Life liberation is about our motivation to rescue pitiful animals from slaughter. It is not a mere shadowing act of blindly following others in their liberation rituals. If we are able to apply the Dharma, coupled with performing the necessary rituals and follow through to accomplish the task with guidance from Buddha, we will be able to achieve the most powerful form of life liberation.
Through our encounter with life liberation, we set off our sense of emotions towards the sufferings of life and death, and with these emotions as backing, aim to seek out the ultimate liberation for ourselves. In addition, we also have to think of ways to expand this further in order to help all other sentient beings seek liberation.
Even though we are able to rescue the lives of these other sentient beings through liberation, they are still not able to be freed from the karmic sufferings of rebirth. Therefore, we can further help these sentient beings by seeking for the three refuges during liberation. We can chant “Take refuge in the Buddha, never to be reborn in the hell realm. Take refuge in the Dharma, never to be reborn in the hungry ghost realm. Take refuge in the Sangha, never to be reborn in the animal realm.” At the same time, we can also supplicate for the karmic ripening of these sentient beings to be completed in their current lives so that they do not fall again into the three lower realms and instead be reborn as humans with opportunities to meet and practise the Dharma, hence freeing them forever from sufferings and rebirth within the six realms of existence. This is thus the greatest form of life liberation!
Extracted from:
- Master Venerable Jih Chang’s “Bliss & Wisdom Notes of Life”
- Venerable Yuan Yin’s “Life Liberation Collections”