Being Compassionate Towards Non-human Sentient Beings

Unlike other friend religions, Buddhism affirms the unity of all living beings, all equally posses the Buddha-nature, and all have the potential to become Buddha, that is, to become fully and perfectly enlightened. Among the sentient, there are no second-class citizens. According to Buddhist teaching, human beings do not have a privileged, special place above and beyond that of the rest of life. The world is not a creation specifically for the benefit and pleasure of human beings. Furthermore, in some circumstances according with their karma, humans can be reborn as humans and animals can be reborn as humans. In Buddhism the most fundamental guideline for conduct is ahimsa-the prohibition against the bringing of harm and/or death to any living being.

Why should one refrain from killing? It is because all beings want to lives; they love their lives and do not wish to die. Even one of the smallest creatures, the mosquito, when it approaches to bite us, will fly away if we make the slightest motion. Why does it fly away? Because it fears death. This figures that if it drinks our blood, we will take its life.... We should nurture compassionate thought. Since we wish to live, we should not kill any other living being. Furthermore, the karma of killing is understood as the root of all suffering and the fundamental cause of sickness and war, and the forces of killing are explicitly identified with the demonic. The highest and most universal ideal of Buddhism is to work unceasingly for permanent end to the suffering of all living beings, not just humans.

There are some striking examples on the news that related to an animal's acting with more humanity than most humans. The point is not saying that animals are more humane than humans, but that is dramatic evidence, animals can act in ways that do not support certain Western stereotypes about their capacities.

In 1990, the news has reported by Associated ressP. The first news was about northern Japanese fishing village. Several people from a fishing vessel were washed overboard in a storm far at sea. One of the women was found still alive on a beach near her village three days later. At the time a giant sea turtle was briefly seen swimming just offshore. The woman said that when she was about to drown the turtle had come to rescue her and had carried her on its back for three days to the place where she was found. The other news was happened the same year in February about a man lost at sea was saved by a giant stingray: A man claims he rode 450 miles on the back of a stingray to safety after his boat capsized three weeks ago, a radio station reported. And the other news Radio Vanuatu said 18year-old Lottie Stevens washed up Wednesday in New Caledonia. It said Stevens' boat capsized January 15 while he and a friend were on a fishing trip. The friend died and after four days spent drifting with the overturned boat, Stevens decided to try to swim to safety, Radio vanuatu reported. There were sharks in the area, but a stingray came to Steven's rescue and carried him on its back for 13 days and nights to New Caledonia, the radio said.^[1]

Buddhist rules of conduct-including the First Precept “Do not kill”-apply to our treatment of animals as well as our treatment of human beings. This would lead us naturally to expect Buddhists to oppose all forms of animal exploitation. In the Mahavagga, the Buddha proclaims: “A bikkhu (monk) who has received ordination ought not intentionally to destroy the life of any living being down to a worm or an ant.” This concern for animal and plant welfare shaped monastic life. In the early days up to now of the Buddhist community, the monks traveled during all three seasons, winter, summer, and the rainy season. In order to protested and save all living being, particular when traveling the rainy season. The Buddha requires that all his disciples enter retreats and stop wandering during the monsoons. This public protest clearly telling that, the practice of ahimsa had by the time of the Buddha exerted broad influence, sufficient for people to follow great ethic by members of a religious order.^[2]

The Great Compassion grew out of a deep conviction that the Buddhadharma calls upon all of us who take refuge in the Triple Gem not to abandon those beings whose suffering and pulls up short where self-interest begins. The Great Compassion is also intended for animal protection advocates who wish to take part in a dialogue with members of the Buddhist community. It is, therefore, a book about why-once we have put aside the very appetites and customs that Buddhist practice is intended to help us overcome-the Buddha’s teaching leads us to the realization that we must always strive to harm no sentient being, human or nonhuman, whether or not it is in our selfish interests to do so.

Buddhist ethics are not a legalistic system that allows us to justify behavior on the basic of loopholes, technicalities, or a strict construction of the text. Buddhist ethics are based on motivation and intent. An ethical act is one that is driven by love and compassion and guided by the desire to do the least harm possible to any living being in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. An unethical act is one that is driven by craving, fear, or anger and guided by the desire to benefit ourselves by harming another living being. Thinking like a lawyer or an academic logician and claiming that it is acceptable to harm another sentient being for our own selfish benefit based on hair-splitting distinctions and nimble logic is contrary to the teaching of the Buddha.

After noting that “Ethical conduct (sila) is built on the vast conception of universal love and compassion for all beings, on which the Buddha’s teaching is based,” the Venerable Walpola Rahula, a monk, university professor and social activist who was one of the twentieth century’s leading exponents of Theravada Buddhism, observes, “It is regrettable that many schools forget this great ideal of the Buddha’s teaching and indulge in only dry philosophical and metaphysical divagations when they talk and write about Buddhism. The Buddha gave his teaching ‘for the good of the many, for the happiness of the many, out of compassion for the world.’

A trend in conptemporary Western Buddhism that is just as pernicious is the growing tendency to treat the Buddha as just self-help. According to this school of thought, the purpose of spiritual practice is to reduce stress, lower anxiety, and generally make us better adjusted and less neurotic. Advocates of Buddhism as self-help do not so much deny the importance of compassion as reduce it to a set of mental exercises that fill us with warm fuzzes while having little or no effect on the world around us. The Buddha taught that we cannot achieve our happiness until we are prepared to sacrifice it for the happiness of others.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Animal Rights and Our Human Relationship to the Biosphere. San Francisco State University. March 29-April 1, 1990.

[2]:

Christopher. K. Chapple. Nonviolence to Animals, Earth, and Self in Asian Traditions. New York. 1993, pp 22.