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Sentient Beings - How they practice
mockeymind
Veteran
Hi to all. Can anybody give insights or knowledge in buddhism on how animals like cats or dogs progress into their next rebirth? I can't just help thinking how could they achieve merits or good karma in their current life time. Next is - do animals have minds too? I was thought in school that they only act on instincts.
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There are many news stories of animals selflessly acting to do good deeds. You hear stories of faithful dogs, perceptive cats and even compassionate rats.
There was a story I read some time ago of a couple with a young child who employed a babysitter, but for some reason, their otherwise friendly and approachable family dog wouldn't go near her and would growl if she came into the room.
The couple couldn't understand it...the dog had never behaved with anyone like this before, it was bizarre.... then the husband had the idea of hiding a small camera in the house, to see what might have been spooking the dog.
And what they saw, horrified them.
The babysitter would usher the dog - that would struggle, and begin barking - out of the room, close the door, then proceed to abuse the little child by smacking her with a wooden spoon, if she misbehaved.
The dog was quite right. She wanted to protect the child, but even if she could not see what was happening, she knew the babysitter was up to no good.
Here are more things animals do, which doubtless accrue good Kamma for them...
And what you were taught at school?
Doubtful.
@mockeymind -- I may be wrong, but it seems to me that Buddhism is the study and practice of what is. If this is correct, then honesty is required. And within that requirement, several questions might be asked:
I'm not trying to be snarky here. I just think an involvement in Buddhism does not need to lead people into a fruitless expenditure of attention or energy. I love contact with friendly dogs or (allergies aside) purring cats. I can marvel at activities that neither dogs nor cats seem to find in the least marvelous.
We (sometimes) just seem to enjoy each other.
@mockeymind
You could consider not thinking so much of sentient beings progressing from one life into the next but that the karmic inertia that was formally bound by one living vehicle disperses from those bindings at death to coalesce into new karmic mixes that take whatever new form best represents that new mix.
You won't get an awards from your identity, thinking this way, but it does seem to better flow with the meditative perspective
@genkaku - I simply wanted to know how we as a whole (with everything that is connected) travelled all together in this journey.
Also there is a Zen teacher that I listened to, and he said that what he learned in buddhism is that everything is important. We may or may not see that connectedness, but nothing is wasted as far as inquiry and investigation is used.
I don't know about proof, but I learned in a short time of being a buddhist that things like karma, rebirth and alike are embedded somehow in our beings. Its there from the beginning - We just have to be reminded that its already there. Can anybody have proof about the 4NT? - But buddhist know its real because it is validated internally.
Yes, thanks for the reminder. Everything is of import but not everything is important to our practice
I feel @how described it well. It is almost like karmic ripples, rather than an eternal ice cube.
I have come across old wise animals that have been through a lot. I am not aware they come back as a potato or potato head. Most of my evidence is that they like us, are temporary.
@genkaku also describes the unimportance of ancient myths of continuity. I don't remember being a potato, dog, lobster or even much of last week.
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/341/rebirth-vs-reincarnation
@mockeymind -- If you're happy, I'm happy.
As Thomas Edison said when 2,000 attempts to make a light bulb failed, "I didn't fail 2,000 times. I discovered 2,000 ways that didn't work."
According to Buddhism there are 31 planes of existence.
I'm not sure what would constitute animal dhamma - I've read of the Buddha teaching divas but I don't recall teachings to animals - I assume as they are thought to be trapped / ruled entirely by their sense gates that the chances for liberation are slim. In this discourse, it is suggested that for example, being eaten by a human rather than another animal may assist?
Given that each of us is responsible for our own liberation, one answer may be that one may only personally cultivate the conditions and therefore this is the focus - it is not any other liberation being cultivated - the fruits of this interaction are therefore by consequence available to others but that is a by-product say of a personal cultivation. Or in another way, cultivate your liberation and it is all connected.
Do animals have minds? This is a challenging proposition as there isn't a coherent definition of sentience (if that is what you mean by mind) - it is to be found in the mysterious 'qualia'... so No, they don't have minds exactly like us but yes, they do have minds.
Much of what is taught in school is dated, inaccurate, incorrect and human centric - the entire issue of what is 'mind' etc is rapidly evolving - not long ago, the thing to do with animals was to shoot them and stuff them (they have no feelings or rights), then it was to manipulate them as a tool (kill the buffalo, reintroduce the buffalo, no harm done) - nowadays it is accepted that a wide variety of animals display mental processes similar to ours and indeed, the human mind is better understood by building smaller models of behaviour and identifying the possible neural pathways, hormone responses etc - so yes - many animals plan ahead, they remember the past, they have culture and ritual and complex communication - many of the facets that together with qualia supposedly make up our being.
The answer is not on this forum. The answer is inside.
“It’s an incredible finding that suggests that dogs have hijacked the human bonding system,” says Brian Hare, an expert on canine cognition at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, who was not involved in the work. Hare says the discovery might lead to a better understanding of why service dogs are so helpful for people with autism and post-traumatic stress disorder. “A finding of this magnitude will need to be replicated because it potentially has such far-reaching implications.”
http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2015/04/how-dogs-stole-our-hearts
Dolphins helping humans
I am trying to think up the list of all the questions that the Buddha shrugged off as not relevant to cessation of suffering -namely the Potthapada Sutta, D.N. 9- and I wonder if this one would not belong in there...
"This question is not calculated to profit, it is not concerned with the Dhamma, it does not redound even to the elements of right conduct, nor to detachment, nor to purification from lusts, nor to quietude, nor to tranquillisation of heart, nor to real knowledge, nor to the insight of the higher states of the Path, nor to Nirvana. Therefore it is that I express no opinion about it."
(Christmas Humphreys translation)
The day is short and the work is long...
I'm not sure it's possible to go backwards in karmic evolution (for lack of a better term) or even if other species could be considered lower for having less self awareness to see through.
There are two cats in this house and they are as different as night and day. Also I have no doubt they each have personalities unique to them.
"Does a dog have Buddha nature?"
"Mu"
"I think you mean "woof!""
I am not so sure either that we can go backwards in evolution, though I also know that karma and rebirth probably doesn't know a human constructed time frame. I do not worry about being reborn as a gnat. I do hope (and work towards though not with rebirth in mind specifically) to not be reborn as a more ignorant human than I am in this life.
It just doesn't make sense to me how animals can work towards a better rebirth. A service dog, sure. But that is all the luck of the draw. Any dog can be a service animal, it mostly has to be chosen and trained as long as it possess the right personality and ability to learn. Nothing that I've ever seen about rebirth in animal realm says that maybe you'll be lucky to be reborn a dophin with an opportunity to help versus a woodtick who live to bite. How does a woodtick work it's way up the rebirth scale? By sacrificing itself? Seems unlikely.
I don't need to believe that an ant could have been my mother in order to respect it and not kill it. Life itself deserves our reverence and respect, because living is incredibly difficult for every being who has to do it. That is why I respect living beings of all shapes and sizes. That is why this morning after the rain I brought a bowl with me and picked up worms off the street and deposited them in a dry area. Thankfully, I no longer put them in my pockets like I did as a child. I'm afraid it didn't turn out well for them but I didn't know how else to save them. Anyhow, I didn't rescue them so they could work towards rebirth. I didn't rescue them because maybe one of them was a serial killer in its past life and was reborn a worm. I just did it to make life maybe just a tiny bit easier for just a moment, because life is hard.
My beagle is a narcissistic, egotistical, self serving asshat. Never a more selfish individual have I met. I'm pretty sure he will be reborn as a cat.
I was thinking precisely this today.
If we have our Buddhist goal in mind -call it equanimity, inner peace, cessation of suffering, enlightenment, liberation, you name it- there are so many questions and so much material available to enrichen our practice, make it more meaningful and pragmatic, put that learning to good use and proactively make a difference in our lives...
I don't want to sound snarky or blunt either -of course, I never succeed: Right Speech is eternally a work in progress with me- but I also tend to think that pondering on questions which have no possible logical, even illogical, answer is a preposterous waste of time, energy and grey-cell resources.
I mean, we could speculate all day about whatever even happens with us when our skandha bundle unbinds again, which we actually have in the hundreds of threads we've had on rebirth, and never come up with a satisfactory answer...
What makes anyone think that we'll fare better when speculating over what happens when the skandhas of our dog/cat/gold fish vanish in the air?
I admire anyone who honestly has the time to even consider such a question.
I can only imagine that such person has the other areas of their life -and existential questions compartment- duly figured out, which makes my heart burst with mudita... and secret envy, since I have a pile of books to read, many unanswered questions and so little time for both...
That's why cows are so wise.
Judging what is important or not brings us on what the cycle of how mind labelled experience. I was taught by a resident monk one time - that there is no distinction of important and not important in the practice- because it is all just an experience that arises and ceases. Nevertheless it is not a problem for me.