Caring for Pets in Everyday Life
and at Their Death
Rinpoche had these general suggestions for ways
students could best care for their pets.
If you love your animal very much,
this is what you must do for them, for their good rebirth and quick liberation
from samsara. When the animal is dying or has died, recite OM MANI PADME HUNG,
Heruka mantra and Heruka root mantra, and other mantras such as the Milarepa and
Namgyalma mantras. You can recite the long mantras 21 times or more, and one mala
or more of the short mantras. Blow strongly on the animal's body after each recitation.
Or, you can blow on water, visualizing each deity absorbed into the water. Each
drop of water now has the power to purify negative karmas. Then, as you pour the
water on the animal, all its negative karmas are purified.
If the animal is
dying, you can do Medicine Buddha practice, visualizing the seven Medicine Buddhas
on the crown of the animal. Then, you can also do 35 Buddhas practice, with nectar
coming out of the 35 Buddhas and purifying the animal's negative karma. Do this
with strong refuge in the 35 Buddhas to protect and guide your animal.
When
the animal is in the process of dying or even after its breath has stopped, if
you have some sand from a Kalachakra sand mandala, you can mix it with butter
and put it on the crown of the animal's head. Each sand grain has many Buddhas
abiding in it. It's especially good if it has been blessed by His Holiness the
Dalai Lama.
There is also a mantra which you can place on the animal's dead
body to purify it. Put it right against their skin, on the forehead or the chest.
Then,
cremate the animal's body. If there is a good practitioner or a lama available
to do the puja called Jangwa, then ask for that to be performed when you cremate
the body. After the body has been cremated, keep some pieces of the animal's bones,
and if possible, have Jangwa performed again on the bones. Crush the bones and
make a powder. Mix it with other material and make a stupa, or more than one stupa.
Put the stupa in a garden, if you have one, and then you can offer flowers to
the stupa. Dedicate the merit to your animal's good rebirth and enlightenment.