Baruch's Blog

A friend recently asked on his blog some questions about kindness. I replied "Practicing kindness, for me, includes choosing to perceive relatedness, the sameness, of “myself” and “others.” When I practice this...on the street, the train platform, in a social setting, in a ritual setting, anywhere. Then I experience loving, which emanates outward from me, through me, and removes my own feelings of alienation. This molds my behavior into kindness, intending the wellbeing of everyone, everything, and behaving accordingly, making the effort not to cause or add to anyone’s suffering."

Some of the most effective teachers in my life have been animals, dogs and cats in my care. As I write this, Chloe the cat is sitting in my lap. She is 15+ years old. Chloe is a Siamese cat. She can be persnickety, has a loud voice when she wants to, and her face has a black mask. Sometimes to me she looks utterly alien. Other times all I see is the sweetness and trust she offers me. She is a dainty little creature, purring right now. She has snuggled with me almost every night of her life. She came to me when she was 9 months old, and except for 6 months in 2007 and occasional times when I was away, she has spent her nights cuddled up next to me. When we’ve been apart, I am told by the people who have cared for her, she is inconsolable. I’ve been good to her for the most part. There have been a few times when she complained loudly and pissed me off, or rather, her Siamese scream set my nerves on and over the edge, when I have been unkind to her. There have also been a few times when she woke me up by getting fur in my face and I reacted strongly, pushing or throwing her away physically. Despite these incidents, of which I am frankly ashamed, she is completely attached to me. When we are together, like now, I kiss and stroke her. I tell her how beautiful and amazing she is. I tell her that it is my job to make sure she has a good happy life. I have no idea what goes on in her brain, what she thinks and feels, how she thinks and feels. Sometimes I think she is just a little furry nervous system that eats and shits and sleeps. Sometimes I think she is an enlightened being. Whatever is true, she is one of my teachers because I respond to her and that provides me with opportunities to look at my responses, to learn about my own nature, to question my reactions, and to make adjustments within myself. Chloe is a creature of instinct. I’m sure she cogitates, but in ways that are inscrutable to me. I think she is neither kind or unkind, she just is. I am a creature of instinct and also of cogitation, and I can be kind, and unkind. I can consider my actions. I can choose.

Chloe is purring on my lap. I am stroking her as I type (no small feat!) and she occasionally gazes up at me with a look that conveys trust and comfort and belonging.

Recently I read a report about the medical effects of torture inflicted by US personnel on detainees at the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp. I also read an interview with a whistleblower about the black market in nuclear weapons technology which the US government is involvement in. This kind of information brings up a lot of sadness in me, and makes me wonder, for the umpteenmillionth time, how can people treat each other so? I have heard arguments about protecting state security and I understand that people can fear for their safety, but this goes beyond that. This goes to questions about those who choose profit over life. This goes to questions about how humans can see other humans as alien, as not deserving respect, as “less” than human.

In a recent blog entry I discussed the phenomenon of belief. Human beings live on and through this mental function we call belief. We form beliefs from our experiences, and then we see subsequent experiences through the lens of those beliefs. Religion, political ideology, relational patterns and social behavior, are all governed by the beliefs we hold onto. The psychologists and doctors who aid the torturers, the religious zealots who decapitate other human beings, the politicians making deals for weapons, the religious zealots who passionately oppose equal rights for sexual “minorities”; these are just a few examples of behaviors dictated by beliefs.

It seems to me that any belief which suggests or directs one to harm another is a belief in need of adjustment. How can it be morally right to cause harm to anyone or anything?

I used to be a vegetarian, even vegan at times. I felt disgust with the consumption of animals for food, the enslaving and slaughtering of other life forms. I still do. When I reached my 40’s and my spinal injuries (which I received in my late teens) began to assert themselves more severely, my wonderful chiropractor in Vermont told me that I had to eat meat or things would just get worse. I resisted, but finally relented because being in constant pain was unbearable. What happened was that the episodes of spinal pain and restricted mobility began to be less, so I have continued to eat the flesh of animals. I still have these episodes, and deep down I still find flesh eating to be basically revolting, but I suppress my revulsion and eat meat because I believe that my presence in the world as a functional person who is not in constant pain, has value. I thank the creatures I eat in my mind before I eat them, and I go out of my way to eat meat that was raised ecologically, where the animal had a life. I can’t always find meat raised thus, and I do eat commercially grown meat when I feel the need for the protein. I still feel that it is essentially unkind to the animals for me to eat meat, and yet it is a kindness to myself to eat things which strengthen my body.

I believe there is value, for each of us, in examining our own attitudes and behaviors relative to kindness.