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?

   …And I’ll tell you the story of a woman called Wild Horse Annie.

   “On a usual day driving to work, a truck hauling horses cut in front of Annie’s car. She noticed a stream of blood dripping from the truck. Shocked by the trail of blood, Annie followed the truck to a rendering plant. This day would forever change her life. Hiding behind a bush, Annie noted a yearling, tucked between two stallions, down in the truck. The yearling was being trampled to death by horses packed like sardines awaiting their eventual demise in the rendering plant. She was outraged by this act of cruelty and set out to change the course of America’s history preventing the eradication of wild horses from public lands.

   Annie’s crusade began in 1950 and would end in 1977 upon her death. Annie wrote, ‘Although I had heard that airplanes were being used to capture mustangs, like so many of us do when something doesn’t touch our lives directly, I pretended it didn’t concern me. But one morning in the year 1950, my own apathetic attitude was jarred into acute awareness. What had now touched my life was to reach into the lives of many others as time went on.’

   Annie touched people from all walks of lives as she writes, “As the publicity has become more widespread, and the iniquitous story was revealed in all its brutality and greed, letters began pouring in, and for nearly two years, now, no day has passed with its quota of mustang letters. I have answered every one, and have followed up with material and instructions as to how to support Congressman Baring. Offers to help have come from every state, and people in all walks of life have joined the fight – ministers, housewives, students, teachers, sportsmen, the nuns in a convent in the East, a blind man who had read the story in Braille, men in the Armed Forces in far-away places, lawyers, doctors- and people from all ages – the youngest a potential Miss America of six, and the eldest a one-time cowpoke in his eighties, who could well remember the wild ones he’d ‘broke and rode.’ As the story filtered into foreign countries, letters bearing exotic postage stamps began to arrive: From Portugal and Spain, the Belgian Congo, Brazil, Porto Rico, the Philippines, Yugoslavia, England, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Cyprus and from our newest state Alaska. A journalist and photographer from a large news agency in Europe came to our ranch to get the story. At least my efforts have accomplished this much: mustang fever is raging!”

   The brave crusade of one woman, Velma Bronn, called ‘Wild Horse Annie’ by one of her bitterest opponents, adopted the new name to serve as a constant reminder of what she cherished more than her own life.

   “During the early years of Velma’s campaign, her life was often in danger. When strangers knocked, Velma answered the door with a gun behind her back. After all, they were living in the times of the Wild West! One of Annie’s strongest ranching opponents said he would like to see Annie in a case of dog food. (Over 30 million pounds of wild horsemeat was processed into food for dogs, cats and chickens during the 30’s alone.)”

   The power of learning to cherish others and letting go of our own importance can create a lasting legacy like that which Wild Horse Annie left behind. Her crusade to save wild horses from losing their freedom to become the profit of rendering plants has resulted in the founding of protective organizations and sanctuaries who cherish the wild horses as much as their own lives.

   There are many things that you, as a reader, advocate, animal-lover, or dharma-practitioner can do. One: learn about the laws passed to protect wild horses and burros under the management of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). Two: find where their protection is lacking, and see how they are vulnerable and in need of help. Three: get connected with grassroots movements working to protect their legacy out of pure selfless love for their wildness.

   A good place to start is here, with The American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign. And from there, go to have a look at Return to Freedom Wild Horse Sanctuary and their protection practices. And if you acknowledge that there is so much more for you to cherish, then I’d nudge you in the direction of The Lexicon of Sustainability; a project to share in the language of being local, and many cherished practices of sustainability in action.

   What we truly need now is action. If you’ve read this far, you can admit to knowing what dharma is. And maybe now you want to share it with someone. Just remember, the greatest action that you can do now to make a difference, is to share this with somebody else who you cherish. You know who they are. Oh, and there is one last thing that you can do. And believe me, this is the easy part. You may be driving down the road on your way to work one day, and the BAM! There it is.

Go on and find your dharma.