Habit : the Genesis of Identity

My 2 puppies Itto & Tomoe are charming, smart and very destructive. It is important to keep them busy unless they do stupid things. People are also like this. I try to keep them busy by teaching them different things : walk beside me, stop, sit... etc... I have trained dogs before. Border Collies are smart and easy to train, they want to learn and they want to please.

However, I quickly realized that you cannot train 2 puppies at the same time. It just does not work, and I believe I know why.

Actually, dogs do not really know their names. Nothing happens in Itto's head that tells him he “IS” Itto. Itto does not think “I am Itto”; he has no concept of Identity. 

However, a particular dog will understand a command preceded by his name. But, if other dogs are around and if you do not call the dog's name before giving the command, the dog won't understand.

There is no point trying to teach Itto or Tomoe to answer the command « Sit ». It can be done, but there is no point doing it. You can individually teach each dog to sit. But when both dogs are together and you ask Itto to sit and Tomoe does not sit, she will realize that she does not have to follow the command « sit ». She will get confused, and later will not follow your commands. You will get frustrated, think she is stupid, but really and truly, it is not the dog's fault, it's yours !

So it is necessary to teach each dog separately "Tomoe, sit" and "Itto, sit", This applies to any command: "Itto, come"; "Tomoe, Stay"... Once the dog understands which command applies to him or her, it become possible to have them work together. You can ask one dog to come while the other stays put. That is how shepherd use several dogs to handle their flocks. They always give personalized commands to their dogs.

Itto does not know his name. However, he knows he should sit when he hears "Itto, sit" . This is true of many commands : "Itto, Come" ; "Itto, Walk", etc...

Little by little, Itto realizes that when he hears the sound "Itto" he will  be asked to do something specific. So every time he hears this "Itto", he lifts his ears and focus.

THIS is why we can say the dog knows his name.

Knowing his name is nothing but the ability to react to a sound; the result of a conditioning. This ability is voluntary at the beginning (The trainer triggers it in various ways, this is what dog training is about) and little by little it becomes involuntary: the dog reacts without having to pay attention. We say that the dog knows his name, and who he is, but it is just a pattern of acquired behavior, an habit.

Likewise our personality – our Ego - is the result of such an habitual and cultural conditioning: an acquired behaviour. And this conditioning is so powerful that from an early age we come to believe that this personality is an actual entity, a "Real Thing", and we totally identify to it.

Human mind has a hard time perceiving and conceiving of an ever-changing reality. It loves to imagine immutable things and sort them in categories. 


We call this construct Ego, Soul or Atman.

And we imagine it has a transcendental and eternal nature because we cannot conceive it is just a convention of language for an acquired behaviour.

And this is one of the roots of suffering...

Joshu's Dog

 

A monk asked Joshu, a Chinese Zen master: "Has a dog Buddha-nature or not?"

Joshu answered: "Mu."

Mushin

Countless Students have lost sleep and appetite on this "MU"...

For one thing, Joshu did not say "MU". He said "WU", because he was Chinese, not Japanese.




And "WU" is  the way Chinese dogs bark, English speaking dogs do "WOOF", Chinese dogs do "WU". Anybody with a bit of common sense knows that.

Japanese dogs, I don't remember...

Two important facts well known by those with the slightest experience of the Canine world: 

1. Dogs don't do "MU" in any language.   
2. No matter their nationality or culture, dogs bark to display their unhappiness about the way things are, and to signify something like  "DON'T DO THIS, DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT IT, DON'T COME HERE, STAY AWAY !"

So some smart disciple asks a question about the nature of a dog, and the Master barks back to him.  That's it! It does not mean "no" it does not mean "yes", it's barking.

Now the student with a lust for deep meaning tries to figure that one out and loses sleep over it. 

When they translated that into Japanese, they should have said the student asked if a cow had Buddha nature, Cows usually do "MU". However, the "MU" of a cow does not carry the same disapproval meaning as the "WU" of a dog... 

Now, do you imagine what would it be if the student had asked "Does a giraffe has  Buddha Nature or not ?" 

Once upon a time, during a sword seminar in Pensacola, my friend Joe asked Carl Long Sensei something like "Sensei, when you perform this waza, do you lean forward, or do you lean backward ? "

And the answer came "YES"...

Practice...

The Master and the Angry Dog - Part One

The following happened in 1987 in Seattle. Nakamura Taizaburo Sensei, founder of Nakamura Ryu of Batto-ho, and Head of the Toyama Ryu Federation, had been invited to participate in the Cherry Blossom Festival, and on this occasion had gotten in touch with the local Kendo organization and spent most of his spare time with them.

This story, and other ones were posted on a website at the occasion of the death of Nakamura Sensei in 2003. You can read the other posts by clicking here

Nakamura Sensei’s direct words to us were that he had had an enlightenment experience, and renounced the use of swords to hurt others. He said that’s why he had named his system “Happogiri Batto- Do” and not “Batto-Jutsu”.... because he intended that it should only be used to cultivate the “Katsujin-Ken” and never again the “Satsujin- Ken” as in his previous, deeply mistaken, period.

Once when we pulled up near the door of the Seattle Center House to unload all our makiwara, etc, Nakamura Sensei climbed down from Murosako Sensei’s van right into the face of a tiny, snarling and terrified high strung little dog who had been locked by himself in another vehicle right next to us. The window was open enough that the little dog could get his nose --AND TEETH-- right out there, and boy was he barking, yipping, growling, and carrying on, defending his territory!

With a big chuckle of delight, Nakamura Sensei walked right up and stuck his hand right in the top of the window and started scratching and petting that dog’s head! The dog instantly began sobbing and squeaking and LICKING Nakamura Sensei’s hand! I’m not making this up... I was climbing out of the van right behind him, and saw the whole thing!