# OUR ANIMAL GURUS

For almost 40 years, i'd been looking for something like this. Something simple, without any mystical or abstract intellectual depths.

On reflection, it was obvious that animals had the answers.

There are hundreds of ways to misinterpret new ideas. The most common route is to associate them with something we already know.

This has little to do with focusing on the present moment. It also has nothing to do with Shamanism... nothing to do with finding your animal spirit.

It is not mindfulness, though maybe it could be called sensefulness. Truth requires experience not belief. The key to deeper experience lies in how we use our senses – NOT our minds.

This isn't a new belief, animals don't have to believe in it for it to work, it's basic to life.

What i'm suggesting is common sense. It's not a mystical experience, it belongs to everyday human life.

I've attempted to give logical explanations for the rational mind – my reasonings may well be wrong somewhere. If my writings leave any doubt or unanswered questions, please go straight to the experts: observe animals for yourself.

We must play at 'going on the lookout'. Watching for movements all around and out of the corners of our eyes like blackbirds – listening-out for dogs and humans like a hare does – and smelling on the wind for coffee or food cooking, just as the hedgehog will smell for apples and beetles.

This is not a tradition of teaching with theories and beliefs... but proving by example.

Animals are always here to guide us with first hand experience. They give freely and ask nothing back.

If they've lived through a winter they understand suffering, yet remain open and full of hope.

The teaching tradition would be safe in their hands, safe from pompous and abstract ideas.

I've been practising these 'animal teachings' for around 15 years now, and there are worlds still to discover, but i'm getting old and slow, with too many illnesses to care for.

My dearest wish is that younger people – who have so much more time and experimental energy – will understand what i'm saying, develop it, and... who knows what they could discover...

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