on the appreciation of animals

 

 

Human beings are a type of animal, so, as we learn to appreciate human beings, we have an example of how we may learn to appreciate animals in general.

Human beings tend to think of themselves as very unlike other animals, and they tend to see no value in the differences from human beings that other animals exhibit. People can feel this way for many reasons. For example, believing that other animals are nothing like humans may seem to make certain aspects of our lives easier and more enjoyable.

It can be pleasant to bask in a sense of total superiority to other animals. It is also easier to exploit nonhuman animals for food, labor, and amusement if we don't try to understand or accommodate their needs or desires. Most human societies today treat other animals with contempt, so it is much easier to go along with one's society than to believe and act differently. At their worst, human beings can be deliberately or ignorantly cruel to nonhuman animals. Humans have eliminated entire species from existence!

This ignorance and callousness is an important thing to combat in ourselves by knowledge and the recognition of value. Many of the things we value most in ourselves have their counterparts, to some degree, in other animals. We can learn this from observation, from study, and from reasonable inferences. Some animals are more like us than others in certain ways. For example, a cow seems much more similar to us in body and behavior than an earthworm does. This is primarily because some animals are closer evolutionary kin to us than others. Apes species are the closest kin to us. We also share close ancestors with others of our class of mammals, which includes cows, pigs, deer, cats, and dogs. Birds such as chickens and turkeys are more distantly related to us, and even more distant are the invertebrates such as earthworms. Yet we share a common ancestor with every living thing on earth, even down to the simplest bacteria and viruses.^*

Evolution accounts for our similarities to other animals as well as our differences. Although we human beings have many traits which we value in ourselves, not all traits which we can admire are found only in ourselves. Other animals have come to acquire characteristics which benefit life and happiness: birds can soar, cheetahs can run swiftly, and bears have great strength. Ants can pass into small places, spiders can draw building materials from their own bodies, and worms can live underground. Wherever we look, we see examples among the animals of excellent abilities and characteristics.

In all of nature we can find living things that inspire us precisely because they are different than us - in them we can see creativity at work, we can see possibilities, traits we might wish to emulate, or even points of contrast that help us to better understand ourselves. Nature is the reality which answers back to our existences, keeping us from being alone, keeping us from becoming totally self-absorbed or developing tunnel vision. In animals we can find the companionship of other sentient beings. In their lives and existences we can find things which please us and things which strike us as beautiful. Humans can enjoy inhaling the scent of flowers, listening to the buzz of bees, or observing the masterful flight of birds. In all natural entities there are so many aspects which can resonate with our being.

We human beings are so able to enjoy the world around us that we are often able to enjoy it in more than one way. For example, we can enjoy observing deer grazing unmolested in the wild, but we can also enjoy eating venison. Different sorts of enjoyment may conflict with one another. For example, a pleasant forest may be enjoyable, but a cleared forest can provide a field to produce food. The fascinating behavior of birds and woodland animals might entertain us and provide us with rewarding opportunities for observation and study, but we can also eat them as delicious and nourishing meats.

Since this is the case, we must act so as to maximize our happiness by maximizing the possible enjoyment of the living world. Human beings need to eat to live, for the happiness of maintenance. However, human beings in their present form are capable of surviving on plant food alone, and prospering if an artificial or unicellular animal vitamin supplement (B12) is added to the diet. Vegetarian foods are capable of providing a nearly unlimited range of tastes and textures to meet our desire for enjoying food. Entire civilizations, such as that of the Indian subcontinent, have practiced vegetarianism. Therefore, vegetarianism is a realistic option, and one that allows us to aspire to greater happiness. If, however, there is no alternative plant food or supplement, human beings must do what they minimally require, for example, by choosing the least sentient animal to eat, or killing the food animal as quickly and painlessly as possible. 

When we allow other animals to flourish and prosper, this increases our potential for enjoying them as they are. We are able to enjoy the fine details of animals, down to their individual persons. We thus benefit from them down to this specificity, and this entails having concern for their welfare down to this specificity also, just as we appreciate individual humans. If a nonhuman animal is injured and presents itself to us, we will endeavor to help it. If we ignored suffering or pretended to ourselves that no suffering was taking place, we would be able to lead simpler lives, but by our impure ignorance and self-deception we would fail to enjoy the world fully. In this way, the injury to animals would redound to injury to ourselves. To the extent that we cultivate awareness of living things and appreciate them, our happiness is bound up with their happiness, to the extent that they experience happiness.

Although it is possible for all of us in our practice to cultivate this awareness and consideration for animals, it is not possible at this time for human beings to be aware of every single living thing or ensure the perfect welfare of every living thing. We do not yet have the capacity for this expansive awareness or the ability to intervene effectively to prevent suffering and cultivate such happiness, any more than we have the ability to be perfectly aware of ourselves or to be perfectly effective in furthering our own happiness. When we have transcended the human condition, we will look to having this power. As gods, we will be able to appreciate and care for all living things on earth as thoroughly as we do ourselves. We will endeavor to help those which seek happiness to attain it; those which seek to be uplifted to human level sentience to be so uplifted; and those which seek ascension to godhood, to join us then also in that endeavor.

At this present time, human beings often struggle to achieve their most basic needs. We need to eat living things to survive. To acquire other basic conditions of existence, the help of animals is sometimes required. Some living things, especially some smaller life-forms, are capable of harming human beings. We must balance what we know of the happiness of other animals with what we may require, how important it is to us, and what impact this has on other animals. There is a balance here that is possible, a harmony between human beings and other living things. Humans need to defend themselves, to live and prosper. There are compromises which must be made to provide all sentient beings with the greatest possible happiness. But by maximizing the happiness of other sentient animals, we at the same time maximize potential human happiness in enjoying the lives of animals which live and prosper.

We can maintain the full, healthiest inventory of the living things of our world by preserving extensive and vibrantly healthy, wild areas of earth. The encroachment of human beings cannot be total across the earth; extensive areas of every type of ecosystem must be preserved in their natural state so that all species possible can be preserved in their manners of life. We are then able to appreciate the existence of these ecosystems, and explore them. 

We can also keep closer contact to the potential enjoyment of living things by building parks and surrounding our daily living environments with living things. We can even keep sentient animals close to us and in society with us, to the extent that this furthers their lives and happiness, and is not cruel to them. Humans throughout history have shared society with other sentient animals, and this is the source of a great and subtle happiness. Care for pets includes granting them adequate, conformable conditions to their type and avoiding the reproduction of unwanted animals.

Throughout history, human beings have used animals for various tasks, for example, to assist in hunting, to carry burdens, to transport humans, or to provide renewable resources such as milk or wool. We must balance various considerations, such as the necessity or urgency of the task involved, the effect on the happiness of sentient animals, and alternatives to using the animals.

If we fully appreciate the individual beauty of animals, we cannot fail to be revolted by casual exploitations of animals for food or clothing or experimentation. We should avoid wearing leather from slaughtered animals for belts or shoes or for any other uses unless the vital urgency and lack of any alternatives requires it. We should experiment on sentient beings only if the benefit to human life demands it, if no alternative exists, and if the welfare of such animals is safeguarded to the greatest extent possible. We should not encourage the exploitation of sentient beings for fighting games, cruel racing, or spectacles.

Through advanced civilization, human beings may live, prosper, and enjoy life very easily without doing harm to any other sentient beings. Successful agriculture provides sufficient variety and quantity of plant food that animal food is not required or even desired. Nonsentient machines can be used to transport human beings and carry burdens. Organic plant and artificial chemical compounds provide textiles for clothing. Urgent medical experiments employ computed models, nonsentient lifeforms, or anesthetized sentient animals. Pastimes such as board games, computer games, sports, and hiking replace casual, brutal amusements using livestock or wild animals. The fullest benefits of civilization are achieved if these new options and alternatives actually replace those which require harm to the happiness of sentient animals. This is because human beings are then able to enjoy happy, living sentient animals, in all their specific individual forms, and to preserve, as a bulwark of diversity, the wild animals in their ecosystems safe from human encroachment.

It is this fulfilled civilization which must be our aim to practice in our own lives and which we must work toward in our larger society. Beyond it, we seek the time when, as gods, we will know every living thing in every detail, appreciating and caring for every aspect of them that can bring us joy, and creating a new harmony in which the welfare of the earth will be upheld by us in its fullness.