On 1 Sept, officially we had our 34th Monthly Fish Liberation event. If including personal liberation,We have been liberating fishes for more than 3 years already.
During our breakfast session with fellow committees after the liberation, James told me his Mrs, Ai Li was criticized by one of her friend who is active member in another Buddhist organization. According to her friend, what we are doing is wrong (fish liberation). He/she said that we are encouraging more people to breed these fishes and capitalize more money from our liberation activities.
If he/she was a non Buddhist, my usual response would be Ah, Uh Huh Really?. BUT this time is different because it is coming from someone who labelled themselves a Buddhist. Sometimes, it is very sad to hear stories of not only 'blind' but mindless Buddhist who make literally 'stupid' statements to show that they are 'holier than thou'.
Yes as I label myself Buddhist, I too can swear, because it is the only way to get my point across in this case.
1. ALL sentient beings are equal. Helping humans and saving fishes essentially is the same. All is to train a person in being compassion. If compassion with a filter for different type of beings that is not compassion that is the starting of discrimination.
2. Not saving those fishes, those people will breed less of it. With that logic, society should NOT help any hungry children, people who are ill and those basically located in 3rd world countries. Because according to his/her logic, why not just let them all die, so it is easier. 'Those' people would then learn not to make so many children. If we keep helping those children, we are encouraging them to have more. Is that the line of thought he/she is having?
3. I know the Buddhist organization that he/she is involve in likes to help and raise funds to help kidney patients. Why bother? Those patients should have ate less sugar, salt, drink more water etc. Why raise funds for dialysis machines, you are encouraging people to abuse their kidneys.
Every being rebirth into samsara is due to karma. We are practicing compassion in helping those beings because we know that samsara is suffering, not only we are suffering others are suffering too. It is their karma that they are reborn as fishes, but just because they cannot talk does not mean they don't feel hurt and fear.
All beings wish to be free from harm. And through countless eons of rebirth in samsara, any of this beings could have been our parent or loved ones from previous life. If your mother is being kidnapped today, would you say that giving money to the kidnappers would only encourage them to kidnap more people? Let your mother die to teach those people not to kidnap anymore?
I bet in a swift second, you mind would only be thinking on how to raise money to help your mother instead of all this 'namtok' (Tibetan for mindless self chattering)
It is a very heavy karmic burden to enroll yourself into, when you discourage a person to do merits either for themselves or for others. Any good merits that they fail to do as a result of your speech would be a bad karmic seed you are planting for yourself.
We have liberated more than 8000kgs of fishes about 24,000 fishes so far. Imagine what sort of karmic consequences would a person need to bear if I, personally have listened to these so called 'mindless' Buddhist when we first started 3 years ago?
As a Buddhist we always have to be mindful of body, speech and mind. If your Buddhist teacher have not taught you, I am here to teach you today. Not because I'm holier, but as human to human I don't want to see you suffer further by sowing bad karmic seeds.
As I have told my committee members, not all that wear a monk's robe and have bald head have wisdom. Part of being a Buddhist is about asking the right questions, knowing what is sowing good karmic seeds and bad karmic seeds. The Demon that is most real to many Buddhist are the Divine Child Syndrome. A demon that like to prey on those that think Buddhism will give them status based on their
1. Seniority in a temple or Buddhist organization
2. Close acquaintance to a monk, nun, lama, guru, shifu, rinpoche and what have you.
3. Having done so much practice and chanted how many mantras compare to others
4 Being in a well recognized Buddhist organization
5. Having done so much charity to fellow humans
6. Knowing a lot of Sutras
Because after knowing and done so much, if that has not humbled your ego but in fact increase it, a sure sign for the Demon of Divine Child Syndrome to get you and be a part of you.
May you have some understanding on the importance of Animal Liberation soon....
During our breakfast session with fellow committees after the liberation, James told me his Mrs, Ai Li was criticized by one of her friend who is active member in another Buddhist organization. According to her friend, what we are doing is wrong (fish liberation). He/she said that we are encouraging more people to breed these fishes and capitalize more money from our liberation activities.
Yes as I label myself Buddhist, I too can swear, because it is the only way to get my point across in this case.
1. ALL sentient beings are equal. Helping humans and saving fishes essentially is the same. All is to train a person in being compassion. If compassion with a filter for different type of beings that is not compassion that is the starting of discrimination.
2. Not saving those fishes, those people will breed less of it. With that logic, society should NOT help any hungry children, people who are ill and those basically located in 3rd world countries. Because according to his/her logic, why not just let them all die, so it is easier. 'Those' people would then learn not to make so many children. If we keep helping those children, we are encouraging them to have more. Is that the line of thought he/she is having?
3. I know the Buddhist organization that he/she is involve in likes to help and raise funds to help kidney patients. Why bother? Those patients should have ate less sugar, salt, drink more water etc. Why raise funds for dialysis machines, you are encouraging people to abuse their kidneys.
Every being rebirth into samsara is due to karma. We are practicing compassion in helping those beings because we know that samsara is suffering, not only we are suffering others are suffering too. It is their karma that they are reborn as fishes, but just because they cannot talk does not mean they don't feel hurt and fear.
All beings wish to be free from harm. And through countless eons of rebirth in samsara, any of this beings could have been our parent or loved ones from previous life. If your mother is being kidnapped today, would you say that giving money to the kidnappers would only encourage them to kidnap more people? Let your mother die to teach those people not to kidnap anymore?
I bet in a swift second, you mind would only be thinking on how to raise money to help your mother instead of all this 'namtok' (Tibetan for mindless self chattering)
It is a very heavy karmic burden to enroll yourself into, when you discourage a person to do merits either for themselves or for others. Any good merits that they fail to do as a result of your speech would be a bad karmic seed you are planting for yourself.
We have liberated more than 8000kgs of fishes about 24,000 fishes so far. Imagine what sort of karmic consequences would a person need to bear if I, personally have listened to these so called 'mindless' Buddhist when we first started 3 years ago?
As a Buddhist we always have to be mindful of body, speech and mind. If your Buddhist teacher have not taught you, I am here to teach you today. Not because I'm holier, but as human to human I don't want to see you suffer further by sowing bad karmic seeds.
As I have told my committee members, not all that wear a monk's robe and have bald head have wisdom. Part of being a Buddhist is about asking the right questions, knowing what is sowing good karmic seeds and bad karmic seeds. The Demon that is most real to many Buddhist are the Divine Child Syndrome. A demon that like to prey on those that think Buddhism will give them status based on their
1. Seniority in a temple or Buddhist organization
2. Close acquaintance to a monk, nun, lama, guru, shifu, rinpoche and what have you.
3. Having done so much practice and chanted how many mantras compare to others
4 Being in a well recognized Buddhist organization
5. Having done so much charity to fellow humans
6. Knowing a lot of Sutras
Because after knowing and done so much, if that has not humbled your ego but in fact increase it, a sure sign for the Demon of Divine Child Syndrome to get you and be a part of you.
May you have some understanding on the importance of Animal Liberation soon....
**Those who like to know more about Feng Shui, please visit my blog at http://gkhamconsulting.blogspot.com
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