Mary Matthews Bray on Buddhism’s kindness to animals

    In her diary, Mary Matthews Bray wrote of Buddhism’s kindness to animals:

Out of Buddhism comes the gentleness and kindness, shown by men and women, not only to each other, but to all animals as well. Buddha's theory was, that life is a long endeavor to escape from suffering, and therefore to cause suffering is the unpardonable sin. Another reason for the extreme consideration shown to animals may be due to the fact, that Buddhism accepts the doctrine of the "Transmigration of Souls." Whoever fails to meet the demands of his religious code here, may have to pass through various stages of life - even animal life, before reaching Nirvana where re-birth ends at last. (Quoted from "Diary of Mary Matthews Bray," in A Sea Trip in Clipper Ship Days, Boston, Mass.: R G. Badger Co., 1920.)

Comments

[Hugh Curran]

Thanks for your inclusion of Mary Matthews Bray. Ethical action relating to animals, plants and even mountains, rivers and seas are of great concern to me. I post articles for my on-line students on ecological issues so your links are helpful.

By the way, are you defining the word "saunter" in the way Thoreau defined it (ie San Terre)?

[Mark Rasmussen]

Amy Tan provides a different insight about Buddhism and animal cruelty in her recent novel, "Saving Fish from Drowning."

A group of American tourists in China witness terrible cruelty to an ox whose job it is to mash mud for bricks. The ox is mired in mud and is being whipped to keep it moving -- panting, snorting, no hope of escape.

When the tourists ask how this can be reconciled with the gentle doctrines of the Buddha, the narrator first draws a sharp distinction between the Zen Buddhism known in the US and other forms practiced elsewhere.

She then explains that perhaps the ox had sinned greatly in a previous life, and that this present experience will create a gentler soul in the next life. And somehow, the mud must get mashed...

She contrasts this philosophy with one Christian concept of hell -- burning in a pit for all eternity, with no hope of redemption.

Which, she asks, is the more gentle doctrine?