Life Lessons from a Dog and Her Ball

STEPHEN MURPHY-SHIGEMATSU discovers profound spiritual insights in the simple act of playing fetch with his dog Lucy, exploring the difficult art of letting go and the courage required to surrender what we love most.

Lucy wants to chase the ball. And she wants me to throw it. But there’s just one problem—she doesn’t want to give me the ball.

At first, she didn’t want to bring it back. After a while, she learned how to do that. But then she didn’t want to give it up. She would even drop it, but as soon as I reached for it, she would pick it up and walk away with it. She would repeat this strange act of ambivalence several times. If I showed indifference, she might lose her concentration and leave it unguarded, and I would pick it up, throw it, and she would chase it, and the whole thing would start all over again.

While Lucy chews on the ball, I have nothing to do, so I am deep in thought. I’m a human psychologist, not a dog psychologist, and I’m not sure what’s going on inside her head, but if it’s anything like mine and yours, I would say she’s ambivalent. She wants to give up the ball, and she doesn’t want to give up the ball. To get the fun of chasing the ball, she has to surrender the ball—giving up the very thing she wants. That’s a dilemma that leads to the strange action of keeping the ball away from me and preventing the very thing she wants from happening. 

Perhaps it’s like breathing. You want breath, but once you breathe, you only get more breath by first letting go of what you have. Then your lungs are empty and ready for some new breath.

Or maybe it’s like love. We want love and may find it, but lose love if we become attached to it. In preschool, I taught the children to sing: “Love is something if you give it away, you end up having more.” Lucy has a great heart, so I think she understands this about love. She gives her love freely, and it expands synergistically.

But balls baffle her, bringing out her materialistic nature and sense of scarcity. She needs to know that she already has enough—you only need one ball to play the game.

Lucy is learning that to get, you have to give. We love certain things and people, but all things must pass, everything changes, and we suffer losses. How do you let go of what you love? Letting go of what we desire most is the hardest lesson to learn, whether it’s something from the past or something imagined in the future. Yet to live, we have to keep loving and losing.

Letting go is ceasing to cling to anything—a person, a pet, a thing, a moment, a desire. It’s a conscious decision to live now, to give up forcing, resisting, or struggling. It’s allowing things to be as they are without becoming attached to them, and finding something even more powerful and meaningful.

The truth of spirituality is that 
we can experience release only if we let go. 
The paradox of surrender begins 
with the acceptance that we are not in control of anything. 
When we are ready to let go of our illusions
 and pretensions, we can surrender, letting in reality.

I tell Lucy that she can accept reality, surrender to what’s happening, and trust that everything will be alright—that no matter what happens, she will be able to deal with it. I encourage her to move on with patience, receptiveness, and openness to the reality that change not only occurs through action but also springs from acceptance. I assure her that things are good now and can become even better.

I think I understand Lucy’s dilemma, as I, too, struggle to let go of what I love the most. Letting go of what she has, she relinquishes a certainty for an uncertainty. Letting go takes a lot of courage, but it’s within her power, and she has to trust that once she lets go, happiness will come very quickly. If she can drop her craving for the ball—for having the ball forever—she can flow with the movement of life. She may die a little every time she gives up the ball, but she’s born again every time she runs for it and receives it.

Isn’t this the most extraordinary mystical insight? The truth of spirituality is that we can experience release only if we let go. The paradox of surrender begins with the acceptance that we are not in control of anything. When we are ready to let go of our illusions and pretensions, we can surrender, letting in reality.

Letting go means breaking down resistance to reality and surrendering the demand for certainty; releasing oneself from the bonds of fear and possessiveness. Difficulties arise for Lucy because of her attachment to the ball, her fear of being without it, and her belief that it is an essential part of herself.

Letting go is ceasing to cling to anything—a
person, a pet, a thing, a moment, a desire.
It’s a conscious decision to live now, to
give up forcing, resisting, or struggling.
It’s allowing things to be as they are without
becoming attached to them, and finding
something even more powerful and meaningful. 

I believe that she can get over it by trusting in the game of life. I know that if she gives it up, she will receive even greater joy from chasing it, at least as long as I can keep throwing it. I can help her by rewarding her consistently with another toss. Gradually, she’ll learn detachment. But ultimately, it’s up to her.

We’re learning together as we play this game of life. I’m a human, and lost in thoughts. I reflect on things probably more than she does. Lucy’s a dog; she just wants to play, eat, and love. She stares at me, then at the ball, wiggling with anticipation, so I snap out of my thoughts, toss the ball, and smile as I watch her chase it with pure delight.