What if we have already done many bad things? Can we ask the Buddha to forgive us?
The Buddha is considered our Teacher and not someone that we pray to for forgiveness. Buddhists do not believe in any external agencies that we must ask forgiveness from, or worship for salvation.
If Buddhists were to ask for forgiveness, it would be to the person that we wronged, and not to a third party or external agency. If it were not possible to be forgiven by the person we wronged or to make amends, then we should let the matter go, learn from it and forgive ourselves, of course provided that we are sincere about it.
The Buddha teaches us that we are each responsible for our own actions, and that we are each capable of shaping our own destinies. We should thus consider carefully before doing anything wrong, and instead try to do right at all times.
If you are unsure whether an action is right or wrong, you can apply this simple rule of thumb as taught by the Buddha : if the action harms either yourself or another, or both; then avoid doing that action. If not, then go right on ahead!
Source: Just be Good
Cat Talk: For instance, you can talk to your cat. Some people feel silly speaking to cats, because they think animals can’t understand them. These same people may feel comfortable carrying on long one-sided conversations with infants. Cats do receive information from your conversation: praise, comfort, and a sense of security.
You can get information, too. The more cats are spoken to, the more they will speak back. You will learn a lot from your cat’s wide vocabulary of chirps and meows. You will know when it is time to get up (at least in your cat’s opinion), when your cat is feeling affectionate, or when your cat is feeling critical or threatened, or is in pain. Your cat doesn’t necessarily have something urgent to tell you; a passing meow in the hallway may be a simple hello. Source: Fact Monster
If you pour a handful of salt into a cup of water, the water becomes undrinkable. But if you pour the salt into a river, people can continue to draw the water to cook, wash, and drink. The river is immense, and it has the capacity to receive, embrace, and transform. When our hearts are small, our understanding and compassion are limited, and we suffer. We can’t accept or tolerate others and their shortcomings, and we demand that they change. But when our hearts expand, these same things don’t make us suffer anymore. We have a lot of understanding and compassion and can embrace others. We accept others as they are, and then they have a chance to transform. ~Thich Nhat Hanh
The smallest pedigreed cat is a Singapura, which can weigh just 4 lbs (1.8 kg), or about five large cans of cat food. The largest pedigreed cats are Maine Coon cats, which can weigh 25 lbs (11.3 kg), or nearly twice as much as an average cat weighs. Some Siamese cats appear cross-eyed because the nerves from the left side of the brain go to mostly the right eye and the nerves from the right side of the brain go mostly to the left eye. This causes some double vision, which the cat tries to correct by “crossing” its eyes. Source: RandomFacts
Chickens are able to remember and recognise over 100 individuals; they can also recognise humans.
Like other birds and mammals, chickens experience REM sleep, which is associated with dreaming. Chickens have very sophisticated social behaviour with a dominance hierarchy where higher individuals dominate subordinate individuals. This is where the term pecking order comes from! Source: OneKind