[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat and pets

[Laura Castell]

Hi Richard,
The issue of pets is a very interesting one.  We can't blame the animals 
for their actions, they are being their true selves when they go out and 
hunt. Even the sometimes apparent cruelty of their behaviour I believe is 
natural (something about nature I struggle to understand ). I still 
remember images of killer whales "playing" with the poor penguins before 
finally eating them, and your description of the mice being 
suffocated/drown I think is extremely common, even if pets are kept well 
fed.  You should see the fights possums get onto for a piece of fruit or 
territory!, unfortunately the territory is our roof ! I have to confess 
that I can think of 'karma' as applied to us humans but not as applied to 
animals because considering how hard it is for us, supposedly the most 
intelligent species, to act keeping karma in mind, how can animals do it?


 >>A truly compassionate attitude would be to rejoice at the merits of my
 >cat for being so good at being a cat and getting something that she
 >obviously treasures, while feeling compassion for the bird who has died
 >in the cat's clutches. My aim now is to progress to the stage where I
 >can just watch the cat catch birds that I feed and feel simultaneous joy
 >and commiseration.

are you serious? (I am really not sure! so I may be silly in my reply to 
this but I'll have a go anyway). If the cat was a wild animal and catching 
birds to survive, then I think one can feel compassion for both, the cat 
and the birds, but when we talk about cats that receive lots of love and 
attention and food, I think the only recipients of our compassion should be 
the poor birds!  I don't think the cats should be judged,  if we think 
about it, we as owners need to take the blame for our cat's behaviour (I 
know this sounds a bit extremist), so ideally we should do something about 
it. Unfortunately asking people not to have pets is like asking people to 
eat less meat or to take the bus to work instead of their own car, it is 
very difficult to do. I don't mean to say that having pets is wrong (it is 
a complex issue and I agree that in some cases the presence of pets is 
irreplaceable to their owners) but making them vegetarians is not 
necessarily the solution.
  All the best, Laura