Advice for Buddhists

Whereas Christianity threatens Hell in the afterlife against sin, Buddhism threatens rebirth as a non-human animal. Buddhists believe in a force called Karma. In life, those who choose to commit evil receive bad Karma, those who choose to commit good receive good Karma, while not choosing is an impossibility. Upon death, Karma perseveres and determines into which of the six realms of existence one will be reborn. Good Karma enables rebirth into a higher realm, such as a god or human realm, whereas bad Karma means one is doomed to be reborn into a lower realm such as that of the (non-human) animal. It is punishment for us to be reborn as an inhabitant of the animal realm, as the animal realm is one of higher suffering. While no evidence exists to give credence to this karma, realm, and rebirth nonsense, I do agree that animals sometimes endure more suffering than humans, often at the hands of those from our supposedly higher human realm.

As the title of this blog suggests, I’d like to offer some advice, so here it is: Children of the world, you had better behave otherwise you will be reborn as a suffering animal (or go to hell) in your next life. I’m just joking. Actually, I would never say that to a child. Scaring young minds with nonsense to try making them behave is a form of child abuse. My real advice was for Buddhists. What I meant to say is this: Buddhists of the world, if you are destined to be reborn as an animal, try not to be reborn in a Buddhist nation.

For more than 4 years now I’ve been living in South Korea, a mostly secular nation, which has historically been Buddhist and contains the human realm’s sixth largest Buddhist population. I suggest that Buddhists, upon death, don’t get reborn as an animal here in South Korea. I’ve previously blogged about the culture of animal abuse here in Korea. Suffering pets, suffering animals at tourist attractions, disgusting dog farms, bears farmed for their bile, and animal exploitation entertainment on the TV, make the Korean status quo. The animal rights movement has had little impact in Korea, and correspondingly, animal protection laws are very weak and ineffective. But Korea is progressing rapidly, with the government strengthening animal protection laws in 2007, and again in 2010. Maybe in the future, rebirth in Korea won’t be so punishing.

Abandoned pets on Jeju Island, South Korea. Lucky for these little guys they have been rescued and cared for by a wonderful Korean woman. A group of caring foreign English teachers help her out every Saturday by walking the dogs and cleaning their cages/rooms.

China and Japan contain the biggest 2 populations of Buddhists in this human earth realm. Rebirth in either of these places could be tortuous. China has no laws protecting animals from cruelty, enabling, among other things, its disgusting animals markets, its sickening fur production, and the torture and killing of animals to produce traditional medicines. Japan, famous for continuing to spear dolphins to death and slowly killing whales with explosive spears, is like Korea and only has weak animal protection laws. Hopefully the lives of animals in Japan and the world’s oceans will improve as arguably East Asia’s most progressive nation moves forward. Rounding out the top 5 biggest Buddhist nations are Thailand, Vietnam and Burma. Definitely avoid animal rebirthing in any of these places.

In China, which contains the worlds biggest Buddhist population, you could be reborn as a bile-bear to produce traditional medicine, or if you're (relatively) lucky, a chick or duckling covered in dye.

So where would I recommend rebirth as an animal? Easy, get reborn in secular nations with very few Buddhists. This is sound advice, but vulnerable to misinterpretation. Better would be to say get reborn into a rich, democratic nation where religion is weak (any religion, not just Buddhism). Nations with these characteristics are the most progressive in the world, and subsequently have stricter protections for animals. Nations such as Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, Austria, and Canada are where you should get reborn as an animal. The lives of many animals are far from ideal in these nations, but a more secular, progressive culture and legal protections help. It’s probable that all human societies to have ever existed have largely excluded non-human sentient animals from their moral spheres, have lacked strong animal protection laws, and thus have caused extensive animal suffering (examples to the contrary are very likely romanticized). Whilst many free-er thinkers throughout history have delved into the issue of animal suffering, it’s safe to say that none have been anywhere near as effective in changing our old animal-abusive ways as those responsible for the modern, secular, animal rights movement. Right about now some people may cry out that within Buddhism the killing and harming of all animals (including invertebrates) is banned. But this supernatural-based, extremely-impractical moral exists only within some Buddhist traditions, and judging by how Buddhist nations treat animals it seems only to be adhered to by fundamentalists (Monks, for example). The majority of Buddhists eat meat and kill mosquitoes, as does the majority of the rest of us.

I don’t directly blame Buddhism or any other religion for animal suffering (except in the case of animal sacrifice), but religion often does, to an extent, justify it. Widespread ideas such as animals being confined to a magical realm of suffering (Buddhism), or animals being intelligently designed for the purpose of human utilization (Christianity) are complicit with animals suffering at the hands of humans. Regarding animal rights, the biggest problem with religion is that it is a force of conservatism, a preserver of old ideas, and therefore it helps to slow progress away from our old animal-abusive ways. Free thought is essential for progress, but religion necessarily suffocates it. Any religion that does not actively suffocate free thought, or purge free thinkers, would bring on its own demise, as adherents would lose faith, seeing religion as myths and lies. More free thought would allow societies to more quickly understand what should be common sense- that animals aren’t predestined to suffer, that they share a lot of our biology and are therefore capable of suffering in similar ways to us, and a good thing to do is not cause non-human animals unnecessary suffering.

My final advice for Buddhists (and adherents to other religions) is this: Buddhists of the world (and other religious folk), for the sake of the world’s voiceless non-human animals, please stop supporting your religion, and please don’t preserve it by indoctrinating the young. Please allow religion to continue on its overall course of weakening, allow ideas to flourish, and allow society to progress to a state that includes animals fully within our moral spheres. Let’s help stop the suffering of animals (and humans), simply because it’s a good idea.

Jeju- Island of Animal Abuse

For the last few years I've been lucky enough to call South Korea's Jeju Island my home. The beautiful Jeju is a popular destination for tourists, who are drawn by the island's natural beauty, golf courses, and phallic stone grandfather statues. For promotional purposes, Jeju has been labeled as the "Hawaii of Asia". While Jeju and Hawaii are both islands, Jeju is not isolated, volcanically active, or tropical like its mid-Pacific 'twin'. The many non-native palm trees planted around Jeju give the impression of a Hawaiian tropical paradise, but they do seem to suffer when it snows. A few years ago the Korean government officially declared Jeju the "Island of World Peace". Subsequently, the government has decided to construct a large naval base on Jeju for a fleet of two Aegis destroyer-led squadrons. It seems to me that people are having trouble finding an attractive, apt label for Jeju, so I have decided to come up with one myself. Here it is: Jeju; Island of Animal Abuse.

Most humans seem to enjoy the exploitation and abuse of other animal species. Promoting Jeju as "The Island of Animal Abuse" will highlight the plethora of unethical tourist attractions the island has to offer, and its culture of animal cruelty. This may give Jeju an even bigger slice of the surprisingly lucrative animal-exploitation-and-abuse tourism market. Below is a brief rundown of the Islands' main animal-exploitation-and-abuse attractions, and some associated culture.

Animal exploitation-and-abuse enthusiasts are bound to be aroused by the shows at Pacific Land. Visitors can watch miserable (but permanently smiling) dolphins leaping out of what looks like a large indoor swimming pool (http://pacific.ivyro.net/show/). These dolphins were very probably captured at Taiji in Japan (as seen in The Cove), where their family members were slaughtered with spears. Pacific Land visitors can also see a sea lion performance, and monkeys play guitar and ride a bike.

Part of a sign outside Pacific Land advertising the dolphin show, seal show, and monkey show.

At Crocodile Town visitors can witness a woman place her head inside the mouth of a severely beaten crocodile. Crocodiles aren’t easily trained (as a young man I worked as a crocodile farmer), and lifelong negative reinforcement is required for a crocodile not to bite when a head is placed in its mouth. Basically, if a crocodile ever snaps at, or shows any aggression towards a person, you beat the shit out of it with a big stick. It will eventually learn.

A photo on the Crocodile Town brochure.

Other places where it’s possible to pay to witness animal cruelty include Elephant Park, with its sad elephants, and Hallim Park which boasts a small zoo (replete with a beagle display!). Unfortunately for connoisseurs of animal abuse Magic World has closed down, and with it the thrice daily kangaroo vs. Russian (human) boxing spectacular. When Magic World existed, I often used to wonder that if the helpless kangaroo was any smarter; would it have attempted suicide?

Some animal abuse attractions on Jeju are free! If animal abuse is your thing, then be careful not to miss the seal cages when walking down to the beach at Jungmun (the cages are easy to miss as they are tiny). In the most disgusting of these a very large male seal has been swimming in very tight anticlockwise circles for years. It shares, along with a second smaller seal, a pool not much longer than its body, which often reeks of shit. Separated by bars, people can get within a meter of this beautiful and suffering creature, and torment it with yells and waving arms (I’ve witnessed this).

The suffering anticlockwise seal. Jeju Island.

I personally try to avoid all of this animal-exploitation-and-abuse entertainment, but here in Korea it gets beamed right into my apartment. While channel surfing one evening I encountered every idiot’s fantasy; lions fighting tigers. The program I had stumbled upon featured an attraction at Everland (an amusement park in Seoul) in which lions and tigers share the same enclosure. I wouldn’t describe the program as a documentary, but rather as a highlights-film that showcased the ‘best’ fights between the two species. Apparently a few of these big cats have died in fights.

Cultural tourism is big business, and Jeju culture has a lot of animal suffering to offer. Strolling through Jeju City it’s not hard to find suffering animals like the 2 dogs below my old apartment window. These dogs were kept on a short chain for at least the entire 2 and half years I lived in that apartment (though probably for their entire lives). No play, no walks, nothing. I once enquired to the owner why he kept the dogs, and his wife who spoke a little English replied that “he loves dogs”. He loves making dogs suffer is more like it. Actually, these dogs are lucky compared to the dog my friend saw on an afternoon walk. 2 young police officers had hung it up in a tree and were enjoyably beating it.

Many of Jeju’s dogs live their entire lives on the chain. This cute dog, visible from my English classroom window, probably never gets let off the chain, just like the 2 dogs below my old apartment.

Motorcycling through rural Jeju I’ve several times encountered dog suffering on a larger scale. On dog farms man's-best-friends spend their lives in small clustered wire cages. These dogs are farmed for their meat, and after being hanged or electrocuted, eventually end up in one of the city's many bo-shin-tang restaurants. Bo-shin-tang is dog soup, which some locals believe can magically transfer the dog’s vitality and strength to the hungry human.

Bo-shin-tang's ingredients at a dog farm.

Where I come from, the sufferings of society’s sentient foods are kept away from the dinner plate, but it’s not always so here on Jeju. Sadistic cultural tourists will enjoy the freshness of a certain type of Korean octopus soup. Upon ordering this dish an uncooked pot of vegetables and live octopus is placed on a gas burner in the middle of the table. If the octopus tries to climb out of the heating pot, it can simply be pushed back in with utensils. You’ll have to ask someone else how it tastes.

Jeju is arguably more the “Island of Animal Abuse”, than it is the “Hawaii of Asia” or the “Island of World Peace”, but of course it’s not an attractive label. Despite the popularity of the above mentioned tourist attractions and the endemic poor treatment of Jeju’s animals, tourists and locals alike are unlikely to admit that they find animal abuse attractive. This paradox is easily explained as both Jeju locals and the majority of Jeju’s tourists are Korean, and many Koreans would not share my viewpoint that much of what I have written above actually does constitute animal abuse. South Korea has made some remarkable achievements since the devastating Korean War. It has rapidly rebuilt, embraced democracy, and provided a higher standard of living and greater freedoms to all its human members, but the sufferings of those sentient members without a voice, the animals, has gone largely unnoticed. The animal rights movement seems to have made hardly any impact on Korean culture. Hopefully this will change, and a weakening of Korean speciesism and growth of small groups like Korea Animal Rights Activists (www.animalrightskorea.org) will start to threaten Jeju’s animal-exploitation-and-abuse tourism and its culture of animal suffering.

I actually prefer Jeju’s official label. However, how can Jeju ever truly be the “Island of World Peace” without the animal members of its society being given a peaceful existence (not to mention the peaceful existence of women, gays, and non-Koreans)? I reckon Jeju should retain this label as it is attractive, and as a goal for Jeju society to continue striving towards.