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Some people think that there are countless fish being sold at the markets and what they can buy is only a fraction of the total. Not even to buy out just one type of fish is possible, much less all the fish. They wonder how meaningful it is to continue liberating lives under the circumstances, and thereby become disenchanted.

The fact is that aspiring to save all the lives in the world is an impossible mission even for the Buddha who can only help those whose karma has ripened and are thus receptive to his teachings. To those with yet ripened karma, the Buddha is equally helpless. The same reasoning also applies to liberating living beings. For someone as wealthy as Indra, the ruler of gods, not even he could have bought and liberated all the beings there were. As there are an infinite number of sentient beings, it could be even beyond the Buddha’s reach sometimes to deliver beings from samsara, let alone what our limited ability can achieve. All we can do is to help other beings the best we know how.

- Quote from The Right View, "Liberating Living Beings"

Although freeing small fry or other beings that will not be killed in the near future is also liberating living beings, they are not lives saved at the point of being killed. To engender great merit and to be deemed a genuine form of fearless offering, lives saved should be those that are about to be killed such as the assorted fish sold in the marketplace.

- Quote from The Right View, "Liberating Living Beings"