Fly with two wings
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It’s been a long pause not written anything. Flood…flood…flood…..disaster…disaster…disaster……these are things which has taken place in Thailand and still not cure in some part Thailand.
Imagine! Your house is full of water for more than couples of month and there is nowhere to go and nothing to eat. Can you survey?
Don’t imagine now, it’s happened in Thailand. The flood continues more than 3 months, which is quite shocking to see and hear. It’s been really sad and disappointing to see such a disaster. The ancestor believes that this is the worst flood effect in the country compare to old one.
In such a disaster, the number of inquisitive questions arises in our mind. Whom to blame or whom to question?
Number of people has been questioning themselves and others. What must be the reason behind the flood? Some blames and criticize the government, some blames society, and others on natural calamities. Is there anyone who can see or knock own mistake?
Nobody opens the door of deeper cause behind the disaster. Anyway, when something happens, why should we blame someone or worry about the past. Instead of why don’t we understand the cause and look ahead for better world.
Some says, “Crises and disasters often bring great spiritual blessings and purification–if we are open to change and willing to learn from them. And this is the challenge which we personally experienced”.
In the spiritual traditions of the East, it is said that we must “cross the burning grounds three times” to purify our physical, emotional and mental bodies, surrendering everything to God. But we never expected to have to experience this literally…
Meanwhile, there are certain lessons of Buddha’s teachings where we can reflect, after happening such a disaster in our life;
1. Nothing remains forever. What did the Buddha teach? The physical world is impermanent.
2. Don’t detach with material possessions.. There’s something incredibly powerful in seeing all your possessions turn to ashes in 15 minutes. Everything that seemed so real and permanent. Everything we collected or worked so hard to create, everything that took time and/or money to accumulate.
3. live more fully in the present. Disasters can be purifying and freeing. Losing everything helped lighten us up–we needed a lot less to live than we thought. We could begin anew and do everything better than before. We could go in new directions, unbounded by the past. We could build on more solid foundations, whether literally or symbolically.
4. Renew your faith in Spiritual. We realized it was only a house and possessions we lost. We still had our family and friends and spiritual life. “The real house is in here, in our hearts.”
5. Open your heart. As the type of people who are always helping others, we had to learn how to receive. All across the country, people were generous and helpful, giving us money, clothes, equipment, etc. Although we lived in a spiritual community, we found that community is everywhere. Crisis draws out the best in people–their compassion and their generosity.
6. Everything you give away will come back to you in some form. Clothes we had given away to a free boutique were there for us when we needed them.
7. Meditate on the deeper meaning of the disaster. Adversity can be a blessing in disguise that strengthens us. We realized that we were relying on our house for economic security in a changing world. It’s easy to get so focused on building wonderful buildings, and forget they are only forms. Let’s not be fooled by the shimmering illusion of security in our materialistic world. It seems to promise so much, but always leaves us dissatisfied, searching for more.
Can it possible to judged animals moral like human beings? Can animal’s actions be similar to human beings? Can animals think? If animals can think! What there is a difference between a thinking of human being and an animal?
As I have mentioned about Freedom of mind and body in the (Freedom and morality (part 2)). For example, in case of tiger hunts the deer, can we call tiger hunt the deer is just bodily determination. It’s natural that the tiger needs food; and it is also a natural fact that the tiger cannot eat the flesh of other animals. If it just bodily or natural determination, there is nothing wrong, instead tiger is just acting but not making action, which is not wrong at all.
Related with the thinking of animals; In Christians tradition, animals is believed not having the mind because animal is not rational. It is said that when god created human beings god puts wisdom inside them. Wisdom doesn’t exist in animals. In Buddhism mind exist both in man and animals. But the mind inside an animal is no different than the mind of a man. However, as animal brain has the limited qualities compared with the brain of human beings, the mind of animals thus cannot fully express its potential like the mind of human beings. This limitation makes intention in animal’s action not strong as the intention in human’s action. For this reason, Buddhism holds that in general even though in some situations animals can be claimed to do right or wrong, but their moral actions are not strong like human actions.
According to Buddhism, animals have full moral status. This is judged from other things, but not from wisdom. Take for self-love, Buddhism believes that self-love in animals and human being is not different.
129. Sabbe tasanti dandassa
sabbe bhayanti maccuno
attanam upamam katva
na haneyya na ghatayeAll tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
130. Sabbe tasanti dandassa
sabbesam jivitam piyam
attanam upamam katva
na haneyya na ghatayeAll tremble at violence; life is dear to all. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
From the above two verses, it is clear on the point of moral status, which applies to animal as well. We love ourselves and do not want death; animals also love themselves and not want to death too.
Concept of suffering is another important point to discuss concerning about the moral status of animals. For suffering Buddhism gives many meanings, one of them is oppressed state of mind. Buddhadasa bhikkhu, says that there are two things that are not found in animals. The first is suicide and second is the accumulation of wealth. According to him; these two actions are found only in human beings. These actions can stem only from the oppressed mind. So in the view of Buddhadasa bhikkhu, human mind carries more suffering than animals (it should be noted that suffering is closely related to freedom and wisdom). It is clear from the above that human mind has more potential to suffer from surrounding world than animals. Certainly, animal life has more pain than human life. Animal society has no law, no security system, and no medical practice. but in terms of suffering, human mind carries more potential to suffer than animal mind. Animals never give the meaning to the world in the sense that they want it to be; they do not hope; circumstances in their lives are never recorded in the memory for reproducing pleasure or pain again and again. If animal mind has the potential to suffer like human mind, animals in farms, knowing that one day they will be killed to become food for humans, must commit suicide undoubtedly.
The potential to suffer in human mind has some connection to wisdom. Animals might not have moral dilemmas as human beings because animals do not have wisdom like human beings. Wisdom in Buddhist teaching is an ability to make a moral reasoning. When a tiger hunts, it does not feel any dilemma. In primitive times, human beings too might not have such a dilemma. As a result of evolution or other natural conditions, human mind has gradually developed to feel moral atmosphere when confronted with some events. For example, we are aware that as natural beings we have to eat and we know that this fact is beyond our choice and control. Nature has created us to eat other living organism. What we eat as food are plants and animals. Nature does not allow us to eat not-living things such as air or sand. One can say that there should not be responsibility in eating animals because we have no choice. But at some level human mind feels that even though nature has created us to do such a thing, this does not mean that we have the right to do it. It is true that we are created by nature to eat animals, but this does not guarantee that we have the right to eat animals. Can we have such a right as we are not owners of animals’ life? The owner of animal life is animal itself. I feel this is best explained in the Ambalatthika-rahulovada Sutta
January 17, 2012
Admi
