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General Buddhism => General Buddhism => Topic started by: icy on December 28, 2013, 11:16:42 AM
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The following article was published by China News. As soon as these carps were released for liberation by some Buddhists, 50 men stood on the riverbank downstream, waiting for the release to recapture them.
The karma of the carps did not allow them to be free and had the karma of these fishermen on the riverbank to recapture them. Would it be wise not to purchase them for liberation so there would not be a demand for them to stop fishing and recapturing?
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December 18, 2013, Jinan, 2,000 kilos of carp released into the Yellow River beach, specialty Jinan Yellow River carp fishing supplementary source of more than 20 minutes in the release of more than 800 carp, most carp body is more than 20 cm, the longest reach 40 cm. (Qiu Qian / CFP)
December 19, 2013 news, Jinan. December 18, more than 20 enthusiastic people to purchase 2,000 kilos of carp released into the Yellow River beach, specialty Jinan Yellow River carp fishing supplementary source. And in the public release of the same, more than 50 men standing on the riverbank downstream of the 100 meters, waiting for release by a walk, swarming went flood of competing at the release fishing.
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Sometimes it is better to perform virtuous actions secretly. Doing so is excellent for examining our true motivation for the action, for recognizing deluded pride and grasping for praise and recognition, for learning to give with a pure heart unstained by worldly concern, and for learning to use wisdom to help guide our generosity.
Though these people may have good intentions, the generosity was not combined with wisdom.
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I guess many people still doesn”t understand the meaning of animal liberation and why doing so… In one side people are trying to prolong their life and the other side is trying to shortened their life and the animals because of greed. Much consideration have to be taken when doing animal liberation. Proper planning and survey should be done before taking action to avoid cases like this happening …..
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Animal liberation is to help the fishes to prolong their life and not to be slaughtered and eaten. The act of liberating fishes by the person is to gain merits for oneself as well.
The ignorant people who catches the fishes after they are being liberated will gain tremendous negativity and have created bad karma for them. Karma equal cause and effect.
Maybe should consider liberating birds?
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Do it in a proper natural lake,where the fishes have some hope of long-term survival.Motivation of the person is always the key factor, and the result of the act.If the act brings happiness or alleviates sufferings in the other,it is more beneficial.
The practice of giving life to a creature who would otherwise die was believed to be of great benefit to the creature and the sponsor.The fishes were blessed before released into the water.
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In China, almost anything can happen... :P China is so driven by materialism, so much many people has forgotten about spiritual, and this is just one of the many examples.
Regarding animal liberation, I agree with @redlantern and others that it is our motivation that is the key. I also agree with @metta_girl that proper planning needs to be done before liberating animals. For example, where to liberate fish? will people take advantage and kill them after that? I have asked many questions about liberating fish and a Dharma center told me that they only buy fish from fish market where the fish will be delivered to restaurants as food. Liberating these fish will prolong their lives.
IMHO, the best way to liberate animals is to stop eating meat. In this case, we are liberating EVERYDAY.
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To liberate is to set free from a situation. In this case of fish liberation, they only enjoyed their freedom for a very short span of time. Where then is the liberation?
RedLantern had suggested that this liberation be carried out in a natural lake so that the liberated fishes would enjoy a longer term of survival, even though this does not ensure that they will be free forever. I heard from a group of friends that they were facing a problem of liberating fishes into a man-made lake as the local authority was holding a fishing competition there during the weekend!
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Such situations are always bothering the people who wished to perform some life liberations of animals. When one intends to release a large quantity of live animals, he would have to place an order from the person who will then start capturing the required amount. In a way, a demand was created to have the animals captured. A better way would be to visit a market where these animals are sold to be eaten and purchase them on the spot and brought to a suitable place to be released. Yes, there may be people fishing on the lakes where fishes are released, at the very least, the fishes have been blessed with prayers and mantras chanted before being released. May they be released from samsara eventually.
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Through some good karma or merit, these carps were saved, blessed and released by Buddhists into safer conditions or environments. If proper Buddhist prayers and blessings were performed for the carps they will ensure their good future rebirth.
Due consideration should be made before liberating animals (in this case the carps). The foremost consideration is the motivation of liberating these carps. It is the best to liberate the carps with bodhichitta motivation. If these carps were destined to be killed as food, they should be saved first. If these carps were acquired from a fishmonger, the fishmonger should not have prior knowledge of the purchase. This is to prevent the capturing of carps to meet the demand for them. Always use a different source of carps. Ideally there should be no second purchase from a particular supplier. This is to avoid creating a demand for the carps. When there is a demand, there will be a supply for the demand. Minimize harm on the carps during their delivery to the location for release. Ensure these carps are released into safe ponds or rivers. Minimize the chances of these carps being recaptured after their release.
The measures to be taken are not meant to be exhaustive. It is the responsibilities of the sponsor and the group performing the animal liberation to be mindful and as much as possible to avoid causing further harm to the already unfortunate animals.
In samsara everything is in the nature of suffering. Even the supposed freedom accorded to these carps is in the nature of suffering! These carps are constantly living in deep fear and in danger of being captured, harmed or killed!
No matter how thorough we can be, the carps are at the mercy of their own karma. The carps are subject to death anytime and anywhere.
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Actually they are various things we need to take into consideration when we want to do fish liberation or any animal liberation.
When we want to engage to this virtues act, we have to be fully aware and alert in the sense of the motivation; if we want to save lives we should think and plan thoroughly to make it an act that will bring benefits not only to the fishes that we release but also the people that release them.
Let say if we want to liberate fish, we can buy them from the market that going to be slaughter for people meal, those type of fish are worth to save else they will be killed for food to others.
Place to releasing them, we shall check out upfront the place we wanted to liberate them. Whether it safe for them. In ideal case we should find a place that safe for them and they are able to find food too but of course we do our very best.
Don’t forget the fishes have their karma too and so to the people that liberate them. We can do our very best to provide the best situation but somehow doing liberation with proper prayer to the fishes is a blessing and what happen later to the fishes at least it has been blessed but this doesn’t mean we neglect to provide the best condition to liberate them.
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I totally agree with what Kris said that if people truly want to liberate animals , start by not eating them !
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The following article was published by China News. As soon as these carps were released for liberation by some Buddhists, 50 men stood on the riverbank downstream, waiting for the release to recapture them.
The karma of the carps did not allow them to be free and had the karma of these fishermen on the riverbank to recapture them. Would it be wise not to purchase them for liberation so there would not be a demand for them to stop fishing and recapturing?
Oh dear Lord... really no karma to be FREE! But when I look closely at the pictures... it seems like another profit making opportunity... China is really China... anyway, any chance to find ways to make a quick buck. So I guess they saw "Animal Liberation" an easy recycling profit making business without much overheads! SAD!!!
Those that are liberating the animals are really silly! They should release those fishes some where else where they can be really free! What's the point of releasing them knowing they will be caught again. Humans are dumb some times and this is the perfect example of ignorance!
Yes the motivation to release the fishes is probably not even something higher than the benefit of the self, that's still fine, but please be a little bit smart about it, you wouldn't want your life to be prolonged for just a bit and cut short in the end like the fishes do you? Silly people! Sorry!!!
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I'm not surprised... Unfortunately, although China is now considered the most economically influential country in the world... it is also one of the most disgusting country where profit/money is more important than holding morality. Whatever happened to Lao Tzu, Confucius... The knowledge may be there, but many no longer practice it.
I have a few friends that worked in China, and whenever I tell them how disgusting the people in China that they have to resort to so many sinister acts such as this... they would just shake their heads and tell me, the competition, the difficulty of living in that country is truly out of this world. Some people are so poor, eating even one full meal is considered a blessing. It blew my mind away... and I thought, if I was ever in that situation... how would I react?
However, that being said. Just because like in this situation, the fish that was being released are captured once more... it doesn't mean that we should stop doing animal liberation. We should continue to liberate these animals, and do all we can perhaps to choose a location where they will not be recaptured... If there is no choice, and somehow these fishes or animals released are captured, then we have done our best. Perhaps a good thing that those releasing these animals can do is educate those that try to catch these animals.
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Anything can happen in China isn't it. Bothers my mind a lot. Imagine at one point, people are trying to be good and create merits by virtuous act of liberating them and on the other hand, there will be a group of people trying to recapture the liberated fishes. This is surely not a good way to make money. Gives the capturer tremendous negative karma. Then again, yes, there may be people fishing on the lakes where fishes are released, at the very least, the fishes have been blessed with prayers and mantras chanted before being released. May they be released from samsara eventually.
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Icy wrote: ... Would it be wise not to purchase them for liberation so there would not be a demand for them to stop fishing and recapturing?
Just the same, would it not create a demand for carps, or maybe birds when we start to buy those in captivity? Would we not be encouraging the traders to capture more birds or maybe more carps?
Would there be a correct way to go about animal liberation?
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When a person choose to do an animal liberation, they would be aware of the motive behind the act of liberating animals to benefit them and the fish or animals to prolong long life and good wishes with prayers recited on the animals also wishing them well to survive well.
Life in samsara is about suffering including beings in all the six realms. Whether we encourage the suppliers to breed the animals for liberation or not, it is their livelihood for business. Of course, we should exercise care in making preparation to do animal liberation to ensure we really did our best to liberate them to freedom, although a while.
The fate of each and every animal has a karma. When the karma runs out on any of these beings, their time will end whether the fish is in a pond, sea or in cages. The animal liberator may create their own merits by liberating and those who waits at the banks of the river to catch the fish will eventually receive their own karma from their act.
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When we do animal liberation, there are many things we need to take into consideration:-
1. When choosing the type of animal be release, it should be the one that if not buy and release, it will be killed, cooked and served. I personally think that we should buy bird for release as most of the birds are specially catch for people to release. If we don't buy and the demand is low, then people will not catch it.
2. The place we release the animal. We should release the animal into a place/environment that after release, the animal will not live in danger of being harm and will be able to find food and continue to live on freely.
3. To chant mantra before releasing the animal to ensure that the animal will have a good rebirth in the next life and continue to practice dharma till enlighthement.
4. We must set the correct motivation for our good deeds, so that it benefits ourself and also others.
We can never help and release all the animal into freedom. With compassion in mind, we can only create awareness and promote vegetarian. No demand, no supply.
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I would say we can never give up of doing good just because there are people who is making this as their way of making some quick bucks an easy way. But if your motivation is doing good by liberating these fishes or any animals, maybe we can find a more suitable places by doing so. Yes, it could be the karma which brought these fishes and people who were there together again. Karma is never ending until one achieve Buddhahood. So, we mustn't give up from doing the right thing.
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Animal liberation is a meritorious act and is the direct antidote to killing which is the heaviest of the ten non-virtues. By saving lives, we are actually applying the virtue of non-killing and non-harming. The people who liberate the carps will gain merits by saving the lives of those fishes. If the fishes are later caught and eaten by the fishermen, it is the result of their negative karma which they had accumulated in the past. However, it is highly possible that some of the fishes may escape being caught and will live out their lives in the river. So it is entirely due to one's karma. The fishermen who catch the fish, either for sale or for their food are creating negative karma and will eventually experience the results of their actions in future lives unless they realise their wrongdoing and purify their karma. This is the nature of samsara. There is endless suffering due to our ignorance and desire.
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Animal liberation is a practice to save lives from impending deaths with prayers and pure motivation. This practice benefits those who do the liberating and generate compassion and it can be helpful in removing obstacles such as serious illness. However, it is important to ensure that the animals have the freedom and possible care after they are saved from death. Releasing animals where they will immediately be under threat is not ideal at all thus it is important that animal liberation practice is handled with better planning and the suitability of liberating the animals in the right place
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I agreed with majority who left their comments and suggested that liberation of life and other virtuous deeds should be done with proper planning and skillful means. The ultimate solution was to create the mass awareness that why animal should be treated equally as us human based on: we all share the commonness of wanting some sort of happiness and avoid suffering at all cost.
In one hand we like to promote activities involving liberating of life to the public and let them know such noble act had still being upheld by some. On the other hand, we are worried that animals will be easily recaptured and be consumed . If one has been living in China for long enough will noticed that China is such a densely populated country where it is very difficult to find an outback where fishes could be released without risk of recaptured.
If these fishes were destine to be killed due to their karma and circumstances arises to allow their karma to be ripen, even a living Buddha could not do much to help them to avoid the onslaught.
As in the story that Shakya clan of Kapilavastu Kingdom which the Buddha belongs to, whom had created the negative karma of cheating the Kosalans by marrying one of their lowly caste slave girl as princess of Kapilavastu to King Prasenajit and gave birth to Prince Virudhaka. When Prince Virudhaka later ascend to the throne, he waged war against the Shakya clan even Maudalyayana , the Tahagata’s disciple foremost in performing miracles trying to save 500 of the Shakyas by hiding them in his begging bowl was all found to be turned into bloody slime!
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As a Buddhist, whatever are our motivations or actions , we are refrained from causing to harm or killing others. Buddhist ethics is concerned with the principles and practices that help one to act in ways that help rather than harm. In human community , there is always an opponent and opposition party . Therefore in this situation, there is one group of people performing virtuous deed in releasing the fishes to the sea whereby , another group will collectively recapture the fishes back for self-gain purposes. Where is the most appropriate place to liberate the fishes ? To avoid all this unpleasant scenario to reoccur, stop consuming meat and go for green.
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This is another article on Fish Liberation in Shanghai. The majority of the Chinese have no inkling to what fish liberation is as the teaching of Dharma was almost destroyed completely during the cultural revolution. However, the tide is turning as we have seen how Buddhism is once again reintroduced to the populous of China although it is a gradual affair.
Along Shanghai's River, Buddhist Tradition Meets Greedy Fishermen
Frank Langfitt
(http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/01/02/china-fish2-1-2-15_wide-b4d545212a1054f78a0215570e6a1955b20ccb50-s800-c85.jpg)
Hundreds of Buddhists gather along the banks of Shanghai's Huangpu River to sing and release fish and mollusks in an ancient Chinese ritual. Fishermen wait downstream and scoop them up almost immediately.
China today is a whirlwind of competing trends: authoritarianism versus personal freedom; pollution versus environmentalism, and self-interest versus spirituality.
That last conflict plays out every other Sunday morning in Shanghai when hundreds of Buddhists pack the banks of the city's Huangpu River. Monks in saffron-colored robes lead believers in song in the shadow of some of the world's tallest skyscrapers.
Then they pour thousands of fish and mollusks into the muddy waters that empty a dozen miles downstream into the mighty Yangtze River. Shen Tianlong, a retired chef, wants to make sure every creature is freed, so he climbs over the railing onto a ledge and gently brushes the remaining snails into the water.
Buddhists pour fish into the river in Shanghai. Environmentalists say the ritual, while well-intentioned, can introduce invasive species. Many of the fish are quickly swooped up in nets by fishermen who position themselves nearby.i
Buddhists pour fish into the river in Shanghai. Environmentalists say the ritual, while well-intentioned, can introduce invasive species. Many of the fish are quickly swooped up in nets by fishermen who position themselves nearby.
Julia Langfitt for NPR
"We are freeing captive animals," says Shen. "Why do we free them? They are just like us. We are all living creatures."
Releasing animals is an ancient tradition among Chinese Buddhists, who believe saving an animal that is about to die is an act of compassion.
"Buddhism seeks to deliver all living creatures from torment and emphasizes benevolence," says fellow Buddhist Xu Gaosheng, a retired ad agency worker, who wears a pink polo shirt. "All living creatures should be treated well."
Environmentalists have criticized animal release as disruptive to habitats. They say, while well-intentioned, the practice can introduce invasive species.
The ritual here also draws opportunists, such as the beggar who shows up to work the crowd while tapping a metal cup. Migrant workers prey on the Buddhists' conscience by hawking turtles — they carry them by their tails — at exorbitant prices.
Finally, just 20 yards downstream, two-dozen men lie in wait with nets for what they see as a free meal.
One named Li dips his 15-foot pole into the water and scoops up fish moments after the Buddhists have dropped them into the river. Sometimes, he catches two or three in one pass and then dumps them into the shrubs along the riverbank. So far this morning, he has hauled in more than 20.
I ask if he thinks scooping up all these fish is fair.
"What's fair? What isn't fair?" Li responds in a dismissive tone that suggests the question is naive. "There are people releasing fish and people catching them. Nothing is fair in today's society. The more skilled swindlers just cheat the weaker ones."
Wang Jisi, a retired accountant and Buddhist who is helping release the fish, disagrees. She chases Li down and scolds him. She says he may catch fish today, but karmic payback is coming.
"If they catch fish and it makes them happy, then I guess I'm happy for them," she says. "But when something bad happens to their families and they wonder why? It's because he did something bad."
In these fishermen, Wang says, she sees a greed that pervades society here and elsewhere around the world.
"I don't think I hate them," she says. "I pity them. They aren't enlightened. They don't understand. They don't understand karma!"
Nor are they likely to anytime soon. Li shrugs off his scolding and returns to the railing, where he reaches over with his net and tries to add to his catch.
(http://media.npr.org/assets/img/2015/01/02/china-fish-1-2-15_vert-00a4f4a377851b2e8e7b73e90a7901de51f73e24-s400-c85.jpg)
Buddhists pour fish into the river in Shanghai. Environmentalists say the ritual, while well-intentioned, can introduce invasive species. Many of the fish are quickly swooped up in nets by fishermen who position themselves nearby.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/01/02/373286111/along-shanghais-river-buddhist-tradition-meets-greedy-fishermen?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=world (http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/01/02/373286111/along-shanghais-river-buddhist-tradition-meets-greedy-fishermen?utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=world)