Animal Metta
lobster
Crusty Veteran
From another thread:
I was meditating on a private beach this past weekend and had an experience that I wanted to share. My wife and I were the only ones there and prior to meditating we were watching a small school of minnows. While still on shore, we tried to get closer but they scurried away again and again. While my wife sunbathed, I sat in the water and proceeded to meditate. The minnows returned and were soon all around me. Twenty minutes later, larger fish appeared and seemed to have lunch in mind. The minnows huddled around me, two of them went so far as to swim inside my bathing suit. But here was the interesting part to me: As soon as my mind said, "Oh look, a big fish." The larger fish all swam away as if their life depended on it. They returned again and stayed until the split second my mind noted them. The moment that my mind was distracted momentarily by their presence, they left. This happened three times in all.
Without a doubt many of us have experienced how animals behave around us. This will change as our practice deepens. Do we call the capacity to calm mad elephants as the Buddha did a siddhi (local elephants maybe unavailable)? As well as calming animals, a developed practice calms those around us in my experience. Birds glide, fish come visit. We become an oasis of calm. Animals I find are great emotional readers. My experience is we are ripples.
Here is a carp that came to visit. Quite fun to fish with a camera . . .
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Seals like me, but porpoises are still very fickle. My neighbour has a pet sea-gull called "Archie", a very patient bird.
Squirrels are cool
Dogs are awesome teachers, they have seen through the illusion of rainbows!
I had an awesome few moments of 'mindfulness' thanks to a HUGE dragonfly that flew around my house a day or so ago. Seriously, this thing was massive, the size of a small bird, at least as long as my hand and wider in the wingspan.
I am used to being plagued and divebombed by bugs as I'm up late at night with a light on and have an open window, thus attracting moths and the like. I barely react to having a moth bounce off of my glasses. But this dragonfly was so . . . substantial.
I felt my entire body seize up and a tense ball, as if pulling every limb inward so it could be fueled quickly. My neck disappeared as my head sunk into my hunching shoulders, I even found my eyes squinting, trying to beat a hasty retreat deeper into my head, as if the dragonfly were going to pluck them out. The dragonfly was just trying to get out of the house, it was not reacting to me at all. But my body was an animal in it's own right for a minute or two.
My mind was fascinated by the visitation of such an immense insect while my body reacted as if it wanted to collapse into itself like an event horizon. It made me laugh out loud. I did manage to get up and open the front window wide, which did allow the dragonfly to get out.
They are harmless insects, and for a hundred other reasons, fascinating creatures. But while it was flying around my head, I was a witness to my body's instinctual response to such a . . . laaaaaaarge insect
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I was sitting, reading at my girlfriends farm one night when I noticed a little flashing light in a corner of a window pane. I knew it was a firefly but I'd never seen one hang around a window before. Upon closer inspection he was caught in a spider web and the spider was inching toward him. I went outside and pulled him out of the sticky web, spent time peeling the bits of web off him, lifted him up on my thumb and watched him wiggle a bit before he flew away into the night.
I could have sworn he stopped momentarily and looked back to thank me. I smiled and returned to my book with a warm feeling inside.
. . . and that was the firefly that got inside someone's car and caused a four car pile-up about four hours later.
Now back to saving sentient beings from being eaten . . .
I have two lights that stay on pretty much all the time, one is an out door light hanging just outside the window. Both lights have the FATTEST spiders, they are all bloated with bug guts, their webs just hastily repaired because there's a fresh new moth on the other end. I tell the spiders they are sitting on prime real estate.
My spiders come out to watch TV sometimes.
@ Hamsaka, no 4 car pile ups around the farm me nigga, 4 cars a day going past
My spiders are MESSY. They have different ideas about housekeeping than I do, and believe me, my standards could hardly be called standards.
When I listen to audio dharma teachings, or play a guided meditation, I think of the Buddhist story of two crows (or was it two bats?) who heard a wandering monk reciting suttas and because of that, were reborn as humans. There are uncountable spiders, a couple of cats and a parrot listening along with me, so . . .
I took one of those Facebook tests called "What Will You Be Reborn As?" and I answered everything honestly. I am to be reborn as Human. My friend who originally posted the test was to be reborn as a Dove. Hmph. I always get the most boring possible results from those Facebook tests . . .
Hopefully the hungry spider found another meal that night. That's karma for you. Life isn't linear.
I was walking in an urban park. Heard a rustling from a nearby utility pole, where a long plastic sleeve had been placed around a guy wire. Looking down the sleeve, I saw a titmouse (that's a bird, folks) trapped at the bottom, trying and trying to fly up but unable to spread his wings enough. I took a long thin branch and slid it carefully into the plastic tube...instantly the bird scurried up the branch and flew off. The high point of my life!
Hopefully a blowfly
Animal metta is what caused me to become vegetarian.
Me too @seeker242, though I am far from militant or even devoted to vegetarianism. I discovered my inability to eat somebody I used to know when I lived on my farm in Idaho. I'll even grant that they tasted GOOD (it was a goat), but my tongue and teeth refused to coordinate and I had to spit it out. Luckily I was alone and didn't have to explain to my oh-so-understanding ex husband.
Flesh sickens me most of the time, but more in its idea than anything else. My body relishes the rare flesh I eat, and I admit I'm standing off to the side grossed out by how good it tastes and how my body seems to WANT to digest and assimilate it. Otherwise I don't make a big deal out of it.
Some people say that we're 'programmed' by evolution to eat meat and survive ... else, the body will not get enough nourishment. How will buddhists answer that?
If that were true then logically all the vegetarians would have died out by now.
As a meat eater, I'd say it's more complicated than saying evolution made us meat eaters. Evolution made us omnivores because that way we could adapt to different environments. We are able to live at the north pole or where the soil doesn't support large scale farming because we can get our food from meat. We can support large, active populations because we can cook and eat just about any life that isn't fast or smart enough to avoid us.
But being able to do something isn't the same thing as saying it's wise or right to do it. Evolution also gave us emotions like anger and the ability to pick up a club and kill someone from another tribe who dares to hunt on my land. That doesn't mean it's right to do so. Evolution also gave us empathy and the ability to share what we have with others.
It's possible to survive on an all vegetable diet, especially if you have the resources to eat the right mix of vegetables all year long and some vitamin supplements from the store. It depends on your level of activity, also. The monk sitting around meditating needs far less to eat than the active laborer building the temple walls.
So...complicated.
>
Rocky Mountain Oysters.
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Not really.
Is it wrong for Eskimos to eat meat? They have to kill seals and whales and fish to survive. Not many crops grow on snow. If it's OK for them to not practice vegetarianism, then how about a tropical island where it's coconuts and fish or starve? I only call it complicated because it's situational, and situations are always complicated.
I imagine that most of us here have access to a choice of food, so for most of us it is a simple choice.
They would say "That's not true" and maybe explain why if the person is actually interested.
Oh yeah, I agree with that. Most of us have ready access to a variety of foods year round that even Kings could hardly imagine throughout history. Yet my favorite nighttime snack is still crackers and cheese and salami washed down with milk, hardly taking advantage of modern factory farming distribution.
I have secretly wondered why Buddhists aren't more on board with genetic engineering of our food supply. Growing meat tissue in the lab, and using that as a substitute for killing and eating a steer or pig seems very 'buddhist' to me.
So would engineering crops to grow more abundantly in less-than-arable land. People need to eat, and switching around a few gene sequences ( in spite of ignorance and too many movies about xrays and mutants) to grow more FOOD so more people can EAT just sounds . . . Buddhist
you know?
I think GM is fine, I don't understand why people have a problem with it.
(conventionally) different beings have different sensitivities
quite a profound look!
@lobster (more of a pointing at the root post)
Buddhist practice, although I am a newbie, has really opened up my heart in a big way, and I have noticed that when people get frightened or embody resonant-suffering ("compassion") for other beings (whether it be fish getting sliced up to be eaten, or the negative karma the people who are killing commit).. animals really pick up on it.
I like what you said about ripples, it's almost like we're all a big bulbous lake .. the shiny boundary lands of our space ships (bodies).
Thanks for reminding me of this! I've noticed (on a very simple level at home) that when I am kind to animals I haven't met before my cat will actually like to be around me more when I get home.. and not necessarily due to scents or smells.
On the "noticing big carp" thing...
how to draw no outlines ? seems like a worthwhile ponder.
Some animal metta moments:
http://www.vaguebuttrue.com/images/1269184961-dog buddhistWEBSITE.jpg
http://www.tonglen.oceandrop.org/images1/hands.jpeg
http://11even.net/wp-content/uploads/tiger-buddhist-monk.png
I completely agree. The prototypes just look kinda gross.
What I eagerly await is sub-atomic manipulation. It sounds far fetched but I think we will figure out how to make Star Trek-like replicators.
You mean nanotechnology? How awesome is that stuff . . . It would suck if a polymer-eating nanoreplicator got loose but otherwise, technology offers a huge variety of alternatives to please even the most traditional and uptight cushion-squasher.
I was pleasantly surprised to note a line of vegan frozen instant meals in my local grocery store. That is the miracle of tech right there. Veganism is quite prep intensive, and for the busy young professional, an instant TV vegan dinner is brilliant. It's even balanced, and made up of ingredients you've NEVER had in your kitchen.
I make a lot of stir frys & soup, but maybe my routine is a bit bland?!
On topic, there are upcoming graduates in the field of Animals and Political theory. In the past we have seen rights for Women and for Colours. We may see movements for sentient rights with potential citizenship for our non-human workforce.
If anyone is interested there is a good animal program called 'Nature's Miracle Orphans' and you can watch it using BBC Iplayer.
That sounds interesting too but I was thinking along the lines of manipulating sub atomic particles in a near vacuum to make whatever.
Vegetarianism is hard but I find that it's worth it.
If they come up with one that can replicate ice-cream I'll be more than happy.
I want the star trek replicator too. Of course, if we ever get one, some terrorist group will start manufacturing bombs and weapons from them.
No doubt, no doubt.
It would likely spell some turbulent times but I wonder if it could help wipe out greed as well as hunger.
They'd probably end up in the hands of the rich and powerful anyway.
I guess that's what happens when inventions progress faster than inventors.
We could all use some animal metta.
Imagine if there were a glut, an over-abundance of food, power, resources, doo-hickeys (all the other crap ya like). What would the bomb-makers have to make bombs for?
By then we'd be colonising other planets so you'd need lots of bombs to wipe out indigenous space aliens, like in that film Avatar.
Indeed. There will always be reasons to have super duper quantum buster bombs.
No doubt space aliens a bit higher up the evolutionary scale too . . .
I feel what you describe is inevitable, the heart and mind tightness begins to soften.
Animals and our environment reflects back on our opening . . . :wave: .
If there's something I'd like to have faith in, it's that we as a species wake up to our connection with all beings before we learn how to contact any.
Hopefully, we don't find them tasty.
And also that any species that contacts us will have made the same connection. So hopefully they won't find us tasty, like in those Hollywood films.
Ugh, the essence of samsara IS that we find each other tasty. Life, in order to live, must eat other life. Lettuces can't run away or 'scream' recognizably in agony when we select the leaves for our dinner salad -- or so we assume.
I watched a docu on Netflix about how plants communicate and interact within their environmental milieus.
And yes, they do 'scream'.
That smell of fresh cut grass that I love so much? Grass is screaming. And so is the mint and basil. Their 'screams' are our olfactory delight.
And now, back to what's left of my denial . . .
One beings death is just another being's process of matter conversion.
It is not to much of a leap to think that a more evolved form of life might see consuming us as a way of liberating our primitive matter into a more evolved expression of energy.
Lettuces can't run away or 'scream' recognizably in agony when we select the leaves for our dinner salad -- or so we assume.
I avoid salad for that very reason.
If each plant could be somewhat self aware does that mean each strand of hair could be also?
Each cell? Each atom?
Precisely. Before our bodies are processed, the Beings about to ingest us could gather us in classes, in which we can receive a crash-course in the elimination of self-grasping, thus better preparing us, upon our flesh-death, to experience Nirvana.
@Hamsaka
Ahh but then again, from the perception of an egoless being, wouldn't a quick munch just immediately address the suffering of those pesky egos.
Hmm, good point. Those pesky egos are always wanting SOME concession made for them. "Wait! Wait!! I'm only in the third jhana, I say!! Wait! NO ****munch****"
You mean multi dimensional beings, boddhisatvahs, evolved caring enlightened aliens, Q from Star Trek, invading our consciousness and resonating with our higher selves?
Perhaps we would think that a thing that can create universes is a god [lobster faints] . . . oh well being munched has a higher form it seems . . . and we are barely out of the monkey minded phase . . .
:wave: .