My Dog Linus, the Bodhisattva

Editor’s note: Daniel Jung, a member of the White River Buddhist Temple in Auburn, Washington, was a lay guest speaker on April 4 for Rev. Dr. Kenneth Tanaka’s online course on Shin Buddhism. He shared the following story about his dog Linus. The Wheel of Dharma is reprinting Jung’s story with his permission.

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Throughout the various causes and conditions in our lives, we are sometimes fortunate to encounter teachers that point us to our Dharma path.  

Just as Shinran had Honen, I had my dog Linus.  

Linus has since passed, but to me, he exemplified “living in the moment” and “great compassion.”

Before I get to those examples, I need to tell you a little bit more about Linus. My wife Eriko and I adopted Linus and his sister Lucy in 2008 when they were orphaned puppies.  They were littermates and totally bonded to each other. And yet they were very different dogs.  

Lucy had a big personality that filled whatever room she was in. Whatever Lucy wanted, Lucy got. Linus seemed to recognize that and lived his life content in her shadow. In our minds, they started to embody the Peanuts comic strip characters after whom they were named. Lucy was the bossy one, and she was also Linus’s security blanket. 

In 2019, we said goodbye to Lucy after a fight with cancer. We were worried that Linus would be lonely without his sister. After all, they had never been apart. But after a little bit of adjustment, Linus seemed to thrive.  

We could go wherever he wanted to go on walks. And he relished the 100% attention that we were able to give to him.

But soon we started noticing some weakness in his hind legs. He had intervertebral disc disease. Progressive and incurable. We took him to physical therapy and did all of the exercises at home with him to keep him mobile for as long as possible. He was happy for the interaction and all of the treats involved. The therapy staff all loved him. And he looked so cool in his goggles when getting laser treatment.

Enter COVID. Eriko was in Japan at the time looking after her father, who was having health concerns. Her original plan was to go back and forth for about a month at a time. But with the quarantine rules put in place by a global pandemic, that plan no longer made sense. So she stayed in Japan, and I was home alone with Linus. His companionship got me through a crisis that isolated everyone. I will always be grateful to him for that.

One day, I was walking from the kitchen to the bedroom with a cup of coffee in one hand and the other arm tucked under Linus’s bottom as he leaned against my shoulder. I had carried him this way before and didn’t think anything of it. But when his weight shifted, he was no longer strong enough to rebalance himself. He started to fall and I tried to set him down as fast as I could. But I wasn’t fast enough and I dropped him. On his head.  

He started to seize and relieved himself right there on the floor. I thought he was dying. I rushed him to the emergency vet. They stabilized him and gave him oxygen, but they wanted to keep him overnight for observation.

I went home alone, wracked with guilt and heavy with shame. I called Eriko in Japan and told her what had happened. She was sympathetic. The emergency vet had visiting hours later that evening and she urged me to go see Linus. But in my mind, I had visions of him pulling away in fear. Or resentment. I don’t know which one would have been worse.

Ultimately, I did go to visit Linus. The staff put me in a private room while they went in the back to get him. I fidgeted as the visions came back. But when they brought him in, he had nothing but love in his eyes. 

He seemed to be telling me, “There you are. I didn’t know where you were.  I was worried about you.” When all this time, I was worrying about him. I held him for a good long while. The guilt and the shame didn’t go away immediately. But I was eventually able to forgive myself because Linus had forgiven me on the spot without hesitation. His compassion still amazes me to this day and I will always remember him for that.

Linus came home with me the next day.  Eriko came home a few months after that.

The disc disease progressed and soon Linus wasn’t able to urinate on his own. We learned to express his bladder and did so three times a day. The daily exercises got to be too strenuous for him, so we stopped. We carried him everywhere — with both arms. We started to worry about his quality of life and consulted with a hospice vet. She noted that he was alert and engaged with his surroundings. We were taking good care of him and she wasn’t worried.

Linus lived with us for more than a year after that.  He had always been an affectionate dog, but toward the end, he would get these urgent needs to lick my face. He would look me in the eyes, start licking his lips, and then start shifting side-to-side. He couldn’t come to me, so I would go to him, lean in close, and let him wash my face in love. I could feel the gratitude that motivated him — for all the care and love that we had given him. Or maybe that was my gratitude to him for his love and companionship.

He ended up passing naturally. While he was eating, of all things. Looking back, we joke that Linus died doing what he loved most. We should all be so lucky.

Linus’s life was filled with difficulties. But we don’t think he ever suffered because of them. Each moment was full of positivity and love and gratitude.  His compassion was immense and what he taught me about forgiveness was in itself great wisdom. He taught me the Buddhist path before I knew what Buddhism was. To me, he is Bodhisattva Linus.

Since then, we have been learning about Shin Buddhism.  I don’t know yet what I believe about the Pure Land. But with Linus as my role model, I am trying to be more mindful and present in my everyday life. I still tend to be self-centered, but I do think of others more and of our interconnectedness.  

In that sense, I suppose I am getting to be more grateful and more compassionate. I still have a ways to go. Amida’s compassion and wisdom accepts us for who we are, but who I want to be is the person Linus thought I was. That clarity of the newly gained insight into myself has given me joy at the person I have become and the assurance to live my life going forward.