http://www.wbtemple.org/events.html
No Buddhist Enlightenment Here:

“The Watsonville Buddhist Temple holds several annual events that are fun, informative and usually involve delicious food!

“Got chicken? Assembling over 3000 chicken teriyaki dinners is a huge undertaking, but after more than 50 years we are experts. Get your tickets early to sample our secret recipe and all the trimmings.
Annual Chicken Teriyaki Dinner, September 22, 2012.”

For Information about Chickens Raised for Meat, please click on:
http://www.upc-online.org/chickens/chickensbro.html.

Protest To Rev. Hanayama

Send email to Rev. Hanayama
(wbtminister@aol.com)

Office phone: (831)724-7860

Fax: (831)724-8167

Address: 423 Bridge Street, Watsonville, CA 95076

Karen Davis's Letter to Rev. Hanayama Re: Buddhist Temple Celebrates Chicken Torture Teriyaki

Dear Rev. Hanayama,

Your Temple’s advertisement for 3000 chicken dinners and website description of blood-soaked tables makes a sad and distasteful mockery of Buddhism. Was I mistaken in thinking that Buddhism encourages compassion for all sentient beings rather than selfish cruelty toward them? A chicken is every bit as conscious and sentient as you or I and chickens cry when their throats are painfully cut the same as you or I would cry in being so brutally treated. I thought Buddhism encouraged mercy toward our fellow creatures. Was I mistaken about Buddhism? I would appreciate a response from you and I urge you please to stop using chickens (or any other defenseless creatures) as bait for your events. It really is shocking and terrible to read this dinner menu. Please choose compassionate animal-free cooking and dining. These days especially there is no justification at all for consuming animal products given the horrible ways animals are treated for “food” and the wealth of vegetarian (vegan) foods now available everywhere. In addition, an animal-based diet is environmentally destructive, and as for the chicken industry, I live on the Eastern Shore of Virginia where this destructive industry is destroying the precious Chesapeake Bay because of the types of meals your Temple is consuming and promoting. As for the chickens themselves, no creature on Earth is treated more cruelty – and it is all for nothing because no human being needs to eat a chicken or any other animal in order to be healthy and fit. Just the opposite in fact.

Thank you for your attention. I look forward to your reply to share with others. I hope for good news from you.

Sincerely,

Karen Davis, PhD, President
United Poultry Concerns
PO Box 150
Machipongo, VA 23405
Recipes: http://www.upc-online.org/recipes/

Dear Rev Hanayama,

I was so sad to learn about your annual chicken dinner in which you prepare 3,000 young, tortured chickens for a festive meal. To use the chickens for food does not follow the teachings of Dharma. This event is not a display of “cherishing others” and is not a path to self-enlightenment. How can it be if it is not in line with The Four Immeasurables?

The Four Immeasurables

May all sentient beings have happiness and the root of happiness?
Be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
May they not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering.
May they dwell in the great equanimity, free from attachment to those near and aversion to those far.

As has been said in the teachings, the path to enlightenment is really very simple – all we need do is stop cherishing ourselves and learn to cherish others. All beings deserve to be cherished. If we genuinely want to realize our potential by attaining full enlightenment we need to increase the scope of our compassion until it embraces all living beings without exception Through meditation we can extend and deepen our compassion until it transforms into the mind of great compassion – the wish to protect all living beings without exception from their suffering. Through improving this mind of great, or universal, compassion it will eventually transform into the compassion of a Buddha, which actually has the power to protect all living beings.

I hope you will observe your festivals by being compassionate and choosing to not eat animal flesh and by products. In this way, you can celebrate life. As you know, animals used for food production suffer horrible lives and horrible deaths.
http://www.upc-online.org/chickens/chickensbro.html. Where is the compassion and the desire to protect all living beings, without exception, from suffering? I believe the true path to enlightenment is to be vegan.

Thank you for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Ronnie Steinau
United Poultry Concerns Correspondent
Ronnie@upc-online.org
760-753-5566

The Mother of Compassion Blesses Our Fellow Beings –
“May They Be Happy and Free From Suffering” by Beth Redwood