A Morning Encounter- Day 2

 Ahimsa: can we understand it really 

Yesterday I witnessed a natural performance of ahimsa. Entirely spontaneous, unmanipulated by undue thought. Didn’t think I would be witnessing the drama again with a slightly different screenplay this morning. I had stayed overnight in Tehachapi after work. The hotel serves breakfast in the lobby. Like every week when I stay here I got ready, showered and all, and went to the breakfast room. Toasted an English muffin, brewed my tea bag in hot water and sat there at my usual corner table to enjoy quietly. There were one or two other guests in the room getting their breakfast. The TV was on and newscasters were rattling off their stuff. It wasnt interesting but it wasn’t bothering me either. What was bothering me however were these two tiny ants hovering over my table. I am chuckling at myself as I write “my table”. I suspect in ant language those two tiny industrial workers must be saying the same thing. What is this giant doing here at our table? Anyways. I moved my plate a few times when they got too close to it. And it sort of became a game of hide and seek. One would seek out the plate no matter where I placed it. It was bothering but it was also getting interesting unlike the act of those newscasters.

I realized these ants are here simply to find food. Civility called out to help them. I picked a few tiny crumbs from my English muffin and scattered them on the table. It took a bit of time for one of the ants to discover these. Not sure if the other one was just plain silly or had a different assignment like to ensure territorial safety but it kept fumbling around the margins of the table. 

It was a moment for reflection for me. Why do I have this habit of selective protection for spiders and ants and not for mosquitoes? I don’t waste a second before I clap to smash a mosquito hovering around me. Yet I go to extra lengths to protect ants and spiders from being harmed.

 Flies are a different story. When they find their way inside the home they are a definite nuisance because they land on food lying around. No matter how hard you try to guide them out of the house safely they just don’t get it. Ultimately they are given one of two options at our home. Either stay away in areas where there is no food, which they actually do sometimes. Or I may have no choice but to swat them to stop the interference. 

It is never an intention to hurt any creature irrationally. Yet when I end up doing just that, I pause for a moment to invoke the thought that perhaps the dead mosquito or fly gained a way out of a miserable body and a chance for life in a higher form. 

Really ahimsa is not as easy to describe or gain clarity about as some other principles of living.

I was thinking about yesterday’s spider encounter before going to bed last night. Why did I not pick it and leave it outside? Because I had no enmity with it. Then I wondered about what’s going on currently in the country with immigration raids. The brutality shown by the government agents towards protesters and suspected illegal immigrants is so stark that I felt like asking these agents: what enmity do you have against the people you are hurting? Does it bother you after you hurt someone?

When consciousness is blinded, perhaps some thinking can be good. Ironically, when consciousness becomes clear like the sky, thinking comes in the way of spontaneous expression of ahimsa. 

We humans understand so little about ourselves and the world around us. Today those tiny ants made me think more than humans do.