06 July 2014

The Impermanence of Life

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My wife, Tuk, and I have no children and we are quite the isolated hermits socially, so our animal pets are especially dear to us.  They die and leave us too soon.  Our beloved cats are falling sick now.  Life is impermanent (“anicca,” in Pali Buddhist lingo). It will not last.  
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Thai people do not believe in euthanasia for suffering animals, and I think their belief is cruel.  However, I can do nothing about it since the veterinarians here refuse to put them down.  This belief is an aspect of their karma beliefs, and my own differ on this. 
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Since I moved to Thailand, Tuk’s three dogs have died.  One died suddenly – and my father-in-law suggested that it was bitten by a deadly pit viper within our small compound.  (Indeed, one day while sitting out in the shade of our tiny courtyard I followed the intense gaze of one of our cats up to the tin kitchen roof overhead – a beautiful green snake was winding amongst the trees and layers of roofing right over me.  I looked it up in my reference books, and it was undoubtedly such a lethal pit viper.) 
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Another dog of Tuk’s was a nasty cuss who never liked me, a mangy, pitiful but robust canine.  He got terribly sick suddenly – I’m sure it was from eating a chicken bone – and he lay down out back moaning and crying out for over a couple of days and nights.  I would get up in the night and sit with him on a little stool, talking to him and touching him until he quieted down a bit.  I remember one night nodding off a bit while sitting with him, and he woke me by tensing up his ears.  I looked behind us, and in my flashlight’s beam I caught the undulating movement of a huge reptilian tail (of a monitor lizard) disappearing down into a hole in the ground.  Spooky.  The dog finally died, but not before we had reconciled our differences a bit and made peace. 
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The last dog, Macky, was a wonderful, goofy, stinky old mutt.  He lived in the house, and he thought I was nuts because I talked to him all the time in a strange tongue.  I think his heart gave out in the end.  He had been failing, and he went back to the toilet area to lie down.  I was the only one home, and I stayed with him.  I couldn’t help but think of Jack Kerouac’s genuine compassion for “poor suffering creatures everywhere.”  I told Macky that he was a good dog and that if Buddhist rebirth is true (which I do not actually believe), then he would build upon his virtue in this life to find better opportunity for achieving virtue in the next one.  Without breaking eye contact with me, Macky soon had his final seizure and expired.  We miss the old guy. 
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Now our cats are sick and dying.  Mommy Kitty has disappeared outside for three days now, and in her emaciated condition she cannot survive the hard rains that hit us daily.  I have searched everywhere for her, but she hid herself well.  I was her favorite (after her kittens had all grown up), and she slept at my feet.  I still roll over carefully in the night out of habit, so as not to disturb her.  I think she is gone, and I regret that I did not get to spend time with her in her last hours.  I will write a full tribute to her at another time. 
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Silly Willy (who really adores Tuk and can never stay away from her) is ravaged by a virus that the vet said is chronic, fatal, and incurable.  We have thought he was on the threshold of death many times, but he is a stubborn guy and won’t go out without a fight.  He is skeleton-thin and struggling, and we assure him that we are in his corner. 
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“Poor suffering creatures everywhere.”
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-Zenwind.

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