Soul

July 18, 2003

Dear "Dr. Cookie"

I hope you don't mind my using your professional name. ;-)

Thank you for the post and you meditations. My various teachers including the one I quoted views this world as a volunteer organization wherein no one is special (or every one is), and we've all got a job to do for the brief trajectory of our assignments. That would include the entire project ... all the life forms ... the satipatthana ... the jhannas .. the whole thing is Divine. We came to this most distant outpost of the Divine to bring that vertical breath to the longitudinal process. Most of us clearly do not recall the intrepid nature of our journey, but we're getting clues and guidance as we go along. The oral traditions are most specific and the written traditions less reliable. That said, it's all in the practice of what we've been taught, be it art or science. Preach less, practice more ... that's a paraphrase of the famous Sam Lewis. The world was here before we arrived so it owes us nothing ... we owe it everything. If an accomplished artist views the art or performance of an accomplished artist, they see not so much the specific story being told, they see rather the "practice" of the fellow artist. Let this be your guide in medicine as well. Wonder less about the specific treatments of the practitioners of merit. Go a layer deeper and note the practice if you can. What was the practice that brought that treatment? Will you be able to practice the practice ... or only write down the herbs in that formula? This is the question I ask myself, too, whenever I read Rumi's poetry. Can I practice the practice that brings such poetry? What will the practice bring in me? Teaching anatomy/physiology students? Raising my sons? Writing on CHA? Yet another of Ken Rose's cascading questionnaires.

Emmanuel Segmen

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Stefanie Schwartz

Traditional Chinese Herbal Medicine

Thursday, July 17, 2003 9:14 AM

Soul

Greetings all. I welcomed the comments regarding definitions of soul and whether or not 'animals' have souls. Please consider a few disjointed thoughts on what I've read in the last few days.

1) Emmanuel, I so appreciate the quote from your Sufi mystic. I'm not sure I've ever heard a more simple, elegant and perfect definition ["Soul is the intersection of earthly heredity with divine heredity. It is where the two meet. To locate yourself in that intersection consciously is to find your place in the world wherein you can accomplish your full potential." Taj Inayat, Sufi mystic]. Thank you for sharing it.

2) Phil, we really can't say for certain what dogs or other creatures 'know', although I surely support their ability to think. Reason, deduction, insight...these are part of human cognitive processes (for some of us, anyway), and there is little data to support advanced forms of thinking or learning in nonhuman animals other than primates and perhaps dolphins. Regarding resposnes to the death of a caregiver, I have introduced this in a recent paper (JAVMA June 1st/03) as part of a review on Separation Anxiety syndrome. In this paper, I introduce (for the first time in the veterinary literature) the notion that whether or not our pets understand death does not preclude their ability to bond with and feel the impact of the loss of an attachment figure. Some day, perhaps, they will be able to tell us more...

3) Do animals have souls. I would agree with several among us who have declared that they must. But I also think that trees and insects have a spark of that as well. Perhaps that is why I appreciated Emmanuel's contributed quote. Don't all forms of life possess earthly heredity, and doesn't the magic that we call life also give them divine heredity? Yehuda's explanation of Jewish belief that human 'soul' is above that of other animals is also relevant. However, my interpretation is that human soul vs. nonhuman soul is different, not necessarily better. Perhaps there is a scale of soul energy that parallels the phylogenetic scale. That would make it all the more important for humans to continue to be the Noah's with every generation, and to make sure that the energy of all life survives the floods of our own day.

Thanks for listening.

Dr. Stefanie Schwartz, DVM,MSc,DACVBDiplomate, American College of Veterinary BehavioristsDirector of Behavior Services, VCA South Shore Animal HospitalClin.Asst.Prof., Tufts University School of Veterinary MedicineNational Consultant, Antech Laboratories"Dr. Cookie"www.dr-cookie.comwww.gooddoggies.org