beej Posted June 20, 2007 Report Share Posted June 20, 2007 Its a stupid crule practice that should be banned! Good Karma my ******* ass, it just fills the pockets of those stupid old bastards who sell them! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
condotown Posted June 20, 2007 Report Share Posted June 20, 2007 I think the people with the birds in the cages should just release them all and receive all the good karma for themselves!! I feel that I receive good karma for not beating the **** out of the sellers and releasing the birds myself. kaunitz 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IRISHCREAME Posted June 20, 2007 Report Share Posted June 20, 2007 Chicken belongs in a stir fry dish with a side of rice, not a cage! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kinnaree Posted June 28, 2011 Report Share Posted June 28, 2011 I see this thread is quite old, but I am new to this bulletin board. I also see that there are many westerners on here quick to judge Thai people with black and white philosophy. It is very important to remember that those same birds (munias) that are captured temporarily, not killed, seriously damage crops, especially rice, which is the mainstay of many rural people in Thailand. Please think deeper before concluding that Thai people's intelligence is inferior to wherever you come from. When I lived in Bangkok, I experienced many haughty farang with this attitude. Please do not be one of them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 I see this thread is quite old, but I am new to this bulletin board. I also see that there are many westerners on here quick to judge Thai people with black and white philosophy. It is very important to remember that those same birds (munias) that are captured temporarily, not killed, seriously damage crops, especially rice, which is the mainstay of many rural people in Thailand. Please think deeper before concluding that Thai people's intelligence is inferior to wherever you come from. When I lived in Bangkok, I experienced many haughty farang with this attitude. Please do not be one of them. too late .... now piss off and stop talking complete bollocks !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 (edited) Is there someone out there who can give me a reasoned counter-argument?-- Walking around Sukhumvit, et al, I often see someone carrying cages with birds in them. My understanding is that releasing the bird is good luck - you're giving the bird its freedom, so good karma for you. But thinking about this practice in terms of economics, it's bad karma for the person releasing the bird. Or? -If releasing the bird is good karma, imprisoning the bird is bad. -The reason the seller imprisoned the bird is because he knows someone like you will pay him to release it. -Therefore people that pay to release birds from the cages are providing the seller an economic basis for imprisoning more birds. -Therefore people that pay to release the birds, are actually the cause for the birds being imprisoned in the first place. -The seller is an instrument of evil acting on the purchaser's behalf. He's still evil, but a lesser evil than the person that asked for the imprisonment to be performed. Restated: People that pay to release the birds from little cages seem to be committing acts of bad karma, not good karma, as they're providing the economic basis for more birds to be imprisoned. Expected responses: -"You just don't understand Thai culture." -"You're attempting to apply a logical argument to religion; don't bother." -"You've insulted our religion, get out of the country." -The post is perceived as anti-Buddhist and deleted to avoid government intervention. -Random off-topic garbage -Personal attacks Unexpected response: A well thought out counter argument that explains to me how it is that releasing the birds is actually good for one's karma. Or is it just an empty, feel-good symbol with no real meaning? :twisted: Those who argue that it is Buddhist practices to free these commercially imprisoned little birds are usually Buddhist in name but do not properly understand the spirit behind the Buddhist principles. I totally agree that the act of buying these purposefully caged little birds for the sake of then performing some 'kind' acts of freeing them is actually not helpful or compassionate at all. Although the person doing this may want to be compassionate, the action itself is not compassionate despite his/her original intentions. Maybe if one goes to Klong Toey market or any other live market where the animals are destined to be killed for food (as converse to being kept and sold only for the sake of 'life liberators') e.g. catfish or water snails etc, then buy them to free them into a suitable habitat e.g. the Chao Praya River, it may be more helpful for the animals and more in line with the life liberation's underlying principle of compassion. That said, I do know of various vendors, usually at the piers e.g. Tha Chang in BKK etc who sell pails of eels, catfish and other food animals to people for the sake of freeing them. Some may argue that this is equivalent to the bird vendors. However, I feel the main difference of these vendors versus the bird vendors is that the little birds are usually not food animals which will suffer an inevitable fate of being killed if not freed. Their existence in the commercial market is only for the purpose of being freed by people hoping to obtain some good karma. On the other hand, the fish and other food animals sold by the other 'life liberation' vendors are usually sourced from a common wholesaler and these food animals will often end up at the wet markets to be slaughtered and sold for food if they do not happen to be purchased by the 'life liberation' vendors to be later resold to individuals hoping to free them. I guess in this case, the bottomline is: If you do believe in the animal's welfare and wants to free them from being killed in the wet markets, free only those animals which are destined to be killed for food and do so in the correct form of habitat. PS: My response is not in reply or challenge to anyone's prior ones cos I did not read through the pages of previous posts but rather jump right into it after reading the original! Edited June 29, 2011 by Hazel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 look if god/buddha or whoever didn't want us to eat birds and/or animals he wouldn't have made their meat taste so good !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 look if god/buddha or whoever didn't want us to eat birds and/or animals he wouldn't have made their meat taste so good !!! Haha that's a God-ism theory. Buddhism never says that Buddha or God creates anything. Something that tastes good doesn't mean we will have to subcumb to the temptations. For example, if someone's spouse is very good looking, it doesn't mean we are justified to seduce the person into bed with us, or that it is ok to steal someone's thing cos it is nice and/or expensive. Regarding meat tasting good, sometimes it may be more of a social conditioning. People (some of my friends) who are born and brought up vegetarian always say (at least, those whom I know) that both cooked and raw meat smell (and taste, if they ever accidentally taste it) revolting. It is because we are so used to it that we feel it is tasty and 'normal'. And it is not even about being politically correct when these vegetarians since birth say that. I used to teach a then-8-year-old boy who was born a vegetarian. He was one boy who had the most obnoxious habit. He would often scold adults with Hokkien bad words (including the tutor and parents), consistently played pranks on others, including his parents and very often like to make nasty comments about women's breasts and buttocks (knowing that it is wrong to do so). If there was one boy who was the least likely to be politically correct, he must be the one. Knowing that I have eaten meat before, he asked me (during one of his rare non-naughty tutoring moments) why people like to eat meat cos it is so smelly. Another example of why meat diets may be a form of social conditioning is the observation that people who grow up eating spicy food for all their meals, e.g. Malays and Indians, will usually feel spicy food tastes good and feel it is the norm to have spices in their dishes, while people who do not, will often need to get used to such food e.g. farangs Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CiaranM Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 i'm pretty sure that "farming animals" and cooking were two of the major steps in humans becoming more "developed and civilised" !!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 (edited) Well, definitely everyone is entitled to their own opinions, including whether they choose to eat meat or not. Buddhism itself also never mandates people to be vegetarian. Just that Buddhism suggests that knowing the pain of being killed (if one chooses to believe that animals can feel bodily pain), one should avoid bringing such pain upon others including animals by not killing them, eating animals which they know are purposely killed for them, and freeing them from such deathly pain if possible. Vegetarianism is one option although it is up to individuals whether they can or want to do so. Farming animals and cooking are surely marks of civilisations, there's no denial of that. The thing is, one can choose what they want to farm and cook. Farmers can choose to grow crops (mushrooms, fruit trees and vegetables etc) and rear animals for their milk and eggs in a good environment e.g. free range (as converse to killing them for their meat, which causes immense pain to the animals, if one believes in animal pain). There are then, others who say that maybe plants and fungi feel pain too, so why are we eating them too? It seems that Buddhism perceives that there are different forms of living things - one group which posses reactive emotions (animals and humans) and another group which doesn't (the plants, fungi and micro-organisms). Definitely, all these are up for debate cos as of now, it is so hard to prove plants etc do not possess feelings of pain and sorrow, so ultimately, what one believes in is up to oneself. However, because I have kept dog, rabbit, hamster, beetles and fish before, it is my very personal thoughts that animals seem to possess emotions and feelings of pain. But it doesn't mean the whole world has to believe in what I believe in; everyone's life still goes on as normal whether they believe in it or not. And believing in it doesn't make me a perfect, compassionate human anyway. It's just a life philosophy that people, such as Buddhists, Jains, some atheists etc hold onto to reduce whatever little they can of the sufferings of animals. After all, we are all just humans who are imperfect in so many ways. We just do whatever we can do, knowing it's very little and hoping to make that bit of diffference to a suffering animal (if one believes animals can feel sufferings). Edited June 29, 2011 by Hazel add words Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 The sellers drug the birds so they can catch them again just after the buyer has stopped whatching where they've gone. Yes, I also heard this one before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 since most people cant afford to save any other animals the birds are there and are easily freed. How many people do you know that could afford to rescue a cow from slaughter for good karma? In 2009, THB20 gets one a kilogram of live catfish in Klong Toey Market Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 But they choose, for whatever reasons (sanuk?) to do it anyway. Much like monks tying goodluck string around a persons wrist. It doesn't impart good karma, it's supposed to bring luck. Again not a Buddhists practice. It's cultural. These practices aren't performed in the west. These things were possibly practiced even before Buddhism arrived in Thailand. Well said... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geee Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 In Thailand, religion is about big business ( dixit my ex GF) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 What's dixit my ex gf? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geee Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 What's dixit my ex gf? "Dixit" means she/he said, my ex girl friend told me so : it comes from Latin but is accepted in other languages too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 "Dixit" means she/he said, my ex girl friend told me so : it comes from Latin but is accepted in other languages too Oic... ^^ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodKarma Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 WTF? I have no idea what this thread is talking about.. I didn't release no stinking birds? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 WTF? I have no idea what this thread is talking about..I didn't release no stinking birds? :D :D Don't deny it, you did!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodKarma Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 :D :D Don't deny it, you did!!! However, I do like chicken dishes ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hazel Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 However, I do like chicken dishes ;) Too bad they are not plump, juicy chicken keke Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodKarma Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 (edited) ................. Edited June 29, 2011 by GoodKarma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoodKarma Posted June 29, 2011 Report Share Posted June 29, 2011 (edited) Too bad they are not plump, juicy chicken keke slim, Medium, Rubenesque all is just fine with me.. - o - Btw, are we talking about food? Edited June 29, 2011 by GoodKarma Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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