理性放生与慈悲心 -- 【EDITORIAL·编辑室 】

佛教要求信徒行“五戒”，最根本的一条就是“不杀生”；又提出要信徒行慈悲，立菩提心，通过“放生”培养出慈悲心；正所谓“放下屠刀，立地成佛”。佛教在《梵网经》中也可读到“若佛子！以慈心故，行放生业”这样的经文，其实，这就是告诉我们行放生的主要目的是培养我们的慈悲心。

放生是一种美德。是护生，是佛教徒实践佛陀“众生平等”慈悲观念的体现。佛教徒受持三皈、五戒就要尽形寿“不杀生”，即永远爱护一切众生的生命。作为佛教徒，护生是我们的责任，护生是我们终身必尽的义务。

民众盲目、随意放生，不经“审视”、不受约束地放生，导致外来物种入侵，取代当地物种，这就是“放生不当等同杀生”的愚痴行为。放生者无知的善意，如把吃人鱼这类凶残的鱼类放到畜水池，使得池中的生态系统起了根本的变化、失控，严重危害自然生态环境，破坏自然界生态的平衡，以及给人类本身带来诸多的危害。

至于放生动物的地点是否适合，或者放生动物的存活率怎么样？放生者可有考虑到这些技术问题，有人把淡水鱼放到大海里，把海龟放到淡水池中。所以，被放生的动物命运也是悲惨的，仅仅是为了满足放生者的心里需求，成了所谓“放生善人”的牺牲品。

原本在大自然中的鱼儿、乌龟、鸟禽，因市场需求，惨遭系捕、折腾，甚至夭折笼中；或在小小的水桶中，因为氧气不足而死亡。更为要命的人为事故，放生时还请来“名人”，长篇大论地演讲，如明星般轰轰烈烈地拍照，做放生宣传。他们可有想到“被放生”的生命可贵，结果放生后，却一只只全都“往生”了。

放生务必要慎重，要智慧、科学的去放生，不是做简单的佛教仪式就可以盲目、单纯去放生。放生的善人们务必要具备放生物种的专业知识，严格遵守国家有关生物的相关规定，并按照佛陀的教导，如法如律的去放生，莫将野生动物和家养动物的病毒传染给人类和所有的一切众生，这是真正积德放生的善行。

Happiness And Reality

Are you truly happy? Do you know what it means to be happy and what it takes to achieve happiness?

Though some claim that happiness is hard to define, most people are nonetheless, aware of whether they are happy or not. Many believe that happiness is a fruition of good karma or good luck, while the unblessed ones may accept their unhappy state as bad karma or bad luck.

Yet for others, they claimed that happiness is no more than a pleasant sensation, an eruption of joy, a feel good effect or a fleeting feeling of serenity and comfort. There are many ways to find happiness: an examination they aced, meeting someone they have longed for, build a career, start a family, have kids, help others, find inner peace, be a volunteer in charities, meditate, go for retreats, involve in religious activities, among others. As you can see, this experience of happiness is brought on by ‘dependent arising (skt: pratitya-samutpada)’, a combination of other arising factors or related conditions. It means that what we experience as happiness or unhappiness is interconnected with forms, our feeling, cognition, mental construct and consciousness --- the five aggregates of our body and mind.

Our day-to-day experience tells us that good or bad exists and that “I” is very often mistaken to be concrete and real. To debunk such illusions, the Buddha exhorts us to be awakened to the reality of the four seals of existence:

1. All compounded things are impermanent

2. All emotions are painful

3. All phenomena are without a self nature

4. Nirvana is peace

In other words, being mindful of the impermanence of all compounded things, including ourselves, helps us accept the reality of change, old age and death. Whatever is impermanent is subject to change. Whatever is subject to change is subject to emotional suffering. This is because phenomena have no existence of their own. Nirvana is unconditional, deathless -- a total freedom.

Enlightenment does not mean to go to some other place, some other land. It means to utterly relinquish the ego based on the mistaken notion of “I”, “me” or “mine” --- to be liberated from the fires of craving, hatred and ignorance.

If you were to experience that, there is “no-you” or no “no-you” for it to happen to at the end of the day!