Dharma,
roughly translates to mean:
protection.
We practice dharma in holding that all animals are sacred, and our work is to protect them. It is said understood in buddhist teachings as the act of learning to cherish others at least as much as we cherish ourselves. In doing so, we learn the sacredness of the lives of all other beings, and naturally develop good intentions towards them.
Those animals that have undergone the process of domestication with us will forever be our responsibility. As it is said in The Little Prince, “you become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed.”
Wild animals hold a special place on the earth, and are very vital to our communities. They are responsible for the health of the soil, the integrity of the rivers and the sustainability of future generations, because their existence depends on it. They remind us of our innate freedoms that we all have rights to. Leading by example of how to live on this planet, they don’t take ownership. They embody the ancient saying…
That said…
Excerpt from Local: The New Face of Food and Farming in America by Douglas Gayeton
Go ahead. Tell me words aren’t powerful. Or that words, by themselves, won’t change anything. Tell me no one reads anymore. Tell me we’re impatient, visually literate but crippled by short attention spans. Tell me you can’t actually transform the world because the power elite have jury rigged the system, that they control the levers and direct the machinery.
Tell me you’re powerless. That it’s all too complicated. That nothing matters. Tell me that you have neither time nor money. That you’re tired. All the time. That you don’t have the energy to do the things you want…
Tell me you no longer remember the “Good Ol’ Days,” the last time you smelled a flower, walked barefoot on dew-kissed grass, picked apples from a tree, or felt the warming glow of sunlight on your face.
Tell me you simply don’t care, because why should you?