Thank You, Squirrel

Dharma lessons come from many unexpected places, people, and things in life. Many of mine frequently are sourced from my dogs (of which there are five, which means their teachings are frequent and plentiful). Today started with one from them about impermanence, with the help of a tiny friend.

It was a quiet morning for me. I was sitting peacefully, listening to a Dharma talk online (LamRim Radio channel on iTunes), and working on my computer when I heard my dogs scurrying around on the patio. One of their favorite past times is tormenting squirrels travelling across the top of my privacy fence from the front yard to the back yard. Normally, the sequence goes as so:

• Squirrel looks around thoroughly for dogs from behind the driveway gate.
• Squirrel cautiously steps out past the driveway gate onto the fence along the side of my patio.
• Squirrel and dogs spot each other at the same time.
• Dogs leap up from the deck and run headlong down the stairs, and at the fence.
• Squirrel realizes the peril and runs like hell for the tree at the back of the fence.
• Dogs leap and "just" miss the squirrel's tail as it safely vaults into the comforting branches of the tree.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

This is frequently accompanied by the chorus of me saying:

"go squirrel. go squirrel! GO SQUIRREL!! GO SQUIRREL!!!!"

with increasing frequency and volume until the little critter makes it to safety. I am positive that my neighbors figured out long ago that I have lost at least one of my marbles.

This morning, as I ran out to see if the squirrel made it, I found the dogs running from the corner, across the patio, and under the deck. The furry creature had fallen, and was desperately trying to escape the elated pups as they were equally desperately trying to catch her.

The dogs won. As I made it through the deck, stairs, and patio in record time (might as well have flown - I seriously have no recollection of it), my largest furchild got ahold of the squirrel's tail and grabbed the little gal by the middle. I got him to drop her just in time for one of the smaller ones to jump in and deliver what was surely the deadly blow. Scooping the squirrel up (still breathing and obviously dying), I wrapped her in a towel and assessed the damage. It was too late. I held her until she died.

Her eyes glazed to the sound of chanted mantras. Her her breathing slowed, then stopped. Blood leaked from her mouth, and I knew she was gone. I held her for a little longer, still chanting, and then headed out back to bury her.

I chanted as I dug, crying for the little squirrel. I thought about her life and her death, and the point where the two met.

Then it hit me.

Karma is surely an amazing thing. Here this squirrel was, at this time and place, dying not under the wheels of a car, nor in torment by a feline counterpart, but cradled in the hands of a fumbling, fledgling, but committed, Buddhist. Her last breaths, her last moments, were allowed to pass peacefully to the chanting of mantras. I finished the hole, chanting "Om Mani Padme Hum", and held her tiny body in my hands (ok, in a towel in my hands). I lit incense and prayed for her to be reborn in the human realm, and placed her in the hole. I asked her to please find her way to a human rebirth as I chanted, and if she wanted, one where we would meet again. I think maybe we will.

I looked at the shadow of a butterfly behind me as I finished, and thought about how truly ephemeral everything is. In the blink of an eye, it all changes. Nothing is constant, solid, what it seems to be. The squirrel's life ended. The butterfly's life will end. As, someday, will mine.