BUDDHISM AND VEGETARIANISM

THE HARMFULNESS OF MEAT EATING:

 

The eating of meat cannot in any way be considered to be helpful to the practice of the dharma, neither can the slaughter of animals be considered to be consistent with the Buddhist teachings of compassion, (mettâ, ahimsâ, karunâ), of loving kindness, or of the nature of the evocation of the enlightenment-mind.

 

The cruelties associated with the slaughter of the animal Kingdom for human consumption, the pain, fear, and distress suffered by the animals in the entire process of being fattened for butchering, as well as the environmental disasters wreaked upon our planet through the meat industry, should be understood by all who claim to be developing bodhicitta, or who wish to.  

The Sûrangama Sûtra states:  

The reason for practicing dhyâna (meditation) and seeking to attain Samâdhi (meditative absorption) is to escape from the suffering of life, but in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves why should we inflict it upon others? Unless you can so control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of the world’s life…After my Parinirvâna in the last kalpa different kinds of ghosts will be encountered everywhere deceiving people and teaching them that they can eat meat and still attain enlightenment…How can a bhikshu, who hopes to become a deliverer of others, himself be living on the flesh of other sentient beings? [i] [1]

The Lankâvatâra Sûtra states:

 

Mahâmati when sons or daughters of good family, wishing to exercise themselves in various disciplines such as the attainment of a compassionate heart, the holding a magical formula, or the perfecting of magical knowledge, or starting on a pilgrimage to the Mahâyâna, retire into a cemetery, or to a wilderness, or a forest, where demons gather or frequently approach; or when they attempt to sit on a couch or seat for the exercise; they are hindered [because of their meat eating] from gaining magical powers or from obtaining emancipation. Mahâmati, seeing that thus there are obstacles to the accomplishing of all the practices, let the Bodhisattva, who is desirous of benefitting himself as well as others, wholly refrain from eating meat [2] .

 

THE BUDDHA

The only recorded time when it is purported that Buddha ate meat whilst being Buddha was when it killed him. [3] Buddhists should meditate deeply as to what this, the last great act of the Buddha, is supposed to teach humanity. Namely, do not kill, even surreptitiously by eating meat; it will destroy the awakening Buddha within you.

 

Jivaka Sutta

Buddhists who wish to justify meat eating often state that the Buddha said in the Jivaka Sutta, ‘that in three cases meat must not be eaten: if it has been seen, heard, or suspected that it was intended for the person’. [4] When one carefully considers the nature of cause and effect (karma) which in practical market place terms means supply and demand, it is no longer credible to use this argument to justify one’s meat eating. This sutra must now be understood in its historical context and thus reevaluated and reinterpreted for the modern context especially considering we now live in a time when animals have become commodities subjected to a cruel and inhumane mass factory farming procedures. Click on the above Jivaka Sutta heading to discover in depth what this sutta means.

 

SLUGS VERSUS COWS

 

A common defensive ploy given by those condoning meat eating is:

 

‘There's not much point to vegetarianism when one considers the number of insects, slugs and snails that die in the processes of agriculture. Who can say that any one of those small creatures' lives was less important than that of the cow or pig? Thus wouldn’t it be more compassionate to kill just one cow rather than thousands of insects.”

 

The real issue here is that the suffering of a vegetable, slug, and a cow, must be measured and thus seen to be of entirely different orders.

 

It is not just when the hand comes down upon the slug as it bites. It is not just the death of the animal we are talking about, but its entire life, as well as the ecosphere of the planet, that is adulterated due to man’s desire for flesh. The conditions of Western factory farming is one of perpetual and inhumane cruelty, where all natural aspects of the life are corrupted in order to finance greedy profiteers.

 

 

HIGHEST YOGA TANTRAS

It is especially important to those practicing the Highest Yoga Tantras to NOT eat meat; despite widespread belief that they must, rather than being so-called “attached” to conventional dualistic concepts of good & bad. In reality, which is the greater attachment, an aversion to meat, or gross desire for its flavour and aroma?

 

EFFECTS ON THE AURA:

Eating meat has a gradually negatively engulfing effect on the auric body. The light in the aura comes to be muddied and thickened to such an extent that the direct ‘Clear-Light’ experience, or its reflection upon the lake of Illumination, can not be viewed with clarity.

 

GETTING SICK FROM NOT EATING MEAT

Many people claim they get sick when they stop eating meat, but a vegetarian diet should not be blamed for this. It is noted in serious smokers that when they try to stop their addictive habits then often sickness ensues. Of course the lungs are now busily eliminating mucous, the results of the toxins accumulated and which no longer are sustained in a healthier environment. So also with those who eliminate meat from their diets, the toxins from the coarse substance they have inundated their bodies with come to the surface and must be eliminated, producing the sickness that is experienced. People must also understand that they need to supplant their diets with extra protein when they remove meat from their diet. This can be done through increased consumption of lentils, peas, beans, seeds & nuts. Where possible grain should be consumed in their whole forms such as brown rice & wholemeal flour. If a person has not access to these things, or the capacity to eat increased seeds & nuts they should supplant the meat with diary products; however this is not the ideal.

 

KILLING AGGREGATES

Some argue that killing is O.K. because one is only killing aggregates. One possessing such a belief should grab a knife and cut away an arm or leg and see if they are ‘only killing aggregates’. Clearly there is more than just ‘aggregates’ involved in being alive, whether human or animal. There is the input of the force of life itself, plus sentiency or else consciousness, which experiences pain and suffers. Why is there suffering? For humans the answer is relatively simple; to learn to become detached from phenomenality, from sangsâra and thereby gain liberation, as per the Four Noble Truths. But for animals this possibility is not open for them. They do not have this thing called ‘consciousness’. They simply must learn to live so as to eventually evolve intelligent responses to the impact of the external environment. They learn through pain via simple response mechanisms to avoid certain situations that may occur in their lives.

 

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has encouraged those Tibetans in exile, who now live in countries where vegetables and fruits are more plentiful, to refrain from eating meat whenever possible

 

ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS:

Humanity’s desire for meat causes great suffering on plants, animals and humans. The eating of meat is not only responsible for the mass slaughter of all these innocents but also for the deforestation of countries for farmland (eg, the Brazilian rainforests).

 

‘How could an Eskimo (or any other indigenous human) be a Vegetarian and not lose their cultural identity?’ Such questions are answered simply; that we do not specifically ask Eskimos to be vegetarians, we ask Buddhists to do so as a prime educative example of the right course of action for all of humanity to follow. If an Eskimo became a vegetarian, (by becoming Buddhist for example) it would simply involve a change in lifestyle reflecting the more sophisticated thinking process of the philosophy he is now embracing, however, he would still be an ‘Eskimo’. Why should it be otherwise? Their lifestyles have changed irrevocably since the advent of Europeans in their environment, many changes have occurred, some not necessarily for the better, however, they are still ‘Eskimos’, so also if they became vegetarian. Their culture would change somewhat but the nature of the people would remain the same.

 

AVOIDING FANATICISM

 

THE JIVAKA SUTTA

      Buddhists who wish to justify meat eating often state that the Buddha said in the Jivaka Sutta, ‘that in three cases meat must not be eaten: if it has been seen, heard, or suspected that it was intended for the person’. [5] It should however be noted that this statement was given by the Buddha solely because of the problem faced by ordained monks when begging for food, and given meals containing meat by their hosts. Rather than reject what was given to them (a thing seen as charitable and a deed generative of good karma for that individual), the Buddha said that they would eat only under the strict conditions mentioned above, "without being fettered and infatuated". By the last statement, the Buddha regarded the mind's non-attachment to whatever came to a monk as most important, thus to be non-attached to what food one ate, or being infatuated with food.

 

Of course, the Buddhist may say that he can eat meat without being fettered to the thought of so eating, etc, but could he do so if it was direct poison that was offered to him to be eaten? Does not what one consumes directly affect the physical body and mind, even of one's ability to rightly meditate? One must give a thought as to the type of life one is to live, and for the road to enlightenment ahead of one. One must think clearly on what is consumed, or any other type of action that one might do, as to the harm it may or may not cause the body, mind, or to other sentient beings. If one does not do so, and yet claims to be "unfettered" then one is foolish, indeed very much fettered to continuous karma-producing action that such myopic self-deceptive thought will surely produce. It is like putting a blanket over one's head and then claiming that the darkness that one sees is Nirvâna.

      The only proper way to interpret the Buddha's statement above (from a Mahâyâna perspective) is that the consumption of meat was not at all agreeable to the Buddha, or to his disciples and he would rather them abstain altogether. However, the practice of begging for alms (in an unfettered manner) required a consideration of the merit of the kind donor offering food. By accepting food from the donor the monk facilitates the production of a good karmic/dharmic connection with that person, which will grow in future lives to be a positive interaction as the monk goes on to become a Bodhisattva and then a Buddha.

      The offering of food allowed a possible discourse on the Buddha dharma. The possibility of this type of good karma being denied if the bhikshu rejected the food offering from the host had to be weighed up with the ideal of strict vegetarianism. Nevertheless, the spirit of the Buddha's teaching is clear - do not eat meat if it is in any way avoidable. If monks accepted meat produce in foods under the guide-lines set out by the Buddha (ie. ‘if it has been seen, heard, or suspected that it was intended for the person’) the karma of the monks with the animal Kingdom would be minimised and be counterbalanced with the good karma of the monk's interrelation with the host. In our consideration the term 'unfettered' really means that which leads to the walking of the Bodhisattva path, and consequent Buddhahood.

      In any case the Jivaka Sutta is Theravadan, and later Mahâyâna texts, such as the Sûrañgama and Lankâvatâra sutras made it very clear that eating meat was wrong and totally unacceptable.

      Monks used to literally roam the country begging for alms and this was the way they ate, thus the rule was accept what you are given. However the truthful fact is that now it is rare to find Buddhist monks of the Mahâyâna schools begging for alms/food. They are given money or donations and are fed thereby. Thus they have a choice now to truly exercise their compassion in being selective as to what they eat, and what food they buy, and here clearly, they continue to choose to buy meat. To properly follow the teaching of the Buddha, one must not purchase meat or consume it either, as then one's intention is the consuming of meat that has been slaughtered for one - or for the monastery.

      In analysing the Buddha’s statement, ‘if it has been seen, heard, or suspected that it was intended for the person’ in the modern day context, we see that monks in fact violate all three rules.

 

      1) It matters little whether the butcher knows or does not know who is purchasing the meat, he knows that the monks in the monastery eat meat and that is good enough for him as a cause to kill the animal. He must kill because he has seen ‘you’, that is ‘a’ or any number of Buddhist monks patronising his shop. It does not matter to him which of ‘you’ comes to buy the meat for the monastery.

      2) In the present day case the monks go directly to a butcher to purchase with full knowledge of the fact that they are to buy a carcass that they will consume - producing direct karma with the animals. The butcher has heard the monks asking for meat, therefore he supplies it to them. They have heard that his prices are the cheapest, therefore they will patronise. The butcher has heard the monk’s request for cheaper meat and to compete with other butchers he makes the produce of his slaughter most competitive. Thus the story runs in our societies, whether the purchaser be monks or laity matters little in this equation.

      3) The servant of the Monastery sent to purchase the food thus goes directly to the killer, whom from then on suspects, with some certainty, that he will return to purchase the products of the butchery.

 

      We see in the above that present day monks do not at all follow the spirit of the Buddha’s concession to his monks, or the nature of ahimsâ. Neither can such actions be justified by any twist of the imagination.

      What we are essentially talking about is a very basic law, that of supply and demand. If there is no need ie., (demand) for umbrellas because it ceases to rain, then the supply will quickly cease also. So too, if there is no meat eaters, ie., if the human race became vegetarian then there would be no need to kill for food. There would be no demand and thus the supply would also cease to be. People would get all of their nutritional supplies from pulses, vegetables, nuts, and fruits. The greater demand would produce a greater supply of these things, (and they would be cheaper), instead of the uneconomical and environmentally destructive process of supplying carcasses to eat. No one would be motivated to supply dead animals because no one would buy them and such these creatures would be relieved of undeserved suffering. The sheep herder would become a soy bean farmer and so on, producing the ramifications of good will, and compassion throughout society. The butcher would cease to exist.

      We can also look at this from a slightly different viewpoint. We have a law in the West that makes the receiving of stolen goods illegal. By making this illegal it essentially stops the thief, or limits his progress. There is no similar law that prohibits the butcher from selling his goods, thus animals needlessly die due to the views and commonplace attitudes of people whom willingly purchase flesh. They see not the life of the animal and why it was killed. It is paralleled in consumer groups in the process of thieving. If you have possessions in a house and you get burgled, then part of the reasons for the pain of being burgled is the cost of having to replace what was taken. The animal once consumed must be replaced, and this is the pain of the animal Kingdom, the continual replacement of slaughtered animals by new animals for human consumption. People don’t just kill once, they kill again and again. Thieves don’t just steal once, if they can get away with it, they steal again and again. The receiver of stolen goods rewards the thief for his thievery, as does the meat eater reward the butcher for his killing. Just because you didn’t kill the animal yourself doesn’t make it right to subscribe to the killing of animals.

      So, how many more generations of animals (ie. how many billions of future individual units) need to get slaughtered because of this “replacement factor”, that Buddhists have not yet thought about.

      You have been killing and maiming animals for years and not seeing that marketing, as we call it in the West, means cause and effect, supply and demand. Those people steal possessions only because a demand is there to achieve access. Making a parallel between the karma of killing and the karma of stealing means that both animals and property can only be interfered with, if another group of people are willing to pay for that product. The understanding as how karma works here is simple.

      In order to prevent animals from being killed the consumer group has to radically change it’s diet, change it’s preferences, and to consider the argument of pain and suffering to prevent further harm.

 

There are serious questions to ask. Why, in this world of busy intelligent people that has produced the space age, and the amalgamation of countries through mass communications, do the majority of the world’s population now eat meat regularly? Why has our technological advancement served such a cruel blow to animals in the fostering of mass propaganda for people to eat more meat? It belies common sense. Animal slaughtering is a multinational affair controlled by relatively few businesses. Yet, by Buddhist logic this means that meat companies are single-handedly responsible for all the people that eat meat, and their consequent karma. Likewise those working with other animal products also take the blow of karma. Thereby in fact they inadvertently ‘revere’ these butchers as their saviours, relinquishing their conscience from the need to think any more about the subject. Thoughtlessness indeed, thinking that a butcher is a Buddha absolving them from their sins.

 

To put it bluntly, whatever it is purported that the Buddha tells you (probably some later account or interpretation, to be precise, not direct from the Buddha’s mouth, however meritorious it may seem); the fact is that eating meat is demeritorious, particularly when the need is not there, ie, not necessary for your health and your survival. Whatever the Buddhist Scriptures appear to tell you; do not eat the meat of others, or you shall surely owe them some karma, (that being disadvantageous).

 

SLUGS VS COWS

 

      A common defensive ploy given by those desirous of meat often say:

 

‘There's not much point to vegetarianism when one considers the number of insects, slugs, and snails that die in the processes of agriculture. Who can say that any one of those small creatures' lives was less important than that of the cow or pig? Thus wouldn’t it be more compassionate to kill just one cow rather than thousands of insects.’

 

      To eat is to kill yes, but what sort of sentiencies are you talking about? What lives are you killing and how? What degrees of suffering are you producing and perpetuating? Karma is a vast and intricate law, it must differentiate, finitely. How is pain and suffering reckoned, according to the dictates of karma? A slug comes along and eats the lettuce, which has been sprayed by chemicals and soon after dies. The suffering here is relatively small. Such death could be avoided too, if organic foods were grown by all and the thoughtless use of chemicals in agriculture was prohibited. Monoculture is the culprit here, whereas sane biodynamic, organic and permaculture methods would prevent such insect deaths.

      But regardless of this, the real issue here is that the suffering of a vegetable, slug, and a cow, must be measured and thus seen to be of an entirely different order.

      It is not just when the hand comes down upon the slug as it bites. It is not just the death of the animal we are talking about, but its entire life, as well as the ecosphere of the planet, that is adulterated due to man’s desire for flesh. The conditions of Western factory farming is one of perpetual and inhumane cruelty, where all natural aspects of the life are corrupted in order to finance greedy profiteers.

      This thus induces the animal to a life of much pain, and then to be disposed of prematurely, in an oft cruel and barbaric way. The animals do not roam in the green fields hassle free until their life span is over. They oft never even feel the grass beneath their feet, nor the sun over their head, as in the case of battery-hens. It is an entire existence that is being tampered with here, not just at the moment of death.

      Look to the difference of the life span between an insect or slug and a cow. The life span of a mosquito is reckoned in weeks, a slug’s is not much longer, but a cow’s is twenty years or so. So if you are to end the life of a slug prematurely, it may be cutting that life four or five days shorter then what it would have otherwise been. Despite its potential for relative longevity, the life of a milking cow in the West rarely lasts longer than 5 years due to the strain on the entire life force. A meat cow’s life generally will last only one or two years.

      Thus where a comparison is made between the death of one slug or even thousands of slugs, to the life and death of a cow (especially one reared in a factory farm), justice is truly not being served. The advent of mass-producing of animals, to fill the myriads of supermarket shelves, means that it is not right to breed the cow and kill him. You only induce fear throughout these sentient beings, and then you consume this fear on your supper table, and oft become angry when someone tells you it is wrong. A cow has a far better capacity to recollect pain inflicted upon it than any slug or insect, and so the Dharma/karma wheel turns on.

      The farmer has to spray his crop with insecticides and poisons so that the vegetables arrive on your dinner plates without holes in them. But the cows, and the higher animals, have been killed to provide the leather for your belt or handbag, oil for the soap you use, and many other products, as well as for food.

      It is impossible to live without being indirectly responsible for the death of some other beings in some way. This is just another example of the First Noble Truth; ordinary existence is suffering and unsatisfactory. When you take the First Precept, you try to avoid being directly responsible for killing beings.

      So whether you are a vegetarian or not, remember that the purification of the mind is the most important thing in Buddhism. The purification of the mind is through overcoming ignorance and attachment to transient things. Now which is the greater attachment, an aversion to meat, or gross desire for its flavour and aroma? I think that it is your attachment to meat that is more fettered. The substance of burnt flesh is a very addictive aperitif indeed.

      Pigs scream as they are killed. Does a slug do that? A terrified calf rears at the stench of blood and death in its nostrils. A lamb bleats madly as a man applies a knife to his throat. You don’t hear the screams of snails, or plants, as they die, because there are no throws of their suffering, for they do not have the vertebrate nervous system that allows them to experience such, as the higher animals do. Their ability to experience suffering is far smaller, for so too is their sentiency. (The larger the sentiency the greater the capacity to suffer; but the types of suffering change eg, the tears of compassion of Avalokitesvara.)

      The size of the animal is important. A cow contains billions of cells, an insect consists of only a tiny fraction of this. It would require millions of mosquitoes to constitute the bulk matter of a cow, yet this amount of mosquitoes does not add up to the awareness level of one cow.

      Millions of cells in your body die daily, but still those millions of dying cells do not add up to one human being. Likewise with smaller life forms, such as insects. Millions of lesser evolved sentiencies do not add up to the awareness state of one far greater evolved animal. The evolution of consciousness is progressive; it is about quality rather than quantity.

      If one does not count the size of things properly, then one is ignoring what life is all about. Does the life of one atom equal the life of a planet? Does the life of one cell equal the life of a human being? By the same token, how can the life of one slug, or many slugs for that matter, equal the life of one cow; a far more complicated organism? Slugs and insects have been designed by Nature to evolve in large numbers and to die in large numbers with only a very few surviving to produce the next generation. That is the way the economy of Nature and the evolution of species works.

      This is not so with cows or the higher forms of animal life. Only man has made the imbalance in Nature and decided to prey on a few types of animals specifically for his barbaric blood rites. Blood is the essence of higher sentient life, the spilling of blood is what karma is mostly concerned with, because ‘blood is life’. This is an esoteric fact not understood by those with dull comprehension. Insects do not have blood. Blood necessitates a heart to pump it and a heart is relegated to higher sentiencies, and the beginning of the development of the quality we call love.

      So please learn to count, with a little insight into the nature of ‘life’ and its manifold vehicles, to see that one slug simply does not add up to one cow. To assert such an equation only shows lack of clear thinking in relation to the life of animals, concocted up as an excuse for the absurd justification of meat eating by the ignorant.

      It is plain to see that the consciousness level of a cow is far raised beyond that of a snail. Cows, pigs, sheep all have nervous systems, (externalised nadîs) even a certain amount of chakras, and thus a greater level of sentiency. This is important, as it equates to the degree of suffering experienced by that life, and suffering is what we are trying to transcend is it not? Thus let us truly understand it, in all its subtleties in order to unchain sentient beings from it.

      We agree that all life produces suffering inevitably, that death is inevitable, (and even liberating), and that every time we breathe we kill, but let’s not be incompetent thinkers, when clearly we are capable of realising, with the use of our compassionate reasoning, that the life and death of a cow is different to that of a slug.

      Incompetent thinking it certainly is, to compare swatting a mosquito with the slaughter of a cow. Are you telling me that you see no difference in this? How can one equate the death of short-lived insects with the gross cruelty and imprisonment of animals, culminating in slaughter of these grossly ill treated fellow sentient beings. They are in fact our brothers to be, humans in the future. Why present shallow justifications and explanations for the condonement of the cruelty perpetuated upon animals so that meat can be consumed?

      There are things you can avoid killing and there is things you can’t and so the quality of the life being killed is important. If the Buddhist concept of rebirth is feasible, then, is that cow or insect a human being? Why kill either? It is unavoidable in the case of insects, like that of the cells in your body, but the killing of cows, sheep etc, is clearly avoidable. The cow has come further, it is closer to a human in consciousness, it is closer to the development of mind.

 

 

 

The Highest Yoga Tantra

Or

"Its alright for me to eat meat

because in my mind

I am the greatest of all yogis

living in the most austere way in the Himalayan snows."

 

      How can one put into the ‘difficult-to-obtain, free, and endowed human body’ [6] the most base of prânas and still think of it as preciously endowed? How therefore, can those purporting to follow the “Highest Yoga Tantra” free themselves from the stench of the blood of the suffering ones they fill their nadî systems with? They think that by some great inconceivable reason they are somehow learning the art of detachment this way. Detachment from what one can quickly question? All one can really see is the greatest attachment to conventional thinking and rigid unyielding addiction to the social mores of the society they happened to be born into.

 

To answer people’s projections concerning the greatest of the sages of past times, such as Tilopa, Milarapa, etc, of those that lived in the charnel places, cemeteries (and the like), who were purported to eat meat. (The projection being because these great sages could do it then, so can we now.) The modern teachers, living in the comforts of their monasteries (and the like) and having nowhere near the true spiritual heritage (the level of attained Bodhisattva Bhûmis [7] ) pretend to be such accomplished yogis. For the great ones utilizing seeming minor infringements of the (good) Law chosen as modes of education for their most accomplished students, may have been right in the past ages, but such is not possible now. This is because the entire world must now be rightly educated as what not to do, to not eat the results of the butchery of millions of animals each year is what must be taught by the compassionate. There is a most pressing need to thus rightly educate, which the true Bodhisattva must heed. The world wide scourge of the killing of animal forms is horrific and pandemic, for which no great one can watch without great compassion, nor can they partake any longer in their share of the rivers of blood shed every day for the sake of the world’s addiction to this form of barbarism.

 

      Also we know that yogis in Tibet were caught in a trap or conundrum, where because of the high altitude and harsh climate, there was little to eat except ground barley, dairy products, and meat. To stay alive, the people have to eat meat. The yogis therefore had to develop ways of transmuting the worst effect of the meat consumption. The quotes extracted from Rechungpa’s biography of Milarepa nevertheless prove illuminating. We first have him coming out of a major period of meditation, of being breatharian at times, and at other times manifesting a form of extreme veganism; living upon a monodiet of relatively unnutritious nettles. The release of prânas obtained from eating a more nutritious diet (of meat) gave him the experience of ‘keen spiritual happiness such as transcended anything I had known before’. When this statement is read esoterically, in accordance to the way that Tantras should be read, then we see that what was fully awakened in him was the siddhis [8] associated with the Manipûra chakra, which confers such ‘spiritual happiness’, being the emotive centre in the body. It is also the chakra that synthesises all animal prânas in the body, as will be explained in Volume two, The I Concept, of my Treatise on Consciousness. This then was the high level of his yogic development, wherein the eating of meat toxins was possible in order to gain revelatory experiences.

      His meditative unfoldment necessitated a progression from the full awakening of the Manipûra to that of the Heart centre, the Anâhata Chakra, from whence is derived bodhicitta. In relation to this development we are told that the next time that “he was offered ‘some well-cured and seasoned meat and butter, and a goodly supply of chhang and flour,” he found that ‘On my partaking of the good food, my physical pains and my mental disturbance increased so much that I was unable to go on with my meditation”. So what happened to him? Tantrically, the answer is simple, the Heart Centre is the chakra in the body that deals only with prânas generated or innate within the human Kingdom  itself. Here animal toxins are not in any way appropriate, (and are in fact deadly) thus he suffered the negative effect of the meat toxins and the chhang (a type of beer). What was the cure to his suffering? The answer was given on the scroll offered by his guru to be read at this, the most dangerous period of his meditative career, he had to obtain ‘good wholesome food at this time’. If the food containing meat was termed ‘good food’, then ‘good wholesome food’ concerns the consumption of food that contained no meat, thus making it ‘wholesome’, able to properly generate bodhicitta and all of the ramifications that the resultant full enlightenment concurred. It is the way of the Heart centre that allows the experience of shûnyatâ [9] , not the Manipûra, and the way of the Heart necessitates the full awakening of bodhicitta, hence the impossibility of the intake of meat toxins at this stage.

      Nowadays it is not necessary for practitioners of the yoga Tantras to suffer as Milarepa did. Their entire meditative progress can be quickened by eating ‘good wholesome food’ right from the start, and indeed, this must be so, as the need for proper compassion to the animal Kingdom is now so overwhelmingly great in this modern era.

      How can it be otherwise when such callous disregard for the suffering of sentient beings is presented as a way? If one has manifested a strong habit pattern regarding something, ie., an addiction to say, eating chocolates, smoking, or promiscuous sex, then one can not break that addiction by continuing to perpetually indulge in the act. No, one must actually actively give up the habit, yet our ‘Tantric’ brothers are trying to tell us absurdly that by continually eating meat in their practices they can learn detachment. This is but a blatant hypocritical assertion designed only to veil one thing; they are addicted and have not the capacity to ‘give up’ their addiction.

      A special quality of the siddhas, ‘accomplished perfected ones’, (Vajrâcharyas), is their ability to skilfully use any aspect of the world as a vehicle to liberate themselves and others. This is often referred to as ‘skilful means’, implying the efficacy of the method used. The Vajrayâna path is the fastest yet hardest way to traverse the way, and very few can maintain the necessary purity and one-pointedness, whilst remaining immersed in the material world with all it’s allurements and distractions from the spiritual path. Such philosophy, like all philosophy, must be applied with special wisdom to withstand the otherwise distortions of the lower self and its desires and justifications for that which it is attached to.

      In the Buddhist Tantric tradition, or Vajrayâna, the goal is to transmute one's imperfections and ordinary awareness by means of non-ordinary and also extraordinary methods.

As Geshe Klesang Gyatso rightfully states in his book Clear Light of Bliss, p. 7: [10]

 

Attachment itself, because it is a delusion, cannot be used directly as a path. Even in secret mantra it should ultimately be abandoned. The true practice of secret mantra, in which the bliss arising from attachment meditates on emptiness, overcomes all the delusions, including attachment itself.

 

We must therefore look very honestly at ourselves when justifying the consumption of those things we are attached to. Are we truly using them as a mechanism to meditate on emptiness, or have we merely succumbed to subtler versions of the addictions of the unenlightened man?

      It is said that a qualified practitioner of the highest Tantra meditates on the subtle nervous system, and for this, one's bodily elements need to be very strong. Thus, meat is recommended for such a person. Obviously those that are addicted to meat toxins need meat in their diet because if they try to eliminate it, then forms of sickness will occur, as explained elsewhere. But this simply means that first they must learn to become vegetarians, to truly learn detachment to such a wrong habit as meat eating, before they even try to become yogis. They must learn the lowest of the Tantras first, then when they are ready, they can begin the process of practising the highest of the Tantras. It is ridiculous to feed the body direct poisons and then to practice ‘skilful means’ to try to eliminate the poisons. Surely it is best to avoid the toxins in the first place, which indeed, is what would be expected from one who is on the road to enlightenment. Is not avoidance of sicknesses and dangers on the path the most skilful way to attain one’s goals?

      To pretend that one is detached by consuming meat is a clear case of misconstruence of the doctrines of the white dharma. It is designed to virtually ensure that the person has no chance of gaining enlightenment. Why should a student of Tantra wish to burden himself with the grossest of energies in order to try to prove that he can overcome it? This is not the course of wisdom in action, and is certainly not the way of Bodhicitta. It is best always to follow the simplest and quickest way to enlightenment, and this means the elimination of all forms of intoxicants of body, speech, and mind (of which the meat consumed certainly is one). It means the unburdening of all attitudes of mind, and a continuing refinement and transmutation of one’s nadîs. Such refinement can not be done by doing the opposite.

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If such an act causes harm to oneself or any other living beings, more than any good or revelation that may come from it, then what is ‘skilful’ about employing such means? Neither is the act of drinking alcohol, (which is condoned by many Vajrayâna practitioners and teachers) anything more than the insertion of the black dharma into the pure white doctrines. It is a grossly twisted and most convoluted logic for such activities to be viewed as a means to overcoming one’s own concept of ‘purity’; ‘purity’ being something which is seen as illusional and dualistic and therefore must be destroyed. Do they mean by this that a Buddha must have the grossest and blackest form of aura in order to be a Buddha, rather than the intensest form of radiance possible? No! Purity of body, speech and mind are absolute musts if one is to try to emulate a Buddha. Only practitioners of the black arts  or the ignorant, filthy up their auras.

 

 

  Many claim they get sick when they stop eating meat, but a vegetarian diet should not be blamed for this.

      It is noted in serious smokers that when they try to stop their addictive habits then often sickness ensues. Of course the lungs are now busily eliminating mucous, the results of the toxins accumulated and which no longer are sustained in a healthier environment. So also with those who eliminate meat from their diets, the toxins from the coarse substance they have inundated their bodies with come to the surface and must be eliminated, producing the sickness that is experienced. Likewise when one who has lived a careless dissident lifestyle tries to fast (drinking only water for a period of time), they also will generally suffer sickness as toxins are eliminated from the body. It is a natural expression of what the body must experience when its system is overloaded with deeply ingrained substances, that which has been stored in fatty tissue, and interstitially, comes out at once.

      Those that experience detoxification should not therefore decry the situation, but rather rejoice the opportunity to have a far healthier bodily nature. Contrary to the myth instigated by the modern medical profession, which gains enormously from keeping people sick, it is not meat consumption that makes one healthy, but rather a proper balanced diet of fruit, vegetables (including legumes) and nuts. This is the way it is designed in Nature. One need only observe an otherwise carnivorous animal naturally eating vegetable products when they are sick in order to understand the way things were ordained for all living species.

      It should also be noted that in the West where conspicuous meat eating is prevalent we get the tendency of people to go senile as they age, because the gross and most base forms of meat toxins come to be stored interstitially, between the cellular structure of the brain for instance, retarding proper thought. This is not so with most vegetarians, they generally grow wiser as they age.

      You cannot simply subtract the meat from your diet, you need to replace the now missing protein with adequate and abundant vegetable and protein sources. More information will be provided anent right vegetarian diet, both for those living in Asia and in the West.

 

His Holiness the Dalai Lama has encouraged those Tibetans in exile, who now live in countries where vegetables and fruits are more plentiful, to refrain from eating meat whenever possible, though he was unable to bear such a diet, becoming jaundiced, whereupon his Tibetan physician advised him to discontinue vegetarian practice.

      The fact that His Holiness, the great Bodhisattva that he is, understood the need for those in his care to become vegetarians, indicates what is an appropriate teaching for one of his spiritual stature. However, it is unfortunate that his Holiness had such bad advisers when he tried to give up the practice of eating meat, which as a genuinely compassionate being he knew to be wrong. He should have gone to dedicated vegetarians, who knew the art of right nutrition, for advice as to the best way to overcome the sicknesses that are inevitable when the toxins of meat eating are released with the sudden withdrawal of meat after a life-long habit of meat consumption.

 

 

Environmental Considerations

 

      Humanity’s desire for meat causes great suffering on plants, animals and humans. The eating of meat is not only responsible for the mass slaughter of all these innocents but also for the deforestation of countries for farmland (eg, the Brazilian rainforests).

 

Humanity’s karma (of meat eating) even engenders the mass starving of millions of people throughout poor countries who do not get enough food to eat, and much of this is attributable to cattle and sheep farming. The same land could more sanely be utilised to feed vaster quantities of people through vegetable foods. One acre of land devoted to the growing of protein through walnuts for instance will feed approximately 20 times more people than one acre devoted to beef cattle. [11]

      Often in poor countries the government officials resume a policy of selling their exports to America, or places with high capital investment stratagems, and the grains from the poorer countries are sent to feed the cattle during the snowy winters in the USA, rather than directly feeding people.

      There is a truism in the platitude used by environmental groups in the West that one acre of rainforest, with the sum of the wild-life and eco-system that it contains, is destroyed continuously to make one meagre hamburger for American consumers. [12] Such action actually starves millions each year, preventing proper nutrition or the skilful utilisation of the world’s resources, as people in Third World countries often live on a subsistence level and can barely produce enough food for themselves in order to host the multinational meat industry. Cattle and sheep are big money earners for these countries, often used to pay off their massive national debts to such organisations as the World Bank.

      All three Kingdoms, (plants, animals, and humans) suffer, are tormented, maimed, and buried, for this capital punishment, this belief and method adopted by humanity against a defenceless Kingdom - and corpses have never been deemed hygienic.

 

The effect of these industries on the world is horrific, with mass propaganda aimed at people doubling and tripling their annual intake of meat, and encouraging wastage, force-feeding of animals, hormone injections, and the overcrowding seen in modern intensive animal-farming methods; all for current product market value, and money making strategies.

      Then we have the Buddhist society whom ignorantly do not realise the nature of the world-wide meat industry. Thereby they subserviently aid the quest for profiteering by the rich societies, thriving upon the bloody carcasses of myriads of animals. Elsewhere in the world the poor are undernourished and starve for lack of basic food needs, when a superabundance of food could be produced for all, on land that is so inadequately utilised by the greed impetused modern cattle and sheep farming industries. [13]

There is a notion that pigs are better when they are properly shaved, rid of hair, and baked and boiled in a vat of fat and pulled out, jellied and flat. Very few regularly stop to think to check the true price of this unassuming monstrosity, of the 5.65 Kg ham. Where do the piglets end, perpetually born and fattened for the next chew in a human mouth? How do humans expect to cleanse karma when they are perpetually making it? These murder victims are manifested upon a far greater in scale than what the ignorant consumer ever actually conceives. A truly pandemic holocaust of suffering continuously exists right before everyone’s eyes, but very few care enough to do much about it. The crimes keep on recurring, and try as we might, people still buy cars and drive them to the shop where they buy their ham and other parts of animal remains. This charade of ‘civilisation’ continues when humans pretend to care about the environment and the planet as a whole, but not about the suffering they cause every time they chew upon a carcass.

 

AVOIDING FANATICISM

Whether one should pursue the course of being exceedingly picky as to tiny amounts of meat products in the food one eats (meaning the adulterations and chemicals derived from meat by modern processing). The answer is that ideally everyone should tend towards becoming vegans, however, this is not the Noble Middle Way for humanity at this stage. Vegetarianism is, where milk products are permissible. The Vegan argument is that even here there is much mucous-forming substances that help cause diseases. Also there is the way that young animals are treated (calves separated from cows) and slaughtered so that the cow can be a milk-producing ‘factory’. The argument is that there is unnecessary suffering inflicted upon the calves, and they must be killed anyway to ensure milk quantities and that the mother is artificially forced to produce the milk long after it would naturally do so.

      The fanatical one should realise that one is continuously killing bacteria in the stomach and ingesting them. This is natural, and in the microscopic scale we can do little about it, macrocosmically however, we can and must try to the best of our ability, but without fanaticism, otherwise one generates prânas that are also destructive to the meditation mind and which are consequently sickness-producing.

      The ideal for the average person is still far in the future, let them first learn vegetarianism, and also for those with fanatical finicky minds, it is important that one controls the mental samskâras rather than go overboard in trying to eliminate every vestige of meat-derived adulterations from their foods, though again this is the ideal and should be aimed for, but not with a fanatical fervour (it is this emotional attachment which must be avoided).

      The fact that the person has altered their attitudes rightly to being vegetarian and has eliminated all forms of meat products from their environment suffices. They need not worry about microscopic amounts, any more than they need worry about the micro-organisms they are continually consuming and killing. We are aiming to be Buddhists and therefore follow the middle way between all extremes, we are not Jains fanatically trying to stop the inevitability of killing even tiny insects, though certainly we respect all living beings ‘as if they were our mothers’.

 

There are three levels of ‘extremism’ of food consumption that can be viewed here:

 

1) Extreme meat eating — moderate consumption — vegetarianism

2) Meat consumption —  vegetarianism  —  veganism

3) Veganism  —  fruitarian  —  breatharian

 

      Here we see that the vegetarian ideal is the ‘middle between extremes’. (Note that fruitarianism and breatharianism are extremes for vegetarians, but will be objects of attainment for certain yogis in the future, constituting ‘skilful means’ for them.)