FW: [Buddha-l] So what do Buddhist cats pray for?

[jkirk]

What a consoling idea. When I was a kid I and some of my friends used to
wonder if our pets went to heaven when they died. The ministers offered
differing answers to such questions. This I the first 
I've heard of a Buddhist heaven for animals. Interestingly, their heaven
isn't the same for the one the humans might arrive at, so one is not
reunited in heaven with one's pets or even one's family.
But wait: isn't Tavatimsa the main heaven, where his mother Queen Maya went
and where he visited her and preached the dhamma? If so then some animals
and people would be together again. 

His descent from this heaven is a favorite illustration, as here from a
Burman book:
http://www.buddhamind.info/leftside/lifesty-2/burma.htm
Looks more like an escalator than a golden ladder.............
Here is a full dsecription of the heaven:
http://www.palikanon.com/english/pali_names/t/taavatimsa.htm
Joanna
===================


There are Buddhist beautiful stories, mostly in the Jataka and Dhammapada
Commentaries, of animals dying at peace and being reborn in Tavatimsa, a
sort of heaven for animals.
Shakra is the head of the devas there.

Amongst the distinguished animal turned devas there are:

Kanthaka, Siddhattha horse
Palileyyaka the elephant that attended to the Buddha in the Palileyya forest
The monkey who offered the Buddha some mangoes in the same place The frog
that was transfixed by the Buddha's voice (Manduka Vimanavatthu)

And I'm sure most of the lovely cats I had.

The point is: treat your pets well, they do to heaven when they die, and
become devas who will (hopefully) remember you.

With metta,

Piya



On Mon, Mar 24, 2008 at 10:23 PM, "Kåre A. Lie" <alberlie at online.no> wrote:

> At 07:24 24.03.2008 -0600, you wrote:
>
> >If Buddhist cats are like the temple dogs in Thailand, they probably 
> >pray for mere food.
>
> I don't know if my cat is buddhist or not, but it meditates for hours 
> every
>



> day.
>
> Yours,
>
> Kåre A. Lie
> http://www.lienet.no
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