ALL THEY WANT FOR CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR IS FOR THEIR RIGHTS TO BE RESPECTED

Update and action request

To all those who signed the petition, a big thank you and Season's Greetings today! Christmas is a time of year when people show love, kindness and generosity to each other and spend time with their families. However, not for animals bred and cooped up for long hours without movement to slaughter with no love or compassion just for someone's half hour meal.

Cruelty to animals is also illegal in most countries, and in India too, so we can invoke those legal provisions to request the local Gaya authorities and Bodhi Temple management respect animal cruelty laws and the Buddhist teachings on not killing and eating animals, as breaching monastic Vinaya and lay precepts of non-violence, and wrong livelihood.

This holiday season let us send a human message of love, goodwill, compassion and respect for animals and show them with our words and actions that we care, and will be a voice and friend to them, when no-one else seems to notice their suffering, pain and sadness!

The official email addresses for the Bodhgaya Temple Management Committee (BTMC) are:

bodhgayatemple@gmail.com
info@bodhgayatemple.com

Suggested email (can cut and paste):

"Dear Bodhi Temple committee,

Please see the petition signed by over 300 people concerned about the cruelty towards animals and their slaughter for profit, right next to the sacred Buddhist site of Bodh Gaya, where Buddha attained awakening. Not only are such practices illegal in terms of animal cruelty in India, but also contradict and breach the Buddha's core teachings on not deliberately harming or killing sentient beings and not eating them.

 In particular, in the Mahayana Sutras, such as Lankavatara Sutra Chapter 8 ( https://www.sraddhapa.com/lankavatara ), the Buddha gives detailed reasons why eating and killing animals for food is wrong and should be abandoned.

We kindly ask you to shut down such slaughterhouse and butcher businesses within a 30 km distance of the main temple, and other sacred Buddhist sites in that region such as Vulture's Peak, and to stop the selling of animal flesh for profit near the main temple too. 

Good wishes,

[Name]."