..续本文上一页o cross; I must pull them back from the great precipice, I must free them from all calamities, I must ferry them across the stream of Saṃsāra. I myself must grapple with the whole mass of suffering of all beings. (Burtt 133)

　　Buddhist animal tales “illustrate and underscore the position that life from one form to the next is continuous,” through reincarnation, and that compassion for all creatures is foundational in the Buddhist religion (Chapple 143). The Jātaka tell of the Buddha”s past incarnations. Jātaka stories focus on animals as inpiduals, with personality, volition, flaws, and moral excellence. Buddhists are often introduced to Jātaka tales at a young age, and they begin to learn that a rabbit is not just an alien other, a thing, but an inpidual, a member of a rabbit community, and also a member of a larger community that includes all life. The Jātaka help remind Buddhists of the significance of other species, and instruct Buddhists to live mindfully—with an awareness of the likely effects of each and every action, and the knowledge that human actions toward spiders and piglets matters not only to the spider and the pig, but also in an ultimate sense—to one”s future existences.

　　Jātaka stories of self-sacrificing compassion, stories of the Buddha”s earlier lives, remind readers and listeners that the Buddha has been in many forms, as have all living beings. No animal is so very insignificant or “undesirable” that he or she is unable to house the karmic presence of a future Buddha; no animal is morally irrelevant. Jātaka stories reveal “the essence of the Buddhist attitude… the attitude of universal compassion… flowing from the knowledge of inner oneness” (Martin 98). In the Jātaka, “animals have their own lives, their own karma, tests, purposes, and aspirations. And, as often brief and painful as their lives may be, they are also graced with a purity and a clarity which we can only humbly respect, and perhaps even occasionally envy” (Martin 100).

　　Animals in the Jātaka speak out against harming other species, against animal sacrifice, and against hunting and eating animals (Chapple 135–38). Readers are constantly reminded that the hare or the deer in the story eventually became the Buddha. Those who eat cattle and pigs, hens and turkeys, who consume the nursing milk meant for calves and the eggs of abused hens, are warned that they might well be consuming a future Buddha, or causing unnecessary suffering to a future Buddha. How many Bodhisattvas and future Buddhas are now among us in animal form, and how is our spiritual journey affected if we carelessly harm them

　　Kuan Yin, the Bodhisattva of compassion, is compassion itself. “Kuan-yin” means “She Who Listens to the World”s Sounds,” revealing her role as the compassionate assistant to all who find themselves in distress (Kinsley, Goddesses” 35). Like all Bodhisattvas, her goal is to free all sentient beings from suffering, to help “all beings on earth to attain enlightenment” (Sommer 127; Storm 194). Kuan Yin embodies Buddhist spiritual perfection—wisdom and love; she is the “essence of mercy and compassion” (Kinsley, Goddesses” 26). Kuan-yin “is a state of perfection” (Kinsley, Goddesses” 51). In the Buddhist worldview, those who are knowledgeable, those who are spiritually enlightened, are also compassionate. To be cruel is to be spiritually ignorant. To be perfectly compassionate is to be perfect. To eat or otherwise harm other animals is not compassionate, is not consistent with Buddhist morality.

　　Kuan-yin is what each of us is meant to be—what we are to strive for. Practitioners are not just to cry out for Kuan-yin”s assistance, but to cultivate the spiritual virtues of this great bodhisattva: compassion, mercy, and selflessness toward all (K…

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