Do insects communicate with humans? I rescued a drowning bee, and it said, "thanks man!"

[Kim OHara]

great idea!

Next time, but somewhere else because now no-one would believe me here.


Kim

[sunnat]

A hot summer, many years ago, I was cutting wood. The flies were buzzing around my sweaty head and I kept swiping at them and getting more and more flustered.

It became very uncomfortable to generate so much aversion. I decided a bit of metta could help so I relaxed the tightness in my head and tried to think: 'may I be happy peaceful and liberated, may all beings be happy peaceful and liberated...' and, as I let go of the aversion, suddenly the flies receded from me and were no longer crowding in. It was startling. Perhaps some of those flies are now humans. Or, maybe I stopped exuding some attractant, or cooled down and was no longer of interest.

Today I wear a headnet, a sweat band AND practice metta and meditate.

[Bundokji]

The following story is from Alan Watts's book "the way of zen":

The Ch’uan Teng Lu records a fascinating encounter between Tao-hsin and the sage Fa-yung, who lived in a lonely temple on Mount Niu-t’ou, and was so holy that the birds used to bring him offerings of flowers. As the two men were talking, a wild animal roared close by, and Tao-hsin jumped. Fa-yung commented, “I see it is still with you!”–referring, of course, to the instinctive “passion” (klesa) of fright. Shortly afterwards, while he was for a moment unobserved, Tao-hsin wrote the Chinese character for “Buddha” on the rock where Fa-yung was accustomed to sit. When Fa-yung returned to sit down again, he saw the sacred Name and hesitated to sit. “I see,” said Tao-hsin, “it is still with
you!” At this remark Fa-yung was fully awakened … and the birds never brought any more flowers.

[frank k]

I didn't read the full article, just skimmed it real quick, but it looked like it was more of the bees recognizing the signs left there marking the way out of the maze for example, colored red marks indicating where to turn, rather than communicating with humans?

Do insects communicate with humans?

Perhaps doesn't answer your question, but humans can evidently communicate with bees, to the extent to teaching them signs with which to navigate mazes:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC311340/


Mike

[mikenz66]

I didn't read the full article, just skimmed it real quick, but it looked like it was more of the bees recognizing the signs left there marking the way out of the maze for example, colored red marks indicating where to turn, rather than communicating with humans?

Yes, the humans taught the bees to recognise the signs.


Mike