Getting out of my car upon arriving home I came upon a dead rabbit in the gravel driveway. It had been there a short while, not long enough to attract bugs. Clearly, I had run over it, the tire track on its corpse being conspicuous. It must have happened when I backed out earlier in the day and the rabbit was resting behind one of my front tires—an unprecedented occurrence since rabbits are the most plentiful of neighbors, and keeping their safe distance from us two-leggeds is a natural part of their life. Evidently, I needed the reminder that, even without obliviousness or neglect on our part, we can be the agent of pain, even death, for another.
I put the rabbit’s body in a bag of household trash which I placed in the community dumpster, and immediately I felt the mistake. Burial nearby was needed, so that the rabbit’s grave is a tender reminder of life.
Buddy Rabbit is the name Susan and I gave this new member of our family, nesting him or her a couple feet down between two conifer branches, body facing east, the direction of new beginning. Over this spot come spring I will build a lovely stone shrine topped by a flower pot for growing carrots.
Maybe Buddy’s spirit feels grateful to leave this incarnation with the assistance of a being who would treat the occasion with reverence. And maybe our honoring of Buddy’s transition will contribute to Buddy having a more favorable next incarnation than might have been possible without such participation. It’s a good story at the least.
The entire episode has been a welcome reminder of the sacredness of every choice, and another example of why I feel so blessed by truly every life experience, even those contrary to feeling the Bliss of God Alone.
That I must fight ferociously with my ego nature not to beat the crap out of people in my imagination is among my glorious teachers. It is a natural part of the evolution over lifetimes from living in the prison of EgoLand to the realization that that prison is an illusion. And, the process of experiencing it as such is a part of the path to God, our real nature, our True Self.
As I’m writing this, into my emailbox arrives my favorite story about Henry David Thoreau, who died at 44. It is said that when Thoreau was on his deathbed, his family sent for a minister. The minister said, “Henry, have you made your peace with God?” Thoreau replied, “I didn’t know we’d quarreled.”
Someday we realize that all our so-called quarrels with God—all attachments to how we think things ought to be—are no more than small-self created who-ha. That’s my story anyway. Ultimately, there are no rabbits, there are no carrots, there is no me and you. There’s only God. Everything else is just a soap opera to help us wake up to that reality.
Good boy.
I loved reading this. Feeling some grateful tears. And feeling awake. Thank you as always, Steve.