In recent decades, there has been a growing global movement towards animal rights, socio-ecological justice, and a broadening out of moral considerability beyond the human. These more-than-human ethical moves are often predicated on notions of sentience, the stability of ecological communities, and a philosophical interest in posthuman thought. And while these considerations are certainly present in both historical and contemporary Buddhist approaches to the more-than-human world, we also see notions of individual and collective karma informing these human-nonhuman relationships. In Buddhist contexts, nonhuman animals have always been an important piece of Buddhist karmic lifeworlds. They have featured as characters in jataka tales explaining the workings of karma,[i] have functioned as billboards for displaying virtue in Buddhist hagiography,[ii] and have been instrumentalized as objects through which karma can be bought and solid in the merit economy.[iii] These nonhuman animals are of course seen to be on the same existential trajectory as their human counterparts, but they are often marginalized in discussions on collective karma and, more importantly, its implications for freedom, equity, and justice.
Drawing from the work of Jonathan Walters, the 2022 Lived Karma Symposium, and the excellent papers from prior iterations of this seminar, this paper will analyze the lived Buddhist relationships with nonhuman animals to extend and perhaps complicate existing notions of collective karma. It will begin by unpacking canonical views of animals in Buddhist traditions and how individualized notions of karma functioned to both justify their exploitation and their liberation. Then, it will analyze a selection of historical and contemporary accounts of Buddhists engaging with animals to unpack how the lived realities of these practitioners juxtapose earlier canonical positions. For example, the Tibetan yogi Shabkar Tsogdruk Rangdrol would teach nonhuman animals the dharma and scold nonhuman animals for behaving unethically.[iv] In doing, he not only ascribes karmic agency to these nonhuman actors but also eschews the orthodox Buddhist view of nonhuman animals by implicitly including them in the sociokarmic aspirations of his Mahayana world. Likewise, contemporary movements towards vegetarianism on the Tibetan plateau[v] and life release practices in East Asia[vi] are often articulated on the grounds of collective karma, and nonhuman animals feature in these movements not only as the means by which one accrues good karma oneself but as key members of the sociokarmic collective. This paper will think through examples like these to better understand the ways that nonhuman animals feature into lived Buddhist articulations of collective karma and how thinkers like Shabkar employ more-than-human karmic collectives to argue for a free, equitable, and just society inclusive of nonhuman animals.
This paper will then conclude by drawing from these examples to theorize how a more-than-human collective karma can inform present day justice initiatives both inside and outside of Buddhist contexts. It will dialogue the philosophical arguments for collective karmic justice (like Jessica Locke’s “In It Together: Theorizing Collective Karma through Transformative Justice”)[vii] and ethnographic work on collective karma (like Gareth Fisher’s “Universal Karma”)[viii] with intersectional articulations of more-than-human justice (like David Pellow’s Total Liberation)[ix] and ecofeminist approaches to animal ethics (as in the work of Carol Adams and Lori Gruen)[x] to develop the idea of “more-than-human collective karma” as a potential tool for social engagement and animal justice. Ultimately, this paper will argue that the kinds of collective karma we find in the lived expressions of Mahāyāna Buddhism tradition can be used to articulate a unique Buddhist approach to ethics, justice, and freedom inclusive of human and nonhuman animals alike.
[i] Reiko Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
[ii] Rachel Pang, “Taking Animals Seriously: Shabkar’s Narrative Argument for Vegetarianism and the Ethical Treatment of Animals,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics 29 (2022).
[iii] Joanna F. Handlin Smith, “Liberating Animals in Ming-Qing China: Buddhist Inspiration and Elite Imagination,” The Journal of Asian Studies 58, no.1 (1999); Henry Shiu and Leah Stokes, “Buddhist Animal Release Practices: Historic, Environmental, Public Health and Economic Concerns,” Contemporary Buddhism 9, no. 2 (2008).
[iv] The Life of Shabkar: The Autobiography of a Tibetan Yogin (trans. Matthieu Ricard, Jakob Leschly, Erik Schmidt, Marilyn Silverstone, and Lodro Palmo. Ed. Constance Wilkinson. Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 2001), 158-159, 139.
[v] Khenpo Tsultrim Lodro, “A Case for Animal Compassion,” in Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping Tibetan Buddhism for the Twenty-First Century (trans. Geoffrey Barstow. Ed. Holly Gayley. Boulder: Snow Lion, 2021); Khenpo Sodargye and Khenpo Sherab Zangpo, “Liberating Lives,” in Voices from Larung Gar: Shaping Tibetan Buddhism for the Twenty-First Century (trans. Catherine Hardie. Ed. Holly Gayley. Boulder: Snow Lion, 2021).
[vi] Avi Darshani, “Releasing Life or Releasing Death: The Practice and Discourse on Buddhist Animal Liberation Rituals in Contemporary Xiamen,” Journal of Chinese Religions 49, no. 1 (2021).
[vii] Jessica Locke, “In It Together: Theorizing Collective Karma through Transformative Justice,” Journal of Speculative Philosophy 35, no. 4 (2021).
[viii] Gareth Fisher, “Universal Karma,” Journal of Global Buddhism 24, no. 2 (2023).
[ix] David Naguib Pellow, Total Liberation: The Power and Promise of Animal Rights and the Radical Earth Movement (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014).
[x] See: The Feminist Care Tradition in Animal Ethics (ed. Josephine Donovan and Carol J. Adams. New York: Columbia University Press, 2007); Lori Gruen, Entangled Empathy: An Alternative Ethic for Our Relationships with Animals (New York: Lantern Publications, 2015).
This paper analyzes lived Buddhist relationships with nonhuman animals to extend and complicate existing notions of collective karma. It begins by unpacking how individualized notions of karma function to both justify both exploitation and liberation of animals in canonical Buddhism. Then, it analyzes a selection of historical and contemporary accounts of Buddhist relationships with animals to show how these narratives often departed from these canonical ideas in favor of more collective understandings of karma. Drawing from these examples, it then theorizes how a more-than-human collective karma can inform present day justice initiatives. It develops the idea of “more-than-human collective karma” as a potential tool for social and animal justice, and argues that the kinds of collective karma we find in the lived expressions of Mahāyāna Buddhism can be used to articulate a unique Buddhist approach to ethics, justice, and freedom inclusive of human and nonhuman animals alike.