link to:Fw: SERV Buddhist animal rescue: press and tour info

[Guest guest]

sorry here is the link for below article from Radio Free Asia:

 

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/2007/07/12/bhutan_lama/

 

 

The below article is about Lama Kunzang Dorjee who is touring the USA right

now for the schedule please see: www.animalsavingtrust.org

Bhutanese Lama Saves Animals from Slaughter

 

A Buddhist teacher in Bhutan has set up an unusual network of sanctuaries in

the hills and jungles of the tiny Himalayan kingdom and in its giant

neighbor India to care for hundreds of animals saved from slaughter.

" I would like to save as many animals as I can, but it won't be possible to

save them all, " the lama, Kunzang Dorjee, said in an interview. " No one can

do that. But we have to do whatever we can. "

 

Monasteries and private individuals have donated funds for the sanctuaries,

Lama Kunzang said. Money has even been raised by taxi drivers who support

his work. Bhutan's government also pays a small amount.

 

Saving animals is common among Buddhists, who believe saving the lives of

other sentient beings will create positive karma that can affect the nature

of future rebirths. Saving the lives of animals destined for slaughter is

frequently prescribed by lamas as a form of spiritual practice.

 

I would like to save as many animals as I can, but it won't be possible to

save them all,

 

Lama Kunzang Dorjee

 

Lama Kunzang said that butchers have also called to see if they can sell

their animals, and that this has sometimes led to difficulties. " They would

raise the price, but we would try to negotiate and bring them down, " he

said.

 

Local villagers paid by Lama Kunzang now feed and look after the animals he

has saved so that they can live out their lives in peace.

 

Lama Kunzang began to rescue animals seven years ago, he said, when five

bulls escaped from a slaughterhouse and made their way directly to his

monastery in Kalimpong, India, passing other houses on the way.

 

The bulls refused to leave the temple grounds, and it seemed to him that

they were seeking help, Lama Kunzang said.

 

When a butcher arrived to reclaim the bulls, Lama Kunzang bought the animals

and kept them at his monastery. Later, Lama Kunzang said, he was also moved

to pity when he saw bulls running from a slaughterhouse in neighboring

Sikkim.

 

" So, I thought this was some kind of message for me-that this was my

destiny, what I should be doing, " he said.

 

" I thought to have [these sanctuaries] in every part of Bhutan, so that

people would look at that and some people would become vegetarian, and even

so that the people who slaughter would abandon that work, " he said.

 

Zach Larson, an American Buddhist and editor of the recently published book

Compassionate Action, said the practice-called tse-thar in Tibetan-of saving

animals is actively promoted by one of his own teachers, a Tibetan lama now

in his 90s living in Nepal.

 

" Chatral Rinpoche himself, every year, saves anything from insects and

reptiles to all kinds of mammals, birds, or fish, " Larson said.

 

" Chatral Rinpoche is most famous for his annual fish release in Calcutta,

India. He purchases 70 truckloads of fish which have been live-caught to be

sold, and purchases them so they can be released back into a protected part

of the Indian Ocean. "

 

" So that's several million fish, " Larson said.

 

" According to the Tibetan Buddhist view, there is no real hierarchy among

nonhuman sentient beings, " Larson said. " So they don't differentiate between

saving the life of an insect when you have the opportunity, or saving the

life of a yak or a frog. "

 

Though " merit, " a kind of positive energy, can be gained by saving lives,

Larson said, this is always dedicated to the further benefit of others and

never for one's personal advantage alone.

 

" So at no point do you want to do something like tse-thar for your own

meritorious benefit, such as: 'This will help me have a longer life. This

will help me gain more money.' That is not the proper motivation. "

 

Virginia-based psychologist and Buddhist practitioner Lorne Ladner, a

student of the Tibetan lama Zopa Rinpoche, said he has practiced tse-thar

with friends, and this has led to a feeling of deeper connection among the

group and with the animals being saved.

 

Ladner called tse-thar the " real " practice of compassion. " It's one thing

when you sit alone in a room and you sort of think about compassion. But

it's another thing when you have a sentient being in your hands. "

 

Original reporting by Richard Finney. Edited for the Web by Sarah

Jackson-Han.