The 2008 Sichuan Earthquake : In Memorial of All Sentient Beings

Picture: A stone at Dongkekou Quake Relic Park records the date and time of the earthquake that killed 780 residents of Donghekou village last year in China. By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

My initial intention for today's post was to title it "Selling Pain:1st anniversary of the Sichuan Earthquake" and to vent my indignation, disbelieve and disgust at the brainless, imbecile and insensitive idea to make profit out of misery, disaster and tragedy.
As I have said before, in China everything can be marketed and sold as long as there is someone willing to buy it.


Picture:On a hilltop overlooking the ruins of the town of Beichuan, hundreds of Chinese tourists now queue up to buy pieces of the disaster legend. Vendors sell picture books and DVDs of the disaster, incense and candles to be placed on memorials.

However just now, on waking up, I decided against writing the post about this. At least not today. But here is an article to give you some idea about the "earthquake tourism" that is a profitable business in the disaster zone one year after the earthquake:

Chinese earthquake park turns pain into profit
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-05-10-quakepark_N.htm

Instead of writing about this somewhat perverse phenomenon, I'll use this post to commemorate not only the people who perished as a result of the earthquake, buried under the rubble of their homes or other (sometimes badly constructed) buildings, children who never finished their classes and never went home, and the suffering and pain of those whose loved ones have perished, but most importantly I want to commemorate today the REST of the sentient beings who suffered and perished. Today, no doubt everybody will commemorate and mourn the more than 80, 000 people who died, but I'm sure nobody will even mention that along with the humans, together sometimes, possibly hundreds of thousands of other sentient beings also perished at the same time exactly.
It made an impression on me that in last year's reports for the earthquake only a few articles even mentioned the animals as the other victims of this natural disaster at all. A couple of dead pandas and a pig that survived made the news. And only one article actually mentioned the thousands of dead animals, "domestic" or wild. Another article (or the same one, I don't remember) actually mentioned the huge animal life loss, but it was in connection with the comment of the big negative impact of the earthquake on the local pork industry (Sichuan is "famous" for it's pork).

Hm, I wish I could somehow "redeem" this neglect, human insensitivity and lack of compassion today.
Suffering and pain is NOT a prerogative of humans.

So, this post is in memorial of the REST of the sentient beings that lost their lives in much the same, (if not much greater) helplessness facing this natural disaster.
I cried many times at the reports of the human tragedies, but my heart also goes to those nameless, uncounted, unaccounted-for, neglected other sentient beings who also died in pain, suffering, helplessness and terror.

And if there is a lesson to be learned, it is that people's smugness is ridiculous. Humans are NOT masters of this Planet. We are just 'visiting'. For a short while.
And we have absolutely no clue about how or why. Actually most times no clue about nothing at all.

Let ALL sentient beings be happy and safe!
.