Thean Hou Temple Turtle Pond
I have always been a very vocal about animals. I do not like them to be abused, caged, beaten, starved, killed or eaten. I do not think that is the purpose of animals. There are so many other things to eat. If we truly believe in the law of karma, then we must not eat meat..full stop. No excuses. It is how strong your commitment to lessening the sufferings of others is. It is important that we follow our spiritual paths all the way by following the law of karma no matter what. If you want enlightenment or be free from many latent sufferings, then do something now.
I often encourage my friends and students to take care of animals and feed them. It gives me great pleasure to feed animals. It gives me great comfort to know they are safe and not hungry. Isn’t that what we all want. If we wish for that, we must create the causes. Remember, cause resembles effect. If you wish safety and fulfillment then you must give it to all other beings. Very simple to remember. Each time you harm directly or indirectly another being, expect the harm to come back to you another time. Do you want harm or pain? Do you enjoy it or you had enough of it in this life already. If you had enough of it, then immediately stop giving it now.
Thean Hou Temple is around 30 mins from Kechara House if there is no traffic and they have a wonderful terrapin (turtle) pond. People release the turtles there for various reasons. I visited the place two weekends ago then informed Suming of Kechara Care Dept we must organize our groups to go there and feed the turtles. She will on a regular basis. So recently, I have purchased alot of turtle food and asked my students to go up there and feed them.
While feeding them recite various mantras such as Chenresig, Manjusri, Tsongkapa, Namgyalma, Green Tara, and Medicine Buddha mantras for them to hear. To plant the seeds of enlightenment in the consciousness of these turtles and any beings. It is also good to blow the mantra on the food before feeding them also. While reciting the mantra, we generate an altruistic thought such as taught by Shantideva or the 8 Verses of Thought Transformation and wish all beings to be truly out of the cyclic existence. With this type of genuine altruistic thinking we recite the mantra out loud and blow on the foods or let the animals hear the sacred mantras. It will truly bless them. It will bless us also.
Please see this video in which Nicholas and young Melissa talk about their feelings while feeding. I thank KIM for doing such a nice video for me to blog and post to share my thoughts.
If you consider yourself to be associated with myself or my works, then I request you all the more to be vegetarian and do not harm animals. Go vegetarian and dedicate to those who have been kind to you. Aren’t they worth it? Wonderful to go vegetarian and dedicate to the growth of Lam Rim, long life of H.H. Dalai Lama, or Kyabje Zong Rinpoche or for your root lama to live long and bring love/dharma to many more. There are many reasons we can aspire to in order to go vegetarian. Please do so.
Much care, and PLEASE TAKE CARE OF ALL ANIMALS. NEVER ABUSE OR HARM THEM. I beg you to please be kind to them and feed them.
Tsem Rinpoche
Or view the video on the server at:
https://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/TheanHouTempleTurtlePond.mp4
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I’m very glad to see that there were a lot of children attending the activity, so they are able to develop kindness since a very young age. I think that feeding fishes/turtles is a very practise as it can help us to develop kindness towards animals and also to prevent us from harming them. Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
Thank you Rinpoche for doing all these things for the animals. Through actions like this initiated by Rrinpoche, it inspires many more to do the same for the animals around us all over the world. It is just a small gesture by us, but I believe to the animals it would mean the whole world. It would mean that they do not have to look for food for the next few days, or even eating their own waste because they do not have any food. Thank you Rinpoche for always caring for all sentient beings, inspiring students like me to play a part to benefit these small animals.
Its so nice of people to feed the turtles to help them and to promote vegetarianism. This also shows people that people around the world do have compassion towards animals, that people can care for them and people can be kind to them. I hope that many more people come to this blog and see such posts like this, and for people to realise that being kind to animals is a very good kind of compassion that gives people good merits. Please help more animals. And i hope that Kechara Care will do more activities like this.
There was once this saying that causes and effext is actually the equivalent of a rubber ball depending on the distance, speed and how hard one throws versus the gravity of each and every individual that does it rightly or wrongly.
The path to dharma is actually the simple basic fundamental in life that ones practice directly or indirectly and persistently, through the discipline of the mind over the physical qualities and properties of each human being.
Anyone to lend your thoughts, most appreciated. I want to spare my thoughts before bedtime.
Lian Chooi perhaps or anyone out there.
Cheers
David Quah
Don’t make our stomachs the graveyard for animals. I heard several Chinese Mahayanists discussing about that point in a vegetarian restaurant I did not understand most of what they were saying as my Mandarin is not that good, but I understood that phrase.
Its great to be human but if we fall into the animal realms will we really wanted to be killed and eaten by others ? I feel cause and effect is really played out when we treat animals kindly or cruelly, the animals will respond accordingly.
When I was younger when we went to temples, we see lots of turtles living in murky waters, I always wondered how do they survive, looks quite unhygienic for the turtles. Anyhow now I know more about the rationale behind keeping turtles in ponds I’d be more inclined to feed them 🙂 The waters where the terrapin live in in this video is much better than the ones I used to see when I was younger back in my hometown.
Very nicely made video with very good words from everybody young and old!
Om Mani Padme Hum
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Eating animals produce heavy negative karma. The Chinese character for meat [rou], consists of a person being eaten and a person eating. The person being eaten was human in his previous life and has now transformed into an animal. This reminds me of a passage from “Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand”, in which Pabongka Rinpoche gave an example of our past and future rebirths. Once a family’s old father always used to eat fish from the pool behind the house. He died and was reborn as a fish in the pool. His son caught his father, the fish, and ate it. Because of their attachments, each member of the family, including their enemy, was reborn again according to their karma. The mother, who was attached to the house was reborn as the family dog and was beaten by her son as she ate the fishbones. The son’s enemy, who was attached to the son’s wife, was reborn as her son. Shariputra saw this and said: “He eats his father’s flesh and hits his mother. The enemy he killed sits on his knee. A wife gnaws her husband’s bones. Samsara can be such a farce!” Through our actions, we create relationships that will be difficult to end unless we stop such actions, for example, the eating of meat.
While feeding animals, we can recite mantras to bless them with the wish that they will have a human rebirth in their future lives and be able to leave samsara. In Kechara House, Tsem Rinpoche encourages us to recite the Medicine Buddha mantra which goes like this: “Tayatha Om Bekanzay Bekanzay Maha Bekanzay (Bekanzay) Radza Samugatay Soha”. The first Bekanzay frees the animals of suffering, the second Bekanzay frees the animals of the causes of suffering and the third Bekanzay frees them of the imprints of their suffering. Thus we are planting imprints for these animals to be liberated from suffering.
Well done, Nicholas for hosting this video. It has always been Rinpoche’s wish to liberate the animals from sufferings. I am glad that more and more people now stop eating animals and becoming vegetarians. By liberating animals we are also creating the cause for our Guru and ourselves to have a stronger, longer life
May all living creatures have a better rebirths
Love animals as you love your own self, for animals are sentient beings too. They too need love as much we do. Humans have 5 senses so do all animals. In our Dharma practice, it is said liberating animals from suffering also purifies negative karma.The practice of liberating animals is primarily for prolonging life. By feeding them everyday,we perform the practice of giving charity, and create good karma, the cause of happiness. We not only bring happiness to the animals, but also constantly create the cause of our own future happiness. So therefore we respect all animals!
great work, uncle eddie.
we met twice and i sat next to you. Thanks for your kind thoughts and advise.
Wish there were more uncle eddies that i can meet. Cheers
David @ Malaysia
Of course Kechara Animal Sanctuary have also been supported for their good cause. Namaste!
♥ Thank You Rinpoche for inspiering me to go 100% vegetarian a year ago for life and to keep it up 100%….. As an inspiration for others to take a first vegetarian spoon I whish to share the happines I feel every time I eat, thinking it´s a wonderful practice, a pure gift and cause for protection of life. I´ve also been inspired to lokal support by sending a whish for registration to a organisation promoting animals and vegetarian diet to be able make a monthly donation. My grandchildren was also given a membership so they will have a juniormagazin about animal care regularly. With Love and Dedication for Rinpoche and All Life to live long! ♥ I rejoyce with Melissa ♥ Thank You Rinpoche for inspiering me to go 100% vegetarian a year ago for life and to keep it up 100%….. As an inspiration for others to take a first vegetarian spoon I whish to share the happines I feel every time I eat, thinking it´s a wonderful practice, a pure gift and cause for protection of life. I´ve also been inspired to lokal support by sending a whish for registration to a organisation promoting animals and vegetarian diet to be able make a monthly donation. My grandchildren was also given a membership so they will have a juniormagazin about animal care regularly. With Love and Dedication for Rinpoche and All Life to live long! ♥ I rejoyce with the wonderful contribution for Life from others!
I love turtles and its so lovely to make a spiritual practice of caring for animals. I wish i could feel the same way towards certain people as i feel for all animals. I love watching your films and stuff..thanks Rinpoche!
Dear Nicholas,
I am so glad you are hosting this video. You are explaining things nice and simple for everyone to understand. Please encourage others to please feed the turtles and other animals everywhere and always.
Thank you young Melissa for sharing your views and going vegetarian. You are doing the right thing. Go all the way and share with others your views in the future always. Be pro animal in your life always. And go every month to feed animals with Kechara Care!
Wah Ying, thanks for speaking in Mandarin to explain the significance of what we are doing here. Cute son!
Teach children to always be kind to animals and help them to grow up to be gentle kind adults that harm no one.
I love this wonderful video. Thank you very much.
Tsem Tulku