I have been taking up a big responsibility lately: raising a puppy. Let me tell you that it’s a very interesting process! As she lies at my feet chewing on my toes, I realize it is all about conditioning. When I take her leash –a trauma from her days as a Rumanian street rat- she tries to hide because she’s a little scared about the Big Outside that is associated with that. So we try to program other associations with being outside. It’s a constant “no!” and “good dog!” choir around here, and she is picking up fast.

(---> here's Eddie and me during a photo shoot, as you can see she's a natural...)

This is scary too. The slightest off- programming has big consequences –picking her up when she’s scared on the streets can make her a scared dog for a long time! It also reminds me that not only dogs, but we as humans too, are conditioned beings. The irony is that through most mindfulness practices such as yoga and meditation, we explicitly attempt to un-do this hard wired conditioning. So it happens that after my meditation practice, I go straight into drilling my puppy Eddie that begging for food will result in an unpleasant experience- being pushed away.

The Buddhist traditions don’t deny and even use the facts that conditioned beings are pleasure seeking and pain avoiding. You just have to investigate what will lead to true pleasure and what will lead to true pain. In my puppy’s case; giving her that piece of food of my plate will result in short term pleasure, but will not make her a happy dog in the long term because she will become fixated on food later on.

It’s the same with us. No need to deny that we are conditioned beings, just make it work for you. See what makes you happy on the long term, and condition yourself towards that. If I’m really honest, I know that “getting what I want” rarely makes me happy on the long term, whereas being able to deal gracefully with NOT getting what I want gives me a deeper feeling of peace.

So be your own puppy trainer for a change. Scare yourself away from that short term pleasure of cutting in line at the supermarket, and condition yourself towards taking in an interest to the people around you. Then see if that cause leads to a more happy result.

Wishing you happy conditioning,

-and a paw from Eddie-

Geertje