As I was driving home to my hometown one festive day

I saw many animals and fowls knocked down by cars

First I saw a dead monkey on the road

Then a very beautiful brown bird

And after that I did not bother what were the dead bodies any more

So I told myself

The next dead body I encountered

I would stop my car and try to do something

True enough I came across another body

I stopped my car

It was a dying little dog

Just knocked down by a motor cyclist

Blood was oozing out from its mouth

And its heart was still beating

I dragged it to the side of the road

Fortunately the hospital was only a few miles away

I sent it there hoping to terminate its suffering fast

But the hospital assistant gave it a jab to end its life

This relates to an incident

When Buddha and his disciples

Were walking to a certain place

He stopped and knelt down to pray

To a skeleton beside the road

The disciples asked him

Why did you pray to the skeleton?

Buddha answered

This skeleton could be my ancestor’s skeleton

I paid respect to him….

Be it human or animal skeleton

The dying little dog might have human descendants

The Buddhist scripture says:

"There is no peace in the three realms

 Just like a burning house, filled with sufferings and fears

There are also the endless flame of birth, growing old, illness and death."

The death of the dying little dog is as painful as

A man being knocked down by a car or poisoned from modern day foods

So when an animal is knock down, nobody cares

When a human is being knocked down, somebody will care

But when a chicken is being knock down, nobody wants to eat that chicken

The real nature of human is pure   

Only that we do not know how to bring it out and extend it to the animal

The dying little dog could be your ancestor

Have a heart, as the Buddha says,

The skeleton could be his ancestor.