Mindfulness with a dog
It may be a bit of a left field concept to grasp, however I just wanted to add these thoughts to illustrate an idea and broaden and hopefully deepen your understanding of consciousness and awareness.
Do you own a dog?
Well, the next time you stop for a moment to pat your dog. Take a moment kneel down with it and just look into its eyes for a few moments and ask yourself what you love about your dog?
Of course, you love the known shape of the dog, the dog’s positive energy and familiar character, personality and behavior. You love its affection and that a dog is always happy to see you.
But under all that, whether you realize it or not. What you also love and connect with in your dog is their consciousness and beingness and that the dog frees you of your own mind and thinking.
People love being with a dog, because there are a few sweet and relieving moments, usually when you first interact with a dog, that your completely free of your own mind and you connect with the consciousness of the dog.
It’s like the dog’s consciousness and beingness causes you to completely forget yourself and frees you from your own mind and frees you from thinking.
A dog is a being who by all accounts is one with itself. It does not live in mental torment of the past and the future or have a distorted and illusionary sense of its self like humans. It does not impose its agendas, manipulations, deceptions or itself on you. It’s generally coming to you in a state of dog-joy.
So when your with a dog, beyond the observable form, all there really is, is a shared beingness and a shared consciousness.
You can even experience this with a tree or insect or pet rabbit for example. When you acknowledge the beingness or life energy of the tree or animal. Without imposing judgement, labels, names or an interpretation on it. All that is left is awareness and a shared beingness, a shared life force.
With a creature, there is also a shared consciousness.
By just having a grass hopper or even a fly land on you. In that twinkle of an eye moment, just watching it and considering the aliveness, the life energy and life force in that insect frees you of your own mind and thinking and the past and future you struggle with disappear for a moment.
That’s why horse and pet therapy is so powerful. Because you literally forget about yourself in the presence of a shared pure consciousness.
If you can just sit with it and acknowledge and recognize its aliveness, its stillness, its beingness. If you could touch it, focus your conscious attention on it and interact with it. You will break free of your conditioned mind by using your senses, then you will be emotionally in the present moment.
If you can sense the thing or creature your with, it means you are connecting with it. You’re connecting with its consciousness, its energy and its life force.
The connection has always been there, however now your taking the time to notice it. You’re growing in awareness. Now your conscious attention and focus is shifting from your mind, to outside of yourself. To your environment and to the present moment.
In this way you can learn how to mindfully choose where you put your conscious attention and you grow in awareness. The more you do this the more you will grow in the ability to choose where to direct your thoughts and attention.
Plus, by doing this your actually entering the present moment. Your body will learn to find, settle into and trust the present moment and it will help you be more present consciously.