Without a Hat or Umbrella

I brought Sasha over to see the Angels last night. Their dad, John, gave me this poem. The Angels asked me to read it aloud to them and didn't understand a few of the references such as Gandhi, but they totally appreciated the spirit of the poem.

Dharma
by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door
every morning
without a hat or an umbrella,
without any money
or the keys to her doghouse
never fails to fill the saucer of my heart
with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example
of a life without encumbrance—
Thoreau in his curtainless hut
with a single plate, a single spoon?
Gandhi with his staff and his holy diapers?

Off she goes into the material world
with nothing but her brown coat
and her modest blue collar,
following only her wet nose,
the twin portals of her steady breathing,
followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside
every morning
and eat all his food
what a model of self-containment she
would be,
what a paragon of earthly detachment.
If only she were not so eager
for a rub behind the ears,
so acrobatic in her welcomes,
if only I were not her god.

She has been doing great. She slept through the night the last few nights and wakes us around 6am with one "woof". Life is good when you are chewing on bully sticks! Utter contentment.

I am taking a workshop tomorrow with Narayan entitled "Equanimity". Here is the description:

Equanimity is the cultivation of a balanced heart in the midst of change. Pleasure and pain, gain and loss, fame and disrepute, andpraise and blame are the experiences that all beings encounter. Equanimity makes it possible to respond to these experiences with less reactivity and with greater wisdom and compassion. In this workshop, we will focus on various ways to cultivate equanimity in our lives.

The poem and course description both describe life with Sasha.