The group began the morning with Ngondro Practice and a short teaching on the merits and benefits of life release by His Eminence. This was followed by life release of 150,000 fishes into the Toorsa River. A few members were involved in the actual releasing of the fish into the river, while the remainder of the group were led by His Eminence and the monks in reciting the King of Aspiration Prayers and concluded with His Holiness’s Shabten Prayer. The day itself concluded with Tshok Offering at the Shedra.

 

His Eminence explained that life release should be performed with a mindful attitude of great compassion and unconditional loving kindness, not only towards the fish themselves, but also for the fishermen. When releasing life, one should be mindful not to feel hate or negative emotions towards the fishermen; in fact one should feel even greater compassion for the fishermen than the fish, as they are compelled into this trade due to their past negative karma and now continue to further accumulate negative karma in their ignorance.

Therefore during the life release of any living beings, one should not only pray for the released life, but should also pray for those living beings that are in the trade of taking lives. One should pray that they have the opportunity to relinquish the need to indulge in such kind of negative activities and dedicate the merits of our noble activities for the benefit of these beings living in ignorance.

   

On behalf of the Bhutanese volunteers, we are deeply appreciative and humbled by the devoted and undeterred efforts of Shabten by the International Drukpa Sangha members. We are greatly encouraged and inspired by such meritorious activities and hope that our own would also contribute towards the Shabten and would in some small way benefit towards His Holiness Gyalwang Drukpa, His Holiness Je Khenpo and all the Drukpa masters long life, good health and prosperity. We hope to perform many more such activities in the future.

This life release was possible due to the kind participation and contribution of the Bhutanese and also Drukpa Hongkong as they so kindly cosponsored for this life release activity.