“Aussie, what are you doing?”

“I’m licking a marrow bone for the sake of all beings.”

“Say what?”

“I’m licking my marrow bone for the sake of all beings. May all beings be happy licking marrow bones.”

“Aussie, what does a marrow bone have to do with all beings?”

“Everything I do, I do for the sake of all beings.”

“Give me a break.”

“When I eat my food, it’s for the sake of all beings. Ditto when I fight with Henry. Everything I do is connected with everything else—”

“I know, I know, Aussie. What about when you ambush squirrels?”

“I give them the chance to be reborn in a more fortunate life.”

“Do you ask permission?”

“The Great Way is not difficult/for those who do not pick and choose. Did the old masters ask for permission before they shouted at you or bopped you on the head?”

“And when you tore at Henry because he was walking near the path where you have your mound of bones and threw him in the dirt?”

“Puh-lease. The whole body is far beyond the world’s dust. What’s the problem?”

“Aussie, you’re just repeating different lines from Zen. It’s lingo to you, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“Mean? What kind of a Zen amateur are you? Things don’t mean anything, they’re just as they are.”

“Why are you doing this, Auss?”

“The famous why question. Go to the back of the line, for the sake of all beings.”

“I don’t like this, Auss.”

“If the least like or dislike arises, the Mind is lost in confusion.”

“Aussie, in Zen we don’t rely on words. Besides, where do all these words come from?”

“From the Source, like everything else.”

“And what’s the Source, smarty-pants?”

“Listen to this: I—don’t—know. Hee! Hee! Hee! Zen is easy. Just say I don’t know to any question. So, when do I become Sensei Aussie? For the sake of all beings, of course.”

“Aussie, this is greed. This is ambition. This is spiritual materialism.”

“So?”

“Where’s your bodhisattva spirit? Where’s emptying the mind and opening the heart?”

“May I always have the courage to see myself as Other and Other as myself. Wait a minute, I gotta go bark at that mean old German Shepherd on the road. WOOF! WOOF! There, sent him scramming.”

“That’s the dog from next door, Auss. Why bother him like that?”

“His name is Other. When I see myself as Other, I bark to say hello.”

“What about when you see Other as you?”

“Hasn’t happened yet. It’s coming, don’t rush me.”

“You know what happened to me the other day, Aussie? I went downstairs to talk to Lori about her leg. Just before that, my right foot started hurting suddenly. I didn’t bang it against anything, didn’t get a cramp, didn’t get up and throw some muscle. I could barely make it down the stairs and then hobbled practically on one foot to her room. When we talked, I had to raise my foot because I couldn’t put it on the floor, couldn’t take any weight on it. Nothing like that ever happened to me. As we talked, it hit me that I was hurting on the same foot where she hurts, and exactly on the outside of the ankle that’s very painful for her. When we finished talking, I hobbled back to the stairs, sat down on each step and pushed with my left foot, and that’s how I made it up the stairs. Went to bed, fell asleep, and when I woke up everything felt fine. Not a trace of the sharp pain I’d felt before.”

“Your point being?”

“For a short period, I was experiencing myself as Lori, see?”

“Do you ever experience yourself as Aussie? As a poor fenced-in dog, nothing to do all day but bark at Other and chew Henry’s ear off?”

“You go out on free, unleashed walks in the woods every day, my dear Other.”

“Other lives next door; I live here. As usual, you miss what’s right in front of your nose. How you became a teacher I’ll never know.”

“Things are unfathomable, Aussie.”

“I know. Throughout space and time. Also, in the ten directions.”