Scientists say dolphins should be treated as ‘non-human persons.’ I like anything that demonstrates that there are other sentient beings on the planet. Too much of our thinking separates and isolates. Even so, if scientists can see that dolphins are the second most intelligent, it would be interesting to see just what’s going on inside that brain. What kind of brains do they have compared with ours? Where is the development in the brain? What I’d also like to know is why they’re the second most intelligent, other than by a brain mass to body mass ratio, which seems awfully simplistic, but what do I know and they suggest that they do. Did they study dolphins for meditative development? Imagine if we discovered that dolphins were more meditatively aware than humans. Now wouldn’t that be interesting.

Anyway, just acknowledging that there are other sentient beings is a step. Inanimate objects don’t become buddhas. Sentient beings are the soil from which a buddha is born. How do we know that buddhas haven’t arisen from dolphins? Perhaps because they haven’t yet become deluded, but another article shows that they display suffering.

The scientific evidence on dolphin sensitivities reveals that they are vulnerable to trauma and suffering when forced to live in the confined context of marine parks,” Marino said.

Animals do. So perhaps it is possible that a buddha has arisen from a dolphin. Who knows?