Humans oftentimes violate the "law of the jungle," the territorial claims of carnivores and cornered or injured beasts who survive on instinct. For all the good and peaceful interactions we have most of the time, there are a few that show that some element of danger is ever present.
In the Rebirth Stories (Jataka Tales) of the Buddha, animals can talk. They communicate with one another, of course, but they are also able to cross the veil between their domain and ours. Cross species communication is real. Just ask an animal communicator:
(Frameline) SECOND NATURE: From homosexual penguins to sex-transitioning fish, contemporary scientists have been zealously studying animal behavior and anatomy and exposing the myth of the gender binary. Turns out the natural world is way more diverse and complex than Darwin led us to believe! Director Drew Denny takes the nature documentary to a whole new level in this eye-opening and entertaining expedition. Executive produced by Elliot Page. Special Sneak Preview Screening at Frameline: Frameline48 (frameline.org)
Second Nature: Elliot (formerly Ellen) Page on new film exploring animal world beyond the binary
Biology? I'm fully who I am. (Time)
(Democracy Now!)
June 24, 2026: A new documentary explores a growing body of scientific research documenting the wide range of gender and sexual diversity found in the animal kingdom, from pregnant male seahorses to matriarchal monkey troops.
Second Nature, directed by queer filmmaker Drew Denny, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Elliot Page, who says he joined the project because "I was so moved by it and found it so affirming as a trans and queer person."
Learning about animal life beyond binary concepts of sex and gender was life-changing, Denny shares about her inspiration for the film. "I finally felt in my body, for the first time, that I belong here on Earth, just like anybody else."
ABOUT: Democracy Now! is an independent global news hour that airs on over 1,500 TV and radio stations Monday through Friday. Watch livestream at democracynow.org Mondays to Fridays 8:00-9:00 am ET.
(Firstpost) Japan: Viral abandoned baby monkey with plush toy finds new family | Firstpost America | N18G
Mom, are we human? - No, Son, they won't let us in their club yet. - Why?
Panchi-kun (born July 26, 2025), known simply as "Punch [the Monkey]," is a baby Japanese macaque at Japan's animal internment camp, aka Ichikawa City Zoo [1, 2]. Punchy gained viral attention on social media for his attachment to a large orangutan stuffed plush toy doll [3]. According to zoo prison officials, Panchi-kun's internet popularity led to a surge in visitors to the zoo starting in February 2026 [4]. More
At the dawn of human (pre-)history, what did our ancestors do to stay warm in the Ice Age?
What deeds (karma in Buddhism) lead to rebirth in the animal womb (tiracchana yoni). The simple answer is breaking any of the Five Precepts. Upholding these moral precepts is the basic minimum to ever be reborn on the human plane.
Animals in the Buddhist worldview are believed to inhabit a distinct "world" (loka) that is separat from humans. But the dividing line is not in space. Rather, it is in terms of state of mind. This "Animal Womb" (Sanskrit Tiryag-yoni, PÄli TiracchÄna-yoni) World is part of the downfall (apaya).
Rebirth as an animal is considered very unfortunate -- even though some animals are very beautiful, long lived, and treated well due to previous karma. In general, rebirth as an animal involves much more suffering than is found in the human world (manusya-loka).
The real "human world" we don't see
Humans live long lives in peace and prosperity...not here, but in other human worlds.
We think we understand the "human plane" because we are living on it. We do not. We do not understand even a fraction of human life on this plane, which we are told is a "plane(t)" and no one is allowed to question that and be taken seriously.
There are countless "human" worlds existing in "world systems" in all directions in space. But just here, wherever "here" is, the Buddha spoke of four "lights" or "islands" (dipas, usually translated as "continents," but they are more likely other divisions, places, dimensions because the strange beings that inhabit them are very different from the ordinary "humans" we take for granted all around us). What is behind the Ice Wall, the next human subdivision or "continent"?
FOUR "HUMAN" WORLDS right here, main divisions: (1)Jambu-dÄ«pa, located in the south (of the axis mundi Mt. Sumeru (a "mountain" too big to be an actual peak here like holy Mt. Kailash, K2, Everest, or the even taller Mauna Kea when measured from base to peak as one would normally measure anything), named after the Jambu tree, with human beings who are five to six feet tall and length of life currently at 120 years (though varying between 10 years at its lowest ebb and 80,000 at its height); (2) Pubbavideha located in the east, named after the acacia tree, similar to Yggdrasil the "world tree" in Norse mythology, with humanoid people about 12 feet (3.7 meters) in height, living for an average of 700 years; (3) AparagoyÄna located in the west, named after a giant Kadamba tree (Anthocephalus chinensis), with humanoid inhabitants living not in houses but sleeping on the ground, standing about 24 feet (7.3 m) tall and living for 500 years (though usually 500 just means "a long time"); (4)Uttarakuru, located in the north, with a giant tree called a Kapparukkha, an "aeon-tree," because it lasts for the entire kappa (Pali) or kalpa(Sanskrit) with humanoid inhabitants living in cities built in the air/sky/space (akasha), extraordinarily wealthy, not needing to work for a living – with food that grows by itself – having no private property, standing about 48 feet (15 m) tall and living for 1,000 years under the protection of VaiÅravaį¹a.
(Does any of this sound like "our 'planet' or 'human world,'" the one we know as we travel around? Or maybe The Jetsons were onto something.) More unbelievable details: The Earthly Realms in Buddhist cosmology
There are almost certainly more of these, as spoken of in Vedic, Hindu, and Jain texts, with a series of planes inside, below ground: Agartha (Hollow Earth).
The Animal World
Help, I'm drowning, I'm drowning in samsara!
The Buddhist commentaries (tika) depict the many types of suffering associated with the animal world. Even when human beings are not present to torture, imprison, slaughter, and devour them, they are attacked by other animals and ripped to shreds -- or live in fear of it. They endure extreme changes of environment throughout the year and have no secure habitation.
Animals that live among humans are often groomed, molested, experimented on, then slaughtered for their bodies, or captured and forced to work with beatings until they are slaughtered at the premature end of their miserable lives.
This is nice. Diane and I are rich and live well!
Moreover, animals as a rule suffer from ignorance even more than humans, not knowing or understanding with any clarity what is happening to them or why. And they are unable to do much about it, acting primarily on instinct, if they can manage to figure anything out. Some animals understand what is going on, remembering past lives and wondering why humans cannot hear them or respond to their feelings and cries and complaints. (See an animal communicator if this seems impossible to believe). More
Metal and men clash once more to the end/ Warriors above, with the power to kill, descend/ Militia of blood, troops of hate march to die/ Soldiers of Hell, veterans of death arise
[CHORUS:] Prepare for attack/ Your body will burn/ Endless war/ There's no return/ Prepare for attack/ Death will arrive/ Your orders are clear/ No way to hide/ Fight till death
Senseless death of all mankind overtakes/ Armored assassins destroy, at will, your escape/ Children of sorrow are trampled into the grave/ There is no future, no fucking world to be saved [CHORUS]
To reign in Hell [guitar solo: Jeff Hanneman]/ Gods of steel unleash their destruction on man/ Reign of death, what is the final command?/ Scepters of hate are dropped upon this Earth/ Clouds of terror destroy all hope of rebirth [CHORUS]
Prepare for attack/ Your body will burn/ Endless war/ There's no return/ Prepare for attack/ Death will arrive/ Your orders are clear/ No way to hide/ Fight till death/ Fight till death/ Fight till death/ Fight till death.
Fledge? Fledging is the stage in a flying animal's life between birth (hatching) and becoming capable of flight. This term is most frequently applied to birds...
Big Bear Bald Eagle Live Nest - Cam 1
(FOBBV CAM) Started streaming on Sept. 15, 2021: BIG BEAR LAKE, Southern California. This live feed is owned and operated by Friends of Big Bear Valley (FOBBV), a 501c3 nonprofit. Any public use of the live video or screen captures requires prior approval and credit to the organization. No re-streaming (creating a live copy on other websites or social media) of content. Questions/permissions: friendsofbigbearvalley.org. Thanks.
Morning zoo's Ally Johnson and Kevin Klein feed each other for attention (kroq.com)
.
We're just a national symbol, relax
Jackie and Shadow are the second and third most famous eagles in the country, only behind the nation's Nazi-like insignia. See Uncle Baldy on the top of flagstaffs and elsewhere. But for the parents of cute chicks, see the Friends of Big Bear Valley cam above the lake: Big Bear Bald Eagle Nest 2025 | Friends of Big Bear Valley. We have other charismatic megafauna, like bears for example. bigbeargrizzly.net | Big Bear Grizzly. Those interested may also like to see a long train ride in Norway (live), where it is currently snowing.
Xochitl, Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly
New heart-stopping footage of massive great white shark attack
(CNN) Jeff Kurr, the producer and director of Discovery's "Shark Week," discusses footage his team captured of a great white shark destroying a diver's enclosure. (Discovery and CNN share a corporate parent, Warner Bros. Discovery.)
Florida's waters hide a beast: Record-breaking great white shark discovered offshore
Scientists have found the largest great white shark ever recorded swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.
[Do they grow bigger in the Pacific Ocean near California, the Mariana Trench, or Hawaii? Years ago, I saw one I'd estimate was one ton and 15 feet from a trawler in Santa Monica Bay as swimmers and surfers frolicked on LA and OC County beaches without a care in the world. This fish was so big, had I fallen from the rail, it could have swallowed me without chewing like a biblical whale. It was so big and alarming as it surfaced, chasing a halibut, I carefully climbed off the rail as my hair stood on end. This predator was no joke and bigger than Jaws.]
The largest white shark in the Northwest Atlantic, named "Contender," was found off the coast of Georgia on Jan. 17th, 2025. Ocearch, a nonprofit conducting research on sharks, reported that ocean researchers have been tracking Contender's movements around the Atlantic.
As of Sunday, Contender was swimming off the coast of Florida, near the tourist beaches of Orlando, near Disneyland (Walt Disney World), where kids love to go and cool off.
The shark is measured at 13.8 feet long, weighing an estimated 1,653 pounds. He has swum nearly 200 miles since he was first tagged.
By tracking Contender the researchers will be able to learn more about his migration patterns. The tag will record real time data for the next five years on Contender's movements. More
Are orcas (killer whales/dolphins) apex predators? - How big could a giant squid even be?
Choanoflagellate colony stained to highlight DNA and other features (Nicole King lab)
Mono Lake’s extreme environment, characterized by high salinity and toxic substances such as arsenic and cyanide, may have driven the evolution of this distinctive species.
.
California discovery may explain evolutionary arising of animals
Microscopic choanoflagellate B. monosierra
(The Brighter Side of News) Mono Lake, nestled in Northern California’s Eastern Sierra Nevada, is a haven for unique life forms [as it fills with water washing down from Yosemite National Park's alpine lakes, most of which evaporates faster than it can be replenished].
Its iconic tufa formations and thriving populations of brine shrimp (aka fly larvae) and alkali flies showcase an ecosystem adapted to the lake's hypersaline, alkaline waters.
Now, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley have identified a microscopic organism in this extreme environment that could illuminate the early evolution of life.
The discovery is a single-celled organism called a choanoflagellate, a group that holds special significance in the study of evolution. Although not animals themselves, choanoflagellates are the closest known living relatives of animals.
Their biology offers vital clues about the transition from single-celled to multicellularlife. What sets this particular species apart is its microbiome.
Unlike other choanoflagellates, which typically consume bacteria, this species forms a stable, physical association with its bacterial partners.
This makes it the simplest known organism to host a microbiome, providing researchers with an unprecedented opportunity to study how early interactions between single-celled organisms and bacteria influenced the evolution of complex life, including animals.
This could explain life.
“Very little is known about choanoflagellates, and there are interesting biological phenomena that we can only gain insight into if we understand their ecology,” says Nicole King, a professor of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley and an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. More
Ancient tribal protectors of Mono Lake: Kucadikadi ("shrimp eaters" or "fly people"), Northern Paiute of California
Which came first, the chicken or the egg? It's very simple in reality. Only in theory it's impossible to answer because it's a philosophical paradox or causalitydilemma. The conundrum is a kind of logical fallacy of getting caught up in categories, terminology, and semantics, losing sight of the fact that we as onlookers are the ones creating the arbitrary labels, determining the limits of categories, and making the subjective judgments to include somethings and exclude others.
The dilemma stems from the observation that all chickens hatch from eggs and all chicken eggs are laid by chickens, a situation where it is not clear which of two events should be considered the cause and which should be considered the effect, to express a scenario of infinite regress, or to express the difficulty of sequencing actions where each seems to depend on others being done first.
Wittgenstein would be dismayed. The answer, of course, is the proto-chicken, a creature which is a "chicken" because it lays chicken eggs but is not a chicken because it itself was not born of such an egg. Yet, if it looks like a chicken and clucks like a chicken, it is chicken enough because it does the most important thing, which is to give birth to chickens rather than it itself being born the way "chickens" are thereafter. (The exact same evolutionary question might be asked of Homo sapiens or modern humans. Which came first, the human or the womb? If all humans are born of wombs and all human wombs are produced [only] by humans, we're in the same dilemma. (Neither is completely true, but we begin with this assumption to our detriment).
The excellent thing about this discovery by UC Berkeley, my own alma mater, is that it gets at the reality and avoids the logical trap, causality dilemma, or infinite regress logicians would be caught in. There is a transitional creature that is neither yet fully animal nor solely pre-animal because it has a stable microbiome it has partnered with. Similarly, humans born of a womb and giving birth via a womb must have been preceded by a humanoid creature who did not do both.
Where did animals like us come from? That is the question at hand. If this is how "animals" behave and get defined (born of womb and birthing others via a womb), we will trap ourselves in assumptions and the rules of logic. Once we broaden the category to include the proto-animal, or in this case the choanoflagellate with a microbiome, we can begin to see how things might have gone through an intermediary phase not allowed for, assumed, or understood by our strict logic. So hooray for the transitional creature that yet remains alive to be studied that we might understand these animal bodies we identify with as and cling to as "self."
All materials on this site are submitted by editors and readers. All images, unless otherwise noted, were taken from the Internet and are assumed to be in the public domain.
In the event that there is still a problem, issue, or error with copyrighted material, the break of the copyright is unintentional and noncommercial, and the material will be removed immediately upon presented proof.
Contact us by submitting a comment marked "private."
Do not follow this journal if you are under vinaya or parental restrictions. Secure protection by Sucuri.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at creativecommons.org/about/licenses.
_Mother_Grooms_Her_Young%20wiki.jpg)
