Showing posts with label animal sanctuary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animal sanctuary. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 21, 2025

To save Los Angeles' elephants (sutra)

Elephants are especially social and wise animals

L.A. Zoo elephants' whereabouts a mystery amid relocation battle
(ABC7) May 21, 2025: Where are LA's elephants Billy and Tina? The Los Angeles Zoo's two remaining manacled/shackled Asian elephants appear to have been transferred in the dark while demonstrators let their guard down. abc7.com/post/activists...
  • UPDATE: The elephants have been secreted away overnight (May 21, 2025) and shipped via truck to the Tulsa Zoo rather than the animal sanctuary anti-animal-cruelty demonstrators were demanding.
  • Animals in Buddhism
  • To herald the coming birth of the Future Buddha, pregnant Queen Maya dreamed that she conceived of Prince Siddhartha when a white double tusker royal elephant entered her side: Queen Maya's Dream
  • In Buddhism, elephants get names like Parileyya and Girimekhala, usually after the woods in which they reside.
'Not another zoo': Critics want LA Zoo elephants moved to sanctuary
(TODAY) May 13, 2025: Elephants Billy and Tina, the last two Asian elephants at the Los Angeles Zoo, were set to be relocated to another animal prison at the Tulsa Zoo, but there is pushback from animal-loving demonstrators and critics online alleging, “They will suffer in an inhumane environment.” NBC’s Morgan Chesky reports for TODAY. #elephant #animals #zoo
Conscious elephants in Buddhism: The Full Moon Honey Offering Festival

Animal karma (deeds) also bear karmic results
The Honey-Offering Festival is a Buddhist religious ceremony that commemorates the service and sustenance provided by animals to the Buddha.

It was during the Buddha's tenth Rains Retreat (Vas or Vassa) in Parileyya Forest.

According to legend, during his retreat to solitude, a wild monkey brought an offering of a honeycomb to give to the Buddha to eat, as an elephant named Parileyya brought fruit and protected the Buddha from fierce animals in the forest.

The 31 Planes of Existence
When the Buddha accepted the gift of the honeycomb, the monkey became so overjoyed that he began to leap from tree to tree, and in his exuberance fell to his death due to his reckless jubilation. However, because of his generous gift, that monkey was immediately reborn on a celestial plane called the World of the Thirty-Three (Tavatimsa), the second of the six heavens in the Sensual Sphere (below many other heavens of the Fine Material Sphere and Immaterial Sphere).

Since these events are believed to have taken place on the day of the full moon, the occasion has come to be commemorated as Madhu Purnima, or “Honey Full Moon.” The festival is observed on the full moon of the tenth lunar month in Theravada Buddhist countries in South and Southeast Asia. More

Conscious elephant karma
The “Four Harmonious Friends,” Bhutan
The Commentaries (e.g., DhA.i.48ff.; iv.26 ff. UdA.250f.; see Thomas, op. cit., 117 n) say that the elephant's name was Pārileyya (also Pārileyyaka) and describe in vivid detail the manner in which the elephant looked after the Buddha, omitting nothing, even to the extent of finding hot water for his bath.

Later, when the Buddha's attendant Ananda came with many others to invite the Buddha to return to Sāvatthi, the elephant Pārileyyaka provided all of them with alms food. The Buddha agreed and returned.

But such was the attachment the elephant had formed toward the Buddha that he died of a broken heart when the Buddha left the forest.

However, as a result of all his good deeds (wholesome karma) toward these enlightened beings, he was immediately reborn as a deva (angel, offspring of the gods) in Tāvatimsa in a golden palace (vimana, mansion) said to be 30 leagues high, where he is now known as Pārileyyaka devaputta.

This elephant is also identified with the elephant in the Bhisa Jātaka (J.iv.314). Source
  • Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Ananda (Dharma Buddhist Meditation) (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Monday, August 12, 2024

Cow dances, rescued from meat industry


Are horses people, Mom? This one is. He's Mr. H.
Killing on an industrial scale -- it's a horrifying thought. Are humans the only ones who think or know things like that they're going to be killed? No. Some animals can sometimes think just like humans. Strange the way our karma (deeds) have of bringing about karmic results.

Some companion-humans know that pets know. Some mothers know infants understand more than they should. Some people have remembered being reborn as animals and recounted what they thought as they heard humans talk. They could think.

I'm a girl cow, like all cows. Call me Georgette

The heart knows without thought
But how could they understand what was being said? There is an alternative to words in telepathy as well as in the more mundane 
aha moment known in German as a Gestalt or suddenly seeing the whole picture.

If humanoids were smiling and looking at us like we were about to become dinner, we would not need to learn their grammar and phonics to smile and get the heck out of there. Creepy vibes could be enough to get the picture.

Who could think killing innocent cows trying to go about their own business could be okay? "They're stupid, they don't know nothing, they don't have feelings," we tell ourselves, and people kill. This is heavy karma rooted in ignorance, greed, and fear/aversion. How much better to understand and not kill?

Why we need to kill all animals: they're too cute

Cow literally dances with joy after being rescued from meat industry

I do not put cows on cattle trains. Now, humans...
(Organically Human, Aug. 11, 2024) Ever wonder what a happy cow looks like? Here's one, human-folk! Check out this cow who is literally getting her dance on after being sprung from the meat industry.
  • (Did you know ALL cows are female? That's why they have teat milk and calves around them. The males are called "bulls" that are mostly slaughtered or discarded by the flesh industry as useless to their capitalist practices. The author here keeps referring to this cow as "he" when it's a "she" and by grammatical custom in English would be referred to as an "it," presumably because it makes it easier to kill if we are not reminded that it is a fully sentient living being).
I was in a lab, Bich, being experimented on.
Who knew a cow could get down and bust a move? After being tethered to a narrow stable for most of her life, "Bandit" performs its freedom-dance showing his her gratitude to his her rescuers from Gut Aiderbichl Sanctuary (gut-aiderbichl.com) home to 500 rescued cows, bulls, calves, as well as ex-lab chimpanzees.

Mama, may I eat it instead of hamburger?
Measuring emotions in animals is very important because it helps us better understand them, their needs and wants. As Bandit shows, a major need (and want) is to run free, breathe, eat, love, have babies, be with friends, not have its head chopped off, and maybe even dance every now and then.

She was one of millions facing a life sentence on a factory farm – but this video proves that being capable of moo-ves like this, one never becomes accustomed to a lifetime of being corralled, chained, and imprisoned.

So if anyone has ever wondered what happy cow look like (really happy cows), Bandit is your gal. Go, Bandit, go!