Buddhism: where do we *belong?*

Noticing the sky grow golden from my office window, I decided to abandon my computer in exchange for the wet grass and trees of Mount Sentinel. Five minutes later I was on the other side of campus at the Center for Ethics; in five more minutes I was about 80 feet up the hill taking photos like the one in my last post.

It was a nearly silent ascent, the wetness of the grass muffling my footsteps. Suddenly I was startled, a deer which had been lying near the brush just north of me on the hill stood up and began walking away from me, very slowly, very deliberately. So I took her picture and returned my gaze to the fading golden sunset. She didn’t go far though and finally took up a position and watched me. Unsure of what this meant, I decided to move further up the hill.

That’s when I saw her (or him), a tiny fawn frozen in place, lying in the grass with her eyes open and ears tucked tight to her body. The grass was so tall that I nearly stepped on her. Shocked, I retreated. I looked back at the mother. Now she too was motionless, staring at me. For a moment none of us moved. I don’t imagine we breathed either.

It is impossible to express what I felt coming down that hill. On the one hand I thought, “wow, what a truly beautiful creature,” and on the other hand I had seen the fear in her motionless eyes, I could feel her tiny heart beating frantically, the cortisol and adrenaline coursing through her fragile body. Surely, she saw no beauty here, only fear. To her I am a predator; hide, run, these are the only options.

I felt profoundly out of place. By simply being on that hill, I was causing suffering. It was unnecessary.

But I don’t think that’s right, any more than the perspective of detached nature-gazer. That is to say that I wasn’t out of place and that I was no more causing suffering than I am now, in front of my computer, under fluorescent lights, surrounded by ‘stuff’. The difference is that there on the hill I could quite literally see the effect of my being there with my ignorance. With ignorance there is suffering wherever we are. Our genius has always been in our ability to shield ourselves from the suffering.

On the hill I had direct contact with another’s suffering, not just physically, but emotionally. Slaughter house workers have direct physical contact with unimaginable suffering, but they separate themselves emotionally, they rationalize themselves far, far away from the reality before them. This was my impulse as well, to retreat to thought, to take a picture, something, anything to shield me from the immediacy and intensity of the situation. And I did; I walked away.

A Buddha would have doubtless comforted the mother and the fawn somehow. He would have spoke their language, told them not to fear. He would have taught them the nature of conditionality and the joys of the spiritual life. But I am no Buddha. And that’s ok for now.