Abstract
Animal releasing has always been an important ritual when talking about Buddhism. The ritual of releasing animals back to the wildness is a way of showing the compassion for the living beings. The original virtue of releasing animal is to show the compassionate act of saving lives and follow the principle of ‘non-violence.’ It is based on a conception of that all beings come from the one same essence and this conception mainly focuses on one’s previous live. One should not harm others in fear of the damage that one has done will return in the next life. The practice of releasing animals has being conducted in countries throughout Asia and there is also a record showing that it is performed in Canada and Australia too. The ritual has been also raised a lot of environmental and ecological issues and concerns such as the possibility of endangering human health (avian flu), or the change of environmental conditions by releasing invasive species. In Taiwan, there are couple cases that people started to pay attention to which has raised a controversial debate. This research paper takes to further discussion of the original meaning of releasing animals, the practice performed in Taiwan, recent cases happened in Taiwan, environmental problems and concerns.
Key word: Buddhism, same essence, Taiwan, invasive species, avian flu.
Introduction
Animal releasing is mostly concerned about religion. Among all of the religions in the world, Buddhism takes the very important role in animal releasing. We are going to talk about the ceremony of releasing animal of Buddhism especially in Taiwan. First of all, the question is “why do the Buddhists release the animals?” From the perspective of Buddhism, there are two major reasons for them to release the animals. The first reason is that they consider all the beings are from the same essence. Therefore, they come up with the idea of “transmigration.” It is said that if we kill one animal and we would probably kill the being once our beloved. The second reason is that in order to get out of our “flesh jail”, the fundamental thing we need to do is to liberate the animals. By this way, we could cultivate our mind and reach the very high level of wisdom to get out of the flesh jail. When it comes to the rituals of releasing animals, there’s no practical explanation of how to release the animals. However, there can be several reasons to release the animals like prolonging the lives and making wishes. For example, there was an animal releasing case in Shuanglianpi area in Yilan County. It was reported that the toxic snakes that did not usually inhabit in Shuanglianpi area appeared. Tracing back to the original cause, we found that some self-proclaimed followers of Buddhist master Hai Tao released more than 100kg of the snakes in this area. Another problem is about the disease. Because of the more often interacts of the releasing animals like birds would increase the possibility for human beings to get the related disease. The most notorious disease is Avian Flu. The well-known case was the outbreak of H5N1 in 2007 in Hong Kong. What’s more, the deeds of releasing animals could lead to environmental problems. Some of the Taiwanese original species being going to disappear because of the invasion of the foreign species is one most notable problem. The truth is that releasing animals for rituals is the greatest cause for that.
I. Buddhism: of one same essence and transmigration
The fundamental practice of the compassion of Buddhism is setting free the captured animals and not killing animals. This idea is based on a basic conception of Buddhism: “We are from the one same essence.” From the perspective of Buddhism, all the beings are all from the same essence and it is the only one essence originally. While the time was going through, this essence gave birth to all the beings. Later, the beings would give birth to the next generation. It doesn’t matter whether the being would stay in the same specie or not because we are all from the same essence. Therefore, here comes the further critical idea of Buddhism: transmigration. Transmigration takes a very important role in Buddhism, because it is a way to make people do the good things. It goes if we do a lot of bad things like killing animal, we would be reincarnated to the other spices like pig or toad which are the animals often trampled by human beings. Instead, if we often do good things like liberating the animals, we would be reincarnated to human beings again or the species which are treasured by the human beings. Because if one kills one being, one may kill one’s father or mother in the previous generations. “There is not a single being who has not given birth to me during my previous lives, hence all beings of the Six Destinies are my parents.” (DRBA)
II. Setting free the captured animals from the perspective of Buddhism
Moreover, as a disciple of Buddhism, one has to nurture one’s mind that we have to cultivate the minds of kindness and compassion, learn to rescue the other beings, and liberate the animals. "Bodhisattva Observer of the World's Sounds did not kill living beings; she always liberated them, and so she has a greatly compassionate heart.” (DRBA) Buddhists insist that we should follow Bodhisattva and get the compassion of heart like Bodhisattva. What’s more, we don’t like the other people treating us with the way we hating, so why do we capture the animal? Think about you are in a jail and out of freedom. We all don’t like to be put into jail and have no freedom to do the things we like or originally have ability to do. So, why are animals? Why do they have to bear cruel the pain we don’t like? Why are their freedom taken away or even their right to live? Furthermore, from the perspective of Buddhism, if one kills one animal, one would become the animal in the next life and the animal would become human being and take revenge. That is the collective killing karma. Our collective killing karma is so overwhelming, so that is the reason why there are so many wars in the world. “Therefore, we liberate the living to diminish our killing karma. The more people engage in liberating the living, the less killing they will do. Wars will proportionately decrease.” (DRBA) We have the ability to prove this situation of taking revenge because of the killing karma. All we have to do is to liberate the animals. We choose to stop the rage in this life and therefore to decrease the karma. The killing karma hence ends. What’s more, we can also be liberated as we are accumulating the deeds of rescuing the animals. From the view of Buddhism, we are actually in the prison now. We are imprisoned in our own fleshes. In order to get out of this prison, we need to reach a very high level of wisdom. To reach that level, the fundamental and basic deed is to liberate the other beings:
"Liberating living beings is a very important aspect of Buddhist practice. But if one hasn't understood this yet, one might think it a very ordinary affair. If we don't cultivate the one kind of liberating the living, we won't be able to obtain the other kind. There are many changes and transformations, and so don't look upon this lightly. Liberating the living brings returns on one's own efforts." (Venerable Master Hsuan Hua, PDS, May, 1985)
Liberating the animals is like the basis while we are building a structure. If we want to have a very high building like skyscraper, we must have a very deep and wide basis. That’s the same idea about reaching the high level of wisdom. If we want to reach the very high level of wisdom and hence liberate ourselves from the flesh jail, we must make the basis strong and durable, that is, liberating as many animals as we can.
III. A brief description of the rituals
“ In practice, the ritual ceremony varies, as there is a lack of standard manual for carrying out the ritual.” (Shiu and Stoke 186). How people practice release rituals is different all around the world. There is not really any research or historical data about how the ritual should be put into practice and Buddhist scholars have been avoiding any kind of study too. But, most important of all, Buddhist groups will not discuss with outsiders for fear of legal repercussions. Especially in Taiwan, when both Buddists and Daoists are the major two groups that are practicing the releasing rituals, therefore, there are all kinds of different ways and reasons to set the animals free. However, in Severinghaus and Chi’s research, there are also records of other religions and local religions joined the line of practicing the rituals too (Severinghaus and Chi 1999, 302). Prolonging lives, receiving peaceful feelings, making wishes, or just doing for good deeds, one can free the animals for whatever reasons they have. Moreover, different animals stand for different meaning too. For instance, if there is someone sick in the family, releasing a turtle stands for prolonging the lives of the patient; a bird stands for the completion of the ceremony…etc (Shiu and Stoke 186).
IV. Negative examples of releasing captured animals in Taiwan
Since compassion is the essence of Buddhism, religious groups in Taiwan often held rituals releasing the captured animals. Releasing the captured animals was originally a kind thing to do, but without the advance investigations and a well-done plan, a good deed can become a worst nightmare both for the animals and the nearby residents. Without fully comprehending the animals’ living habits and well investigating their habitats, a releasing ritual may become a serious massacre. A year ago, some followers of Buddhist master Hai Tao (海濤) released more than 100kg of the snakes in Shuanglianpi (雙連埤), put the people in Yilan county in a very dangerous place. Cobras are well-known as venomous snakes that rarely attack people unprovoked, but when disturbed, they would make the full use of their deadly bite.” Lai Chien-cheng (賴建丞), a former head of the Yilan chapter of the Society of Wilderness, said he saw a listless snake on the road at Shuanglianpi, which he speculated could be one of the ones that were released recently. ” (Yue, Wang. 2012)
“This was not giving the snake life, but death,” Lai Chien-cheng said, “a lot of Buddhist groups release turtles and fish at night at Shuanglianpi, numbering in the thousands each time, which has caused an ecological disaster, and the government should regulate the practice”
Indeed, releasing the captured animals without former investigation may cause serious problems such as damaging the eco-system and disarranging the food chain. Furthermore, holding a releasing ritual requires a large amount of captured animals, where comes so many captured animals then? Most of animals released during the ritual weren’t wild, but farmed animals. The biggest difference between wild animals and framed animals is whether they can make their own living in the nature environment. Releasing those framed animals to the nature is not only a reckless act but also a cruel thing to do. According to a news article, in Chiayi County, 20,000 koi (the variegated carp) were released into the lake in Chiayi Park. It was not at all a good thing for the koi because the origin egrets did not welcome them as new neighbors but take them as food. News reports like this are not rare in Taiwan today, with more and more religious groups holding the release rituals, more animals will fall victim to we humans’ foolishness.
V. Avian Flu
Because of the close distance and a very tight relationship with mainland China, Taiwan now has another huge trouble, the avian flu. In mainland China and Hong Kong, many years of practicing the rituals and releasing animal beings into the wild has increased the possibility for human to get diseases from birds and other kinds of animals. The most well-known case is the outbreak of H5N1 strain of bird flu in 2007 in Hong Kong(Benitez 2007, A3):
In Hong Kong, it has been found that the introduction of unvaccinated birds is currently occurring at an alarming level. The discovery of the avian flu virus in a dead spotted munia in a crowded district in Hong Kong in early January 2007 became a warning signal that the practice of releasing birds may have unintended consequences.
In Taiwan, scientists started to worry about this particular religious ritual, animal release, can severely harm the local ecosystem and even worse, Taiwanese people. Avian Flu(H5N1) does not have any sort of cure or vaccine yet, therefore, it is highly lethal and it definitely cannot be under-estimated.
VI. The environmental problems that caused by animal releasing in Taiwan
With huge population of Buddists and Daoists in Taiwan, animal releasing has never been a really big issue in Taiwan until recently. Because the rise of the environmental consciousness, now, people started to realize the release of animals can cause serious problem to the environment and unbalance the local ecosystem. It not only change the system but also endangering the local species too. In Taiwan, invasive species that were introduced into the country have caused a lot of problems to the local areas and Taiwanese original species. Some of the Taiwanese unique species even disappeared because the invasion of foreign animals. And, the main reason of how foreign species got into the local ecosystem is mainly because of the religious animal releasing:
A study conducted by the Endemic Species Research Institute in Taiwan also quoted the International Union for the Conversation of Nature and Natural Resources Guidelines, and pointed out animal release has been the major source of international introduction of invasive species in Taiwan.
Not only Taiwan has these kinds of problems now but also other countries all over the world. In Shiu and Stokes’ paper, they briefly mentioned how invasive species are affecting the world:
Today, many scientists consider the impact of invasive species worldwide to be a major driver of global human-caused change alongside, for example, climate change and land-use change.
The release of non-native species into a local area is now causing huge problem to the local ecosystems everywhere. Animals releases for rituals, birds and fish form the major group. Releasing fish to lakes and ponds will do some serious damages to the original system. Due to the lack of knowledge for the beings that are freed into the water, people usually do not care or have doubts about the animals they are librating into the wild. This not only affects the protogenic lives in the water but also affects the new animals that newly release to the water too. Why? Not all the newly released beings can adapt a new environment so quickly. There are four stages for foreign species to proliferate, including transportation, introduction, establishment, and spread (Duggan 2006, 377). Therefore, a lot of the animals that are newly released and cannot fit into the environment, die easily and die fast. With the concerns of scientists and doctors, more and more people have started to call for stopping the practice of animal releasing. Yet, this religious ritual is still putting into practice all over Taiwan and all the concerns and environmental problems are still remained unsolved.
Works Cited
Benitez, M. A., N. Kang-Chung, and C. Sun. “Avian flu scare sparks call to halt practice of releasing birds: Experts urge ban as fears mount that blessing seekers could fuel epidemic.” South China Morning Post A3. 6 Jan 2007
Duggan, I. C. et al. “Popularity and propagule pressure: Determinants of
Introduction and establishment of aquarium fish.”Biological Invasions 8 (2006):377-82
Fu-Mei, Zhou. “Conservation groups: commercial release is not compassion” Liberty Times. 18 Sep 2004
“’Liberating Living Beings’ Entry from Buddhism A to Z.” DRBA Dharma Realm
Buddhist Association. 12 May 2013
<http://www.draba.org/dharma/veggie/liberate_beings.asp>
Severinghaus, L. L. and L. Chi. “Prayer animal release in Taiwan.” Biological Conservation 89 (1999): 301–4.
Shiu, Henry and Stokes, Leah. Buddhist Animal Release Practices: Historic,
Environmental, Public Health And Economic Concerns. London: Routledge, 2008
Yue, Wang. “FEATURE: Cobra encounters spark debate over animal releases” Taipei Times. 17 June 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment