Tricia Orr
College instructor
Toward a Life Based on Holistic Compassion
Last summer, my nine-year old niece, while in the midst of an otherwise idyllic summer vacation with her family noticed a fly stuck on a fly strip, its wings fluttering as it struggled to escape the sticky tape. Her parents watched in wonder (and with a little chuckle) as their daughter carefully removed the fly which was now injured, but still alive. After this incident, she promptly informed them that she wanted to be a vegetarian. Realizing that another creature wants to live as desperately as you do can be a life-changing event if you're open to it.
When we are very young, we do not see the difference between a pheasant and a cardinal. Between a cow and a horse. Between a dog and a pig. I have seen numerous examples to back me up on this, watching uncomfortably as parents lie to their sad-faced child and tell them that an animal that's been hunted and killed is actually "just sleeping." It doesn't seem to matter if the animal is furry and "harmless" or large and predatorial, as I've seen children look at everything from a pheasant to a goat to an alligator with that sad, confused look in their eyes.
And yet, the vast majority of us undergo a transformation as we grow up. We move in the direction society nudges (okay, shoves) us – away from a holistic compassion to a compassion based on an arbitrary selection process.. Selective compassion is not something we are innately predisposed to choose. It's something that we learn from society. Think about it. Was there ever a time as a little kid that you demonstrated compassion for a creature that is not typically considered worthy of human compassion? That moment for me involved a frog in the middle of a dirt road near my home. I found him squatting there, his sides pumping in and out like bellows. I was a child, on my way to play at a friend's house, yet I felt strangely compelled to pick up the frog and take him to a creek that was in the opposite direction of my fun-filled destination.
As adults, it is a powerfully uncomfortable endeavor to break down those barriers in how we think of other species that share this planet with us. Perhaps it's because once we remove them, we become painfully aware that the suffering you always knew existed "out there somewhere" is occurring on a much larger scale than we ever could have imagined, and that all this time we were contributing to it in some very fundamental ways. Our first reaction as humans is to say, I don't want to know. Most of the time we simply refuse to look suffering straight in the face, whether that face is similar to ours or different. Because of this tendency, the majority of us live out our lives following the well-trodden path of selective compassion.
There is another less traveled path, that of holistic compassion – the deep understanding that comes from looking suffering of all Earth's creatures in the face – and allowing that awareness to develop into a profound empathy that will change your life, and will stretch your soul like silly putty.
More often than not, for Westerners, the journey toward holistic compassion begins with a furry face, usually a dog or cat. For me, it occurred the moment I looked into the eyes of a dog in India languishing on a 2 foot chain, sitting on a cement pad day after day with temperatures rising above 100. He was underfed, and when someone did come to feed him his meager meal of milk and rice, they would poke at him with a stick, so he would not come near them. I received permission from the owner to take the dog off of his chain for a few hours each day. The first time I unchained him and led him out of that courtyard, he looked up at me with pleading eyes – "won't you help me?"
I am not the only one who has experienced such a direct request from an animal. You may have heard of Rick Swope, a man who, while visiting the Detroit Zoo years ago, saw a young male chimp being chased toward the water by larger, more aggressive male chimps. The young chimp fell in the water, and began flailing, drowning. Rick Swope saw this, and jumped the fence into the chimps enclosure. Placing his own life at risk, he pulled the young chimp onto land. When asked later why he did so, he said, "Well, I looked into his eyes. It was like looking into the eyes of a man. The message was, ‘Won't anybody help me?'"
Holistic. Compassion. The words sound quite beautiful separately, but put them together and you've got a transcendent concept. And who doesn't want to transcend beyond the hum-drum of this world that is impossible to make sense of most of the time? Holistic compassion gives a life purpose, a built-in GPS system that gives you unflappable confidence that you're headed in the right direction. At our core, it is holistic compassion that makes the most sense to us, once we step back and have the courage to question the way things "have always been."
So what exactly is holistic compassion? What does it require of me? To answer that, we need to set it against the "other kind" of compassion - selective compassion.
On the other hand, selective compassion says, "I should not eat my pets, but I can eat a pig or a cow because, well it's always been that way and they ‘taste good." You will find that all reasons listed for why it is unacceptable to eat a dog, but seems acceptable to eat a pig are purely arbitrary. If we ever question why we treat some animals with kindness and others with indifference or blatant cruelty we come to a critical juncture where we have to make a decision to be willfully ignorant or let enlightenment happen. The willful ignorance comes into play every time we say, "No, I don't want to see that video that shows animals in slaughterhouses/research labs/fur farms, etc..."
Some people go so far as to say that holistic compassion is the next required step in the evolution of our species. As Albert Einstein put it, "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." Living life with compassion for All has made life infinitely easier and more beautiful, and yes, at times more painful. However, living this way does not require one to live the life of an ascetic. For those who have read this far, and are interested in taking the road less travelled (and with the most serene views), here are some specific steps you can take toward living your life based on holistic compassion:
- Buy household and cosmetic products that were not tested on animals (usually rabbits are tested on, hence the symbol of a leaping rabbit on cruelty free products)
- Eliminate meat and dairy from your diet (most people do this by slowly reducing the amount they eat each week). It's not only better for the animals, but also for the earth.
- Adopt animals from shelters rather than buying them from stores.
- Wear cruelty free clothes and shoes ("cruelty-free" includes clothing that does not come from countries where sweatshops are common, as well as animal parts not being used to make the product)
- Support animal and wildlife sanctuaries. If you're a parent, take your child to an animal sanctuary instead of a zoo or a circus. At sanctuaries, your child will witness animals living their lives as nature intended, and most sanctuaries will allow you to get up close and personal with some of the animals.
This isn't about feeling guilty, rather it's about feeling empowered to make choices that reduce the suffering in this often brutal world. A world that we are raised to believe is brutal by nature and necessity, but in fact, can be made less so by the choices we make several times a day.
Last summer, my nine-year old niece, while in the midst of an otherwise idyllic summer vacation with her family noticed a fly stuck on a fly strip, its wings fluttering as it struggled to escape the sticky tape. Her parents watched in wonder (and with a little chuckle) as their daughter carefully removed the fly which was now injured, but still alive. After this incident, she promptly informed them that she wanted to be a vegetarian. Realizing that another creature wants to live as desperately as you do can be a life-changing event if you're open to it.
When we are very young, we do not see the difference between a pheasant and a cardinal. Between a cow and a horse. Between a dog and a pig. I have seen numerous examples to back me up on this, watching uncomfortably as parents lie to their sad-faced child and tell them that an animal that's been hunted and killed is actually "just sleeping." It doesn't seem to matter if the animal is furry and "harmless" or large and predatorial, as I've seen children look at everything from a pheasant to a goat to an alligator with that sad, confused look in their eyes.
And yet, the vast majority of us undergo a transformation as we grow up. We move in the direction society nudges (okay, shoves) us – away from a holistic compassion to a compassion based on an arbitrary selection process.. Selective compassion is not something we are innately predisposed to choose. It's something that we learn from society. Think about it. Was there ever a time as a little kid that you demonstrated compassion for a creature that is not typically considered worthy of human compassion? That moment for me involved a frog in the middle of a dirt road near my home. I found him squatting there, his sides pumping in and out like bellows. I was a child, on my way to play at a friend's house, yet I felt strangely compelled to pick up the frog and take him to a creek that was in the opposite direction of my fun-filled destination.
As adults, it is a powerfully uncomfortable endeavor to break down those barriers in how we think of other species that share this planet with us. Perhaps it's because once we remove them, we become painfully aware that the suffering you always knew existed "out there somewhere" is occurring on a much larger scale than we ever could have imagined, and that all this time we were contributing to it in some very fundamental ways. Our first reaction as humans is to say, I don't want to know. Most of the time we simply refuse to look suffering straight in the face, whether that face is similar to ours or different. Because of this tendency, the majority of us live out our lives following the well-trodden path of selective compassion.
There is another less traveled path, that of holistic compassion – the deep understanding that comes from looking suffering of all Earth's creatures in the face – and allowing that awareness to develop into a profound empathy that will change your life, and will stretch your soul like silly putty.
More often than not, for Westerners, the journey toward holistic compassion begins with a furry face, usually a dog or cat. For me, it occurred the moment I looked into the eyes of a dog in India languishing on a 2 foot chain, sitting on a cement pad day after day with temperatures rising above 100. He was underfed, and when someone did come to feed him his meager meal of milk and rice, they would poke at him with a stick, so he would not come near them. I received permission from the owner to take the dog off of his chain for a few hours each day. The first time I unchained him and led him out of that courtyard, he looked up at me with pleading eyes – "won't you help me?"
I am not the only one who has experienced such a direct request from an animal. You may have heard of Rick Swope, a man who, while visiting the Detroit Zoo years ago, saw a young male chimp being chased toward the water by larger, more aggressive male chimps. The young chimp fell in the water, and began flailing, drowning. Rick Swope saw this, and jumped the fence into the chimps enclosure. Placing his own life at risk, he pulled the young chimp onto land. When asked later why he did so, he said, "Well, I looked into his eyes. It was like looking into the eyes of a man. The message was, ‘Won't anybody help me?'"
Holistic. Compassion. The words sound quite beautiful separately, but put them together and you've got a transcendent concept. And who doesn't want to transcend beyond the hum-drum of this world that is impossible to make sense of most of the time? Holistic compassion gives a life purpose, a built-in GPS system that gives you unflappable confidence that you're headed in the right direction. At our core, it is holistic compassion that makes the most sense to us, once we step back and have the courage to question the way things "have always been."
So what exactly is holistic compassion? What does it require of me? To answer that, we need to set it against the "other kind" of compassion - selective compassion.
On the other hand, selective compassion says, "I should not eat my pets, but I can eat a pig or a cow because, well it's always been that way and they ‘taste good." You will find that all reasons listed for why it is unacceptable to eat a dog, but seems acceptable to eat a pig are purely arbitrary. If we ever question why we treat some animals with kindness and others with indifference or blatant cruelty we come to a critical juncture where we have to make a decision to be willfully ignorant or let enlightenment happen. The willful ignorance comes into play every time we say, "No, I don't want to see that video that shows animals in slaughterhouses/research labs/fur farms, etc..."
Some people go so far as to say that holistic compassion is the next required step in the evolution of our species. As Albert Einstein put it, "Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet." Living life with compassion for All has made life infinitely easier and more beautiful, and yes, at times more painful. However, living this way does not require one to live the life of an ascetic. For those who have read this far, and are interested in taking the road less travelled (and with the most serene views), here are some specific steps you can take toward living your life based on holistic compassion:
- Buy household and cosmetic products that were not tested on animals (usually rabbits are tested on, hence the symbol of a leaping rabbit on cruelty free products)
- Eliminate meat and dairy from your diet (most people do this by slowly reducing the amount they eat each week). It's not only better for the animals, but also for the earth.
- Adopt animals from shelters rather than buying them from stores.
- Wear cruelty free clothes and shoes ("cruelty-free" includes clothing that does not come from countries where sweatshops are common, as well as animal parts not being used to make the product)
- Support animal and wildlife sanctuaries. If you're a parent, take your child to an animal sanctuary instead of a zoo or a circus. At sanctuaries, your child will witness animals living their lives as nature intended, and most sanctuaries will allow you to get up close and personal with some of the animals.
This isn't about feeling guilty, rather it's about feeling empowered to make choices that reduce the suffering in this often brutal world. A world that we are raised to believe is brutal by nature and necessity, but in fact, can be made less so by the choices we make several times a day.
