace for 8 years. While we only owned 5 acres, there was an open field next to us used for crops. The best part of my home, so I felt, was the privacy and tranquility afforded to me by that field. Then, 2 years ago, the tiniest sliver of land was given to the daughter of the owner of the property. That sliver was located right at my fence line. She and her husband immediately built a large metal building there for their business. The business turned out to be dogs; boarding, breeding, training, and screaming at. For the first several months the multiples of dogs barked all night, the large metal building acted to amplify the sound at our bedroom windows. The new neighbors solution was to pretend we were overreacting to the entire situation. In part because of their inconsideration and blatant disrespect, and in even larger part to my own resentment I started to become ill. My patience for everything waivered, I became more hostile, I felt like I was only seeing the negative in all. This continued past the dogs adapting and becoming relatively quiet. It wasn't until I started having small panic attacks that I realized something needed to change. I had convinced myself to my core that I was in a miserable situation being helplessly victimized by conniving brutes. Henry David Thoreau writes, "It isn't what you look at but what you see." Marcus Aurelius says, "The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts." And, Rumi once asked, "When you go to a garden, do you look at the thorns or the flowers?" It seems I had a whole host of dead philosophers reminding me that I am my thoughts and because of such, I took a breath.
I moved in with my eventual ex-husband when I was 17 years old. We married a few years after that. We inherited our view of living from our parents and emulated it effectively. You wake up, you go to work, you come home, you eat, you lather, rinse, repeat. Weekends in front of a television, the questions of life forfeited to questions about movies or gossip about friends. Our life lacked marrow, among other things.
Divorce, of course, is life altering if only in the fact that you need to change a name or a bank account number. In my case, after over a decade together, the life alteration encompassed more. I was devastated by my perceived failures and the destruction to the assumptions I had put as placeholders in our future. Hope (expectations) was the last thing inside of Pandora's Box after she opened it and thus I interpret it to mean that it was the worst. To combat the pain that I felt I turned to religion. I prayed aloud at the foot of my bed, in between sobs, "how could God allow this to happen when divorce was sinful in his eyes". I went to church. I went to church functions. I spoke with church people. And one day, while dealing with church stuff my ears became alert to various fallacies. That opened up an awareness, that many before me have pointed at, if man is corruptible or with flaws and man wrote the bible then how can the words in it be safe from that corruption or flaws? I didn't go back.
With the divorce I was born again to life itself. I became enchanted with seeing life through my eyes alone and not the eyes of a couple. This enchantment led me to Buddhism. A philosophy I accredit for allowing me to see the world with kindness and calmness and most importantly, forgiveness.
Because of that I knew where I had lost my way and where I needed to return.
From the teaching of Buddha, " The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly." I was mourning the loss of my 8 years of privacy and tranquility. My new neighbors only took from me what I willingly shoved over to them. No one can take my tranquility without my permission. China invaded and stole Tibet in 1949. 10 years later, Tibet's leader, the 14th Dalai Lama,Tenzin Gyatso, was exiled. Since then, "China is carrying out systematic annihilation of the cultural heritage of Tibet." When asked about these horrific incidents His Holiness has said something along the lines of- they took his country but the could not take his peace of mind. I only lost a view and then handed my neighbors, with both hands, my serenity.
Meditation is large component of Buddhism because it helps to train your mind to live in the moment. After the divorce I lived anywhere but the present moment. I lived in how will I make the house payment, when will I find a meaningful job, car repairs, broken appliances, clogged drains, screaming children, and the dramas of dating. It was no wonder that I couldn't meditate. So I read Buddhist books, I spoke with Buddhist people, and one day I decided to visit a Buddhist Temple. I made the hour drive from my home and down a long rocky road; the temple sat at the end of the winding road, in the small Texas town it stood out like a peacock among pigeons. In the field in front of the temple women worked wearing traditional coolie straw hats. That moment I felt safe. Unfortunately, while their website offered to help me with meditation it forgot to mention that they couldn't do it on that particular day. As that news was delivered so was an offer to allow me the space and three Vietamese nuns to assist with my meditation practice. Their only instruction was thus: concentrate on your breath. I followed them in to the large room with a beautiful gold Buddhas statue sitting on a large pedestal. The room was dark. A clocked feverishly clicked in unison with my bouncing thoughts. *tick* "this room is cold" *tock* "think about your breath" *tick* "hey, look I thought about my breath" *tock* "ugh, now you're not" *tick* "why is that clock so loud" *tock* "how am I supposed to meditate with people staring at me" *tick* "think about your breath, damn it" *tock* "breathe" *tick* "I'm hungry" *tock* "just breathe"... What felt like hours turned out to be two minutes. As I stood up, accepting of my inadequacy, the nuns started giggling. Apparently I was the worst mediator they had ever seen, or so they said. With the next tick of the clock my mind said, "I'm never going to meditate again."
After my failure a friend suggested I join her chanting group. We met in a 3 bedroom home in a suburb in an extremely white neighborhood. I am not embellishing this story one iota when I tell you, this group of middle class Nichiren Daishōnin "followers" told me that if I were to chant, "Nam-myoho-renge-kyo" while thinking of the item I wished for that I would receive it. The leader of the group told a story of needing a new washing machine, chanting for it, and then one appearing on the curb a few houses down for them. The idea of desire was counterintuitive to Buddhism as I understood it but I, playing the part of a reluctant skeptic, went ahead and chanted for the guy I liked to call me and he did. Of course, this particular guy was fairly abusive to me so I quickly realized I wasn't worthy of wielding such powers. I gave up the group after only a few visits. Interestingly, a few weeks after my absence several members of the group showed up at my home to check on my welfare. Maybe they were less Buddhists and more cultists.
These events followed by a marriage and subsequent children left a Buddhist size hole in my heart. For 10 years I went through my life failing to practice further. That existence flourished well enough until my neighbors put 16 dog kennels next to my home, until day after day I watched their herd of canines hike their legs on my fence, until daily I listened to angry voices screaming out "NO" followed by nouns that represent awful choices for names of dogs. And until I started having panic attacks because I was paying too much attention to their bad behavior and only saw the thorns instead of the flowers in my life.
There is an abundant amount of power in living in the moment; to know that everything passes and nothing stays the same. The Buddhist, Jack Kornfield (the human equivalent of the kitten "hang in" there poster)
tells the story of Ajahn Chah, who said, while holding up a beautiful Chinese tea cup, “To me this cup is already broken. Because I know its fate, I can enjoy it fully here and now. And when it’s gone, it’s gone.” To move from panic attacks to gratitude only took a month, or just over a decade and one month, however you want to look at it. I chose to stay present and to live in the moment. I realized the alternative was to turn into Marvin Heemeyer who plowed through his town in a modified bulldozer, nicknamed Killdozer, as an act of revenge to his zoning petition being dismissed. Believe me, I thought plenty about it.
I love all dogs therefore my neighbor's dogs can't possibly be the exception. Everyday I tell myself how grateful I am for our neighbors. They have directed me to move, something I was uncertain about prior to their presence. However, most importantly, they deserve my thanks because they made me realize that I was missing an important component to who I am and without them I may have forgotten to take that breath and to try and meditate again.