Ma rencontre instructive avec Geshe Sopa

[hop 0]

En apprenant que le Dalaï Lama était un admirateur des chercheurs Richard Davidson (1) et Ned Kalin (2) de l'Université du Wisconson-Madison (3), qui brulent des cerveaux de singes avec de l'acide, et les effraient avec des serpents et des scientifiques, beaucoup de gens ont exprimé leurs incrédulité et leur indignation...

L'auteur du blog Primate Freedom, a demandé à être reçu à Deer Park, Monastère et Centre Bouddhiste, situé à Madison, et dirigé par le lama Geshe Lhundub Sopa (grand maître spirituel bouddhiste), afin de parler du sort des 2000 primates détenus par la susdite Université et du soutien de Deer Park, et du Dalaï Lama pour ces recherches "scientifiques", avant la visite que celui-ci doit faire au Monastère en mai.

Il a d'abord eu affaire au Vénérable George Churinoff (il raconte en gros leurs échanges) puis enfin à Geshe Sopa.

Citation :

extrait :

...I explained the situation with the monkeys and why it seems contrary to the basic tenets of Buddha’s teachings to promote the careers of scientists experimenting on animals. I talked a little about Davidson and Kalin’s work, the Dalai Lama’s support of Davidson and Deer Park’s support of Davidson. Of all the documentation I had sent to George, he had passed none on to Geshe Sopa.

...Geshe Sopa told me some stories that he must have felt were germane to my concerns and would be enlightening to me. Two of these, George had told me during our earlier phone conversation, but I listened to them again with an open mind and heart, thinking that Geshe Sopa’s retelling might be more illuminating than George’s had been.

The first story had to do with someone who was bitten on the finger by a venomous snake. In order to save his life, to stop the poison from spreading, a doctor had to chop off his finger. Thus, doing harm is sometimes appropriate.

Then he told the story of five or six rich merchants on a boat. One of them conceives of a plan to kill all the others and steal their riches. Someone else on the boat happens to be the Buddha in an earlier life, not yet fully enlightened, but very adept. He sees into the plotter’s mind and knows that the only way to save everyone else on the boat is to kill the one bad man, and does. Geshe Sopa thought that the negative effect of doing this was probably outweighed by the positive effect so, in the final weighing, Buddha was not harmed by murdering the bad man.

...His point in all of these stories, which he repeated many times, was that when we see someone doing something that appears to be bad, that it might not be. We might not fully understand the situation. The Buddhist corollary, he explained, is that, from the perspective of how this affects the person committing the act, it is primarily the intent that matters.

Geshe Sopa also said that one human is worth a thousand animals. If thousands of animals are harmed, and only a few humans receive some benefit, then that’s ok.

...Geshe Sopa raised his voice and became pretty agitated a few times, especially when I tried to tell him a little more about what was going on at the university. “Don’t tell me about universities! I know all about universities!”

The way I understood him, and I asked him whether my understanding was right, and he said it was, we can never judge someone else’s actions. When I asked him about the university destroying the 628 primate experimentation videotapes in an apparent effort to stop the public from learning what is going on in the labs, he said that it was probably necessary because the public wouldn’t understand what they were seeing.

...As I was leaving, I left two brochures and a copy of Masserman (*) on the foot of his bed. He said, “Take those with you. I won’t read them.” I refused, but George picked them up.

(...)

(*) expériences effectuées à l'Université sur le comportement altruistes chez les macaques rhésus)


My Enlightening Meeting with Lama Lhundub Sopa - 15/04/07
http://primateresearch.blogspot.com/2007/04/my-enlightening-meeting-with-lama.html

(1) www.madisonmonkeys.com/davidson.htm
(2) www.madisonmonkeys.com/kalin.htm
(3) www.madisonmonkeys.com/index.htm