A kind request to the readers of this article, as it will be published on a website and in magazines. The writer was born in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and lived in Europe for most of his adult life. Now back in Sri Lanka, this article is based on observations made in Sri Lanka. I hope it catches the attention of many animal lovers, regardless of cultural differences.
I am trying to emphasize the suffering caused to animals by humans. For this I am using the personification of a fish. I invite readers to read this article patiently and finally get to the cry of a fish as you read on. Sri Lankan writers talk about animal rights and quote the founders of religions. Mainly the Buddha. If these writers understand the intricacies and fundamentals involved, I’ll be more than happy. But they don’t seem to be. In any case, let me point out, as I understand it, the important aspects. The freedom of discomfort is what causes as much discussion as the freedom of animals and humans.
Recently, even Sri Lankan newspaper editorials commented on animal rights. As an animal lover since my childhood, I was pleasantly surprised by the empathy expressed by the editorials of the well-known and widely read English newspaper in Sri Lanka. In Sri Lanka (which is supposed to be a predominantly Buddhist country, at least in theory), I find some writers paraphrasing and publishing the Buddha’s teachings left and right, with their own photographs attached to the articles. If the Buddha were alive, he would never allow his photograph to be printed in the newspapers. I personally think it is self-centered and an insult to the Buddha. Smart readers want the facts and the philosophy and not the qualifications of the writers with their photographs. After all, they are not movie stars.
The Buddha was the teacher of a thinking person. Buddhism is about suffering and the means to end it. I’ve digressed a bit here because I was trying to bring the subject more into focus. Let me get back to the point. What the writers forget is the PAIN. Pain is the basis of all suffering. Be it psychological pain or physical pain for animals or humans. Doctors give painkillers. What is pain? Is it something verbally describable? We can never experience another person’s pain. A mother can empathize with the pain of her only child. You will never be able to experience the pain of your child.
So let me say that pain is a complex experience that involves both sensory and emotional components: it’s not just about how it feels, but also how it makes you feel. And it is these unpleasant feelings that cause the suffering that we humans associate with pain. By definition, humans are animals. Nonhuman animals cannot translate their feelings into the language that humans use in the same way that human communication can, but observation of their behavior provides a reasonable indication of the extent of their pain. As with doctors and doctors who sometimes share. Without common language with your patients, pain indicators can still be understood. The subject of animal consciousness is plagued with a number of difficulties. It raises the problem of other minds in a particularly serious way, because animals that lack the ability to use human language cannot tell us about their experiences. Furthermore, it is difficult to reason objectively about the matter, because the denial that an animal is conscious often implies that it does not feel, that its life is worthless, and that harming it is not morally wrong.
The 17th-century French philosopher René Descartes, for example, has sometimes been criticized for providing a justification for the mistreatment of animals because he argued that only humans are conscious. His famous saying “Cogito ergo sum”: I think, therefore I am. This should be changed to Suffer, then I think. Many moons ago, when I was a child, ox-drawn carts were a means of transporting goods and people in Sri Lanka. I was a keen observer of these cars passing my door in Kandy. When the driver wanted to go faster, he hits the ox with a heavy stick. The poor animal must have thought that the place where he was at that moment made it painful and he was running towards a safe haven imagining in his mind.
One of my teachers, Carl Sagan, the American cosmologist, points out the reasons why humans have had a tendency to deny that animals can suffer: Humans, who enslave, castrate, experiment and fillet other animals, have had a understandable predilection for faking animals. feel no pain A clear distinction between humans and ‘animals’ is essential if we want to bend them to our will, make them work for us, clothe them, eat them, without any disturbing tinge of guilt or regret. It is unseemly of us, who often behave so insensitively towards other animals, to claim that only humans can suffer. The behavior of other animals makes such claims misleading. They are very similar to us.
People in many cultures do not like to be reminded of the connection between animals and meat, and tend to “de-animalize” meat when necessary to reduce feelings of guilt or disgust. In Western countries, I have seen that meat is often packaged and served to minimize its resemblance to live animals, without eyes, faces or tails, and the market share of such products has increased in recent decades; however, meat in many other cultures is sold with these body parts.
lament of a fish
Why was I born as a fish in this vast ocean? I can’t understand But I guess it may be because of me Karma during my cycle of rebirth. Some very strong and rough men surrounded me with a net while I was swimming calmly. They also stuck a thin, pointed object down my throat, they called it a hook. I was so happy living in the water swimming with my family. I was destined to live there. But at the moment I don’t have a single drop of water. And I’m suffering under the scorching sun. I just can’t stand the pain that the wound has inflicted on my throat. I feel like sometimes I die and come back to life.
A rich man touched my body to feel my flesh to see if it was good enough for a meal. After satisfying himself, he laughed happily and took me paying the fisherman a lot of money. I heard the rich man say to his friend “I am going to offer this fish as food to Mahasangha (Buddhist monks) and gather enough merits for me to attain Nirvana (Ultimate Salvation)”.
May I ask you good people who are reading my painful story: “Why do you people carry out your charities in this way? Please tell me. I can’t understand how you can reach Nirvana (Ultimate Salvation) killing myself and offering my meat to Mahasangha (Buddhist monks). Taking my flesh by force is stealing. Can’t you tell? Now, after eating my meat and satisfying their taste buds, the monks will preach the virtues of non-violence. These monks will also tell the participants that they (the monks) will pass on the merits to those who are present in front of them and also to their dead relatives who live elsewhere after rebirth. How can they do good deeds after swallowing a corpse?
Finally, you steal my meat for your charities. You satisfy your taste buds by stealing and eating my meat. Also, you pass merit to others by eating and donating my meat. The irony is that after you use and eat my meat, you never think to pass me a little merit as a thank you!
“Lamentation of a Fish”
it was a Sinhalese poem, I don’t know the author’s name. Maluwakuge Andonawa. I tried to translate it into Sinhala to fit this article.
Sampath Anson Fernando,
Shenfield, England / Colombo,
Sri Lanka