Buddha and Animals

Rat

The Rat was the first animal to respond to the Buddha, and that is a clue to his personality.

Don't think of it as the creature we dislike. The Rat in the Chinese calendar has ingenuity, intelligence, independence and is something of a magician. Rats like to win. If you're a Rat, you know how to get what you want. Even as a child you would feign a better reason to escape homework as You're inventive and original.

You'll be very friendly and generous to your friends and those you love, but your enemies should steer clear! A complicated person with quick, nervous energy, you worry about tomorrow and push yourself to your limits, yet you are quick to criticize others. You need time to be yourself, and to be on your own.

Rats may be the first to jump a sinking ship but, for the practical rat, it does make sense to avoid going down with someone else. Survival is the keyword for you. You will join the race and try to overtake as many as possible. You will not be disappointed to see some ahead of you as you know the rules of the game. Those who call it rat race are either defeatists or wish to romanticize their escapism.

Your smallness (whether the size or the stature) can easily lead a bigger rival to underestimate you, and you are clever enough seize the opportunity to destroy a powerful enemy.

If you were born in the Year of the Rat, you will get on very well with people born in the Years of the Ox, Dragon and Dog, and probably hardly at all with those born in the Years of the Rabbit, Horse and Monkey.

1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008 are the Years of the Rat*.

* Chinese calendar is lunar calendar and therefore the Year begins on different date. Therefore if you are born in the months of January or February, you need to check the Chinese calendar.

Famous Rats: William Shakespeare, Atal Behari Vajpayee, Katrina Kaif, Prince Charles, Al Gore, Priyanka Gandhi, Govinda, George Washington, Hema Malini, T.S. Eliot, Mozart, Claude Monet, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, J Jayalalitha, Marlon Brando, George Bush, Gulzar, Jimmy Carter, Raj Kapoor, Mohan Deep, Louis Armstrong, Hugh Grant, Alan Alda, Sean Penn, Truman Capote, Irving Berlin, Donna Summer, Olivia Newton John, Joseph Hayden, Antonio Banderas, Doris Day, Clark Gable, Yves St Laurent, Gene Kelly and Andrea Lloyd Webber.