Wu Hung Bhiksu, Secretary
General, Life Conservationist Association
Prague, Czechlosovakia - Sept.11,
1998
I. Preamble
IAHAIO, IEMT, Dr. Dennis Turner, Professor
Paul Sills, and everyone else in attendance, I would like to thank you for this
opportunity to speak today. The preparation gave me a chance to practice my English,
and also an opportunity to reflect. I am very happy to be here and to discuss
with all of you the attitude of Buddhism towards animals and the ways and the
roles of change in society.
II. The World
I will begin by discussing the Buddhist view of the world
Introduction:
Animals,
people, and other living matter are formed with three continuously interacting
fields -The spiritual field, the living field, and the material field.
-These
three fields are not separate, they are continuously interacting.
-Triangle
analogy
-There is no absolute spiritual field, living field, and material
field.
-For example: an idea has a lot of effects on the body. It goes through
organs, through
the mouth, a sound is made, air is used, it is heard by someone,
that person has a
physiological reaction, it enters their consciousness, and
they understand. This is
a clear example of the interaction of the spiritual
and living fields. If the idea is written
down, then the material field is
also incorporated.
The interaction of the three fields is the central idea
of Buddhism.
Ontology: This is western philosophy terminology
-What is the world?
-What is the world's value?
-The spiritual field is
composed of the aggregate of sensations, perceptions, mental
formations, and
consciousness. There is also the aggregate of matter which is made of
two
parts: the physical organs and matter.
-In the living world there are faculties
and senses. Each faculty has three parts. For
example: the eyes are the physiological
parts, visible forms are the things we see, and
visual consciousness is what
is created in our minds upon seeing the visible form. The
other faculties
are the ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind.
-In the material world there is
the aggregate of matter. The nature of the earth is solidity.
The nature of
water is fluidity. The nature of fire is heat and temperature. The nature
of wind is motion.
-Motion is important- everything is always moving, including
people and
animals.
-Emptiness is the essential concept. Emptiness is
essential for change. Emptiness doesn't
mean nothing, rather that the nature
of everything is emptiness.
As large as the universe, as small as the "quantum"
-According to ontology all life is equal. All kinds of "life" are made
up of the same groups of amino acids, even matter which basically is made up of
the same protons, quantums, and so on. And perhaps it is a possibility at last,
according to the Copenhagen Explanation of Quantum Theory. Therefore everyone
and everything is equal.
Epistemology:
-Epistemology is
information.
-How do we know? How do we create the knowledge? How come people
are cruel? How come people abandon animals? How come people love animals?
-In the spiritual field, epistemology is the phenomena of aggregation and the
aggregation of feeling, thinking, and willing.
-In the living field there
are three ideas to epistemology.
-The first idea is the roots. In every body
there are 6 roots with 5 physiological
organs plus the "mind". .
-The second idea are the entrances. The roots are the entrances where information
goes in and out and has been forming forever. You may call this content our
"knowledge".
-The third idea is the growing. For example, you hear
some pleasant music
through your ears. You want to listen more and more to
this music - the
desire (spiritual field) is growing.(living field)
-In
the material world there are many obstacles.
-When a chair is put somewhere,
nothing else can be put in its place
-Emptiness is a term of existence.
-For example - a room has emptiness so we can use it.
-We are conscious and
mindful when we say chair.
-Everything is an obstacle.
-The idea that
dogs are dangerous is also an obstacle. But it can be changed.
-Because growing,
entrances, and roots are all in part made up of matter from
the material world,
they are already obstacles.
-For example, take your physiology at a particular
moment in reality.
For that second you are happy and feel good, so for that
very moment,
you cannot feel bad since you are already feeling good.
The converse is also true. At any moment you are mad, that madness is an
obstacle
to you being happy.
-This is how we create problems with animals and with
the human-animal bond.
This is how we may be able to change the roles of
animals in society, whether its
in a "good" or a "no good"
direction.
Methodology:
-How does the world change? How do we incorporate
the changes and the movement of the world's changes?
-Every moment has a different
thought.
-Every moment an interaction changes.
-The spiritual field is
ever changing and ever interacting.
-The living field is a system with chaos.
-Everything is constantly changing and everything is complex.
-The material
field is comprised of existence and disappearance.
There must always be emptiness
before existence.
People must become one with and accept this ever changing
existence and
disappearance.
Any plan, any thought, any meeting, etc.
is constantly changing.
This is reality.
One must live with this and loose
one's attachment to people, things, and ideas.
-With quantity and quality,
if quantity is increased, then quality changes. Everything
is interacting
and changing at any given moment.
-You would say change my mind, but you
would not say change my consciousness.
-You would say I have many different
thoughts (ideas, conceptions), but you would not say I have different minds.
-Once one understands the idea of ontology, one understands that everything is
equal.
-But epistemology makes things, animals, and people unequal.
-When
seeking to make changes, it is not enough merely to focus on methodology and change
the methodology, one must focus on epistemology and on changing this information.
Only then can lasting changes be made.
-Like information, language is ever
changing and growing. This is why it is always changing and is never the same.
III. Interactions
-The spiritual field is simple
- it is ontology and ideas.
For example, there is existence only because there
is non existence.
-The material field is also simple. If you hit glass hard,
it will
break. We value things from the material world.
-However, when
combined with the living field, things become more complicated.
For example,
you want to hit the glass. However, first physiology must
be taken into account.
Perhaps today you have no energy because you did
not eat lunch. The environment
is also different - it is a windy day. So even
though the idea and desire
to hit the glass and break it is there, it may not be
broken. So even with
the cause, other systems caused unexpected differences
and the effect is different
from the linear cause and effect.
-Chaos - unexpected systems
-Accidental
- unexpected necessity
-Re-incarnation is information
We protect
animals because it changes the world's epistemology
If we are cruel, there
is war.
Although there is no soul, there is re-incarnation
Everything
already exists in the material world, so there is no before birth
and no after
death.
IV. Sentient Animates
-Every life with the four elements (ordinary material foods, contact of sense organs, consciousness, and will) is continuously interacting and changing.
V. Life
-All
sentient animates will suffer. There are 8 sufferings in life.
-The spiritual
aggregates also include the living and material fields.
1. The Blaze of Aggregations
creates the problems, it is the main suffering.
-For example: you see a little
puppy (living field), you like him (spiritual field),
you pay money and buy
him (material world). However, you bring him home
and there are problems,
he's barking, he's not housetrained, etc. So he is destroyed
or abandoned.
2. Seeking and getting are always difficult and this counts as the second suffering.
3. Being apart from loving - there may be something we already have and love.
(for example -peanuts). If one eats too much, you will be sick and hate it. One
must stop.
4. Being together with detesting: There may be something or someone
you may not like, but it still may be necessary to come together.
5. Birth
6. Aging
7. Sickness
8. Death
-And this is life. Happiness is inconstant
and suffering is always mixed in.
V. Buddhism and Animals
-People
acknowledge that in life we are inclined to see the happiness. We desperately
want to keep up our happiness but it doesn't work like that. It goes and then
comes with suffering.
-Once one acknowledges the information of "suffering"
we react in the following ways.
-Harm
If one is angry, one has already
caused harm. Physical cruelty is not necessary for harm,
harm can be caused
only by our emotions.
-Cruelties
Harm also includes cruelties.
-Imprisonment
An example of this would be dogs in a cage at a dog pound. They
are kept isolated
in the cages, no one talks to them, and they are not taken
out for walks.
-As the blaze of the five aggregations increases, there is
not only imprisonment, but also inhumane slaughter, abandonment, massacre, and
extinction.
-Suffering and actions that cause suffering are affected by and
affect all three fields.
-The Buddhist philosophy towards animals
is:
No eating - farm animals
No seeing - performing animals
No using
- working animals
-People do not eat farm animals, therefore they
grow kindness which leads to a better life and to better health.
-People
should get no companionship from companion animals so that they can be free from
all attachments.
-There should be no hunting of animals and many Buddhists
buy and release wildlife as a way to release the suffering. Even if fresh water
turtles are released into salt water and die, it is still better than dying in
a cooking pot. In fact, they are giving the animals euthanasia.
-Laboratory
animals - At the Taipei Animal Health Institute, there is a memorial stone for
the sacrificed animals. This is an act of ceremony and remembrance, it's a self-concerned
act.
-Animals are treated from a technical/methodological point of view.
-Groups (through the passage of animal protection laws and humane education) are
trying to change the epistemology, they are trying to change the information.
This re-incarnation of information is part of the changing roles of animals in
Buddhist society.
-In Buddhism, animal protection isn't utilitarian, it is
not against human centerism
Rather, it is an act of trying to be selfless
or others-concerned. Animal protection
shouldn't be done for one's own sake
or gratification.
-A Buddhist's behavior towards animals should help improve
the quality of life of the whole world, not just for his or her own spiritual,
material, and living fields.
VI. Conclusions
I would
like to give you all my sincere thanks for being here today and listening to my
speech. Twenty minutes was indeed a short time to try and explain this complex
issue, and perhaps I have just confused everyone! But maybe from this confusions
will come the desire and the incentive to find out more about Buddhism and the
position of animals in Buddhism.
For further information
please contact Wu Hung:
Life Conservationist Association
3F, No. 90 Nan
King East Road, Section 5
Taipei, Taiwan
tel: 886-2-2753-4922
fax:
886-2-2763-4892
email: lcatwn@ms15.hinet.net