A colleague who said she was “buddhist”, told me I should stop helping cats and just leave them to “天 生 天 養” (”Heaven dispenses, heaven disposes”).
I asked her why this principle was not applied to her as a baby when she has to be nursed, to be clothed, to be brought to the doctor when she was sick, etc. Why didn’t her mother simply let “heaven” take care of her? Would heaven drop food for her? Even now as an adult, she is still dependent on others for the food she eats, the clothes she wears, etc.
We help animals because they need our help. We human beings have caused tremendous sufferings to animals from decimating their habitats. We domesticated some animals such as dogs and cats, and then we treat them as unfeeling “commodities”, as pests, as food, as materials for our clothes! We have no sense of shame. We have no sense of basic morality! We feel nothing for cats but we feel a lot for a car, especially one that “costs 40 grands”!
We cannot shirk our responsibility as human beings as our actions have great repurcussions on our environment and on the lives of our fellow animals.
Most human beings, unfortunately, live “mundane” lives, an inability to decondition from a materialistic mentality. Happiness to many human beings is in the pursuit of fleeing satisfactions – good food, great cars, wonderful partners, wonderful spouses, great kids, great jobs, great pays, etc. Why then are so many people still unhappy. IMH is filling to the brims with people with all sorts of mental disorders.
By caring for cats or any other sentient beings with the wish to relieve their sufferings, bring us immeasureable joy.
At the end of the day, it is not just the cats who will benefit from our care, but ourselves as well – we lose the suffering arising from selfishly living only for “I”.
