He Yin of the Jin Dynasty once remarked: “Seafood are not born equal. For instance, eels and crabs possess a sentience, so they deserve pity. But clams, mussels, and oysters have no eyes or brows, their lips sealed tight, showing no vital signs and making no sound, inferior even to plants – how do they differ from tiles or rubbles? Therefore it’s perfectly all right to eat clams and the likes.” Holy crap! Did he hear himself? What gibberish!
Creatures like clams may not have facial features, and they may not look like having a lot going on, but do they not possess physical forms capable of movement? Every creature, as long as it has a body and being alive, it has sentience. The fact that you fail to perceive their sentience doesn’t mean that they don’t have it. In truth, they lack none of the features – eyes and brows included – but possess them on a scale so minute that ordinary eyes cannot discern them. Humans have such limited vision, that’s why we don’t see most of the things!
This renown scholar named He Yin had committed a grave sin by suggesting that it’s all right to eat clams and mussels.
by Grand Master Lian Chi (蓮池大師), the Eighth Patriarch of Pure Land Buddhism
螯蠣充口 – 錄自明末蓮池大師《竹窗隨筆》(初筆)
晉何胤謂:「鱓蟹就死，猶有知而可憫; 至於車螯蚶蠣，眉目內缺，唇吻外緘，不榮不瘁，草木弗若，無聲無臭，瓦礫何異? 固宜長充庖廚，永為口食。」噫! 是何言歟?! 此等雖無眉目唇吻、榮瘁聲臭，寧無形質運動乎? 有形質而能運動者，皆有知也。汝不知其有知耳? 況眉目等實無不具，特至微細，非凡目所見，而欲永為口食，胤之罪上通於天矣!
Buddha Mind 