The Heart of Great Compassion

If you make sentient beings happy, you make all Buddhas happy. Why? Because the heart of great compassion is the substance of the Buddhas. Therefore they develop great compassion on account of sentient beings, develop the will for enlightenment based on great compassion, and attain true awakening on the basis of the will for enlightenment. It is like a giant tree in a desert; if the roots find water, then the branches, leaves, flowers, and fruits all flourish. The giant tree of enlightenment in the desert of birth and death is also like this. All living beings are the root of the tree; the Buddha and bodhisattvas are the flowers. Benefit living beings with the water of great compassion and you can obtain the flowers and fruits of knowledge and wisdom of Buddhas and bodhisattvas.

~The Avatamsaka Sutra

Do Something

Buddhism and Animals Documentary

Some Humane Ideas Regarding Unwanted Mice in Your Home

Keep your home clean. Wipe off your countertop. Don't leave crumbs and other food bits out for the mice. The main reason they're in your home is for the food.

Put breakfast cereal, pastas, dog and cat foods in plastic air-tight containers.

Find the entry points and stuff them with steal wool. Mice can’t chew steel wool.

Pour a few drops of peppermint oil on cotton balls and place these in areas where you think mice may frequent. Mice have very sensitive noses and the peppermint oil in a bit overwhelming for them.

What Is Compassion?

Ungan asked, "What does Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, do with her bazillions of hands and eyes?"

Dogo answered, "She's like someone reaching for a pillow in the middle of the night."

Ungan replied, "Right on. I get it."

Dogo asked, "How do you get it?"

Ungan answered, "The entire body is hands and eyes."

Dogo said, "Not bad. I'd give you a B-plus."

Ungan said, "That's my take on it. What's yours bro?"

Dogo said, "No matter where you go it's all hands and eyes."

Lots of people have tried expressing what compassion really is, but nobody has ever equaled Ungan and Dogo. If you really want to know about compassion you should study their words.

Along with Kannon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion has a lot of other names, too. Sometimes she's called "the One Who Hears the Sounds of the World" and sometimes she's called "the One Who Perceives Everything."Don't think of Kannon as one of the lesser Buddhist deities. She is the mother and the father of all the Buddhas. She's a pretty big deal.

~An edited plagiarizing of Brad Warner's work It Came From Beyond Zen

Note: In Sanskrit Kannon is known as Avalokiteshvara; In Chinese he/she is know as Quan Shi Yin. 

THINGS MORE EFFECTIVE THAN THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

Actually lending a hand

Volunteering to help anyone do anything

Donating to a charity

Running for office

Picking up litter

Not littering
Almost anything, really

The Five Ethical Precepts

1 To Respect and Protect Life

2 To Respect and Protect the Property of Others

3 To Respect and Protect Sexual Boundaries

4 To Respect and Protect the Truth

5 To Respect and Protect One's Body and Mind

Compassion

Buddhist compassion is universal. It sees all creatures, the small and the large, from insects to elephants and whales, as ultimately equal. Each living thing has the same rights for happiness as each human does.

Abstaining From Taking Life

"Abstaining from taking life" has wider application than simply refraining from killing other human beings. The precept enjoins abstaining from killing any sentient being. A "sentient being" (pani, satta) is a living being endowed with mind or consciousness; for practical purposes, this means human beings, animals, and insects. Plants are not considered sentient beings; though they exhibit some degree of sensitivity, they lack full-fledged consciousness, the defining attribute of a sentient being.

The "taking of life" that is to be avoided is intentional killing, the deliberate destruction of life of a being endowed with consciousness. The principle is grounded in the consideration that all beings love life and fear death, that all seek happiness and are averse to pain.

~Bhikkhu, in The Noble Eightfold Path

Compassion

It is not enough to be compassionate—we must act.

~His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Harmlessness

He is not noble who injures living beings. He is called noble because he is harmless towards all living beings.

~The Dhammapada 270

Shojin Cooking

Shojin cooking is vegetarian, which, in Japan, includes certain sea plants. The word shojin is composed of the characters for "spirit" and "to progress" and originally had the meaning of zeal or assiduity in progressing along the path to salvation. In concrete terms, shojin cooking is a discipline meant to improve one's training in and practice of the Buddhist faith. through the consumption of only the simplest foods.

~Soei Yoneda,

before her death

in 1984

Abbess of Sanko-in Temple

Blessed Are The Merciful

See that no animal of any kind, whether

entrusted to thy care, or coming across

they path, suffer they neglect or abuse.

Let no hope of profit,

no compliance with custom,

and no fear of the ridicule of the world,

ever tempt thee to the least act of cruelty

or injustice to any creature whatsoever.

Blessed are the merciful,

for they shall obtain mercy.

~Reverend Humphrey Primatt, d. 1790

Calm

What To Do?

Within the Practice of Buddhism, the question is not "What is the right or wrong thing to do?"

The question is "What is the wisest and most compassionate thing to do?"

The Buddha and the Sick Monk

Now a certain monk was once sick with dysentery, and he lay fouled in his own urine and excrement. As the Blessed One was going the round of the lodgings with the venerable Ananda as his attendant monk, he came to that monk's dwelling. When he saw him lying where he was, he went up to him and said, "What is your sickness, monk?"

"It is dysentery, Blessed One."

"But, monk, have you no attendant?"

"No, Blessed One."

"Why do the monks not look after you, monk?"

"I am of no use to the monks, Lord; that is why they do not look after me."

Then the Blessed One said to the venerable Ananda, "Ananda, go and fetch some water. Let us wash this monk."

"Even so, Lord," the venerable Ananda replied, and he brought some water.

The Blessed One poured out the water and the venerable Ananda washed the monk. Then the Blessed One took him by the head and the venerable Ananda took him by the feet, and they raised him up and put him on a bed.

With this as the occasion and this as the reason, the Blessed One summoned the monks and asked them, "Monks, is there a monk sick in a certain dwelling?"

"There is, Blessed One."

"What is that monk's illness?"

"He has dysentery, Lord."

Has he anyone to look after him?"

"No, Blessed One."

"Why do the monks not look after him?"

"Lord. that monk is of no use to the monks; that is why they do not look after him."

"Monks, you have neither mother nor father to look after you. If you do not look after each other, who will look after you? Let him who would look after me look after one who is sick. If he has a preceptor, his preceptor should as long as he lives look after him until his recovery. His teacher, if he has one, should do likewise. Or his co-resident, or his pupil, or one who has the same preceptor, or one who has the same teacher. If he has none of these, the Sangha should look after him. Not to do so is an offence of wrongdoing.

"When a sick man has five qualities, he is hard to look after: he does what is unsuitable; he does not know the measure of what is suitable; he does not take medicine; he does not disclose his illness to his sick-nurse who seeks his welfare, or tell him that he is better when it is so, or worse when it is so, or the same when it is so; he is of a type unable to endure arisen bodily feelings that are painful, harsh, racking, piercing, disagreeable, unwelcome and menacing to life. When a sick man has the five opposite qualities, he is easy to look after.

~The Buddha, in The Mahavagga

Vegetarianism or Food Fad

Some vegetarians have a near obsession with meat and its consumption and little or no interest or concern about any other kind of cruelty towards animals (the circus, animals used in labor or entertainment, exotic pets) or they exhibit a carelessness towards the environment in which animals and humans need to live.

For many vegetarians, simply abstaining from meat is enough. From a thoughtful Buddhist perspective, this may not be enough.

You can be a scrupulous vegetarian and at the same time be unkind and uncaring towards other Beings.

Vegetarianism is good, but if it does not go hand-in-hand with a compassionate regard for all human and animal life it's just another food fad.

If a person decides to be a vegetarian, may they be aware and be an intelligent and compassionate one.