Healing

As you know if you follow many of the wonderful dog blogs that enliven this community, our friends at PittieFullove lost their beloved Knox this week. 

I never met Knox but just to look at his pictures and hear the stories about him is to feel what a special, happy, velvety man he was. If you haven't already, stop on over and read the beautiful tributes Jess has been posting about this sweet boy, and send her a virtual hug and Knox a blessing, or a prayer, or a wink and a belly scratch as he traverses the bardo of becoming between this life and the next, or the peaceful time of merging with all that is, or whatever it is that dogs experience and we will all experience, one day, when we leave this realm.

As I've read some of the sad posts that have come through Blogville over the past months, and contemplated how to say something that could possibly be helpful to someone who has lost a beloved dog, I've realized that there's really nothing you can say. 

I've had the same feeling when close friends or relatives were suffering from some affliction of mind or body. Often they won't tell me how bad they are feeling, but I know. And there's nothing I can do. At these times, well-meaning advice is misplaced and any words of comfort can feel hollow. 

The only thing I have found truly helpful is a Buddhist practice for healing I learned years ago. 

Visualize the person or animal who is suffering, and visualize that person's physical pain, emotional distress, or other limitation as a black smoke surrounding him or her. 

As you inhale, imagine that you are breathing in the black smoke so that the suffering person or animal has less of it to bear.

Medicine Buddha

As you breathe it in and it fills your chest cavity, it transforms into white light that nourishes you and cleans your cells, clearing any confusion or unhealthiness. 

As you exhale, exhale the white light back out into the universe and especially to the person or animal who is suffering, so that her or his pain is alleviated.

I find that this practice makes me feel less helpless when people and animals I know and love are suffering, and when I feel less helpless, I can offer better support. 

And although I don't know for sure, I think it's very possible that sending out intentions for peace and healing ultimately does have tangible results in the world.