Introduction(6)

She did not have very much compassion for anything but them. That’s very crazy! But nowadays many human beings are somewhat like this, and so it is not considered crazy anymore. So that is a very interesting story.

Animals’ consciousnesses are not good and not bad. But human beings have many strong ideas and desires, so having some animal consciousness inside is not so good, because they cannot control it. when an animal is hungry, it eats. When it is tired, it sleeps. That is very simple! But human beings eat, and are still not satisfied. Even though their stomach is full, they still go outside and do many bad actions to this world: they kill animals for fun or decoration. Somebody catches fish for sport. Then everybody is clapping: “Ah, wonderful!” they laugh and smile and shake hands. The humans are very happy, patting each other on the back and taking pictures. It is considered to be a very successful day. But look at this fish. He is not happy, you know? The fish is flapping around-he’s suffering! “Where is water? Where is water? Please, I want water!” They are laughing, and the fish is suffering and dying, right in front of them. Most humans cannot connect with the great suffering which is right in their midst. This kind of mind is quite usual nowadays. And that is not wonderful. The mind which lives like this has no compassion for the suffering of this world.

Human beings also kill animals not just for food. They take the animals’ skin to make shoes and hats and clothes. And even that is not enough. They take these animals’ bones to make necklaces or buttons or earrings. In short, they kill many, many animals in order to sell the animal parts for money. Because of these desires and this strong animal consciousness, human beings fight with each other, and destroy nature. They do not value life. So now this whole world has many problems: problems with the water, problems with the air, problems with the earth and food. Many new problems appear every day. These problems do not happen by accident. Human beings make each and very one of these problems. Dogs, or cats, or lions, or snakes –no animal makes as many problems for this world as human beings do. Humans do not understand their true nature, so they use their thinking and desire to create so much suffering for this world.

So I said to her, “You are no problem. You come to the Zen Center and do strong practicing. You can bring your snakes. I will talk to the housemaster and we will give you your own room. Then you can sit meditation and take care of your snakes. Do you like that?”

She was very happy: “Oh, yes. That’s wonderful!” Then she came to the Zen Center and sat the retreat.

On the first day of the retreat, this woman’s brother called the Zen Center. He was very anxious. “Is my sister there? Is my sister there? Our mother just got very sick. She is in the hospital, very far away. We must go to see her as soon as possible.”

But instead of being sad for her mother, this woman got very angry! “No, I cannot come. Who will take care of my precious snakes while I am gone? Maybe if I go away they will die! Maybe someone will feed them the wrong things. Snakes are very temperamental, you know….” She gave her brother this kind of strong speech. But he was not surprised. He already knew her mind for many years. He only hung up the phone.

Several days later, one of the snakes got sick. It was not eating its food and only lay in the corner. The woman suddenly became very, very worried. She stopped coming to the meditation sitting and made a lot of phone calls to the local animal doctors, looking for someone who truly understood snakes. Finally she left the retreat to take her snake to the doctor. She would not leave the retreat to see her mother in the hospital, but when her snake was suffering, her mind was immediately deeply disturbed. This is very interesting.

So this woman’s consciousness felt more for her snakes than for other human beings. She showed more compassion for her snakes than for her own mother! The behind-meaning of this is that this woman’s consciousness was part human, but part snake. She could not do so much together-action with human beings’ but she related quite easily and automatically with the snakes’ situation.