This morning a friend told me she planned to breed her dog — the retriever mix she received six months ago from a guy she suspected of questionable breeding practices. “I’ll breed her just once,” she said. “I want puppies.”
This morning a friend told me she planned to breed her dog — the retriever mix she received six months ago from a guy she suspected of questionable breeding practices.
“I’ll breed her just once,” she said. “I want puppies.”
A rage rose inside me.
“That is so irresponsible,” I said.
I ranted about all the homeless and abused dogs on the island and how she should know better then to add to this condition.
I was incensed. Every week the Kaua‘i Humane Society sends me a “Pet of the Week,” and as I look at these photos of dogs smiling for the camera, I get furious at whoever abandoned them. Why would anyone breed their dog just for the fun of it? It’s reckless and selfish.
When I finished I was embarrassed by the venom of my attack. First of all, it’s not my business. She didn’t ask me to take a pup nor am I obligated to help her raise them. Right or wrong, my judgement doesn’t improve the situation.
I was bothered by my reaction.
The day before I had been listening to an Audio Dharma podcast — a 45- minute talk on Buddhist principles — the speaker using analogies from a conversation with her mother to exemplify knee-jerk reactions she fell into with family members. This resonated with me.
Anger is an emotion that comes easy for me. Now that I am attempting to be more mindful of my strong reactions to daily events, I notice how I am always poised to strike. (I’m sure a psychologist would have a hay-day with this one.) That aside, I’ve been listening to these podcasts with no intention to convert to Buddhism, just a willingness to apply principles of self-inspection that seem sane and kind to me. What Buddhism offers is a little detective work on how I respond to the world. Every relationship matters, so it frightens me when I unleash anger on an innocent by-stander.
Recently I learned the origin of the word “respect.” It comes from the Latin word “respicere” and means “to look again.”
In an attempt to look again at my reaction, I sat in my backyard after this outburst to reconsider. I felt a prickly sensation poking through my skin and tension in my tongue, of all places. Rather then judge it, I just tried to soften these areas. The idea being not to create more suffering.
When I named this column, Being There, it was after a favorite movie of the same name. In “Being There,” Peter Sellers plays a simpleton mistaken for an economic genius whose misinterpreted identity improves the lives of the characters around him.
Being new to Kaua‘i, I started this column as a way of making fun of myself and my daily blunders in a new culture — and hoping that in some small way I might actually improve the lives of those around me.
Today though this column has morphed into something different. Everyday I try to slow down a little more to witness my life and “be there” for all it — the outbursts and the elations.
• Pam Woolway is the lifestyle writer at The Garden Island. Her column ‘Being there’ appears every other week.
