Moonpointer : Buddhist Vegan Fellowship

By Grace Chen
Illustrated by Lin Chien-ju

I have been telling this story to almost everyone I see. Back in April of this year, my cousin from Boston called me up and said, “Grace, I’m coming to Los Angeles. What do you want me to bring for you?” I immediately thought of the yummy frozen Maryland crab cakes that a friend had once brought for me, so I said, “Why don’t you bring me lobster? I love lobster.” Of course, when I told my cousin that, I was just joking.

Although lobster was my favorite food at that time, I didn’t really think that she would take what I said all that seriously. The next day, my cousin flew in from Boston to visit me. As I opened the door to greet her, I found her standing there, carrying two big boxes and looking very exhausted. I asked her, “What did you bring with you? She said seriously, ”I brought two live lobsters for you. Didn’t you say that you love lobster? I carried these two lobsters with me all the way from Boston because you told me that you like them. I thought to myself, “Oh-oh!. She actually listened to what I said? How could she listen to what I told her? I was just joking. How can I eat two live lobsters? What shall I do?”

I told my cousin, “Hey, this is too sad, I can’t eat two live lobsters! Okay, I guess if they‘re not alive, I could probably eat them but not when they’re still alive.” My cousin was pretty upset when she heard this, because she thought I’d be very happy to see her bring those two delicious-looking live lobsters. I then said to her, “I’m sorry, but can’t you just let the two lobsters go? Can’t we just put them back in the ocean?” My cousin laughed. She thought I was crazy. “They‘re from Boston. They won’t stay alive if you throw them into the Pacific Ocean.”

“Okay, fine, I won’t eat them. It’s too sad,” I said. My cousin didn’t know what to say, so she just put the two lobsters in the refrigerator and said she would cook them and eat them later on.

Two days passed, and we almost forgot about the lobsters. However, when we finally opened the fridge, we knew that we had to do something about them. So, my cousin decided to cook them up and eat them. We opened the two boxes, and we saw two pairs of eyes staring at us, with two pairs of claws waving at us like they were saying hello. My cousin and I both said to each other, “How can they be alive after two days in the fridge?”

But my cousin just decided that no matter what, it was too late to let them go, so she didn’t want to waste the food. Both of us were too scared to cook them or even touch them. I tried to talk my cousin out of eating the two lobsters, but she insisted that it was a waste of food, so it was still better to cook them. She refused to put the lobsters in boiling water, because she thought that the lobsters would scream really loud in pain and move around and splash boiling water all over the place.

After almost 45 minutes of discussion, I went from insisting on letting the lobsters go to helping my cousin cook the lobsters. But of course, I still refused to eat them, because it was just too sad to see the two living creatures die in front of my eyes. My cousin and I discussed all sorts of methods to cook the lobsters, and for some odd reason we finally decided on a method: bake the lobsters in the oven, while they were still ALIVE.

Okay, I admit, I was not thinking, and I was stupid to let something like that happen. Not only did my cousin and I decide on the most painful way for lobsters to die, we also forgot to preheat the oven!

I somehow managed to help my cousin put the lobsters in the oven, but it took a while. The lobsters were struggling while my cousin and I were trying to put them into the oven. It was like they knew that they were about to die. Poor things! How would they know that they were in the hands of two stupid girls who knew nothing about cooking lobsters?

As we turned away from the kitchen, I immediately heard the two lobsters pounding on the oven door. It was a very rapid, loud pounding. “Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang!” The pounding sound reminded me of when I was young, when I accidentally locked myself in a dark room all by myself, and I was so scared that I pounded hard on the door to get someone to rescue me.

At the same time, the lobsters also made some other noises. It was as if they were calling to me, “Let me out, let me out, let me out!” I didn’t dare look into the oven, but I already had the picture in my head of the lobsters using their last remaining energy to pound on the oven door with their claws, hoping that someone would save them.

I then kneeled down, with tears in my eyes, and prayed to the Bodhisattva, “Amitabha, Amitabha, I’m sorry that I helped to kill two living creatures. I’m sorry that I acted like a killer. I pray that the lobsters will go to a better place. It’s too late for me to save them now, because my cousin is going to eat them; and I can’t put them back into the ocean. I’m sorry for all I‘ve done.”

At the same time, a thought came into my mind: “I cannot eat meat or seafood anymore. I cannot live my life as a killer of living beings. I promise to become a vegetarian for the rest of my life now. I’m grateful to the two lobsters for saving the lives of hundreds and thousands of lobsters, shrimps, chickens, etc. Now that I am a vegetarian, no more animals will be killed in order to satisfy my cravings.”

I know it sounds kind of corny that I thought of something like that. Actually, whenever I tell this story to others, I laugh about this thought that came into my mind at that very moment. However, the truth is that this one thought has changed my life in a significant way.

It’s been three months now, and I still have not eaten any seafood or meat. I actually feel healthier both physically and mentally. I know for sure now that I will be a vegetarian for the rest of my life. Until this day, I still think about and talk about the two lobsters that served as martyrs to save the lives of other animals that I would possibly have killed had I not become a vegetarian!

From Tzu Chi : Buddhism In Action, Vol. 11 No. 3, Fall 2004