Have you ever wondered if Buddha got it wrong?

[shiloh24601]

I've been trying and not succeeding in trying to keep myself from being overwhelmed by the worlds negativity. Starting with the shootings in South Carolina, I'm amazed (though I shouldn't be) that such a level of racism still exists. I read online last night about the continued persecution of Gypsies. The attitudes and legal actions of governments against the Roma people is very 1930's Germany-esque.... a fact that is terrifying to me. And now today, I read an article about a group of Girl Scouts in Maryland who went to the town hall to complain about conditions of a local animal shelter and were cussed out and called racial slurs by grown adults. Grown adults cussing at little girls. I read all these things and then think about how the Buddha said humans are superior to animals, and that a human existence is necessary to contemplate and achieve nirvana. I feel like thats a pretty arrogant statement to make. I look at my dog, and she innately practices mindfulness and is always living in the moment. She doesn't have stupid human thoughts and reasoning to keep her from being in the now. She also practices metta to everyone she meets. She mettas the heck out of people! She is a little metta generating machine. I feel like dogs and most animals are better buddhists than humans. A hawk competes with a crow for resources - not because the crows feathers are black. And it is starting to look like humans might have real competition in the intelligence department when it comes to Cetaceans - whales and dolphins. Isn't it pretty belittling to say we're superior to amazingly intelligent animals like dolphins just because we can can use tools? The dolphin doesn't need a tool. The dolphin evolved in such a way it doesn't need any. So who is the superior one? We shouldn't forget that from a biological point of view, humans ARE animals. We are great big hairless apes. Shouldn't there only be five realms of rebirth then? I mean, if you combine humans and animals into the same category, then being reborn as an animal shouldn't be seen as a downgrade. Yes they do suffer a lot. But it seems like most of the suffering an animal goes through is more done by the hands of a human than other animals. Another animal might kill the young, weak, and old of a group for food. A human will wipe out an entire species for personal convenience.

What do you guys think?

[Myosha]

Hello,

Thoughts are fun. Just sit.


Gassho
Myosha sat today

[shiloh24601]

Thank you. The simplicity and wisdom made me smile

[Amelia]

There are many lovely things still about people. With every metta chant I am hoping, perhaps praying, for more compassion from and for all.

Take care, shiloh.

Gassho, sat today

[shiloh24601]

There are many lovely things still about people. With every metta chant I am hoping, perhaps praying, for more compassion from and for all.

Take care, shiloh.

Gassho, sat today

I will pray with you.

Gassho

[Jundo]

Hi Shiloh (would you please sign a name and post a human face picture? Thank you).

I feel the same way about our cat sometimes (she is a sweety), and about the greed, anger and divisive thinking which drive people sometimes. Our cat certainly seems to live "in the moment" more than most people I know, letting her emotions come and go. She is a sweety, yet the cat (she only came to us 2 weeks ago) seems to have a small case of PTSD (yes, cats can have that too, and she jumps and hides under the bed, and can be very clingy). She is a refugee from Fukushima, rescued near the nuclear reactors and abandoned by her owners when the people left. My theory is that when her owners fled (animals could not be taken to the shelters) it messed her up a little.

But I recognize that cats are primarily driven by hunger, violence and the desire to kill (just ask the birds in our garden about our last cat!), fears, finicky likes and dislikes, territorialism (she hisses at the alley cats in our garden). In some ways, they are more naturally "Zen" than people (I doubt she worries much about her retirements plan or the meaning of life, feels a failure as a cat compared to others, or worries about her "career"). Yet, her animal behavior also represent the aspects of our animal nature that Buddhism is designed to free us from! The ugliness of humans you describe is, perhaps, because we are too much like our dogs and cats!

But, unlike the animals, human beings have a real chance to transcend and be better than our worst animal natures ... even if it is a hard battle sometimes.

I hope the following makes you laugh. I made it for April Fools a few years ago.

To mark the start of April, I thought I would answer some questions from the mail bag. One that I am asked about a lot is whether our family pets might benefit from practicing Buddhism and Zazen.

ABSOLUTELY! They're sentient beings, too. Only, with paws.

Kitties are nothing but cuddly fur balls of delusions and attachments. We must help our dogs find out for themselves whether they have Buddha-Nature or not. Even our hamsters and birdies can be freed from mental cages.

So, get a little Dogen into your doggie, and tell him to "SIT!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MidgayrszQM

Gassho, Jundo

SatToday (cat in lap)

[Jakuden]

Thank you Jundo that just made me so happy! I am a veterinarian--I find animals so "grounding" and easy to focus on. And what a great kitty!!

As perfect and pure as they are, animals have individual variations in their personality and behavior that you could classify as self-serving, altruistic, fearful, aggressive, excited, friendly, motivated, energetic, mellow, lazy etc.etc. Some of these variations are environmentally created, but many of them are hard-wired in genetically. And there have been instances in nature where one animal species did wipe out or supplant another, some long before humans existed.

Obviously our big brains gave us an evolutionary advantage that allowed us to dominate the planet, but they also give us this insanity of thinking, thinking all the time about so much more than we need to live our life every day. Now maybe quieting our collective monkey minds is the key to our survival as a species? If not, maybe it's ok if some creature from the deepest of the deep sea will evolve and supplant us someday?

Gassho,
Sierra
SatToday

[shiloh24601]

Thank you for that! That video cheered me up. Tikki is a wonderful sitter and he seems to love that bell!

[Kyotai]

Hi Shiloh

The world is sometimes full of horror and beauty. Im sitting here watching the rain come down...its lovely.

We sit amongst both.

Gassho, Kyotai
Sat today

[Getchi]

Hi Shiloh,
Hang in there.

Myosha great advice!

Gassho,
Geoff.
SatToday.

[Luciana]

VERY nice! Thank you.

_/\_

L.

sat2day

[RichardH]

Hi Shiloh.

Here is my favorite old time Buddhist scripture. Always found it very moving for some reason. It is what the Buddha "got".

The Blessed One was once living at Kosambi in a wood of simsapa trees. He picked up a few leaves in his hand, and he asked the bhikkhus, ‘How do you conceive this, bhikkhus, which is more, the few leaves that I have picked up in my hand or those on the trees in the wood?

‘The leaves that the Blessed One has picked up in his hand are few, Lord; those in the wood are far more.’

‘So too, bhikkhus, the things that I have known by direct knowledge are more; the things that I have told you are only a few. Why have I not told them? Because they bring no benefit, no advancement in the Holy Life, and because they do not lead to dispassion, to fading, to ceasing, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. That is why I have not told them. And what have I told you? This is suffering; this is the origin of suffering; this is the cessation of suffering; this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering. That is what I have told you. Why have I told it? Because it brings benefit, and advancement in the Holy Life, and because it leads to dispassion, to fading, to ceasing, to stilling, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to Nibbana. So bhikkhus, let your task be this: This is suffering; this is the origin of suffering; this is the cessation of suffering; this is the way leading to the cessation of suffering.’

.

Gassho
Daizan

sat today

[shiloh24601]

Thank you, Daizan. I very much enjoyed that!

[Rich]

All the evil and bad things humans do is because of anger, greed and delusion. In showing a way out of that the Buddha got it right. But even more important is that each of us has to practice to get it right, here and now.

SAT today

[Byrne]

My dog's a real metta machine. She's so sweet and grateful to everyone. I've been diligently training her to be that way since she was 8 weeks old. Chihuahua's are the most euthanized breed of dog in America because if they don't learn to not be afraid of certain things they will forever be afraid of everything and become vicious demons that attack everything.

On a side note, I've called Charleston SC home for the past 8 years. I remember one of the victims of the shooting, Cynthia Hurd, from the downtown library. She gave me my library card when I moved there. This one really hit close to home literally. Charleston has a deep and brutal shared cultural history that has a long memory. It's a city that is always fighting with it's past. Fighting to preserve and fighting to make sense of it. The city is a layers of koans. Right now the city is wrestling with a very public koan that cuts pretty deep into the fabric of all of America. As much as the south is demonized as a hub of racial hatred, it is important for the rest of America (and the world) to not put so much weight into that sentiment so as to ignore the very real racial and social problems in one's own backyard. Moving to the south from NY was the most eye opening confusion I've ever experienced and I will be wading through that illuminated ignorance for the rest of my life. And I really hope they take the stupid stars and bars down from the state building.

Gassho

Sat Today