I

On a shelf above a wide bed
sit two Chinese-green jade Fu dogs;
Shishi, lion dogs, Japanese people call them.
As centuries drifted by, pairs replaced
a solitary guardian, protector
of Buddhist altars, temples,
graveyards, Imperial thrones, prosperous homes.

This is a special pair:
His mouth is open and
        he cries, 'A ... U...,"
Her mouth is closed
        over, "...mmm ...."

Alpha and Omega.
Buddha Mind.
Aummm.

II

Below the Butsudan, the Buddha shelf,
Where the green Fu dogs are guardians of
a time and incense-darkened image,
Shakamuni
Dai Osho,
a man and wife forgather at day's end
on their book-strewn bed. Blankets partly
cover them and two owl-eyed shih tzu,
descendants of Peking's flat-faced dogs.
The embodiments of Chinese artists' fancy,
artists inspired by stone colossi,
original protectors of lonely tombs.
According to tradition, the woolly lion-dog is
part dog
part human
part spirit
of
Aummm.

III

Years unfold. No longer do
the shih tzu quietly shred
cheque books, important letters, comfortable shoes.
No longer are maps of anticipated
journeys spread among blankets
and resting bodies upon the bed.
One autumn evening, reminiscences
wander to distant family; to
the Austrian Wortersee, the man's birthplace.
A gathering of cousins
in the shadow of the church at
Heiligenblut. Holy Blood,
An open Knochenhaus.* Skulls, arms, leg-bones,
in careful piles, face all visitors.
"Ich komme. Ich komme
schnell," ** murmurs a young man
with a smile

The couple sleep.
The shih tzu are alert, mindful.
Police sirens rip through
the open window.
On their shelf the
Fu dogs whisper
Aummm.

* Bone house
** "I'm coining. I'm coming fast."

IV

Time eats more months, more years.
No longer do green Fu dogs guard
their master on the Buddha shelf.
Composed of precious, but brittle,
jadeite, a fall has scarred
female Fu dog's face.
The pair have been replaced; now
a single wood-carved shishi
bursts through cracks in his ball-shaped
egg. He greets this incarnation
with open-mouth, and paws that
strain towards liberation.
In the wooden egg, the ball,
that was his world, the Buddha's dog
already has heard,

The soundless
sound of
Aummm.

V

One night, gravely ill,
the man is propped on pillows, eyes closed.
His sight has gone.
His hearing too.
Suddenly his eyes open and he tries
to leave his bed.
"I must get out
get out of
this damn hospital.
I must
go home."
From the foot of the bed, one
old shih tzu rushes
to his side.
She briskly paws his
shoulder, ticks his ear.
Impervious to human
reassurance, the man smiles.
In hospitals, he knows, no one licks
a world-deaf ear.
He pats his friend
Farewell.
That night the shih tzu do not
eat and remain at the foot of
the bed of their departing friend.
But in their wide-open eyes,

there is,
was always
Aummm.

Elsie P. Mitchell is the author of Sun Buddhas, Moon Buddhas: A Zen Quest and The Lion-Dog of Buddhist Asia. She is co-founder of the Cambridge Buddhist Association of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

First printed in TRICYCLE: The BUDDHIST REVIEW, summer 1999, p. 50-51

Go to Elsie Mitchell main page