Yearning to breathe free

5 mins read

I got a tiny glimpse today of the pain that parents and children are experiencing at our borders, as they are forcibly separated, the kids put into the custody of the office of refugee resettlement, many in cages.

I took the three kittens for a routine vaccination, but Tagger Junior, who admittedly eats like there is no tomorrow, turned out to be big enough ahead of schedule for his operation and adoption.

“We are taking him now.” So instead of bringing home three kittens, I brought home two, and they were crying all the way.

I have had Tagger Jr. here since he weighed a pound. Kittens are famously heart-tugging and vulnerable, as any quick glance at the Internet will tell you; and he is no exception – a sweet-natured trusting little dude. He pawed at my face as I said goodbye. Then he was looking at me with those wide innocent eyes, like, “What is happening, where are you going?” as I was obliged to hand him over to a busy vet tech. He then stared after me through the glass door of the kitten room, confused. Hours later, I still miss him. I really hope he doesn’t miss me.

I was feeling a mixture of some sadness and helplessness, not knowing where he will end up now in this life let alone the next, wanting him to be okay, feeling bad about leaving him without me when he trusted me. This is what I mean about a glimpse.

Of course, in this case we are (a) only talking about a cat, who will soon forget this trauma and me and (b) I know he will be taken good care of by the shelter. I also at least know where he is for the time being, safe, unlike the dad I read about who can get no information on where they’ve taken his four-year old. WTF. Where are these faceless officials taking all these children? They are being warehoused, apparently, literally where housed? (Such as in a decommissioned Walmart with blackened windows that no one can enter, later to be “put into foster care or whatever” according to one official.) Who is comforting these children? Who is loving them? Who is caring enough to ensure they’ll escape lifelong trauma?

I couldn’t have kept Tagger Jr; that wasn’t the point of me looking after him. But those parents wanted desperately to keep their children, obviously, and the cruelty of separating them is weighing on me. With their whole heart, they will miss their kids and their kids will miss them until they can see each other again – and when exactly will that be?

Suffering of uncertainty

Tagger’s life is risky, and his future full of samsaric pitfalls – this in itself is pretty scary and tragic if you think about it. Hopefully the Buddhas will answer my prayers that someone will now love Tagger until he dies, when he will get out of the lower realms. Fostering him and other kittens is a constant reminder for me to make these prayers for all animals.

And, for that matter, all human beings, as none of us knows where we are going next, not really. There are no guarantees while our minds and karma are out of control.

But I was wondering, what can these parents pray for their kids? They wanted to protect them with every atom of their being; it is why they took the risky journey all the way here. How do they deal with the sense of failure and guilt and betrayal and fear? Or live with that longing to see their children again, let alone the desperate hourly need to know that they are ok? It reminds me of one of the most chilling scenes I have ever seen in a movie, that one in Sophie’s Choice. It is mind-boggling. I don’t know the answers.

Like I said, I only got a tiny glimpse of the pain – but it has given me some empathy and incentive. I could blame increasingly draconian and legally suspect policies for the arbitrary power that is crushing people’s lives. I could … I do, actually. However, the deeper culprit is the delusions tyrannizing all of our minds, along with the underdevelopment of our wisdom and compassion. This is what needs addressing most urgently, for everyone’s sake.

Suffering of having no companionship

So please pray for all these families, and for everyone in samsara who is being torn away from their loved ones in life after life. As well as for those living beings creating or tasked with the horrible job of taking the kids away, trying somehow to sleep at night, all the while creating the karma for the same to happen to them.

I wish I could intervene directly to put a stop to all this. I have donated money, made prayers, joined in the outcry. And I am glad there is an increasingly widespread and bipartisan outcry, at least, as more facts of this “zero tolerance” or rather “zero humanity” come out each day; and I pray that the unpopular policy is reversed soon.

However, I feel I also have to go deeper. Since I cannot do much practically while I remain limited and no one is really listening to me, I need to step up my efforts to become a Bodhisattva and a Buddha asap, spreading blessings and emanations everywhere there are suffering beings.

I hope you become one soon too. How else are we going to stop this samsaric madness so that it stays stopped?

After all, 2 of the 8 sufferings of samsara described by Buddha, as explained in Joyful Path of Good Fortune, are the sufferings of uncertainty and having no companionship. In samsara, this means, they will go on forever.

As a friend pointed out, this has been going on in America for centuries already, let alone in all the other realms of samsara:

Native American indigenous children were taken away from their parents, their hair was cut and they were not allowed to speak their native language. (They died from the separation.) Of course African slave families were ripped apart & “sold separately” by their owners, not knowing where their children, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, fathers or mothers were sent. Japanese Americans were stripped of all their property and possessions during WW2 and put in interment camps in CA not too long ago. (I have seen those camps.) T’was ever thus in the inevitable sphere of suffering. MUST PRACTICE — MUST GET OUT!

Ps, By the way, don’t let this put you off fostering … these kittens were rescued from being gassed to death at another shelter. And there is still time to adopt Tagger Jr. or his brothers …

Update 2019: The immigration pain is getting more and more out of control. Samsara grinds on. At least Tagger got a home, for now.

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