I have two rabbits. They are rabbits who have taught me how to apply the Buddhist concept of non-attachment and to understand what an important role it plays in my life.
When the rabbits first arrived in my apartment, I had a nice big cage for them. But despite how nice I thought the cage was, it was a cage nevertheless - And as far as the rabbits were concerned, it was a prison. They could not bear to be in the cage, and I could not bear to see them this way.
So in a short amount of time, the rabbits became house rabbits – Free to roam the room. They appeared much happier, and I felt happy that they were happy. It was a sense of liberation almost that I somehow contributed to the happiness of some other beings, no matter how minor this may seem to people.
It must be mentioned here that compassion is a very powerful thing.
The next lesson the rabbits taught me was about the intricate interrelation between the concepts of suffering and desire. In Buddhism, the First Noble Truth states that life is
suffering, and according to the Second Noble Truth, the cause of this suffering is desire.
Rabbits are beautiful, cuddly creatures. At first, I was tempted to pick them up and hold their cuddly selves next to me. I noticed, however, that the rabbit was not particularly enjoying this. Further reading on the matter on various Internet sites confirmed that rabbits in fact do not like to be picked up.
Here was suffering and desire at work. My desire to pick up the rabbit and hold him because he was cuddly resulted in the rabbit’s suffering because he was unhappy to be picked up. By letting go of the desire to pick up the rabbit, he was much happier, and I was liberated from that particular desire.
And the most interesting thing of it all was, when I no longer picked up the rabbit and caused him unhappiness, he became more friendly towards me, coming up to me and hanging out with me.
For me, this is yet another example of how Buddhism has benefited me and can benefit others as well. It is not easy to let go of desire.
What helps is the understanding that the rabbits are not pets, but rather animal companions. Too often, we look at animals as if we are meant to have some sort of dominion over them. We aren’t meant to have any such dominion; Animals are free spirits just as we are.
Animals aren’t stupid, mindless creations; The fact that many of them have been here much longer than we have attests to this. Perhaps animals are not able to vocalize in such a way that we may understand, yet nevertheless there is much we can learn from them if we were to treat them with the respect and dignity that they deserve and take the time to really get to know them.
Animals can teach us how to have compassion towards all beings. Each of them has an individual personality that is unique to that particular creature. Each one has a temperament that is different from the other.
By observing these subtle differences and learning to interact with animals from a mindset of compassion and love, we increase the compassion and love within ourselves and benefit ourselves as well.
Filed under: Spirituality on December 13th, 2008 | 3 Comments »