I love dogs! 

Here is a photo of Rascal who often take his time in this position, when moving off a chair.  (What a coot! What’s he doing? Feeling his sensations? Certainly taking his time in the transition…..like he is in a mindful movement class, staying here for a minute or two!)

But in matters of meditation, we are encouraged to be like a lion, not like a dog by Milarepa, a Tibetan meditation master from the 11th century who says:

"When you run after your thoughts, you are like a dog chasing a stick: every time a stick is thrown, you run after it and then chew on it for hours. Instead, be like a lion who, rather than chasing after the stick, turns to face the thrower. One only throws a stick at a lion once."  What a wonderful metaphor this is. 

The dog mind

First, the dog.

A thought appears in our minds, and our attention goes chasing after it automatically. Like a dog after a stick, we pursue the thought, take it up, chew it over. We move from a simple thought — maybe just a snippet of a conversation, or a snapshot image — to a full-on drama.

In meditation, thoughts arise quite often. Even though part of you intends to sit quietly, other parts of your brain are scanning your experience to see if there are any threats to your well-being that need to be dealt with. And the threats are often a memory or an anticipation….a thought!!  And if, as is usually the case, there's nothing threatening going on right here and now, these parts will comb through memories of things that happened in the past, or look at your future itinerary, searching for things that might be of concern.

So you might dredge up an encounter where your feelings got hurt, and you replay the events, often in multiple ways, "workshopping" various scenarios. Or you might think about something coming up that's a bit scary, and start imagining all the things that might go wrong.

This is "proliferation." The stick-chasing mind.

The lion mind

But then there's the lion.

Your mind is like a lion when it sees the stick of a thought flying by, and instead of chasing the stick, it turns toward the stick thrower. It lets the thought pass. It recognises that an attempt has been made to distract it. It is not taken in by that attempt. It is curious about what this entity is that is trying to distract it.

And so it turns and looks.

The stick thrower

Who is throwing the stick? In brain science terms, this is just how minds work – endlessly generating mental representations of the past and future to solve problems to help us survive.

How to do this

It can help to feel the lion quality of your mind. Think of a lion's steady eyes. Its low growl. Its strength. Its fearlessness. Let those qualities fill your mind and your body. Try it right now, as you observe the space of your mind. If you're anything like me, it probably feels pretty good.

So sometimes when I've seen my mind go chasing sticks in meditation, I'll turn toward the place where thoughts come from. Where is that? Quite a marvellously perplexing question. And I'll observe it, waiting to see what happens.

Just watching like a lion, and see what the mind comes up with. The watching is imbued with lion energy — a sense of strength, confidence, and courage. I can remind myself that the sticks, or thoughts, are really illusions. They're not events that I have to deal with right now. They're mental fabrications.

Usually after a few of the sticks have flown past me, my inner dog will make an appearance again. And so I have to keep on summoning the inner lion, and turning back to face the stick thrower. It can be more like a dance, or even a game. We're just learning to recognise the patterns, to see the tricks/sticks for what they are, and to rest in the awareness that can hold it all without getting caught.

See what it's like to be the lion for a while.

—Timothea Goddard