Every Day You Live....

 

Legendary primatologist Jane Goodall says that humanity's survival depends on conservation of the natural world. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, she tells the story of her formative days working with chimpanzees, how she transformed from a revered naturalist into a dedicated activist and how she's empowering communities around the world to save natural habitats.

 Watch the video:  

https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_goodall_every_day_you_live_you_impact_the_planet#t-201862

May all beings be happy and well.

Cow Zen

 "The way to control a cow is to give it a large pasture." - Zen saying

 

May all beings be well and happy.

 

#VoteVegan

Just wanna be sure all you #Vegans will #vote this election. #Veganism is not only about not using #animal products. It's a philosophy of #compassion and #kindness. Please vote for the kinder candidate in every race! #FriendsNotFood #Vegan #PlantBased

 

Grieving Birds

Recently, and for nearly a month and nearly every day, I had the great blessing to be able to convince a wild pigeon couple to eat directly from my hands in my backyard. Soon, a small dove and another pigeon, observing this, came closer each day, as well.

One day, the only monsoon storm of the season raged here, and since then, I have not seen a single feather of any of these birds. I have been grieving the loss of my new friends, as well as of the monsoon that never really happened.

Today, I found this. Maybe it's where my birds went.

Mass deaths of migratory birds reported in New Mexico: 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-54183430
 

How can we not grieve now? To not grieve would be to remain asleep in dreaming of some impossible past.

May all beings be well and happy.

 

Sheikha Rabia and Animals

 Sheikha Rabia Basri sat in the wilderness, and animals would gather around her.

Sheikh Hasan al-Basri came to visit, and the animals fled.

Sheikh Hasan asked Sheikha Rabia: "Why do the animals gather around you, but they flee when I come?"

Sheikha Rabia asked Sheikh Hasan: "What did you have for breakfast?"

Sheikh Hasan confessed he had eaten meat for breakfast.

 

May all beings be well and happy.

Animal-Human Interconnectedness

Jane Goodall, one of my lifelong heroes, works even harder now to focus attention on the need for humans to understand the importance of our relationship with animals. Listen to her messages in this brief video.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/jane-goodall-on-lessons-from-the-pandemic

May all beings be well and happy.

 

WoDES - World Day for the End of Speciesism

Hello, my friends, animal lovers! 

It's been a long time since I've posted. This one is good and important, so here it is. 

WoDES - World Day for the End of Speciesism

For the 6th year in a row World Day for the end of Speciesism (WoDES) invites animal-rights groups around the globe to organise events to highlight speciesist discrimination and demand that the interests of animals be fully protected. Demonstrations, symbolic actions, talks and other events are organised every year in numerous countries. This year, join the global mobilization!

Visit and share!

 https://www.end-of-speciesism.org/en/

May all beings be well and happy. 

Vystopia

Vegan? Having an existential crisis? It's called Vystopia. 

 https://vystopia.com

May all beings be well and happy. 

 

An Exquisite Article on Animal Minds

"There now appears to exist, alongside the human world, a whole universe of vivid animal experience. Scientists deserve credit for illuminating, if only partially, this new dimension of our reality. But they can’t tell us how to do right by the trillions of minds with which we share the Earth’s surface. That’s a philosophical problem, and like most philosophical problems, it will be with us for a long time to come

"Apart from Pythagoras and a few others, ancient Western philosophers did not hand down a rich tradition of thinking about animal consciousness. But Eastern thinkers have long been haunted by its implications—especially the Jains, who have taken animal consciousness seriously as a moral matter for nearly 3,000 years."

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/a-journey-into-the-animal-mind

I hope you will read and enjoy this beautiful piece.

May all beings be well and happy. 

A Philosphical Mistake

When considering our relationship with (or "to") animals, many people make this common philosophical mistake: asserting that humans are in some meaningful way more important than animals.

In her new book, “Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals,” Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Philosophy Christine Korsgaard makes the case that humans are not inherently more important than animals and therefore should treat them much better than we do.

In an interview about her new book, the professor explains:

“Some people think that humans are just plain more important than other animals. I ask: More important to whom? We may be more important to ourselves, but that doesn’t justify our treating animals as if they’re less important to us, any more than the fact that your family is more important to you justifies you treating other people’s families as if they are less important than yours.”

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/06/harvard-professor-animals-are-just-as-important-as-people/

Very glad she’s written a book about the equality of animals. May more and more people wake to this reality we all share.

May all beings be well.

Two Articles

Here is an article about switching to a vegan diet without pressure or guilt. This might be helpful to you or someone who may be considering taking up veganism.

https://truthout.org/articles/how-to-shift-to-a-more-plant-based-diet-without-the-guilt

And here, a thought-provoking article on advocating for animals in terms of "animal welfare" and "animal rights".

https://www.vegan.com/guides/animal-rights-and-animal-welfare/

Whatever your own views, I know you wish and pray as I do...

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

Saint Thomas Aquinas and Biovinity

Thomas Aquinas - whom the Catholic Church regards as a saint and model teacher for the priesthood - insisted that “A mistake in our thinking about nature results in a mistake in our thinking about God." Further, “The opinion is false of those who assert that it makes no difference to the truth of the faith what anyone holds about creatures, so long as one thinks rightly about God. For error about creatures spills over into false opinion about God, and takes people’s minds away from God, to whom faith seeks to lead them.” For Aquinas meditation on creatures leads us to behold the wisdom of God.

Biovinity is the acknowledgement that all creatures, great and small, are living manifestations of the One All-Pervading and Divine Reality (God, or Unity). To intentionally harm any being, directly or indirectly (such as happens by supporting industries that harm animals) is equivalent to intending to harm Divinity itself.

May all beings be happy and well.

A Message from RZA

I hope you feel moved, as I feel, watching this brief video (no harm to animals shown)

May all beings be well and happy.

Finally Free

Friends, please see this brief (2 min.) video of animals being freed.

Animals Experiencing Freedom

Inspired by it, Parvati posted to Facebook:

"Living and loving live beings...  Not your mother, not your meal, not your entertainment, not yours to test on and abuse! Respect for the life of one is respect for the lives of all. Lack of respect for one life is lack of respect for all lives!"

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

 

This Will Make You Vegan in 2 Minutes

Watch and see. (No animals harmed, no violence against animals shown.)



If you love your pets, if you love animals, please consider not harming other animals.

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

Reincarnation

Do I believe in ‘reincarnation’ in the sense of a being, her/his personality, reappearing in another body after death, as if the true being is not the body, but a bodiless and lasting being that has desires or a destiny yet unfulfilled?

I generally plead agnostic. And, I feel confident that no one who does not have that kind of direct experience of continuity can know for certain, either.

True, I have tendencies and interests that seem inexplicable by this life’s experiences alone. And there are examples – like child prodigies – that are even harder to explain. Then there are the many Tibetans who have died, left signs about where they would come again, and then have been found and their identities verified through quite rigorous tests given by those who knew them before. I have no direct experiences like this.

But there is one thing that cuts me to the quick.

Every orphaned dog that comes to my attention, I gaze deeply into his/her eye, looking hard for any sign it could be Tenzin trying to come home. If it’s true and he were – and I missed it because I didn’t want to believe it – that would be a great tragedy.

I guess this means love has made me a believer.

May all beings be well and happy.

Happy Holidays?

 

Let's make Happy Holidays for ALL beings!

May all beings be well and happy.

Parliament Speaks for Animals

I am so happy to report that for the first time in the 125 year history of the Parliament, there was a clear and strong emphasis on Veg/Veganism from start to finish. Some 7,500 people attended and heard these messages delivered from Unitarians, Hindus, Jews, Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs and many other representatives of Wisdom Traditions.





The Sikh community again served veg langar each day and were warmly appreciated, receiving the greatest gratitude from the all attendees.

In one well attended session concerning an exploration of ethics relative to addressing climate change, clear cases presented from each panelist ranged the spectrum from animal agriculture’s devastating effects on our planet's and our human health, to the need to recognize all living beings as sacred and treat them accordingly. A special emphasis was on being clear that we include animals every time we pray for “all beings" in whatever way we make such prayers. In an especially passionate speech, the Rabbi David Rosen referenced Hebrew scripture as he called for us all to rise to meet “our religious responsibility” to not abuse animals and to adopt a strictly plant-based diet for the sake of the Earth and all its inhabitants. Among this power packed panel that included the Rev. Michael Beckwith and Dr. Vandana Shiva – each in turn amplifying the case for vegetarian/veganism - the Hindu Pujya Swami Chidanand Saraswati (who serves on the Parliament Board) got the crowd of hundreds to stand and vow that we will work toward making the next Parliament the first to be all Veg/Vegan, in order to show the strongest commitment to the Parliament’s efforts toward protecting our declining Earth’s health and her animal and human populations.

Many felt it to be among the most moving, compelling and important sessions of the week.

May all beings be well and happy.

Tibetan Dharma and Animals

I just completed a 7-day silent Vipassana meditation retreat.

This Drikung Kagyu lineage retreat center hosts many Buddhist groups, including Spirit Rock Insight Meditation retreats. In the dining hall, I was interested to find a laminated document on the wall over the tea and coffee service suggesting 10 Virtues to cultivate.

Number one is "Protect the lives of all sentient beings."

During a Q & A period, I asked the retreat master if he would say more about protecting sentient beings.

He answered that it means to have the wish that all beings be happy and therefore to offer help to human beings as well as to animals. He gave examples about how humans can protect animals, including purchasing cows destined for slaughterhouses in order to give them sanctuary and save their lives. In the same breath, he described putting fishes back into water if their water home has dried to the point they may be exposed to the air, unable to live.

Another retreatant said that this made her wonder about vegetarianism, about eating animals who are sentient beings.

The Kkenpo's answer to this was unequivocal on the Dharmic view. He explained that it is not ethical to take the lives of living beings, certainly not because of any "desire," so "best thing, we don't want to eat meat." He offered that he himself is vegetarian, then went on to explain that in cases where eating animals is medically or otherwise necessary for a person to survive, then in that case, that person should feel great compassion for the animal's suffering, thank the animal and make strong prayers for it (OM mani padme hum, for example).

Khenpo Tenzin added that we should not criticize those who eat meat, and he summarized his answer by restating: "Best way is to be vegetarian."

The Venerable Khenpo Tenzin

The title of Khenpo is given to those who have a degree for higher Buddhist studies in Tibetan Buddhism. The Venerable Khenpo Tenzin has a PhD. in Buddhist philosophy, among other accomplishments.

May all beings be happy and not be separated from the causes of happiness.