Lessons and Insights the Apple Snail Taught Me

Apple snails, what to do about them? Organic growers use tea seed meal, conventional growers use niclosamide, or secretly use triphenyltin acetate.

In the past, the recommended dosage from the agricultural research and extension stations for tea seed meal was "50 kg per hectare," but farmers felt that "even 300 kg per jia is not enough," because tea seed meal harms other organisms in the field, so the Taiwan Agricultural Research Institute instead developed "Yi Wu Luo" granules from soapberry (Sapindus) extract, but it is still rarely seen among field users.

Triphenyltin acetate is highly toxic, so agricultural authorities banned it and replaced it with niclosamide, but farmers feel that "niclosamide is less toxic, but it takes several times the amount to be effective, so the total toxicity is the same." Although it is a banned pesticide, regular customers can still buy triphenyltin acetate at pesticide shops; this is an open secret, with the packaging removed, colorless and odorless, very hard to catch. The fines have not changed farmers who prioritize effectiveness, and it has even been found in organic production and marketing groups, which is hardly surprising.

The guidance and recommendations of agricultural authorities have never been able to overcome the experience-based assertions of "senior farming friends," and this tug-of-war happens in the fields all the time.

Apple snails, which farmers generally call "golden treasure snails" (jinbao luo), are ironically something farmers avoid at all costs, but for some people, apple snails actually let them earn a little extra money. During the fallow period, snail catchers appear in water-filled fields, laying bait along the field edges. Some use the so-called "deer feed," some use fermented wheat, and apple snails are drawn by the smell and gather in piles. The snail catchers scoop them all up with specially made dip nets. The snail catchers say these apple snails are shipped to fishing ponds south of Zhunan, where they are very popular for catching snakehead and black sea bream (?), at more than ten yuan per kilogram, so earning tens of thousands of yuan is no problem.

Apple snails are packed in large rice bags and loaded onto trucks from Yilan to western Taiwan. Not eating or drinking and in the stuffy heat, the loss rate must be very high, right? The snail catchers say that in a bag of more than ten thousand snails, no more than two palmfuls die. Apple snails are tough enough, aren't they!

A friend who often volunteers to pull weeds offered this suggestion: "I always first recite the holy name of Guanyin Bodhisattva three times, and then recite a weeding verse:

I now pull weeds to remove evil karma
May all sentient beings be protected
If any lose their form beneath my hoe
May you at once be reborn in the Pure Land

When I think that what I am pulling is not just weeds but also the afflictions in my mind, the more I pull, the more energetic I become. In the process, it is unavoidable that I harm sentient beings, but after apologizing and sending blessings, my heart feels much more settled and secure."

But before that, I drew strength from the Bhagavad Gita, on the field of Kurukshetra, on the battlefield, in the dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna:

Arjuna saw fathers, grandfathers, teachers, uncles, sons, grandsons, and also brothers and companions. Arjuna also saw fathers-in-law and friends; all his relatives were standing within the two armies. Filled with compassion, he said anxiously:

"Seeing my own people gathered here eager to fight, my limbs grow heavy, my mouth becomes dry, my whole body trembles, and my hair stands on end."
"I do not desire victory, Krishna! Nor kingdom and happiness."
"Even if I am killed, Krishna! Even if I could obtain kingship over the three worlds, I would not wish to kill them, much less for a kingdom on earth."
"I would rather stand unarmed and not resist in battle, and let the sons of Dhritarashtra, weapons in hand, kill me."
After Arjuna said these words, his heart was filled with sorrow. He put down his bow and arrows and sat down on the seat of the chariot.

Arjuna, dejected in spirit, stood between the two armies. Krishna, as if smiling, said:
"Whether dead or alive, the wise do not grieve."
"The wise are equal toward pain and pleasure, and thus move toward the eternal."
"There is no existence of the nonexistent, nor nonexistence of the existent."
"Your duty is to act, and you never need to consider the result. Do not act for the sake of results, nor stubbornly refrain from action. Abandon attachment, Arjuna! Be equal toward success and failure."
"You are forever without attachment; do what should be done!"

Aren't they just apple snails? Aren't they just pests and diseases? Why drag in all this extra stuff? Why show off book learning?

Because......... my fate is light, and without a bit of the blessing of The Consolations of Philosophy, life would hold too much unbearable lightness.

Because......... what holds a person firmly to the earth is not gravity, but a bit of this or that belief and persistence; otherwise a person becomes weightless, or at a loss, or drifts with the current, unable to live out a person's force and weight.

This is what the apple snail taught me.

(This article is published simultaneously on the author's blog)