by Senaka Weeraratna

Build your wealth on right living and not through causing injury or destruction to the lives of innocent animals.

Remember that kill and eat is not a Buddhist tenet.

Snuffing out the life of a defenseless animal is not sporting conduct.

It is contrary to all tests of fairness. The animal has absolutely no chance.

Our national cricketers must strive to be good role models.

Compassion for living beings is part of Sri Lanka’s Heritage.

These principles are worthy of being borne in mind when our top national cricketers venture into investing in private enterprise. The moral sensitivities of their cricket fans deserve to be taken into account when investment choices are made.

There is an entirely new field called ‘Ethical or Social Conscious Investment’ which encourage investors to choose to invest in activities that are morally and ethically defensible, are run ethically, provide social benefits and are sensitive to the natural environment and the living creatures that inhabit it.

The story with a photo in Sunday Times (Dec. 4, 2011) entitled ‘ Crabs for Grabs’ showing two former cricket captains looking gleefully at a giant crab in a crab shop they had set up at a new food court opened in the Fort yesterday, took me aback.

http://sundaytimes.lk/111204/Sports/spt06.html

These crabs are not there for decoration. Very soon the legs of these live crabs can be expected to be ripped apart and both the legs and the torso thrown into the boiling pot.

Recent studies show that both Lobsters and crabs i.e. crustaceans, feel pain and stress. These findings add to growing evidence that virtually all animals can suffer.

In the Vyagghapajja-Sutta (AN) the Buddha gave some sensible advice. The Buddha said that before one acts, one should consider the possible effects or consequences thus: whether the action will be harmful to oneself or others. If it is damaging to oneself, others or both, such an action should be abandoned. Conversely, if it is beneficial to oneself and others, it ought to be committed.

In Buddhist phraseology one’s “neighbour or others’ includes other living beings ( Siyalu Sathwayo). The moral community in Buddhism encompasses all living beings.

The Buddha’s advice on Right Livelihood

Significance of the Vyagghapajja-Sutta (AN)

The Vyagghapajja-sutta (A.N) is the Buddha’s discourse on the Conditions of Welfare expounded for the material or financial and spiritual development of the lay Buddhists. The Buddha admonishes his followers to preserve a balanced development between material dimension and the spiritual dimension and to construct personal ethical ideal so as to help realize the social ideal.

As long as a lay Buddhist amasses and expands his or her material or financial wealth ethically or righteously through Right Livelihood (Sammā Ajīva)1 , the Moral Law of Action and Reaction (Kamma-Vipāka Dhamma) will reward the ethical or righteous individual correspondingly.

Right and wrong livelihood

Right Livelihhod are occupations which do not transgress the Five Precepts (Pañcasīlas) and Ten Wholesome Courses of Actions (Dasasīlas)

According to the Buddha the five [types of business] to be refrained from are:

1. selling weapons,

2. selling human beings [slavery],

3. selling animals to be killed for food, or the flesh of animals that one has killed oneself,

4. selling intoxicants,

5. selling poison.

In the Suttanipata: 2:7:27-30 it is said that Kshatriyas and self-styled Brahmins and others protected by rank destroyed the repute of their caste and lost their own high status in society because of their involvement in the sin of causing injury to living beings and falling off their virtues.

Senaka Weeraratna