Coco at the Gate: On Garden Living and the 10% Trap
Today the story is about a dog, not a horse. The dog is named Coco, a five-year-old Belgian Malinois. We have four Malinois at the ranch—Coco, Princesa, Mia, and Tuya. Their territory is "the garden," an area fenced off from the horse corral. The garden is beautiful; there is green grass, fruit trees, and deep shade. It is where the party is if someone wants to use the ranch for a festive occasion. The four dogs have all of that space, and the hillside above, to run, roll, relax, and enjoy.
But Coco spends most of his life standing at the gate.
The gate separates the garden from the "public" side of the ranch, where the horses are, where the cars park, and where most of the action happens. It is a simple gate—metal bars with wood panels, painted black, about four feet tall. Now, Coco, being a Belgian Malinois, could easily jump over it if he so chose. But he knows that the other side is not "his" side. So, he stands there, ready to bark if anyone or anything comes too close. The garden is beautiful, but the gate is not. Instead of enjoying the abundance behind him, Coco is focused entirely on the boundary.
Yesterday, as I was talking to Coco—me on one side of the gate and him on the other—it struck me that this is exactly what spiritual teacher Michael Singer talks about when he says that when we focus on our problems, it is like we are face down in an inch of water and think we are drowning.
Now, you might think, how silly! Who would stay face down in an inch of water? But Singer’s point is that when we focus on what is not working—on our frustrations, our struggles, or the things we can’t figure out—that is exactly what we are doing. We end up confusing the object of our attention with our attention itself. We begin to think that we are the problem we are focused on. The solution is to step back, to widen our focus, and to loosen that hard grip our vision has on the thing we don't want. In doing so, we realize that we are not the situation or the mess; we are the one who watches.
In the moment when we are caught up in a frustration, it can feel all-consuming. Like Coco, we spend our lives standing at the gate. He has the entire garden to inhabit, but instead, he stands on alert at the threshold.
Though I have been studying these teachings for years, seeing Coco yesterday made me realize the stakes involved. I remembered a friend who pointed out years ago that I seemed to have 90% of what I wanted, but instead of enjoying that 90%, I was focused on the remaining 10%. At the time, I felt a kind of pride in her observation. Yes, I thought, that’s me. Always seeking perfection. But looking back now through this new lens, I wonder if I missed her point entirely. I wonder if she wasn't complimenting my standards, but rather asking the same question Coco poses at the gate: Why are we choosing to stand in the only inch of water where we could possibly drown, when the rest of the garden is waiting?
