RawVeg.info → Buddhist Vegetarian
Just as no pleasures can bring delight
To someone whose body is ablaze with fire,
Nor can the great compassionate ones be pleased
When harm is done to sentient beings.
- Shantideva
AMARAVATI - At Kalachakra for World Peace 2006, presided over by the Dalai Lama, all the food served to the 200,000 people attending the ceremony was vegetarian. He made a speech in Tibetan, criticizing factory farming and meat consumption, and urging Tibetans to stop the trade in wild animal skins and furs.
If the human community is based on principles of peace, it will lessen the sufferings caused to millions and billions of animals. Otherwise, out of humans' limitless and unjustified greed and desires, they build beef farms, pig farms, and fish farms which never existed before and are not needed. And now, when the animals bring diseases they are killed in large numbers. So many fishes are killed and they suffer so much.
These days there are many Tibetan groups in India working for vegetarianism and spreading compassion for animals, such acts are extremely good and something to rejoice. Most of the monasteries have also turned their kitchen into vegetarian which is really good.
- from Dalai Lama's speech
INDIA - Tibetan Volunteers for Animals (TVA) has converted over 14,000 Tibetans to vegetarianism. The new vegetarians sign a pledge never to eat meat again. Dalai Lama gave funds to TVA to print 35,000 copies of vegetarian books for free distribution. The group campaigns for vegetarianism in Tibetan settlements throughout India, Ladakh, Nepal and Sikkim. They are opening vegetarian restaurants in Tibetan communities.
- see Semchen.org
DHARAMSALA - Generally there seems to be an increase of vegetarians among the Westerners. I heard recently in BBC that in England the number of vegetarians is increasing. That is very good.
- LamaYeshe.com
It is wonderful. We must absolutely promote vegetarianism.
- Buddha Heart, Buddha Mind: Living the Four Noble Truths
One positive development within modern society is the way in which, together with a growing appreciation of the importance of human rights, people are coming to have greater concern for animals. For example, there is growing recognition of the inhumanity of factory farming. It seems, too, that more and more people are taking an interest in vegetarianism and cutting down on their consumption of meat. I welcome this. My hope is that in the future, this concern will be extended to consideration for even the smallest creatures of the sea.
- Ethics for the New Millennium, p. 157
Eventually, we need some kind of worldwide movement for more vegetarianism, to check those beef farms, poultry farms, fisheries and shrimp,...
One plate of shrimp, too many lives,...
- MyFoxDC.com
DHARAMSALA - Dalai Lama has repeatedly urged people to move toward a more compassionate diet. His kitchen at his residence in Dharamsala is vegetarian. He doesn't always maintain a vegetarian diet while traveling. It is reported that Tibetan doctors told him he must still eat some meat. Most Tibetan doctors are unfamiliar with vegetarianism, as are most Western doctors.
- DalaiLama.com
In the past several years, His Holiness has requested Tibetan monks and nuns become vegetarian. Traditionally, monks and nuns would eat food that had been offered to them, including meat. It was felt that if the monks had fresh tofu to eat each day, it would provide them with the good protein source they need.
So a plan was implemented to purchase a tofu machine that would be able to provide fresh tofu daily to 3,000 monks and nuns. The intention of this project is to one day have a tofu machine in each Tibetan monastery in India and Nepal.
- Arjia Rinpoche's Tofu Project TCCWOnline.org
If the number of people who consume meat is reduced, it then automatically reduces the number of people who kill the animals to meet the demand. In this way, by becoming vegetarian, we contribute, to some extent, to the reduction in the number of animals killed.
- HH Kyabje Lati Rinpoche - Shabkar.org
BODHGAYA - When he led the 24th annual Kagyu Monlam prayer ceremony, HH Karmapa said that he has become a vegetarian. He spoke strongly against meat-eating. Karmapa asked anyone who considers themselves to be his student, to stop eating meat, or at least reduce their meat eating. Many people there took vows not to eat meat. All his centers and monasteries have stopped buying, cooking, and serving meat.
At te 25th annual Kagyu Monlam, HH Karmapa again recommended vegetarianism. He praised some senior lamas who have become vegetarian: Jamgon Rinpoche, Gyaltsap Rinpoche; and others who eat less meat than before: Thrangu Rinpoche and Tenga Rinpache. He also assured students that they can still be Kagyus even if feel that they can't become vegetarian.
USA - At their public teachings in the US, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche have asked their students to stop eating meat, following Karmapa's request.
USA - Compassionate Action, the Buddhist vegetarian teachings of Chatral Rinpoche, has just been published in the West. Chatral Rinpoche is a renowned Nyingma yogi. In Asia, he is considered to be one of the most highly realized Dzogchen lamas. Chatral has been an outspoken advocate of vegetarianism for deacades, and saves huge numbers of animals from slaughter every year.
Avoid Eating Meat Out of Compassion
A nun asked Lama Zopa Rinpoche, head of the Foundation for the Preservation of the Mahayana Tradition (FPMT) if she should stop eating meat. He said
It’s best to avoid eating meat...out of compassion. Before eating the meat, think of where it came from, through cutting an animal’s neck, against its will, and how much suffering the animal experienced.
After thinking about that, you can’t eat the meat! Meat may be nice for the person eating it, but not for the animal who suffered so much and didn’t die naturally.
You can say prayers for the animal that was killed, but if you eat the meat you are still playing a small part in the death of the animal. If everyone stopped eating meat then no more animals would be killed for that purpose.
- Avoid Killing Animals (at bottom of page) LamaYeshe.com
In the past, some of the most highly-respected Tibetan teachers were ethical vegetarians.
Patrul Rinpoche's Words of My Perfect Teacher is quoted and recommended by teachers of all schools of Tibetan Buddhism. Patrul promoted compassion for animals, and denounced animal slaughter and meat-eating. Although a frequent traveler, he refused to ride on horses or use animals to carry his belongings. Patrul said that meat from slaughtered animals is not to be used in ritual offerings, and quoted from Gampopa, who said that also.
The beings with unfortunate karma that we are supposed to be protecting are instead being killed without the slightest compassion, and their boiled flesh and blood are being presented to us and we - their protectors, the Bodhisattvas - then gobble it al1 up gleefully, smacking our lips. What could be worse than that?
It is said that offering to the wisdom deities the flesh and blood of a slaughtered animal is like offering to a mother her murdered child. If you invite a mother for a meal and then set before her the flesh of her own child, how would she feel? It is with the same love as a mother for her only child that the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas look on all beings of the three worlds.
Pure meat does not mean the meat of an animal slaughtered for food, but the meat of an animal that died because of its own past actions, meaning meat from an animal that died of old age, sickness or other natural causes that were the effect if its own past actions alone.
- Words of my Perfect Teacher p208-9
To that end it is appropriate to use meat from an animal that has not been slaughtered for eating. However, if you introduce meat that does not conform to this requirement into the mandala of offerings, all the deities and wisdom beings will vanish
- Gampopa (Dakpo Rinpoche) from Words of My Perfect Teacher p208-9
Jigme Lingpa said:
All beings have been our mothers, but ordinary people do not recognize them as such, and that is why they are able to kill them. Of course, we Dharma people cannot eat meat, and why? Because our mothers and fathers, our brothers and sisters, our friends of the past who were so dear to us - here they are in front of us! Even those who know no other practice should at least abstain from meat as much as they can.
- Shabkar.org
Nyala Pema Duddul was another great 19th century Dzogchen teacher.
Shabkar was a prominent nineteenth century Dzogchen teacher who required all his students to renounce meat eating. Shabkar's writings strongly urge Buddhists to develop compassion for animals.
EAST & WEST - Now things are changing. More Vajrayana teachers, monks, nuns and yogis are becoming vegetarian, and advocating a compassionate diet.
Young Tibetans in the refugee communities in India & Nepal have started organizations to promote animal rights and vegetarianism, and HH Dalai Lama is supporting them.
Tibetan Volunteers for Animals has converted thousands of Tibetans in India to vegetarianism. TVA is opening Tibetan vegetarian restaurants in Tibetan communities in India.
WHERE YOU ARE NOW - Allow the teachings on kindness and compassion to affect you deeply. Reflect on the suffering of animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. Move from kind thoughts to kind actions. Resolve to eat less animal products, or none at all.
Any change toward a more cruelty-free diet will save the lives many animals. You will accumulate merit. You will live longer, and have more time to develop wisdom and compassion.
For hundreds of thousands of years the stew in the pot
Has brewed hatred and resentment that is difficult to stop.
If you wish to know why there are disasters of armies and weapons in the world,
Listen to the piteous cries from the slaughter house at midnight.
- Ancient Chinese verse
Email a link to this page to your Buddhist friends.
Put a link to this page on your blog, social network page, website, etc. Download and print our Buddhist vegetarian leaflet. Give it away at dharma events. We can make one with your local veg group listed. Just ask.
buddhistvegetarian.pdf
karmapavegetarian.pdf
RawVeg.info © Jordan Rothstein <jordan at rawveg.info>
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