Can a dog reach enlightenment? Get Your Pet Thinking

First Noble Truth (Dukkha): Life is Suffering

They say there are two universally unavoidable things in life: death and taxes. For most people, fixating on the fact that they will in fact pass away one day is not a pleasant experience, and so they numb themselves with distractions (albeit mostly positive ones). Focusing on work, creating families, and living out their passions and dreams are all outlets that provide happiness and joy. But this Noble Truth reminds us that this is all temporary. Happiness and joy are temporary, especially when we pin all of our emotional stability on materialistic possessions. This however isn’t something that should burden us, as moving through life with the mindset that everything is temporary will only help us to appreciate the beauty (tragic and otherwise) of the present moment.

Can a dog reach enlightenment?

The dogs in Stray, without even knowing it, embody this Noble Truth perfectly. Of course, they don’t think about their inevitable ends because I doubt their consciousness extends that far. To that end, they also don’t have expectations of living a “perfect life.” To dogs, basking in the sunny spot on the floor or getting a good head scratch brings contentment–and most importantly, is enough.

Can dogs reach enlightenment?

There’s no easy answer to this question – it depends on how you define “enlightenment.”

If you believe that enlightenment is a state of complete understanding and insight, then it’s unlikely that dogs can achieve it.

Dogs are naturally curious creatures, but their intellectual capacity is limited compared to humans.

They simply can’t understand complex concepts the way we do.

That said, if you believe that enlightenment is more about having a deep connection with the world around you and cultivating inner peace, then dogs may very well be capable of achieving it.

Their simple way of life allows them to stay present in the moment and appreciate the beauty in everyday things.

They embody much of what we aspire to achieve in our own lives in many ways.

Can a dog reach enlightenment?

5 Answers 5 Sorted by:

Ignorance is the cause of birth and death. Birth and death comes from craving. Craving comes from desire. Desire comes from wanting pleasure. Pleasure comes from avoiding suffering.

When a being comes to this plane, it comes because its ignorant of who it is. That being starts to learn. While learning, it does many mistakes. It invents birth. It invents death. It searches for pleasure. It avoids suffering to find pleasure. It does so many many many many many lives.

When a lion came to this plane, it came because it was ignorant of who it was. That lion is learning. While learning, it did many many mistakes. It was born. It wanted to live. It searched for pleasure. It avoided suffering. The more it found pleasure and avoided suffering, the more it learned. The more it learned, the more it knew after death. The more it knew after death, the more it knew after rebirth. Positive kamma was building up many many many many lives.

When that being was reborn into this plane, it was reborn because it was ignorant of who it was. That being has learned. While learning, it did many many many mistakes. It was born. It wanted to live. It learned that by avoiding suffering, pleasure will come. By avoiding suffering and searching for pleasure, that being learned good-and-bad. The more it learned, the more it knew after death. The more it knew after death, the more it knew after rebirth. Positive kamma was building up many many many lives.

When that being was reborn into this plane, it was reborn because it was ignorant of who it was. That being has learned. While learning, it did many many many many mistakes. It was born. It wanted to live. From differentiating good-and-bad it learned to avoid suffering. The more it avoided suffering, the more it knew. The more it knew, the more it renounced suffering, pleasure, desire, craving, death and birth. Positive kamma was building up many many lives.

When a being comes to this plane and renounces birth, death, craving, desire, pleasure and suffering, that being is liberated. It knows: “Oh, ignorance! Ignorant I was! I did many many many many many mistakes. Thats the reason for all this mess.”

By completely eliminating suffering, pleasure, desire, craving, death and birth, ignorance ceased. When ignorance ceased, it learned who it was. By learning who it was, kamma was found. By finding kamma, kamma was unwinded. By unwinding kamma, knowledge about previous lives arose. By arising knowledge of previous lives, that being knew: “This is suffering. This is the cause of suffering. This is the end of suffering. This is the end of all this mess”.

In short they get reborn as a human being sometime in the future and practice.

You could help by reading some dhamma(suttas) to your cat if you wish.

There is a precedence in a sutta where a frog was listening to a Buddhas discourse and got killed because someone accidentally impaled it with a walking stick. It was then reborn as a deva.

An animal cant be liberated as an animal; that being itself may be liberated in future births in higher realms of being.

There are some interesting cases among animals not only cat but birds, dogs, cows, fish and any kind.

Hope this is helpful. Dont take it too seriously but for your reference. About a cat who refuse to eat chicken, catfood, fish, or any meats and only eating vegetables and shedding tears when given food.

“Dog tries to save fish with water” http://youtu.be/Mx_X6hmhwrs

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    What Does It Take to Reach Enlightenment? | Sadhguru

    I have heard that you have to take indoor dogs out three times a day, so I thought that this gives you an unbelievable, incredible opportunity to help them.

    By not harming and practicing morality toward even one sentient being, including these dogs, you can attain the state of the happy transmigratory beings. By not harming and practicing concentration and wisdom, even with dogs, you can achieve the happiness that is free from samsaric suffering. And by generating compassion, bodhichitta, you can attain buddhahood, ultimate happiness—the completion of all realizations and total freedom from all obscurations—through depending on these sentient beings, these dogs.

    Another way to understand this is that by cherishing these dogs you can receive hundreds of thousands of happy rebirths and so forth in future lives. By cherishing these sentient beings, these dogs, you can achieve ultimate happiness forever. By cherishing these sentient being dogs you can achieve the peerless happiness of buddhahood. Not only that, but you also achieve the numberless past happinesses that you already have received since beginningless rebirths as well as your present happiness and all future happiness, including full enlightenment.

    You may find this difficult to believe but it is logical. Your three time happinesses come from your good karma and your virtuous mind is the action of the Buddha. There are two actions of Buddha: one is within us sentient beings; the other is possessed only by the Buddha’s holy mind. Buddha comes from the bodhisattva, the bodhisattva comes from bodhichitta and bodhichitta comes from great compassion, which embraces numberless sentient beings, not leaving out even one: the numberless hell beings, pretas, animals, humans, asuras and suras.

    So this is how you receive all your past, present and future happiness from each and every sentient being, which includes the dogs that you take out for a walk three times a day. So these dogs are most precious—think like this—most precious, most kind, most dear and wish-fulfilling for you.

    The next thing to understand is that these sentient beings are objects to not be harmed. They are to be cherished by you, to be taken care of with your body, speech and mind; you are to serve them.

    One more thing to understand is that you have been experiencing the sufferings of the six realms numberless times from beginningless rebirths and you will have to experience them again without end, over and over again, if you don’t practice Dharma.

    At this time you have received the impossible, a precious human life. And not only have you received a perfect human rebirth but you have also met the Mahayana sutra and tantra teachings, so not only can you achieve liberation from samsara; through having met the Mahayana sutra teachings you can achieve full enlightenment for sentient beings. Furthermore, through having met the Mahayana tantric teachings you can achieve enlightenment in just one lifetime—you don’t need the three countless great eons to collect merit and purify obscurations that you do when practicing sutra. Finally, you have met maha-anuttara yoga tantra, through which you can achieve the unified state of enlightenment in one brief lifetime of this degenerate age. So this time you are most fortunate.

    Now, sentient beings who have received a perfect human rebirth like yours are extremely rare. Most other sentient beings haven’t even met the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, which means they will have to experience samsaric suffering endlessly. If you really think about it you won’t be able to stand it, not even for a second, without wanting to free them from samsara. And not only that—they have been experiencing such suffering from beginningless, numberless lives.

    Now the dogs are exactly the same. You have to think about this. These dogs have been experiencing suffering since beginningless lifetimes and will continue to do so without end. You can’t stand leaving them in that state of suffering for even one second.

    So when you take your dogs out you should recite mostly OM MANI PADME HUM and the Maitreya Buddha mantras so that the dogs can hear them. That purifies their negative karma collected since beginningless time and allows them to collect merit. It purifies their mental continuum and brings them to enlightenment in the future: by meeting the Dharma they receive a higher rebirth, develop understanding through practicing Dharma and eventually achieve enlightenment. It is as if you are giving a wish-granting jewel to the dogs. Just by chanting you help them so much.

    You can also recite the Medicine Buddha mantra, which helps them to not be reborn in the lower realms ever again, and the short Namgyälma mantra, which makes it impossible for them to be reborn in lower realms; this will be their last rebirth as an animal. Another mantra you can recite is OM PÄDMO USHNISHA VIMALE HUM PHAT. When you take the dogs out, chant so that they can hear it.

    At the beginning, generate bodhichitta by thinking, “The purpose of my life is not simply to achieve the happiness of this life; nor is it to achieve either temporary or ultimate happiness for myself alone. The purpose of my life is to achieve enlightenment in order to free all sentient beings from the oceans of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment. Therefore I must achieve the state of omniscience. Therefore I am going to recite these mantras for the dogs and even others who are passing by.”

    You can recite the mantras by chanting them like a song. Others might then just see you as happy person walking along with your dogs. If people ask what you’re singing you can say that you’re chanting mantras. It depends on who asks.

    Find the mantras Lama Zopa Rinpoche recommends above on FPMT Education Services’ mantra resource page on FPMT.org.

    Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.