Feeding Wild Birds

is something we end up doing when we eat our lunch out of doors. Whether Buddhist or Pagan, we are grateful for our food, and for the fact that there are, still, wild birds in our world whose existence can be alleviated and prolonged, at least in part, with the crusts of our sandwiches. Unlike, it is unspeakably sad to say, China, where there are no wild birds, they having all been eaten by big-brained, but heartless, Chineses.

We begin, tossing our crumbs to the birds we love (sparrows, finches, thrushes and jays)--and find ourselves at the end having a crisis of conscience when, to our dismay, we discover that the crumbs of our crumbs are eagerly besought and devoured by birds that we don't like particularly (doves and pigeons). The fault, of course, is in our loving some, and in permitting ourselves not particularly to like others: I am, after all, a sound, sad Buddhist--Ch'an, Nichiren, Pure Land.