There is a deep sadness in being human today. Assumed to be the most lucky being to embody in place of another animal due to its capacity to think and be “conscious,” and “civilised,” paradoxically, it is this very gift that becomes the source of our demise and suffering. With our “advanced” minds we create, and creation and creativity is a beautiful part of humans, however, they have cast a shadow, causing more suffering to the world, other animals, and even other humans.
We created war—the grotesque human-inhuman representation of our catastrophic capabilities. Where not only do innocent victims befall trauma and pain, but the most innocent, animals, pets and ecological-chemical landscape of the land on Earth suffer for generations. The current genocide of Palestinians stands as a stark reminder. Witnessing the effects of war on civilians on social media today has peeled open our eyes over the suffering of humans and animals in pain from being torn away from loved ones and places of belonging. The subjugation of humans and animals to statelessness, a place of no belonging is a state of purgatory that no one deserves. With social media, we have never been so close to war than we are today, never have we seen the first hand accounts of suffering so openly and rawly through our cold screens.
Amid this sea of suffering, we, with our human minds should think, reflect and absorb the suffering and transform it into compassion. If human destructiveness is one face of the coin, the other radiates with the warmth of compassion. We must choose the other side while transforming the destructiveness as part of compassion in an embrace. We must cup and drink the suffering of the world, be it from humans or animals, we must not avert our gaze in the face of pain, we must digest life in all its facets—as is the Tantric way.
Although war is a human creation, so too is the art of forming bonds. Whether familial, communal, or extending across species, our ability to connect and care for one another based on the shared vitality of existence offers a glimmer of hope for our species. The essence of being human lies in recognising and sharing the same aliveness—the fundamental basis of our interconnected existence—that is where the beauty of being human is found.
We must abandon political systems that are devoid of compassion and cannot enable the flourishing of life. These systems that breed division and segregation should not be nourished. Instead, let us forge a new path of consciousness, acknowledging the intricate web that binds us all. So much so that the suffering of another is felt in ourselves. Suffering is unpleasant and we avoid it, but it is the saving grace of our species to feel the suffering of another no matter their form. In recognising suffering we are able to cultivate a deeper understanding of being alive, a deeper intelligence that is not derived not from the coldness of civilisation but from the warmth of recognising the intrinsic beauty and value of being alive.
Written by Venya Patel
In closing, as we navigate the complexities suffering and beauty, let us heed the words of Thich Nhat Hanh, a buddhist monk and activist who lived through the atrocities during the Vietnam war:
Please Call Me by My True Names
Don’t say that I will depart tomorrow —
even today I am still arriving.
Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.
I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.
The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.
I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.
I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.
I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.
I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.
I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his “debt of blood” to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.
My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.
Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.
Symbiotic Futures 
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