San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)

Buddhists’ ‘life release’ ritual and its complexiti­es

- By Nick Rahaim

Nine live tilapia whose fate would have probably led them to a dinner plate were released into the East Bay’s Lake Chabot in November by a woman who was motivated by her Buddhist faith to save the fish.

The act of compassion, known as life release, can be a misdemeano­r in California because of the potential environmen­tal impact and can be met with a $1,000 fine and up to six months in jail. While it is known to occur in the Bay Area with at least one permitted ceremony annually, state and region wildlife officials do not believe it to be widespread.

“We’ve found evidence of (life release) happening at other lakes — candles and flowers left on the shore,” says Joe Sullivan, fisheries program manager for the East Bay Regional Park District. “We know it happens. We just don’t have a good grasp on how common it is.”

East Bay Regional Park District police contacted the local woman on Nov. 26, but she was not arrested, and the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office has not charged her with committing a crime.

That event raised the question: Where is life release happening around Northern California?

Genny Lim, a San Francisco poet and practicing Buddhist, turned to life release after her 19-year-old daughter’s death in a rafting accident in 2001. Lim purchased a live duck in Chinatown and released it on Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park.

“The act was to purify my daughter’s passing,” Lim says. “When a life is taken, you save another life. It’s the circle of life and death, the continuum of spirit.”

Lim has participat­ed in a few life-release ceremonies with a Tibetan school of Buddhism in the Bay Area since 2001 and knows about

rituals still taking place. When asked about her display of compassion being a rogue act, she laughs. “It’s true; it was,” she says. “I was looking over my shoulder the whole time. I just felt a real need to do it.”

But the ritual, also known as mercy release and prayeranim­al release, doesn’t appear to be common among Bay Area Buddhists.

“I’m in touch with a lot of Buddhists, and I have not heard of anything,” says Mushim Patricia Ikeda, a Buddhist Bay Area writer and a director at the East Bay Meditation Center. “There is a high degree of environmen­tal awareness, and they ain’t gonna do it.”

Ikeda began practicing at a Korean Buddhist temple in Toronto in the early 1980s, a few years after the temple discontinu­ed the release of pigeons into the wild. The congregati­on had turned against the practice because it paradoxica­lly conflicted with the first Buddhist precept of doing no harm.

“It is a fascinatin­g intersecti­on of traditiona­l practice and current ecological awareness,” Mushim says.

Life release has unclear origins but dates back to at least the fifth century. The practice seeks to set captive fish and animals free with the expectatio­n of receiving good karma for the demonstrat­ion of compassion. In many Asian countries, animals are caught for the sole purpose of being sold for life release, according to the Society for Conservati­on Biology. In Taiwan alone, $6 million is spent annually for the ritual release for more than 200 million animals.

In Asian Buddhist societies, life release has led to significan­t ecological harm when invasive species, parasites and disease are introduced to wild population­s of animals. It has led to the introducti­on of American bullfrogs in China and tilapia and red-eared sliders, a species of turtle, in Taiwan, according to the Society for Conservati­on Biology.

The practice has also caused problems outside of Asia. In 2017, two Buddhists from London were fined a total of £28,000 (about $36,000) after pleading guilty to illegally releasing more than 700 non-native crabs and lobsters into the Atlantic Ocean off the English coast, according to the Guardian.

While the release of tilapia

in Lake Chabot made local headlines, the practice hasn’t caused concern among Northern California authoritie­s.

“Yes, it happens, but it’s not very common,” says Capt. Patrick Foy, with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s law enforcemen­t division. “We don’t see it. We usually hear it secondhand.”

The release of tilapia was the first incident Foy is aware of in his 22 years with the department. After inquiring within his department, he said that around 10 years ago officers encountere­d two Buddhists releasing turtles in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta region. The turtles were quickly captured and the two people were giving a stern talking-to, but no citation was issued.

Foy notes that when people are caught releasing an invasive species, the motivation — religious or otherwise — isn’t noted in the citation.

Apart from habitat loss, invasive species pose the second greatest threat to native species in California, officials say.

Red-eared sliders and American bullfrogs aren’t just a problem in Asia; they are the most common invasive species found in East Bay lakes, Sullivan says. The non-native turtles and frogs are thriving, often out-competing their indigenous cousins in the region.

“We think most of the invasive species we find started out as pets,” Sullivan says. “People don’t want them for one reason or another and think it’s the best idea to release it. But that’s the worst thing ecological­ly.”

The East Bay Regional Park District allows the release of rainbow trout into lakes for religious purposes, but it must be done in coordinati­on with district officials.

The Thai Buddhist Temple in Fremont holds a life release ceremony at Quarry Lakes in Fremont for Thai New Year every April. The temple purchases trout from the Mount Lassen Trout Farms, the same hatchery the district uses to stock its 11 lakes, Sullivan says.

Every year, more than 50 people gather by the boat ramp at Quarry Lakes for the life release ceremony. Thai monks chant sutras in Pali, the ancient language of Theravada Buddhism, while members of the temple scoop dozens of trout from a tanker truck holding the fish with buckets, says Lee Guio, the vice chairperso­n of the temple. The hope is that they will also be spared the hook of local anglers who go trout fishing in the lake.

“It’s a part of Buddha’s teaching,” says Dang Guio, a Buddhist from Thailand and Lee Guio’s wife. “We believe in reincarnat­ion. If you give life in this life, you might get a better life in the next.” Dang Guio, born and raised in Bangkok, has practiced life release since she was a child when she set free birds and turtles purchased from local markets.

The Fremont temple is the only Thai Buddhist temple in the Bay Area to have an official life release ceremony, Dang Guio says, but the celebratio­n attracts Buddhists from other temples.

The San Francisco Zen Center, which operates the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center in Monterey County and the Green Gulch Farm in Marin County, does not practice life release. Neither does the Berkeley Buddhist Temple.

Unlike the park district, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife does not have religious exemptions for the release of animals into the wild, says Peter Tira, spokespers­on for the department. The life of a Dungeness crab, for instance, cannot be legally saved by purchasing it at a fish market and tossing it into the bay.

As for the tilapia released into Lake Chabot, a few were caught by fishermen who may have been surprised to find a fish native to Africa and the Middle East at the end of their lines, Sullivan says. Others were either killed by fish-eating birds or possibly died in the cold Northern California waters.

“Tilapia cannot tolerate cold water,” Sullivan says. “But the main fear is that they could introduce parasites or disease to native species.”

“When a life is taken, you save another life. It’s the circle of life and death, the continuum of spirit.” Genny Lim, a San Francisco poet and practicing Buddhist

Nick Rahaim is a writer in Monterey County. Email: travel@sfchronicl­e.com

 ?? Getty Images ??
Getty Images
 ?? Getty Images / iStockphot­o ?? In the Buddhist ritual of life release, a woman released nine live tilapia into Lake Chabot (top) in Castro Valley. Such a release of non-native species into waterways can be a misdemeano­r. The ritual seems to be rare in Northern California, though not unheard of.
Getty Images / iStockphot­o In the Buddhist ritual of life release, a woman released nine live tilapia into Lake Chabot (top) in Castro Valley. Such a release of non-native species into waterways can be a misdemeano­r. The ritual seems to be rare in Northern California, though not unheard of.

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