Senior brother’s behavior of upholding the precepts and protecting students is worth learning in the future.

After missing one meal a day, Hou Xue felt hungry and unbearable. Fortunately, he could maintain a vegetarian diet. The release of animals was never implemented. The diligence of senior brother's practice was as great as the heavens compared to Hou Xue's.

However, I later learned that the first priority should be to reassure my family and practice when my family is at ease and my health is not affected.

Based on my current situation, if your family members know about your behavior, they will inevitably have doubts about your practice of Buddhism, and may further lose confidence in Buddhism or even slander Buddhism. This may not only cut off the wisdom roots of your family members, but also slandering the Buddha and Dharma is a crime of the five evils, and you will receive such heavy consequences. This is extremely wrong.

And we practitioners should set a good example for the world. As the saying goes, "Those who teach by words should follow the instructions, and those who teach by example can follow." If our practice of Buddhism leads to poor health and disagreements with family members, it is inevitable that people in the world will have doubts about Buddhism. In this way, not only will we not be able to achieve the goal of “boundless vows to cross all sentient beings,” but it may also cut off the opportunity for sentient beings to get close to the Dharma.

Later scholars believe that it is not easy to practice asceticism during the Dharma Ending Period. Since we live in a secular environment, our words and actions have an impact on those around us. Not to mention the decline in our physical fitness due to asceticism, even if we gain benefits from asceticism, since most people cannot practice asceticism, some people will reject Buddhism. Therefore, in secular practice, the first thing to do is to achieve the five precepts and ten good deeds. If you want to practice other ascetic practices, you must not have a bad impact on yourself. Even if there are no bad effects, the ascetic practices must not be known to others, so as not to make others feel that Buddhism is difficult to practice.

In addition, regarding the release of life, I agree with amt0219's point of view. Buddhism is to teach us Give up attachment, so we should not be too attached to life release. Just follow the situation and do what you can. Life release is also about helping people around you. The so-called kindness flows like a stream.

If senior brother only cares about life release and does not care about his own life, understand that people They will say that you are a fool, and those who do not understand the Dharma will slander the Dharma. Please decide for yourself which is more serious or less serious.