Minding Animals—The Meditational Turn
摘要
In this chapter, we explore aspects of meditational practice as ways of comprehending our relations with nonhuman animals in terms of three animal ethics theories, namely, identity theory, difference theory, and indistinction theory, as identified by Matthew Calarco. Concerned less with isolating and analyzing the three final limbs of aṣṭāṅga-yoga according to Patañjali, here we consider Jain and Buddhist forms of meditation as they bear on our theme of animal ethics and as they serve to expand ideas briefly mentioned in the Yoga Sūtra. Particularly, the brahmavihāra practice of infinitely expanding felicitous relationality with other living beings leads toward an indistinction orientation, which we explore in relation to a narrative of “becoming animal” from the Bhāgavata Purāṇa.