Report from the Mosque: Animals in Islam

Last night, we attended an open house at a Mosque here. The purpose was for people to come and learn about al-Islam.

Toward the end of the Q-and-A period, I asked the Imam (pic, above) the following question, which went like this:

"Asalaam aleikum. (He and most attendees responded, 'Waleikum asalaam'.) Hindu people hold the cow as sacred, as Divine Mother, almost like how Christians might view Mary. I grew up here, and most people I know keep pets in their homes - cats or dogs and such - and cherish them, consider them part of their family. My wife and I have a dog who is our 'child' in a very meaningful sense. I am wondering if in the Hadith or Qur'an there is any mention of our proper relationship with animals, and if you would speak to that?"

The Imam gave a pretty sweet answer. Between my poor hearing and his accent, I did not catch every word, but I got most of it. The Imam began his answer by saying it was a very good question and that he appreciated it. He explained that though Muslims are not vegetarian, they do keep Halal and Kosher rules, partly to ensure compassion for animals. He explained that Mohammed stopped the practice of using animals for "target practice" and that he told people who ride camels to get down off of the camels when they stop to meet, in order to let the camels rest; also, that no animal - bird, fish, etc. - should be killed or harmed in any way, aside from for eating them.

Afterwards, in the fellowship period, several people approached me to follow up. One was a US soldier who had served in Iraq since after the Gulf War who said he is going vegetarian now because he has come to see that "it is not right to kill and eat animals when we don't need to." Two separate Muslims came to me (one Egyptian, the other white American) with the following two stories from the Hadith:

There was a very bad criminal who one day found a cat out in the rain and took it into his home to dry and warm it, feed it, care for it, and that ALL of his previous sins were wiped clean by this one act. In the other version, it was a prostitute who saw a thirsty dog trying to get water, so she gave it water and all her sins were wiped clean.

Nice!

May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

World Animal Protection

We are World Animal Protection

We end the needless suffering of animals
We influence decision makers to put animals on the global agenda
We inspire people to change animals' lives for the better
We move the world to protect animals

Visit their site.

May all beings be happy and free!

If A Tree Falls

This 1988 song by Bruce Cockburn so beautifully, powerfully speaks.... And yet, so many years later, the "cortege rhythm" continues unabated....

The forests fall. Please listen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErS9HCh8GfE

Rain forest
Mist and mystery
Teeming green
Green brain facing lobotomy
Climate control centre for the world
Ancient cord of coexistence
Hacked by parasitic greedhead scam -
From Sarawak to Amazonas
Costa Rica to mangy B.C. hills -
Cortege rhythm of falling timber.

What kind of currency grows in these new deserts,
These brand new flood plains?

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

Cut and move on
Cut and move on
Take out trees
Take out wildlife at a rate of species every single day
Take out people who've lived with this for 100,000 years -
Inject a billion burgers worth of beef -
Grain eaters - methane dispensers.

Through thinning ozone,
Waves fall on wrinkled earth -
Gravity, light, ancient refuse of stars,
Speak of a drowning -
But this, this is something other.
Busy monster eats dark holes in the spirit world
Where wild things have to go
To disappear
Forever

If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
If a tree falls in the forest does anybody hear?
Anybody hear the forest fall?

May all beings be well and happy.

Goldfish Compassion

I can never forget the sad, but surprising and beautiful story about my goldfish.

I had rescued some "feeder fish," and they lived happily in my pond where they grew quite large. There were five, and one developed a classic case of "fin rot." In order to treat it, I set up a relatively shallow temporary hospital tank near the pond and put this fish in. I turned away to attend to something, and this was a mistake. The fish, unbeknownst to me, leapt out of the tub onto the dry patio. I returned a few minutes later and discovered, to my horror, the fish barely flopping and a bit parched. I quickly dispatched it back into the pond with the other fish, then watched hopefully to see if it would survive.

Very much to my surprise, I observed the other four fish swimming near the injured one. Working together, they proceeded to support their companion from underneath as they pushed him around near the surface of the water! They worked as a team, some supporting the fish from underneath, others flanking him, and taking shifts as they moved the injured fish forward so that water would move through its gills. Weakly, it struggled to survive, barely able to move its fins and gulp water as the diligent companions continued to offer their emergency services. I watched, amazed, for nearly a half an hour as this scene continued.

As with most fish, and certainly these, feeding time is a time of frenzied focus as they rush to eat their fill. I wondered if these, both the injured one and its helpers, needed to eat, and whether, if I fed them at this point, the helpers would abandon their friend for the food. As they had not been fed that day, I needed to feed them, anyway. I put the usual amount of flakes onto the surface of the water. But, surprisingly and very much out of character, not a single fish endeavored to eat a single morsel of the sinking food flakes. They, instead, continued to buoy the injured fish about near the water’s surface for many ensuing hours without so much as taking a bite!

Sadly, their efforts would fail. I later found the injured fish at the bottom of the pond. As I buried him pond-side, I reveled in the amazing lesson I had learned about the capacity for fish to exhibit compassion and self-sacrifice. What else could explain this behavior?


May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

Our Ideas About Animal Intelligence

Frans de Waal has a new book, Are We Smart Enough To Know How Smart Animals Are? Right on point, as that is the better question than "are animals intelligent?" or "how intelligent are animals?" and such.

The following excerpts (with my editorial comments) are from an interview with the author, which I recommend reading, if not his books as well.

“What if instead, this whole business is more like a bush, with cognition taking different forms that are often incomparable to ours?”

I have been aware of this problem for years, and our anthropocentric ideas that animal “intelligence” is to be measured against or compared with ours. That is way off track. (I wrote about this years ago and will post more of that to this blog in the coming months.)

“We need to become more focused on those animals than ourselves, and not necessarily make every comparison with ourselves the most informative.”

Exactly.

“...each species is different and each species depends on what they do and what they need to know. It's very hard to say which one is smarter, and that sort of comparison is not even relevant.”

Precisely, yes.

“This movement I feel puts humans in a different perspective and uses animals as a sort of mirror in some sense. I think it has a profound effect on how we look at ourselves and our place in nature.”

YES!

May all beings be well and happy, free of suffering and the causes of suffering.

Ghosts of Animals

In a new photo book, Inherit the Dust, Nick Brandt places life-size portraits of animals in the now-industrialized landscapes where they once lived and thrived.

Watch this very powerful 2 minute video:

http://www.bbc.com/news/video_and_audio/features/magazine-36234393/36234393

May all being be well.

Good Food

Learn about how our food choices affect our world and the beings who live in it, and explore alternative solutions: http://www.gfi.org/why

May all beings be happy and well!

The Pope Video

Please view - and if moved to, share - this brief, simple, and profound video message from Pope Francis.

http://thepopevideo.org/en/video/care-creation.html

May all beings be well.

Half-Earth: Our Planet's Fight for Life

Renowned scientist Edward O. Wilson (whom you may know from his study of ants) has a new book, in which he suggests that we need to set aside fully one half of our planet as natural sanctuary in order to avoid catastrophic destruction of species (including maybe our own) this century.

Watch this brief NewsHour interview:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/how-to-save-life-on-earth-according-to-e-o-wilson/

and buy the book:
http://www.amazon.com/Half-Earth-Our-Planets-Fight-Life/dp/1631490826

May all beings be well!

Thank you, Prince

May all beings be well and happy, peaceful and free!

Whirling Gorillish!

This young gorilla, "dancing," resembles a whirling dervish, turning left, right palm up...

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-leicestershire-36033608

Sweet!

May all beings be happy!

Keepin' It Kind

We aspire to live kind lives, to act kindly and lovingly toward others. What we eat can be an expression of that desire, a way to enact it simply and effectively.

Kristy, the founder of this blog, http://keepinitkind.com, shares this view in a delightful way, with tips on how to easefully accomplish your highest aspirations. Check it out!

May all beings be happy and well.

Happy Cow

Of course, we hope that all beings may be happy and well. That includes animals.

Our choices have effects on the happiness of others.

HappyCow was founded in 1999 as a public service to assist travelers and people everywhere find vegan, vegetarian, and healthy food and helps you make better choices that help animals.

Explore! http://www.happycow.net/about_us.html

May all beings be happy.

Big Day for Hens!

Walmart frees hens from cages!

Walmart, the largest seller of food in the United States, is going 100 percent cage-free with its egg supply. This all but guarantees a cage-free future for hens in the United States. You can read the details of this historic announcement on HSUS' President Wayne Pacelle's blog»

May ALL beings be free!

Hip Hop Vegan

Hip Hop artist Russell Simmons has written a book promoting the vegan diet for "karmic reasons" and he does other philanthropic works for animals. His new book, The Happy Vegan, is available at Barnes & Noble, here.

Learn more: http://www.mercyforanimals.org/rsbillboard

Thanks, Russell!

May all beings be well and happy.

Animal Reunions

This PBS NATURE program, Animal Reunions, shows that all mammals share common emotions (including biochemically, via the amygdala, oxytocin, etc.), and quite clearly love, even between species. Also, mammals share similar behaviors within similar familial structures.

http://www.pbs.org/video/2365690567/

May all beings be happy and well.

Protecting "Protected" Cows

Recognizing that animals are sacred beings, the Ahimsa Foundation for Cattle Protection (AFFCAP) is an independent, third party, non-profit organization which certifies goshalas (Sanskrit: shelters for cows) to a basic standard of care and protection. It does so by registering and inspecting goshalas, while keeping records of every animal for life. This undertaking ensures that: “No animal is being made available, knowingly or unknowingly, for slaughter."

Visit the website and learn about these good efforts to protect cows from slaughter.

And, please do what you can to protect our dear animal friends. It can be as simple as refraining from eating them.

May ALL beings be happy!

Rancher's Wife Goes Vegan

A vegan rancher's wife fell in love with their cows. She sings to them with her
guitar and she started a blog, raising enough money to buy the whole herd from her
husband, saving them from slaughter ...and then he went vegetarian, too!

See the video and story on CBS news

...and the Rowdy Girl Sanctuary website:
http://rowdygirlsanctuary.com/project/vegan-heart-blog-story/

So heartening!

May all beings be well, free, and happy!

Karma's Reunion With Her Mother

This incredibly touching story/video speaks to the love and care between one mother and her child.

Crying Mother Cow Greets Lost Baby In Breathtaking Reunion

"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."  - Albert Einstein

Please stop supporting the killing of our sister and brother, mother and father animals, and do all you can to help protect them.

May all beings be happy and well, free from suffering and the causes of suffering.

Biophilia!

I am delighted to have now learned about the biophilia hypothesis, a proposal that humans have a natural bias toward loving other beings - including not only animals, but also plants - an innate "love for life." The hypothesis suggests that this mechanism has the effect of helping to increase the survival rate across species. The tendency for humans to feel affection toward babies of many non-human species is an example of this.

Biovinity - the word and idea that appeared to me one morning in a dream (October, 2015) - certainly includes this idea and goes further in making the declaration that this innate affinity for other living beings derives from all beings having a shared, essential nature which is divine. In other words, Life itself is Divinity.

What these ideas share most importantly is the recognition of affinity, and each suggests not only a natural inclination, but therefore also a moral responsibility to respect, protect, revere and indeed love all living beings. It is not a new idea; we find this idea in mythologies and mysticism across cultures and far back in time (sanaatana dharma being one obvious example).

Learn more about biophilia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biophilia_hypothesis

May all beings be well and happy!

The Happy Egg Company

Here's a company moving in a good direction toward caring for the animals who earn their money!

Most "organic" egg hens don't go outside :-(. Learn about the labels "Free Range," "Cage Free," "Organic" and more, and take a look at these happier hens and find their eggs for purchase via the Store Locator at their website:

http://thehappyeggco.com/

May ALL beings be happy and free.

Humane Economy

Humane Economy. A new book by HSUS President Wayne Pacelle.

"The Humane Economy is essential reading for anyone interested in animal welfare. This fabulous book reveals the inside story of how the fight against human cruelty to animals is gradually being won and some of the surprising individuals who have helped to make this happen. HSUS's Wayne Pacelle is to be congratulated on writing a fascinating, highly readable, and remarkably comprehensive book, covering animal issues ranging from factory farms to puppy mills, from trophy hunting to genetic modification, from medical and pharmaceutical testing to entertainment. Please help to increase awareness of ongoing animal suffering by sharing this book and encouraging everyone to take some part in creating a truly humane society." 

— Jane Goodall, Ph.D., DBE; Founder, the Jane Goodall Institute & UN Messenger of Peace.

May all beings be well and happy.

Ivory Anniversary

The 14th Wedding Anniversary has "ivory" as the theme. Heavens, no!! So, for our anniversary today, we have opted to donate to two Orgs helping to save elephants from ivory poachers. Among all animals, elephants reside in a special place in our hearts owing to their wise and community-oriented nature, their love and care of their children, their sorrow in loss....

Won't you help to protect elephants, too? Consider giving generously.

http://www.elephants.com/
http://worldwildlife.org/

Thank you for anything and everything you do to protect and help our animal friends.

May all beings be happy and free!

Langar

Many of us were deeply moved at the 2015 Parliament of the World’s Religions by the immense generosity and inclusiveness of the Sikh community’s daily seva (“service offering”) of langar meals at lunchtime. Langars have been served by Sikhs in all their Gurdwaras for many centuries. They are invariably vegetarian. Of special note here: Sikh people tend not to be vegetarians themselves. But, they are keenly aware that in order to serve others in a beautiful and harmonious way (we know that Sikhs have long played a mediatory role, helping to ease tensions between Hindus and Muslims), they serve only vegetarian meals in order that all may sit together and dine together in peace and above the distinctions that otherwise arise where one group eats the flesh of the animals the other groups consider holy.

My great hope is that we who gather in community will follow in the wise footsteps of our Sikh sisters and brothers (whose living “Guru” is the Granth Sahib, a collection of writings that include substantial Sufi sections, such as by Kabir) and dedicate ourselves to offering only vegetarian food at community tables. With the more recent concern over the well-being of animals in factory farming, an all-vegan fare would go even farther toward the realization of our dedicated prayer:

“May all beings be well, may all beings be happy...”

Good News for Hens, and a Long Way to Go

Here is a letter from the President of the Humane Society:

We’re just one month into 2016, and it’s already shaping up to be a tremendous year for hens!

The list of companies who’ve announced cage-free timelines this year is growing fast: ConAgra, Target, Denny’s (which uses half a billion eggs annually), Wendy’s, Quiznos, Barilla, Campbell Soup, Norwegian Cruise Lines, California Pizza Kitchen and Mondelez (the $30 billion snack food giant) have all joined a landslide of companies in committing to abolish cages for egg-laying hens from their supply chains. 

While cage-free doesn't guarantee perfect living conditions, it’s a dramatic step forward to a better life. Cage-free hens, even in indoor barns, have at least double the amount of space per bird as caged hens, and often much more space than that. In addition, they have the ability to walk, spread their wings, perch, lay their eggs in a nesting area and more -- all behaviors denied to caged hens.

This momentous shift simply would not be happening without you. Your support provides a voice for the hundreds of millions of hens who can’t speak for themselves. And it shows food companies that animals have allies around the world willing to take a stand against cruelty.

Thank you for everything you do for animals.

Wayne Pacelle
President and CEO 
The Humane Society of the United States


May all beings be free.

Michael Jackson's "Ben"

Let us remember, this is a love song to a rat. Having had friendships with many beloved rodents, this song always brings a tear to my eye. "Ben" could just as well be any animal, any pet. Could we still see a song to an animal sung at the Oscars, or have we become too inured to our current global predicament, our artificial and apparently increasing separation from our animal friends?

Listen to "Ben" (click here to view the YouTube video).

May all beings be happy and well!

A Friendship We Can Learn From

It is the story of an animal friendship that was never meant to be.

A month ago, at a safari park in the far east of Russia, a goat was released into a tiger's enclosure as a live prey.

Things haven't turned out as might have been expected for Timur and Amur - and now fans are following the pair's progress via a live webcam.

BBC: 3 January 2016:

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35204936?post_id=1543000511_10207863079805240

May all beings be happy!

Words From the Wise

May all beings be happy and free.

After Paris: Half the World's Animals

After the COP21 conference in Paris, the good news is that climate change is now being taken seriously by so many of the World's nations. Perhaps now all debate around whether it is happening will fade and we can get down to work.

However, while there is some good news here, my own concern is less about climate change, very real though I am sure it is, and probably worse than we now anticipate.

I am more concerned about this late 2014 report (and others) about the condition of the World's animals: we have killed off more than 50% of the vertebrates on Earth since 1970. We're talking about individual animals here, not species.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2014/09/30/weve-killed-off-half-the-worlds-animals-since-1970/

Based upon this discovery, I feel confident in my subsequent analysis of the numbers, which goes like this:

If we have killed more than half of the vertebrates on Earth since 1970 - 46 years ago, when there were fewer than 4 billion, mostly pre-industrialized people - then it will surely take fewer than 46 years for our 7 billion(++) industrializing people now to kill off all of the remaining animals.

Maybe 25 years?

I am also confident that the Earth will not be quite so habitable a place for humans when that mark is reached - when we have killed off all the animals we are not specifically raising for food - because Earth's ecosystems cannot support global life once all the natural animals are gone. (The reasons are complex and many, but also obvious.)

At that point, climate change may be forgotten. The greater concern will be survival.

We need to save Earth's animals and preserve their habitats.

May all beings be well.

"Bring It On Down To Veganville!"

Justin Timberlake delivers a powerful pro-vegan performance on Saturday Night Live. Check it out!

http://en.musicplayon.com/play?v=321315

May all beings be free!

Dogs "On The Road"

This is a story of redemption. Repentant hunters now feed the animals they used to kill and have made a dog train!

This 2:15 min video is a must-see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-aDuNKSvio

May all beings be happy!

What is Sacred?

Everything. Everything is sacred. Nothing, Nothing is sacred.

Nothing has any intrinsic quality of "sacredness." Everything, being One All-pervading Reality, is just what it is. When we say "sacred," we are talking about our own attitude toward something, or toward everything. If there is any question, the question is not about anything or even everything, it is about how we feel and behave. 

"Biovinity," when it appeared in my dream, meant "all living beings are divine and worthy of our respect and reverence." And yet, I recognize that nothing is any more "divine" than anything else. 

The meaning of biovinity - and this blog - is to point toward our feelings, attitudes, ideas and actions toward other living beings in particular - especially the ones we have intimate and direct relationships with (or do not) - more than it has to do with our sense of wonder about rocks or stars.

Most importantly, how do we interact with what we regard as divine, as sacred? If this rock is sacred, will I behave differently toward it than if I think it is a non-living thing? If this pet is sacred - or this cow in a factory is sacred - will I behave differently toward her than if she were a thing?

The question is about the breadth and depth of our sense of reverence for Life. All living beings are worthy of our reverence, our love, our care, In this way, they are "sacred." We will revere them if we feel reverence for Life itself. Do we feel reverential toward God, toward divinities, toward saints, teachers, neighbors, family members? Do we revere the animals we share the Earth with? 

May all beings be happy and well.

Applying the Salve of Love

In a recent article, journalist, activist, author, and Presbyterian minister Chris Hedges wrote: “We have to let go of our relentless positivism, our absurd mania for hope, and face the bleakness of reality before us. To resist means to acknowledge that we are living in a world already heavily damaged by global warming. It means refusing to participate in the destruction of the planet. It means noncooperation with authority. It means defying in every way possible consumer capitalism, militarism and imperialism. It means adjusting our lifestyle, including what we eat, to thwart the forces bent upon our annihilation.” (Read the full article...)

As a rapidly growing population of beings that generally takes from the Earth more than it needs - something that most distinguishes humans from other animals - we are degrading the health of our little planet with rampant ferocity. Optimism is becoming increasingly scarce, quite in line with the reality we are creating. Remaining "optimistic" without recognizing our role in the problems we are perpetuating is one of the dangers we face.

Whether we are optimistic or otherwise, we have most likely already gone beyond the "tipping point" toward an increasingly unlivable planet. Far beyond indeed for those beings our actions have extinguished! Innumerable species, and individual animals within species, are going, going, gone too soon. With more and more industrializing people coming into the world, and barring some unimaginable catastrophe, this trend will only increase exponentially. Clearly, we cannot stop or go backward from here. We are firmly set on course for more of the same.

The magnitude of the growing loss of natural animals and their habitats, along with our increasing use of their lands for the unnecessary, cruel, and heavily polluting animal industrial complex to feed more and more human mouths, points to a decreasingly habitable world. Healthy ecosystems inhabited by animals living according to the needs of their evolutionary development are requisite to maintain a habitable world for human beings in the long run. This truth involves great complexity and is also plainly obvious.

So then, what if we can't fix it? What can we do? What I want to suggest is that all is not lost, even if we cannot meaningfully slow the damage we continue to wreak, let alone repair it.

As we look toward a future with fewer healthy ecosystems and fewer individual animals and animal species, my own sense of how the Dharma, the Message, the Wisdom of the great wisdom traditions may inform our actions in relation to the needs of our changing Earth today involves to some extent beginning to refocus away from ideas about how we can fix it, looking instead toward how to most beneficially behave with one another as fellow denizens of Mother Gaia facing these increasingly painful challenges together.

As social beings, we are ethical beings. That is how we have survived over millennia. Our ethics, based upon our capacity for compassion, is what makes our human species humane. At the deepest level, our sense of well-being has less to do with the conditions we face; it has more to do with how we behave, how much we care about others, and how we enact that caring with one another.

As the Buddha told us: all we can take with us beyond this life is our actions. This includes not only the effects of our actions. His message points more to how well our actions have matched our most loving aspirations and kindest intentions.

The Dharma is eternal and universal. Our alignment with it begins with our best, most selfless, intentions. Yet, how it is to be applied varies according to the circumstances that arise before us. 

Now, as always, kindness is paramount. Now, as we face unprecedented challenges as a global community, learning to love one another as the sacred beings we are may be more important than ever before - or, to put it another way, more urgently needed and most appropriate to the needs of our fellow beings.

Even if we cannot repair what we have broken, we can remain optimistic that we may yet be able to call upon our best intentions, align them with the Great Wisdom of the ages, and therewith hope to resolve our story on Earth by having learned the meaning and value of Love and having applied that wisdom in loving one another and all beings through the painful and difficult times to come.

May we pray, and also act accordingly. "May all beings be happy and well."