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Pets visit Buddhist temple - 25th May 2022

This is a Buddhist temple in Singapore. It's Vesak day. Vesak is a special day for Buddhists. It's Buddha's birthday. Buddha loves all animals. So people can bring their pets to the temple. The animals receive a special prayer. This shows Buddha's love.

Singha Rinpoche: "I want to stress the importance of actual love for all beings to be equal, whether they are animals or whether they are human beings. you know Buddha taught equanimity, and then we should really try to love and respect all life in all forms. So the blessing is not just for humans, the blessing also for animals."

Buddhists believe people are born again. This happens when we die. This is the same for pets too. So Dennis Yee brought his cat, Blackie.

Dennis Yee: "I am a Buddhist. So we always likes to accumulate merits for our current life and also for the future life. And also we, we, we see our animals as a family and also as – in our, in our animal realm. So we like to accumulate merit for, for my pets, so that in future he may be, he may be, become a human just like us and not be an animal."

Owners brought lots of different pets to the temple. People came with dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs. Eng Jui Goy brought his turtle, Shelly.

Eng Jui Goy: "But when I first adopted her, she's a, a, a pet that was given up. She was very shy. It took us quite a while, for, for us to get close to her. And now that she has warm up to us, we feel that adopting to being blessed together with us in a Vesak Day even will bring all of us closer."

Lots of people took photos with their pets. Some families had special lights for their pets. The temple director, Singha Rinpoche, says this day is important. In the next life, who knows what the pets will become?

Singha Rinpoche: "We pray to plant a seed of enlightenment for the pet. Because in – we believe that even a pet will become a Buddha one day."