Kindness for All Creatures by Sarah C. Beasley & Anam Thubten

Author:Sarah C. Beasley & Anam Thubten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala
Published: 2019-08-19T16:00:00+00:00

6. WISDOM

End-of-Life Matters

In Mongolia, when a dog dies, he is buried high in the hills so people cannot walk on his grave. The dog’s master whispers into the dog’s ear his wishes that the dog will return as a human in his next life.

—GARTH STEIN1

Each of the first five perfections—generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, and concentration—prepares us for cultivating wisdom, or prajna, the sixth perfection. Practicing the Six Perfections together makes us strong, stable, loving guardians and midwives for our pets’ final journey and prepare us for courageously facing the death of the creatures we love. Wisdom can be thought of as a golden thread running through all the perfections. It is the deep inner knowing that the essence of being human is to realize our true nature and to serve other beings. This may manifest in countless outer ways, but the essence is the same, no matter if we are Buddhist, an adherent to another faith, or agnostic. Buddhism has no corner on the compassion market!

One of my core teachers, Lama Tsering Everest, taught about the difference between the two levels, or kinds, of wisdom. Wisdom with a small w is the knowledge and experience we cultivate on the spiritual path. Wisdom with a capital W is all-pervasive and omnipresent, the Great Wisdom of realized beings, from which they benefit all beings on the ultimate level. Lama Tsering said that, although we don’t know what other beings truly need, we pray that they receive it, whatever it may be. When I first heard her teaching about the two levels of wisdom, in São Paulo, Brazil, it made so much sense to me. As human beings, we cultivate wisdom with a small w, in order to mature into states of great Wisdom, as our own death approaches and eventually arrives.2 According to Vajrayana Buddhism, Great Wisdom is latent in us all, and by cultivating wisdom on the path, we uncover it.

PERSPECTIVES ON PETS’ DEATH PASSAGE

Why would we wish, as many Buddhists do, for a beloved pet to return as a human being in their next life? Traditional Buddhist teachings say human beings are the only animals who consciously cultivate wisdom qualities toward full awakening. By cultivating wisdom, we impact our own karmic path, as well as conditions that affect the karma of animals around us, by our influence. As humans, we have the capacity to develop love and compassion to free ourselves and others from the bondage of unawareness and aggression. Animals are far more subject to fear than we are, and are not reflectively aware of how to reduce negative acts or increase positive ones. Pets are especially impressionable, and we can help guide them toward reducing negative actions. That said, many people also have seen altruism and compassion exhibited by individual animals. In fact, animals often surpass us humans in their benevolence and lack of hostility.

I wrote this book, especially this chapter, for every animal lover, regardless of their beliefs. This book was originally born from a series of conversations between myself, a Buddhist animal lover, and Dr.

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