Salt * Wet * Fish

It has come to my attention that some Buddhists or readers may interpret what I have said previously in Time to rethink about releasing to mean that we should totally avoid or help release animals. Moonpointer wrote something to that extend in Freedom : Animal Liberation.

I would like to correct this misperception and apologise if what I wrote was not clear enough. The idea of writing about why we should not be releasing animals without thinking about it, is that we commonly only heard about what is good about releasing animals and what merits we can get from them. However, very seldom do we also hear about why releasing animals could do more harm than good in some cases. My aim was to provide another view point for the practicing Buddhists to think about, not to tell them that they should totally and entirely stop the practice of animal liberation.

Its my personal belief that animal liberation is indeed a meritorious deed and all practicing Buddhists should aspire to perform animal liberation whenever possible. However, this does not mean that we should just following the rituals and traditions blinding without trying to find out more if our acts of animal liberation are indeed benificial. How many of the Buddhists performing animal liberation rituals know:

1. how the animals were caught (are the traps harmful and causes suffering for the animals?)
2. are the animals caught illegally?
3. what traps are used (do they cause suffering and pain?)
4. what is the yield (that is how many died before one is caught?)
5. what is the by-catch (unintentionaly catch like in prawn fishing where the by-catch is mostly 90% all thrown back to the ocean dead or half-dead)?

How many Buddhists knows these about the animals they liberate. Are they even bothered to find out in the first case? Or is gaining merits for themselves more important than the conditions of the animals and the trade/meat industry?

These are the question practicing Buddhists must ask themselves. Only when they are satisfied that all these questions have been asked and there are no doubts as to the possibility of perpertuating the endless circles of sufferings in the animal trade and meat trade, can we say that animal liberation is indeed a meritorious deed without comparison.

I can see that one of the main problem with animal liberation is perception. I believe that many Buddhists feel that the only way to liberate animals is to “see” them being released physically. This has a strong psychological effect because

• other people can “see” you making the merit
• you can “see” yourself making the merit
• you hope that higher other beings can also “see” you making the merit

This makes the merit making process effective and boost our confidence that we will get the rewards we deserve from merit making of animal liberation. This is also why we can see many more Buddhists doing charity work than care about the environment, animal welfare (not liberation) and social/legal inequalities.

I am not doubting the sincerity of Buddhists’ compassion and their work. I believe that many are indeed sincere in their efforts, just like those who tried to liberation animals. But there are also many of those who when it comes to choosing such different tasks would choose to do something that can be “seen” in action. Its not the fault of the Buddhist entirely, he/she may not even know the unconscious decision may be based on something more than just “I prefer to do this”.

There are more than one way to act on animal liberation. Many people see inaction as cowardly and indifference, but if wisdom was applied to inaction, than its probably more beneficial to all beings than incorrect action that looks like compassionate acts. This is the case with animal liberation. If we know that that 10 animals will suffering or die if I release one animal, which is more compassionate, action or inaction?

If Buddhists really want to practice liberation, I believe a more effective method is to educate people in animal and meat trade. They should concentrate their efforts to create laws that are more pro-animal welfare in Singapore (for example), which we are lacking at the moment. They should spend more efforts to educate those in the trade not to sell illegally caught animals and to use better traps so that animals may not suffer too much and so that by-catch is minimum. Better still, if they could convince the traders to stop their trade. At the same time, the same amount of effort should be spent on educating other Buddhists on their choice of animal liberation and equip them to ask the right questions and let them make their own decision about animal liberation.

Afterall, animal liberation should be always about the animals, it should never be about how much merits one can get from liberating an animal.