The following is an excerpt from a talk by Professor Ronald Epstein given at San Francisco State University at a conference called "Animal Rights and Our Human Relationship to the Biosphere" held March 29-April 1, 1990. The talk was called "A Buddhist Perspective on Animal Rights".
NEWS
I want to relate to you two striking examples of animals acting with more humanity than most humans. My point is not that animals are more humane than humans, but that there is dramatic evidence that animals can act in ways that do not support certain Western stereotypes about their capacities.
About fifteen years ago there was an Associated Press article with a dateline from a northern Japanese fishing village. Several people from a fishing vessel were washed overboard in a storm far at sea. One of the women was found still alive on a beach near her village three days later. At the time a giant sea turtle was briefly seen swimming just offshore. The woman said that when she was about to drown the turtle had come to rescue her and had carried her on its back for three days to the place where she was found.
In February of this year, also according to the Associated Press a man lost at sea was saved by a giant stingray:
A man claims he rode 450 miles on the back of a stingray to safety after his boat capsized three weeks ago, a radio station reported yesterday.
Radio Vanuatu said 18-year-old Lottie Stevens washed up Wednesday in New Caladonia. It said Stevens' boat capsized January 15 while he and a friend were on a fishing trip.
The friend died and after four days spent drifting with the overturned boat, Stevens decided to try to swim to safety, Radio vanuatu reported. There were sharks in the area, but a stingray came to Steven's rescue and carried him on its back for 13 days and nights to New Caladonia, the radio said. (AP, San Francisco Chroncicle, Feb. 8, 1990)
BASIC BUDDHIST PRINCIPLES
Unlike the Judeo-Christian tradition, Buddhism affirms the unity of all living beings, all equally posses the Buddha-nature, and all have the potential to become Buddhas, that is, to become fully and perfectly enlightened. Among the sentient, there are no second-class citizens.
According to Buddhist teaching, human beings do not have a privileged, special place above and beyond that of the rest of life. The world is not a creation specifically for the benefit and pleasure of human beings. Furthermore, in some circumstances according with their karma, humans can be reborn as humans and animals can be reborn as humans.
In Buddhism the most fundamental guideline for conduct is ahimsa—the prohibition against the bringing of harm and/or death to any living being. Why should one refrain from killing? It is because all beings have lives; they love their lives and do not wish to die. Even one of the smallest creatures, the mosquito, when it approaches to bite you, will fly away if you make the slightest motion. Why does it fly away? Because it fears death. It figures that if it drinks your blood, you will take its life. . . .
We should nurture compassionate thought. Since we wish to live, we should not kill any other living being. Furthermore, the karma of killing is understood as the root of all suffering and the fundamental cause of sickness and war, and the forces of killing are explicitly identified with the demonic. The highest and most universal ideal of Buddhism is to work unceasingly for permanent end to the suffering of all living beings, not just humans.