There are Ten Tribunals of punishment in the Underworld. When animals, fowls, fishes and worms (all living beings except human) die, their souls are sucked back into Hades at the Third Tribunal. Their death is mainly due to slaughtering rather than by sickness. This slaughtering is generally done by human beings and because these creatures seem to know that they have no way of escape, they feel very frightened and cry and scream in their own way. Human beings who lived a very sinful life and maintain an evil mind, when they die, their souls will be reborn as one of the four types of creatures, according to the seriousness of their past sins.

The Emperor of The Third Tribunal is "Songdi Wang" and when he was asked interesting questions by the medium "Yang Sheng" in the Underworld by what he saw, he gave very interesting answers as follows:

Q1: This field contains so many kinds of animals. I have never seen such a varied collection of animals on Earth. This is like a big zoo having tigers, lions, practically every kind of animals, fowls, etc very hard to count.....

Ans: Here I now have a case to tackle. In front of us is a Cock who has come to plead before me. I will let you see his personal file. Before he was a Cock, this fellow was a rich man's son and he lived in the north of Taiwan. Very often, because of his wealth, he used to rape young girls and also used his money to buy teenage girls so that he could sleep with them in order to retain his vigour and vitality and be happy. He had therefore committed a series of sins. After death, as punishment, he was sentenced to be reborn a Cock for five generations. His sentence is about to come to an end. He is now pleading to be reincarnated.

Q2: This is very frightening. This Cock was formerly a human being! So if one eats the flesh of a fowl is it a sin?

Ans: Every creature has a living soul but of different types and shapes. Their spirituality is exactly like a human being's spirituality. Human beings like to eat meat because meat contains proteins and fats which help to build up the body; but they do not stop to think that all the four types of creatures are originally from human beings. Inside the bodies of these creatures one type of poisonous impurity is present. When an animal, fowl or fish (when still alive) is about to be slaughtered, this creature gets frightened and struggles thus making making the blood circulate faster and become abnormal thus causing the release of this poisonous impurity into the blood streams and to stick to the flesh. When the flesh is cooked and eaten, human beings also absord this poisonous impurity. Let us take the case of human beings. When a person gets worried or frightened, the blood in his heart changes in quality, the accumulation of these many worries and fears will usually lead to sickness.

Now, to return to the subject of meat eating. As mentioned earlier, meat contains proteins and fats which are good for body building; it also contains the poisonous impurities, therefore there are good points as well as bad points. However, present day scientists advocate the eating of more vegetables and less meat. To those who follow ascetic practices it is advisable to also eat less meat and more vegetables to reduce the poisonous impurities in the body. Otherwise it will be rather difficult to succeed in their attempt. You asked earlier if it is a sin to eat fowl flesh, after what I have just said, it is therefore up to you to decide.

Q3: May I ask your Highness, before us come an ape and a parrot - the ape walks and behaves like a human being while the parrot imitates human being's speaking - do they belong to a higher stratum of creatures?

Ans: The ape moves like a human being and his brain is smart. In a previous life he was a human being but was too smart, in the negative sense, resulting in damaging himself and committing sins. So, on rebirth, he becomes an animal whilst retaining his human qualities. Regarding the parrot, he now imitates human beings speaking. When he was a human being he was very talkative and talked too much and boastfully, often speaking to cause families to quarrel and break up. Now, being reborn a parrot he is imprisoned in a cage and has to listen tp people speaking and on his part trying to imitate what is spoken and what he hears. Therefore, human beings who are in the habit of making trouble, breaking up families, talking too much, going against the laws of society, etc, when they die, they will be reborn as one of the four types of creatures.

Human becomes animal and animal becomes human. This is true in the cycle of reincarnation. This is one of the reasons why vegetarians do not take meat besides compassion and freeing the animals of the fears and pains before being slaughtered. If we spare someone the fear and pain, one day maybe someone will in return spare us the same fear and pain. This is Karma and the law of universe.

Author: T.A Chew