持戒，请对众生温柔以待

◆ Offering of material items:

（三）财布施

There are certain texts in the Vajrayana practice that particularly deal with this. Like the ones that explicate the proper ways to feed fish and birds, practitioners are instructed to have rice blessed with mantras, nectar pills, etc. before feeding and not mixed with any meat or blood. Frankly, this is not a common practice for most of us, nor is it the most important. The one that warrants emphasis is offering of Dharma.

密宗里有一些仪轨，比如专门喂鱼鸟的仪轨：在米饭里加一些咒语、甘露等等进行加持，里面不能有血肉。我们平时没有这样做，但这不是最重要的，最重要的就是刚刚讲过的法布施。以上所讲的就是布施波罗蜜多。

II. The Perfection of Discipline

二、持戒

There are two types of discipline to be maintained: first, the Theravada precepts of never harming other beings; second, the Mahayana precepts of always benefiting sentient beings.

持戒可以分两种：第一是持守小乘不伤害众生的戒律；第二是持守大乘利益众生的戒律。

How to apply these two when liberating living beings? To make every effort not to let the beings hurt during the process is one way. Take fish as an example. Fish might get hurt when they jump out from the containers and land either on top of the containers or on the ground. To roughly grab and quickly throw it into the water, as normally done by some，may cause harm too. Other than birds perhaps, throwing usually gives animals a great sense of fear, which in turn can be detrimental to their mental condition. Those who act this way may inadvertently cause themselves to be reborn as a mentally disordered person in the next life. In this situation, the right thing to do is first to pick up and put the fish back gently into the containers. And do not release them to the water before completing the recitation, feeding the nectar pills and blessing them by passing the text of ‘liberation upon wearing’ over them. It would be a great loss to the liberated beings if all these are missing from the process.

如何具备呢？要尽量想办法，在放生的过程当中，不让动物受伤。鱼从筐里跳到筐盖上面或地上时，身体有可能会受伤。平时比较常见的是，很多人抓起来就扔到河里。这样不对。除了鸟类之外，抓起来就扔会给动物们带来很大的恐惧感，其精神会因此而受到极大的伤害。如果这样做，下一世我们就有可能成为精神不正常的人，所以不能这样扔；而要在将它抓住以后，轻轻地放回筐里。在没有念经、没有放甘露丸之前，尽量不要放生。如果在没有念经、没有放甘露丸，系解脱也没有搁在它们头上之前就放了，对这些生命来说就是很大的损失，所以不能放。

Liberating living beings can also prevent some evil karma. Take the example of freeing one fish. First, if the fish vendor sells the fish to a restaurant, he will have committed karma of killing that fish. By buying the fish from the vendor, we stop that from happening. Second, if we do not buy the fish, the cook at the restaurant will kill it. We prevent the cook from committing that karma with our purchase of the fish. Third, the customers eating the fish are also guilty of killing. By buying the fish, we prevent karma of killing for the third time. As the fisherman would not know at the time of catching the fish if it was to be liberated or killed, his evil karma, if any, may not be prevented by our purchase. But the other three can all be avoided. When liberating beings, to make every endeavor not to hurt them as well as the feelings of other people is in fact benefiting sentient beings already. This manner of liberating living beings constitutes the perfection of discipline.

放生的行为也断除了一些罪过。以放一条鱼为例：第一，鱼市场的老板如果把这条鱼卖给餐馆，他就有杀生的罪过，我们买下来以后，就免除了他的罪过；第二，如果我们不买这条鱼，餐馆里的厨师就会杀它，我们买了以后，就免除了厨师的罪业；第三，餐馆里那些吃鱼的人，也有杀生的罪过，我们买了以后，就断除了第三个杀生的罪过。至于抓鱼的人在抓鱼的时候，因为不知道是要放生还是杀生，所以不一定能免他的罪过，但其他的三个罪业都可以消除。放生的时候，尽量不要伤害那些放生的动物或是其他人的心，这就是利益众生。这样的放生就是持戒。