A Buddhist perspective on euthanasia and animal care

“A giraffe, did I hear you say?!”

Carrying straight on from this article: Remaining natural while changing your aspiration. 

My friend Gen Menla and I did indeed go on safari in rural Texas, and it was not even that far off my safari experiences in Africa (just hotter, lol) – most recently in 2019 with another monk and friend, Gen Jampel, in a jeep outside Durban. Both trips involved magnificent giraffes – the difference being that Texan giraffes turn out to be as friendly as Texan humans, boldly sticking their heads through the car windows to be fed.

I may have a strange connection with giraffes. I wrote a story as a kid called “Smell Eaters” (truly), where the creatures lived by eating smells – and for some reason I had them all looking like giraffes. And when I first came across the meditation on all living beings being our mothers, where Venerable Geshe Kelsang says:

If someone objects that our mothers of the past are not our mother now, we can consider that if our mother of this life were to die we would still think of her as our mother.

… for some reason, I always imagined all these mothers being reborn as giraffes and wondering what I’d do if I met them in that form. Would I try to take them home?!

For some reason we had the 1800 acre park to ourselves (and our 1100 animal friends). Visitors are given one cone of brown nuggets to feed them – I negotiated an extra portion, pointing out that the animals were probably pretty hungry on account of no humans visiting, and she agreed, “you have a point.” So, armed with extra supplies, we set off; and we were very popular that day. Addax, aoudads, Arabian oryx, eastern mountain bongos, blackbucks, gemsboks, kudus, and antelopes surrounded our car asking for their tasty donut equivalents (slobbery!). I was doling out handfuls to Gazelle #770 before we realized we would run out at this rate.

I take every opportunity to visit animals, the ones who live in our human world (most animals don’t, see Joyful Path of Good Fortune).  It reminds me of all the realms of samsara and how undesirable it is to be born in the unfortunate lower realms, where there is so much manifest pain and so little protection. It gives automatic perspective to my luxurious-by-contrast human problems, and helps my renunciation and compassion.

It was an added bonus to be able to feed so many of them, seeing their faces close up, thinking, “As I feed you delicious nuggets today, may I one day feed you the nectar of Dharma.” Everybody wanted in, except for the cheetahs (who might have said yes to an arm) and the prehistoric rhinos satisfied with their prairie grass. Luckily we did still have enough nuggets by our last port of call, the emus. Again, look how friendly Texan emus are!!! We had such a good time.

Euthanizing animals?

While we’re talking about animals, I want to clear up a possible misunderstanding. A dear friend kindly texted me last week to ask if the rumor was true, that I had apparently said people should euthanize their pets if their vet says so, and, if so:

Just to let you know that Ven. Geshela never did that and he encouraged to let them die naturally and pain killers will prevent the pain. Due to that, many people wrote back saying thank you and  saying that their dog or pet lasted more months or even years.

As I replied, thanking her for drawing this to my attention:

“I have literally never said that.”

I have not really wanted to write this down, even though people have asked me a thousand times. This is because I do think that everybody needs to make their own informed choices about their own beloved furry family members, at what can be a desperately sad and confusing time. But perhaps I can add something to that information. So, here goes, copied and pasted from the text exchange I had yesterday:

I always suggest they do not if at all possible, and tell them what I heard Geshe-la say, which is that although their pet may be suffering, at least they still have you with them. Once they die, they will continue to suffer if they’re still in samsara, but now they are all on their own 🥹

It occurs to me that when they are right there in front of us, our prayers also have a good deal of power and passion because we so deeply want them to be free from their pain. Once they are out of sight, even if they are not completely out of mind, our prayers may still not be quite as powerful if we forget about their suffering. We cannot overestimate the power of prayer — we are not helpless when we are praying. (There is more about prayer in this article: The power and purpose of prayer.)

I try and encourage people that their pet is purifying something and just to love them and do prayers, mantras etc and let them die peacefully at home. Sometimes vets will give painkillers if you ask. Most vets want to put pets down and will pressurize you sometimes, so I encourage people not to feel guilty if they don’t follow the vet’s advice. I was going to be a vet when I was a child until I heard that vets euthanize animals and was horrified.

Sometimes I explain that the suffering we feel when we see our beloved pet in pain is coming from the attachment rather than compassion, and how to tell the difference so that we are not in any rush to remove them from our sight. (There’s more about that in this article: Is compassion happy or sad?) 

Sometimes I have shown them how to find a place that will administer pain meds if the vet won’t – we have one in Colorado for example.

More often than not, people tell me that their pet ended up dying peacefully and how meaningful it was to care for them until the end.

Caveat

Please read the comment section below for some more points on euthanasia as it is by no means black and white and there are always going to be exceptions. Ideally motivated by compassion and wisdom, we need to figure this out for ourselves when it comes to those in our care. For example, once upon a time I did allow a small kitten be euthanized, after he had already entered the death process. This was a really difficult decision, but I think it was the right call because he was able to die peacefully. Another time I let a kitten die on my lap naturally. What was the difference? The first kitten was in agony, the second could handle it.

Renunciation of the three paths

I think context is important when it comes to handling our pets, and everyone else for that matter.

I have been thinking about this lately: All that matters on my deathbed is did I close the door to the lower realms? Did I close the door to samsaric rebirth? Did I close the door to a rebirth with self-cherishing?

Venerable Geshe-la explains this so-called “renunciation of the three paths” in The Mirror of Dharma. And whatever matters on my deathbed is also what matters today, given that my already brief lifespan is shrinking and I could even die today.

We want to liberate ourselves from these three awful outcomes, which is renunciation; but we also want to free our beloved pet and everyone else from them as well, which is real compassion. The suffering they are experiencing right now is a snapshot of the suffering they have already experienced in lifetime after lifetime and will continue to experience for as long as they remain in samsara, and especially in the lower realms. We can use their suffering as a reminder of this so that we wish for them to be permanently free, not just temporarily free from this particular illness. We can ask ourself, “Their death may put an end to this specific suffering, but is it really the end of their suffering altogether?” I write more about that here: Compassion v. attachment to the status quo.

A postcard from hell

There is an actual cold hell called “Blistering Hell”, and there are also such things as “resembling hells”, wherein an actual hell realm spills over into our human realm. I think this video of Ashley that I have watched several times might be an example:

Some of you may complain that I’m posting this video, my apologies in advance. And I agree that it’s really hard to watch, but contemplate these miseries I must if I am to ever develop the renunciation and compassion I need to free Ashley, Lily, and all other living beings from samsara. It’s not enough just to develop the wish to free myself and others from first-world problems, as it were. Samsara needs to be faced up to in its entirety, in all its wretchedness.

These chilling postcards from the lower realms can be so helpful, provided we don’t scroll on by but instead contemplate what they mean.

I am in awe of the mothers of these children. Although many people in the comments say, “You should have let them die at birth!”, their mothers see them as full individuals with every right to life and love, and a chance at a pain-free survival. One mother with a severely deformed little boy who was taken at birth to another hospital was frantic to be with him – despite her own considerable medical complications she escaped her hospital bed to find her way back to him. And has not left his side since.

The comments on that video are like a Rorschach test – same video, same little boy and his mother, but very different responses, from the utterly cruel and dismissive to the deeply sympathetic and inspired. There is no world outside of our minds.

Thousands and thousands of mothers are putting their own lives on hold to take care of these children, even though it seems massively inconvenient, expensive, overwhelming, and hard. Their love and compassion are what carry them through.

I have been imagining what it would be like to have this much love and compassion for everybody, including all pets, giraffes, other animals, and beings in the even lower realms. What would that feel like?! How quickly would it motivate me to attain enlightenment – putting effort into realizing emptiness for example, and generating myself as a Buddha radiating the light of love so that I can really put an end to people’s horrors? Answer: It would be very motivating. But I have to keep going there, not sink back into irresponsible complacency and/or boring concern about my first-world problems.

Thank you for reading this today! Would you like to leave a comment? In particular, do you have any stories about how you helped your own pet pass away that might help other readers?

This is by no means intended to be the complete answer on Buddhism and euthanasia. Scroll down to read others’ comments, as well, and to add your own.