20200712護生共榮淨土現 Creating Pure Land on Earth by Protecting Animals
Recently, how can I not feel sad or worried? The invisible COVID-19 pandemic has lasted for nearly 6 months; the virus is invisible, and it has impacted the whole world. Lately, Nature is out of balance. Temperatures this year are much higher than previous years. Take Siberia for example. Average temperatures for the area were 20 degrees Celsius before, but they have reached over 30 degrees Celsius this year. This is unusual and abnormal.
When I think of climate impacts and recent disasters occurring one after another, I become truly worried. So, the only solution to solve issues as such is for every person to be pious, and have a sincere heart. People of all religions must have sincere piety. People of all religions must care for life and protect lives of animals.
Apart from protecting the Earth and being concerned about climate change, we should also find ways to mitigate climate change and prevent extreme weathers from occurring so that they can become normal. To accomplish this is truly not easy.
Only we humans, people of all religions, become sincerely pious and give our love, can we achieve this. Only when we have the power of love, whose purpose is to protect life, can we protect lives of animals. How do we protect lives of animals? It is only by stop giving rise to greed. Let us curb our cravings for meat, stop harming the bodies of animals, and let them be free from stress, fear, and harm. If we humans can do this, we and animals can naturally co-exist in a safe and peaceful world.
This will bring peace and harmony to the world, to humans and to animals. Wars happen when people fight over things. This is called a manmade disaster. Wars produce countless refugees displaced and lost at sea. No matter which country they are in, they live in fear. How do people live like that? Life like that is truly suffering.
Right now, there are so many people who live a life like that. Furthermore, there is hunger. On this planet, of the people who live on this planet with you and me, how many of them are living in hunger? More than 800 million people are living in hunger. Think about it, many rich people are overweight; those overweight want to lose weight, but they have a hard time losing weight. Why is that? It is because they eat and they have cravings.
On the one hand, they want to lose weight; on the other, they give in to their cravings. Because of such cravings, many people eat meat. All in all, how many animals are killed in a day for food? There are so many. I talk about this figure often. Over 2,000 animals are killed for food every second. This is the count of lives lost by the second. This number does not include fish or shrimps; it only counts livestock, and it is already a big number.
Therefore, humans create the karma of killing every day, making animals agitated. Animals have their world, and when humans disturb animals like so, animals can also sense emotions in their hearts; they too can feel scared or afraid. In all, amongst people, and between humans and animals, conflicts were caused all over the world, and these conflicts were based on vengeances, which resulted in issues in today’s world.
Therefore, if we can protect living creatures well, and live in harmony and peace, it will be pure land on earth. If we want peace on earth, humans must create blessings together, and the way, the only way to do that is with love. Of course, we should love all; we should love people and animals. We also need to give of ourselves. Since we have given of ourselves to serve others, we should also cherish and protect the life in front of us. That is genuine love.
This time, I keep telling people that we must adopt a vegetarian diet. I stress on this, people must switch to a vegetarian diet. Right now, religions of various faiths should all go in the same direction of promoting love and inspiring people to bring forth their love. It is all right that religions are different as long as they inspire people to love, love their fellow humans, cherish objects, and protect lives.
Only when all humans do this then the world will be peaceful and safe. Otherwise, climate change and the three calamities will keep on occurring. The three calamities of war, natural disasters, and diseases will keep on occurring in our world. This is the collective karma of living beings. Only by urging everyone to do one thing, which is to eat a vegetarian diet and to love and protect life, then all problems will be solved. The world will be peaceful and without disasters.
This principle is simple, but, it is difficult to guide people to let go of their ignorance and desires. This is why it is called the grand lesson. There is a tremendous difficulty in guiding people to do this. The difficulty is hard to describe. So, everyone, please… all you need to do is open your mouth and share the Dharma and genuine love with people. It is easy to say this. But, perhaps the easiest thing is the most difficult to do.
When we ask people to donate material things to help others, they have no difficulty doing this. When we ask people to eat a vegetarian diet, they find this to be very difficult. This is the principle, and it is what I have been telling everyone recently. Think about this, where are the difficulties? All in all, I look forward to people carrying out principles in their daily life. Think about it, if what we do in daily life is in accord with principles, the law of Nature will naturally run its course.
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