The Cow Who Cried

Dasi, B. Radha-Govinda,  USA – The following story was sent to me. I felt to submit this to the Sampradaya Sun for readers to see:

An Excerpt from Critical Problems and their Compassionate Solutions by Ajahn Brahm

The Cow Who Cried

“I arrived early to my meditation class in a low-security prison. A criminal whom I had never seen before was waiting to speak with me. He was a giant of a man with bushy hair, beard and tattooed arms. The scars on his face told me he had been in many a violent fight. He looked so fearsome that I wondered why he was coming to learn meditation. He wasn’t the type. I was wrong of course. He told me that something had happened a few days before that spooked the hell out of him.

As he started speaking, I picked up his thick Ulster accent. To give me some background, he told me that he had grown up in the violent streets of Belfast. His first stabbing was when he was seven years old. The school bully had demanded the money he had for his lunch. He said no. The bully took out a long knife and asked for the money a second time. He thought the bully was bluffing and refused to give it again. The bully never asked a third time, he just plunged the knife into the seven year old boy’s arm, drew it out and walked away. He told me that he ran to his father’s nearby house in shock with blood streaming down his arm. His unemployed father took one look at the wound and led his son into the kitchen, but not to dress the wound. The father opened a drawer, took out a big kitchen knife, gave it to his son, and ordered him to go back to school and stab the bully back. That was how he had been brought up. If he hadn’t grown up to be so big and strong, he would have long been dead.

The jail was a prison farm where short-term prisoners, and long-term prisoners close to release, could be prepared for life outside by learning a trade in the farming industry. Furthermore, the produce from the prison farm would supply all the prisons around Perth with inexpensive food, thus keeping down costs.

Australian farms grow cows, sheep and pigs, not just wheat and vegetables; so did the prison farm. But unlike other farms, the prison farm had its own on-site slaughterhouse. Every prisoner had to have a job on the prison farm. I was informed by many of the inmates that the most sought-after jobs were in the slaughterhouse. These jobs were especially popular with violent offenders. And the most sought-after job of all, which one had to fight for, was the job of the slaughterer himself. That giant and fearsome Irishman was the slaughterer.

He described the slaughterhouse to me; super-strong stainless steel railings, wide at the opening but narrowing down to a single channel inside the building, just wide enough for one animal to pass through at a time. Next to the narrow channel, raised on a platform, he would stand with the electric gun. Cows, sheep and pigs would be forced into the stainless steel funnel using dogs and cattle prods. He said they would always scream, each in their own way, and try to escape. They could smell death, hear death and feel death. When an animal was alongside his platform it would be writhing, wriggling and moaning in full voice. Even though his gun could kill a large bull with a single high-voltage charge, the animal would never stand still long enough for him to aim properly. So it was one shot to stun, next shot to kill. One shot to stun, next shot to kill. Animal after animal. Day after day.

The Irishman started to become excited as he moved to the occurrence, only a few days before, that had unsettled him so much. He started to swear. In what followed he kept repeating, ‘This is the God f___ing truth!’ as if afraid I would not believe him.

That day they needed beef for the prisons around Perth so they were slaughtering cows. One shot to stun, next shot to kill. He was well into a normal day of killing when a cow came up he had never seen before. This cow was silent. There wasn’t even a whimper. Its head was down as it walked purposely, voluntarily, slowly into position next to the platform. It did not writhe, wriggle or try to escape. Once in position the cow lifted her head and stared at her executioner, absolutely still.

The Irishman hadn’t seen anything even close to this before. His mind went numb with confusion. He couldn’t lift his gun; nor could he take his eyes away from the eyes of the cow. The cow was looking right inside him. He slipped into timeless spaces. He couldn’t tell me how long it took, but as the cow held him in eye contact, he noticed something that shook him even more. Cows have very big eyes. He saw in the left eye of the cow, above the lower eye lid, water began to gather. The water grew and grew until it was too much for the eyelid to hold. It began to trickle slowly all the way down her cheek forming a glistening line of tears.

Long closed doors were opening slowly to his heart. As he looked in disbelief, he saw in the right eye of the cow, above the lower eyelid, more water gathering, growing by the moment, until it too was more than the eyelid could contain. A second stream of water trickled down her face. And the man broke down. The cow was crying.

He told me that he threw down his gun, swore to the fullest extent of his considerable capacity to the prison officers that they could do whatever they liked to him, but “THAT COW AIN’T DYING!”

He ended by telling me that he was vegetarian now. That story was true. Other inmates of the prison farm confirmed it for me. The cow that cried taught one of the most violent of men what it means to care.”

Your servant,

Dasi, B. Radha-GOvinda
Hare Krsna