tigerlily

so what's your first gut level reaction to mice?

mine is "awwww". i'm a sucker for anything with little ears and beady eyes. and fur. and a tail.

ok, that includes most mammals, but anyway.

so there's a little mouse that lives at the buddhist center where i practice. it's home is underneath the shrine, and it makes a nightly appearance during sitting practice. i feel absolutely joyous whenever i see it. it's so.freekin.cute. for one. for another, i find great pleasure in the opportunity to watch any sort of animal life up close, when it's feeling relaxed. and i feel extra priveleged that this little mouse feels comfortable enough with ten or so people in the room...something which would normally mean "danger! predators!" it takes little pieces of rice from the bowl on the altar, and scampers back and forth, sometimes coming to the edge of the platform and keening over with it's whiskers, taking in the pulsating silence of the meditators.

but after two years of it's presence, someone recently got uppity, and decided the mouse needed to be relocated. so a live trap was set. and i got pretty upset about this on several levels. there's a lot of talk in the dharma about compassion for all sentient beings. and this doesn't mean compassion when it's convienient for us. to be compassionate for an animal, you have to extend yourself beyond a human-centric stand point, into an empathic understanding of what is best for that animal. the mouse has a pretty sweet deal in that shrine room. relocating it to an outdoor location, in the middle of winter, in an urban area full of starving predators (cats and raptors), after it's already exhausted itself through panic from being in a trap....is. not. compassionate. and not in the best interest of the mouse. and i understand the "logic" behind deciding it should go. mouse pee and poop is not "sanitary". but if we want to coexist with the other species that we share this planet with...well...we might just have to go out of our way. i know..."gasp"...maybe we might be inconvienienced for two seconds. like maybe cleaning more frequently. maybe not leaving the rice out all the time. maybe leaving it an offering of food somewhere besides the shrine.

in native american animal medicine, mouse means "scrutiny". the ability to examine something close up in full detail. the downside of this medicine is a tunnel vision perspective....shredding something apart with your thoughts. in the sitting practice we do, a lot of emphasis is placed on seeing thoughts for what they are...just thoughts....and letting them go. so the fact that this little mouse pops out usually when you're right in the middle of some big drama in your head, instead of focusing on your breath, is pretty appropriate, i think. it definitely snaps you awake, and out of those thoughts.

and an anthropologist, david abrams, in his book "spell of the sensuous", talks about an experience he had while staying with a shaman in bali. every morning the shaman's wife would put out offerings of rice (for the house spirits) at each corner of the house. every afternoon, the bowls would be empty. abrams discovered that the rice was being eaten by the many ants that lived in the area. he was amused with a smug western viewpoint that the ants were "stealing" the "primitive" offerings. but upon discussing it with his host and hostess, he learned that in this indigenous culture, "spirit" meant any kind of non-human intelligence and awareness.

and i feel the same about our little dharma mouse. the rice is being offered in a spiritual manner, and it's being accepted. can we really say, %100, that it's "only" a mouse?

at any rate, i've put the wheels in motion to get rid of the live trap


p.s. please go say hi to sweetpeas, scarletbegonias and jasmine