What Is an Animal’s Experience of Being?

"What’s the experience of animals? They clearly have perception and mind, but I assume they don’t have self-reflection in the way we do. Rupert says: ‘Imagine you could communicate with your dog and you were to say: “tell me about your objective experience.” The dog would say, “I feel hungry sometimes, I feel excited sometimes, I want to go for a walk.” But then if you would say, “tell me about yourself, reflect on yourself, what could you say that’s true of yourself?” I think it would say “I am”. Of course it would say “I am”. To what experience would the words “I am” refer? Awareness, the experience of being, the awareness of being. Now just because the dog cannot formulate that experience doesn’t mean that it is not having it. The dog is having the experience of being. It just can’t formulate it as “I am”. But the dog’s primary experience of itself is the experience of being, which is identical to your experience of being. That’s why we love our dogs, because we feel that the being that we essentially are and the being that our dog or cat essentially is, is the same being.’"

From event 05 - 12 October, 2025 Seven-Day Retreat at Garrison Institute, 5–12 October 2025

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