P.E.I. restaurant with Buddhist
links vandalized after monks set lobsters free
ADINA BRESGE The
Canadian Press July 11, 2016
A day
before the restaurant was damaged a group of local monks liberated
600 pounds of live lobsters into the ocean.
CHARLOTTETOWN—A Buddhist-affiliated restaurant in Prince Edward
Island has been vandalized, hours after a group of local monks
liberated 600 pounds of live lobsters.
Charlottetown police responded early Sunday to property damage
at the Splendid Essence restaurant, including a damaged railing,
uprooted flowers and smashed mailbox.
The
previous day, monks from the Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute
Society in Little Sands had invited a CBC News crew to join them on
a fishing boat as they released lobsters purchased on the island
into the ocean off Wood Islands.
Before
returning the crustaceans to their natural habitat, the monks
sprinkled the lobsters with purified water and performed a
20-minute ceremony involving a Buddhist chant for
compassion.
The story
was picked up by international media outlets and shared tens of
thousands of times online.
“Buddhist
monks are motivated to practice compassion. All along they aspire
to keep it low-profiled,” Venerable Dan, a monk at the institute,
said in a statement. “They do not care for judging others, nor do
they hope that any potential quarrel be triggered because of
this.”
Geoffrey
Yang, a spokesperson for the institute who had helped owner Keh-Jow
Lu establish the vegetarian restaurant, did not want to speculate
about whether the property damage was connected to the lobster
release. He said Lu is a Buddhist follower, but is not directly
associated with the monastery.
Yang said
the monks have sporadically liberated lobsters over the years and
did not anticipate the ritual would generate so much media
attention.
“We hope
that this act of compassion and kindness would not provoke
unnecessary emotional debates and could remain to motivate good
thoughts and deeds humbly,” Yang said in an online
message.
The
vandalized building is also headquarters of the Moonlight
Foundation, a non-profit organization that has previously
collaborated with the monastery and follows the same spiritual
leader.
According
to the P.E.I. business registry, the organization’s founder,
Mengrong Jin, also serves as chairperson for the
restaurant.
The Great
Enlightenment Buddhist Institute set up shop in an old lobster
shanty in Montague in 2008 before relocating to a sprawling
compound in Little Sands in 2013. According to documents filed with
the Canada Revenue Agency in 2015, the charitable organization owns
more than $16.5 million in land assets.
Hundreds of
monks and thousands of lay practitioners from around the world have
attended Buddhist education programs at the institute.