Buddha U by Victor M. Parachin

Author:Victor M. Parachin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Published: 2016-07-02T00:00:00+00:00

DAY 58

ONLY GET A PET YOU CAN TAKE CARE OF

Life is as dear to a mute creature as it is to man. Just as one wants happiness and fears pain, just as one wants to live and not die, so do other creatures.

~Dalai Lama

While all the world’s religions stress the importance of compassion to other people, Buddhism is unique in that it teaches compassion for all beings: humans, animals, insects, worms, birds, etc. Even grasses and trees should be treated with respect and compassion.

Some of this Buddhist teaching has filtered into other religious traditions that have not been as quick to recognize the validity of compassion for animals. One example comes via a friend of mine who is a Christian minister. For several years now, he has offered an annual Bless the Pets service at his church. When he’s questioned about this practice—and he is—he explains that human relationships are not the only ones that count in our world. He also notes that humans have erroneously considered themselves to be the only objects of God’s love. This belief has been held at the expense of concern for the rest of nature and its inhabitants. The Bless the Pets event is a small reminder that other creatures are important, also. It is a tiny moment of rebellion against the misguided belief that humans are the only ones for whom God cares. It is a statement that God loves cats, dogs, birds, lizards and all the other animals that share the earth with us. And because God loves them, we should love them as well.

My pastor friend, sounding very Buddhist, goes on to enumerate these other reasons why all creatures are worthy of compassion:

Pets in our lives rely upon us for nurturing and care, thus keeping us from focusing only on ourselves.

Pets force us to understand that we live for others as well as ourselves.

Pets remind us that we all interdependent, part of a vast web of relationships that form the fabric of our world.

Pets also help us to see that life always involves both giving and receiving.

Pets open our eyes to the fact that life is a process of caring and sharing.

Here is an ancient Christian prayer attributed to St. Basil the Great, which also teaches that animals are most worthy of our respect and compassion:

O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things,

our brothers the animals to whom you gave the earth as their home in common with us.

We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion of man with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth,

which should have gone up to Thee in song has been a groan of travail.

May we realize that they live not for us alone, but for themselves and for you and that they love the sweetness of life even as we, and serve

you better in their place than we in ours.

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