Tension

black dog lying on the floorThis is Bean.

And this is how Bean likes to relax, in a full on sprawl, often (though not in this picture), draped over the air conditioning vent.

One thing I always notice about my dogs is how deeply and completely they relax. They seem to have no problem falling limp, not an ounce of tension in their furry little body.

I’m guessing this is easier for them than it is for the average human because they don’t have language.

Without language, they don’t have a brain that makes up stories and then believes those stories, the way we humans do.

Without believed stories, there are no problems. The hunger, jealousy, and fear they appear to experience aren’t problems, they are simply expressions of life moving through them.

Without problems, there’s nothing to chew on in their psychology. They chew on bones and whatever shoe they manage to drag out of the hall closet, not problems that need solving or change that needs to be made.

Tension is the physical manifestation of identification with thought. When we are immersed in what’s being mentally created as if it is The Truth, as if there is a separate-from-the-rest-of-life “me” to which everything is happening, physical tension is inevitable.

Bean presumably doesn’t know what self-consumed and separate-from-life feel like. I do. I bet you do, too.

They are part of being human and they are see-through-able. As we see that we’re identified with thought, mistaking ourselves for something we’re not, tension dissipates.

And as tension dissipates, sprawling and relaxing naturally follows.

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