Farmer Buys Cows To Save Them From Slaughter

Please read this:�http://www.care2.com/causes/rare-kindness-farmer-saves-cows-from-slaughter-provides-idyllic-life.html

This is quite widely practised in the Chinese community in a cultural practice known as �life liberation�. Devotees purchase animals due for slaughter and release them to a safer place. However, there have been those who are ignorant and release fresh water fish into the ocean thereby causing them to die. Hence, �life liberation� should be practised with wisdom and knowledge.

I wrote this in 2009, in light of the terrible Ketam tragedy where residents used the pretext of �life liberation� to �release� stray dogs from the island to the hell islands where they either died of starvation or of being mauled by wildboar. That would be a case of either using �life liberation� to masquerade a practice of pure hatred (of the dogs) or was it total ignorance, we�ll never know. Only they know.

On a brighter note, the Sri Jayanti Temple in Sentul has a Save-the-Cows project where they buy up cows due for slaughter in Sri Lanka and rehome them to Hindu and Buddhist farmers, knowing devotees of these two religions will never slaughter the cows. The cows then get to live out their natural lives as farmers� cows, helping to plough the field, which is better than being slaughtered.

Also, if you look at the translation of what Master Sheng Yen has written�here, you�d notice that he encourages spay-neuter as a means to helping stray animals. This could be an eye-opener to many Chinese people who claim that their religions teach them that spay-neuter is forbidden and is tampering with Nature. As far as I know, no such Chinese religion or even Buddhism teach such things.

In one of my trips to Pulau Ketam after the terrible dumping tragedy�was highlighted in the international media, I spoke with one of the village elders. He claimed to be a Buddhist and he said it was forbidden to spay-neuter the dogs as that would be tampering with Nature, and hence, a wrongdoing. I asked him if it were better than the council come in to shoot the dogs or their own residents capture and dump them on an island, he said that would be their doing and not his. That was such a disappointing answer. It is precisely this kind of attitude that we wish to change, through education and through cultivating empathy and responsibility.

By avoiding doing something (good) just because one thinks it might create bad karma for oneself, is, unfortunately, an act of selfishness. How can any good come out from that?

So, if you know of any Buddhist who claim that spay-neuter is forbidden in their religion, show them that translated article by Master Sheng Yen, who is a Buddhist monk. There is a Chinese version in my link. People who do not know or are not sure of their religious teachings would do well to find out from an authoritative source before saying the wrong things that may, in turn, tarnish the sanctity of their religion.

By the way, www.tiny.cc/paws contain some of my writings before I started this blog. Old stories!

Source: http://myanimalcare.org/2012/03/18/farmer-buys-cows-to-save-them-from-slaughter/

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AnimalCare is a registered society that promotes caregiving to street animals and helps in their neutering and medical needs. AnimalCare has a Medical Fund, Food Fund and Education Fund.

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