Robert Epstein

A Congregation of Cows Robert Epstein

There they are, dotting the hillsides and plains all across the country. Other than children in the backseats of cars or vans, few notice the wide-eyed cows and calves that lumber innocently along their self-created paths behind barbed wire. The lives of cows are quiet and uneventful. Or are they? These precious bovines are not just fodder for meat or leather; they are precious beings--as are all animals, birds and fish--regarded by many Hindus in India as sacred. How can anyone even think of killing it? No cow is an it; every cow is a she. What can we learn from the gentleness of bovines in our mist? Bash?, the father of Japanese haiku, said: "Go to the pine to learn from the pine." In the same spirit, I say: "Open your heart to the cows and deepen your capacity for kindness and ahimsa (harmlessness)."in that other world moo means mu*sweet grassa newborn calfnuzzling her mother*her face, her gazethat one could bemy mother now*freeway driveif I could, I would jointhe congregation of cows