Hello everyone,
Does anyone know about the story where an animal is practicing skeleton meditation and can see skeletons?
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I remember reading about a parrot who was taught to consider that the body is just bones. And was said to have no fear when seized by an eagle.
A rare bird.
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Yes, I’m interested in that story. So does that mean animals can succeed in skeleton meditation too? If so, nobody has any excuse not to succeed in meditation. 
This same question was asked to Sujin Boriharnwanaket many years ago in Cambodia:
In this section Butsawong translates questions from the audience
and Sujin replies.ButSawong: there is a question about a parrot
that develops satipatthanna by reciting, Atthi, atthi (the
pali term
for bones) 3 . I would like to ask how rupa dhamma or nama
dhamma can be
the object of satipatthana in this way?Sujin: A parrot cannot know
the four noble Truths and nobody can know the mind of a parrot.If a parrot says, bones and a human being says the word bones, is
there a
difference between the ability of a bird and of a human being tounderstand the meaning of this word? What is a person thinking
who has
listened to the Dhamma for a long time and hears the word
bones does he
think in a way different from a parrot ?A parrot and a human being
have each a different bodily appearance. Is seeing-consciousnessdifferent in the case of a parrot and of a human being, or is it
the same? We can see that a parrot is different from a human being because of the bodily appearance. However, nama dhamma has no outward
appearance; there
are kusala cittas and akusala cittas which arise. Birth as a
bird is
the result of akusala whereas birth as a human is the result of
kusala.
We should consider the Dhamma in all details. When someone just
listens
to the words of the Dhamma without considering them he may
mistakenly believe that a parrot can develop satipathana. The parrot may
have accumulated inclinations which we cannot know; it is true that
the Bodhisatta who developed panna was also born as a bird in his
former lives. We do not know about this, we only know with regard to ourselves the realities which arise. We can find out that satipatthana is not
at all easy.We have to listen to the Dhamma for a long time so that there
can be
conditions for sati to be aware of a reality even at this very
moment.Nobody here can know the citta of someone else, and who would
have the kind of panna that knows the citta of a parrot? Thus, what we
would be able to know is our own citta at this moment and this is what is
most
beneficial. Then we shall know that even thinking of a parrot is
only one moment of citta that thinks. This is different from the citta
that sees or hears. This is the way to develop panna so that we correctly
understand the characteristic of n�ma dhamma, the element that
knows, that can
know an object through the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue,
the
bodysense and the mind-door. Everybody here can only know his
own citta
and thus he should have more understanding of his own citta