Just this morning, I saw the picture of my colleague's daughter. The Malay girl is just four years old but she is a hell of a girl. A big python clings on her shoulder and she holds the snake's head as if caressing it. My colleague told me that her daughter loves animals. She is attracted to all types of animals just like they are attracted to her. She has no qualms about holding and caressing them, dogs even; which her mom forbids vehemently. It's a sin, she told her daughter. Buddhists, I just read consider animals as sentient beings and in the Mahayana tradition, they, like humans, have consciousness as well as Buddha nature and are therefore, capable of enlightenment. I suppose then, there isn't any animal that Buddhists can't touch; untouchable perhaps, only when they bring about adverse effects.
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