Please check the mousetrap

“Please check the mousetraps regularly…the mice may suffer dehydration…” reads the notice in the spotlessly clean kitchen at the Vipassana meditation centre in Alliston, Ontario. Below the message there was a prescribed schedule at which the mouse traps had to be checked, and, the trapped mice released into the fields. Notwithstanding the cleanliness of the kitchen, mice will be mice, and, come, drawn by the food, and, we need to deal with that.

I was preparing masala chai for the meditators on Christmas Day this year when this message that symbolized to me the essence of the teaching of the Christ struck my eye. Not just the Christ, but, that of every teacher of significance that has walked the earth…”Father, forgive them for they know not what they do…” could also be said as, “Please check the mousetraps…”

Reading that message brought back to me days back in Madras when we would set a mouse trap, and, very often in the morning there would be a terrified bandicoot rattling away inside the trap. None of us would have anything to do with either the bandicoot or the trap till Subbamma, our maidservant came. Subbamma had her own way of dealing with vermin, and, needless to add seldom were the vermin released into the field to live and see the light of the day. I shall not venture to guess or describe the exact method of decaptitation, except to say that I am happy to say that we did not actually witness the act.

Not having played a visibly active role in the decapitation of the bandicoot we satisfied ourselves that we had displayed sufficient qualities of ahimsa, non-violence. It was only years later that I listened to Goenkaji who said, “You cannot sell sheep to a butcher and say that you had nothing to do with killing them…” We are all involved in the killing whether we strike the actual blow or not...

In later years when I would go to meditate at Dhamma Giri, in Igatpuri, India, I would be terrified about the prospect of cockroaches crawling out of the sewer in the toilet. I would offer Metta (a prayer of loving kindness) as I walked into the toilet beseeching the roaches not to make their presence visible as I would have to kill them if I saw them, and, thereby break one of the commitments not to kill any living being while at a meditation retreat in the Vipassana tradition. Till today that prayer of Metta has worked, and, no roach has come at a time that would compromise my commitment to the Panch-shila, the five commitments one makes during a Vipassana course. My niece, herself a Vipassana meditator has faced a similar dilemma. Being a younger person she has come up with a solution, “Uncle, we can use insect repellent…that is not killing the insect…” Not sure, will have to check with the Buddha on this, sweetie…-:))

Moving away from the light heartedness, I think that in the message placed on the kitchen walls at the Vipassana centre in Alliston, Ontario, is the essence of the Dhamma, the Path. The mice will come, attracted by the food. That is their nature, that is their Dhamma. In our Dhamma, we have several choices. We can let Subbamma decapitate them as we did in our home in Madras, and, bask in the self righteousness of apparent ahimsa. Or, we can be concerned about the possible dehydration of the mice and check the mouse trap every three hours and let out the trapped mice.

Beyond the choices which will necessarily be a product of our conditioning, is a more important realization.

The mice exist for a purpose. They are part of nature’s checks and balances. The fact that they have been attracted to the food in your kitchen does not detract from their purpose. So, is every irritation that finds its way to us, whether it comes from a co-worker, boss, spouse or child. The irritation is telling us something, not so much about the person who we see as causing it. More so about ourselves … our deep self absorption that fails to let us see a co-worker’s complaints as issues about how we deliver service, and, not ‘…that bloody complaining bitch…’ The irritations that come our way are like the mice…and the way we respond to them will change as we become aware of our responses…Subbamma can deal with them and decapitate them while we maintain our façade of ahimsa…or we can recognize them as part of nature’s checks and balances and release them into the fields…what you do will flow from your conditioning…

Yes, they will perhaps find their way back to the food store…that is their Dhamma, their path, and, they will be caught in that repetitive cycle till they can stop and see the real mousetrap of the circle of life…which will only come from the practice of deep and Noble silence... till then, the problem will always be outside of us...

Till then, Please check the mousetraps…

Postcript:

And as I finish this, I just saw the breaking news about Benazir’s assassination…all this seems so totally, utterly meaningless in the face of such deep violence…and, on reflection, the realization…Please, please, check the mousetraps…