Episode #60

[rva_jeremy]

So now that I've listened to the episode, I have some thoughts.

When we talk about human suffering, we do so with the assumption that our capacity for experience and other people's is roughly the same.  When we pity, or identify with another's suffering, it is because we recognize the condition of suffering that we would experience were we in that situation, how miserable and helpless it makes us feel.  Of course everybody is not alike; suffering is not the same for everybody, and some people may wrongly attribute a condition of suffering to another.  But it seems like almost part of the social fabric that we have a common concept of the undesirable.

As Gary and Austin discussed, it is very possible that animals don't have the character of experience that we do, even in similar situations.  What stood out to me so much about the session Jeremy posted (great find, by the way!) was the statement that the animal experiences pain but it does not suffer.  I found this hard to accept because it seems so clear that animals do suffer with pain; we've all seen this behavior.  If anything, animal suffering bothers me more because of their greater helplessness and the inability to comfort them with the words that I would use with another person.

However, it is possible that what we identify as suffering in animals is an anthropomorphization of third density experience.  We see behaviors like whining and trembling and simply assume the animal is having an experience that we would have in that scenario.  But we can't really know what it's like.  The phenomenology of animals is a very mysterious topic.  What is it "like" to be an animal?  We can't usefully know this.  However, Q'uo seems to provide a clue:

For the animal, the life is that which is, for, again, there is no self-consciousness except that which is implanted within it by its human caretakers. If it has the cut or the lame paw it simply has this. It endures it without suffering. It experiences the pain, the discomfort, but it does not suffer, for it does not reflect within itself but rather seeks the sleep which frees it to dream of days when it was chasing game and being that which it is as a young one.

There is something about "reflecting within itself" that transforms pain from a simple state of the body into misery, if I'm reading this session right.  One theory I've been thinking about is that this reflection may have to do with acceptance.  Self-consciousness affords us the ability to reject parts of our experience and self.  The Stoics and Buddhists have taught for centuries that the key to ending suffering and achieving balance is acceptance, of not fighting against our experience and thereby making ourselves more miserable.

Perhaps this is a portion of the second density experience: pain is just another condition, accepted fully due to not having any other choice.  It is a bump in the road that will return the animal to innocence (this is how I interpret the "seeking the sleep" passage, at least for now).  Suffering can only enter the mix, I'm arguing, if you have some inkling that it should be otherwise.  There is no "should" in second density.

Nothing I'm saying above implies it is justified to cause an animal pain.  I think this is where Jim's point about our third density role enters.  Since we have this ability to self-reflect and identify with another as a matter of volition, the crimes we knowingly commit against second density are really crimes against ourselves.  Just because we don't know the exact character of the experience of an animal in distress doesn't mean we can't open our hearts just the same.  We can treat animals with respect and dignity, not because we see them as actual little persons exactly like us, but because we use it as a way to practice relating with love to the entire Creation. We extend compassion because we want compassion, because compassion is the ideal state to achieve in spite of how the fruits of compassion manifest on the recipient.

I do think that we often lump our experience and judgments onto animals without carefully considering whether this identification is accurate, setting aside the spiritual concerns.  But this may be one of the ways that investiture operates: treating animals like people and getting them used to the rhythm of third density.  Although it seems like a bittersweet gift to give a pure animal the capacity for suffering!

On a final note, perhaps there is something to learn from animals about how we approach suffering, especially with regard to the countless crimes committed against our fellow beings every day on this planet.  Where does acceptance on our part enter?  When is it appropriate to disrupt these crimes?  These are questions I still ponder, and I'm grateful to have you all with which to consider them.

Thanks especially to Jade for insisting that we not dismiss the heart from this matter.