So I said to her, “You are no problem. You come to the Zen Center and do strong practicing. You can bring your snakes. I will talk to the housemaster and we will give you your own room. Then you can sit meditation and take care of your snakes. Do you like that?”

She was very happy: “Oh, yes. That’s wonderful!” Then she came to the Zen Center and sat the retreat.

On the first day of the retreat, this woman’s brother called the Zen Center. He was very anxious. “Is my sister there? Is my sister there? Our mother just got very sick. She is in the hospital, very far away. We must go to see her as soon as possible.”

But instead of being sad for her mother, this woman got very angry! “No, I cannot come. Who will take care of my precious snakes while I am gone? Maybe if I go away they will die! Maybe someone will feed them the wrong things. Snakes are very temperamental, you know….” She gave her brother this kind of strong speech. But he was not surprised. He already knew her mind for many years. He only hung up the phone.

Several days later, one of the snakes got sick. It was not eating its food and only lay in the corner. The woman suddenly became very, very worried. She stopped coming to the meditation sitting and made a lot of phone calls to the local animal doctors, looking for someone who truly understood snakes. Finally she left the retreat to take her snake to the doctor. She would not leave the retreat to see her mother in the hospital, but when her snake was suffering, her mind was immediately deeply disturbed. This is very interesting.

So this woman’s consciousness felt more for her snakes than for other human beings. She showed more compassion for her snakes than for her own mother! The behind-meaning of this is that this woman’s consciousness was part human, but part snake. She could not do so much together-action with human beings’ but she related quite easily and automatically with the snakes’ situation.