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Phil: Brenda, the main theme for this article is compassion and loving kindness for all beings, as those are basically the main teachings I grew up with while following the Buddhist path. So would you like to say anything about love and compassion for the animals?
Brenda: Surprisingly, I don’t often get invited to talk about compassion and kindness as it pertains to our fellow earthlings. But I am of the opinion – and I have said this publicly and been shunned for it – that we have an opportunity, as humans, to evolve away from our cruelness, callousness and violence. There are multiple avenues through which we can do that, but living vegan and having compassion for animals is a really effective way to question some of the normalized violence that we’ve been subjecting our fellow earthlings to. We can do better. We can do something that will make a huge difference in the evolution of humanity.
Even people who consider themselves to be animal lovers still eat certain animals. People who consider themselves to be kind and compassionate may still go to rodeos or the zoo.
This is an opportunity for us, as human beings, to seriously question our current behavior on the planet – to challenge some of the things that are really just habits that have been passed on from generation to generation. It’s not like we have to do these things!
I think that kindness and compassion, and just really looking at all the ways we can show that to our fellow earthlings, is a great opportunity for us to challenge those behaviors and to grow.
Watch the full interview below:
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