[ISL] "Buddhist-affiliated restaurant vandalized after P.E.I. monks set lobsters free"

[rfmcdonald]

MacLean's shares the Canadian Press report.

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.

[. . .]

“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.