The Black Dog and the Golden Thread

“You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you.” — Rwandan Proverb

In the face of suffering, we are either bewildered—or compelled to search for meaning.

This essay offers reflections on that search—mine and perhaps yours. Time, personal grief, and encounters with emotional anguish have only deepened my commitment to understanding the inner terrain of suffering. To travel this path well, one must not merely seek answers but learn which questions are truly worth asking. Many are distractions; a few are invitations to wake up.

By turning toward our pain—gently and attentively—insight can emerge. How we confront that pain, the perspective we embrace, is crucial. It requires introspection, courage, compassion, and spiritual resilience. Writing this is part of that journey. Not as a proclamation of arrival but as a friendly gesture: a way to walk alongside others on the same path.

I make no pretence of being free from sorrow. However, I find myself less bound to fixed narratives—about myself, others, and the world. Years of family life, psychotherapy, Buddhist practice, and time in monastic robes have all softened and seasoned me. What I offer here are glimpses—snapshots from a life shaped by both love and affliction. I hope they might serve as signposts while affirming that each person’s terrain is theirs.

A Face I Couldn’t Love

I was fourteen, standing beside a school friend while he showed me a photograph. It was an ordinary image—students gathered outside our boarding school in Johannesburg. My eyes caught sight of an unfamiliar face that provoked a sudden, irrational dislike.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

My friend looked puzzled. “It’s you.”

That moment, however small it may seem, struck like a seismic jolt. I had seen myself—and recoiled. It was my first conscious encounter with self-hatred.

I grew up under apartheid in a home where anger, criticism, and shame were frequent visitors. The culture around me was steeped in despair and aggression. I lived in-between—not exceptional, not failing, outwardly functional, but inwardly adrift. I escaped into daydreams, music, and a kind of psychic fog. There were no names for my feelings then, only the overwhelming sense of being wrong, inadequate, and unloved.

Looking back, the roots of my self-hatred appear inevitable. Too many pressures pull in various directions. The weight of those inner voices ultimately pushed me to seek relief, though not always in the right places.

The Thread and the Tragedy

By the time I reached my late teens, I had started to drown that pain in music, alcohol, sex, and drugs. However, somewhere—perhaps by grace—I stumbled into a Buddhist monastery in West Sussex. I was nineteen.

Under the guidance of Ajahn Sumedho, I discovered a radical alternative: intuitive awareness, simplicity, and the potential for awakening. I later ordained as a monk and spent five years there. Those years provided something akin to a golden thread—an orientation toward stillness and insight.

But the thread was not unbreakable.

A family tragedy pulled me out of monastic life. I disrobed, trained as a psychotherapist, got married, and built a family. Outwardly, life was rich. However, a subterranean current of self-criticism remained, urging me to “be more.” Then, after two decades of marriage, my wife left me for another man.

The bottom fell out. I faced an overwhelming grief, one I could not escape. It felt as if she had died, even though she was alive. I was blindsided, humiliated, and shattered. And in that fracture, I finally confronted the Black Dog head-on.

The Descent

Subrahma, a disciple of the Buddha, once cried out:

“I am always anxious in this mind; this mind is always agitated about problems present and future. Please tell me how to find the release from fear.”

I could have spoken those words myself.

Though depression had long resided within me, I had rarely acknowledged it. I concealed it with work, performance, and busyness. However, the separation shattered the façade. My nights became haunted by memories—wounds from childhood, failures in adulthood, and moments of profound loneliness. Some evenings, I could barely breathe. The pain felt unending.

In those moments, I understood on a visceral level what it means to burn through karma—not in an abstract religious sense, but as a psychological and existential purging. I had reached the chasm. There was only one choice: awaken or live out my days as a guardian of despair.

The Black Dog and the Golden Thread

There’s an old Scottish fairy tale about two brothers, each walking along a mountain path. One ascends, guided by a golden thread, while the other descends, dragged down by a fierce black dog on a chain. They meet halfway and share stories—both of joy and peril. Eventually, they part ways. The upward-bound brother, overconfident, cuts his golden thread and is lost to the void. Meanwhile, the descending brother remains tethered to his beast, his fate unresolved.

It is an ambiguous tale, yet one that has lingered with me. At various points in my life, I have been both brothers. At times, I have been uplifted by the thread of practice, friendship, and grace. Conversely, during other moments, I have been weighed down by the Black Dog—by depression, rage, and shame.

The Black Dog is an ancient metaphor. In Celtic folklore, it symbolises melancholy, rage, and menace. Shakespeare evoked it in Macbeth, and English children were once warned, “The black dog’s on your back.” To me, it is both terrifying and oddly familiar. It has prowled at the edges of my mind for most of my life.

But here’s the paradox: the Black Dog is not just an adversary. It can also be a guide, a protector, or even a friend.

On Humiliation

Hubert Benoit, a French doctor and Zen thinker, wrote poignantly about the transformative power of suffering. He observed that all negative emotions share a common core: humiliation. He noted that when we cease to resist this humiliation—when we confront it without flinching—it can lead to profound peace.

“When I stop reacting to my feelings of humiliation,” he wrote, “I unexpectedly discover a haven of safety—the only place of absolute security.”

I have found this to be true. Not easily, nor quickly. However, over time, I have seen that true humility is the beginning of healing. It is not submission or defeat but an honest reckoning with what is. It is the open door through which compassion enters.

Walking in the Wind

One winter, I walked across the South Downs with a friend. The wind was wild, almost violent. My mind began to protest—this wasn’t how I wanted the day to unfold. But then my companion turned to me and said, smiling, “Isn’t the wind exhilarating?”

It stopped me. In that instant, I relinquished my resistance—and suddenly, the wind was not against me, but with me. It felt like magic. The tea and cake afterwards tasted even better for it.

That shift in perception—so simple—transformed my experience. It also reminded me that much of our suffering arises not from the wind but from our refusal to feel it.

Dukkha and the Axle of the Mind

In Pali, the word dukkha describes the sensation of a cartwheel that doesn’t turn smoothly—grit caught in the axle. It’s a perfect image of the friction of human life. While we can’t always avoid the grit, we can prevent it from accumulating.

Our minds generate endless narratives—about who we are, what went wrong, and who is to blame. In these stories, peace becomes unreachable. However, the Buddha and many other wise voices have taught us that the first step toward healing is acknowledging our pain fully. Instead of wallowing in it, we should seek to understand it—to see it.

Epilogue: Thread and Dog, Side by Side

The Black Dog and the Golden Thread are not enemies; they may even be companions. One drags us down to the roots of our suffering, while the other lifts us toward the light. We need both. In their tension, a new kind of wholeness can emerge.

I no longer seek to escape the Black Dog or cling too tightly to the thread. I walk, sometimes in darkness, sometimes in light, and something like peace becomes possible in that walking.

— Rory Singer