This essay was originally posted on Scott's Animal Rights Blog 2005-2006: http://www.scottsanimalrightsblog.blogspot.com
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According to Eastern philosophy, humans amass great amounts of negative karma from abusing animals and/or people. Since we can sense, but not see karma, it is assumed that karma is either a myth or a trivial matter - nothing to be concerned about. But the great Hindu saints and Buddhist bodhisattvas inform us that our karma, which we create all by ourselves, is the reason we continue to suffer and reincarnate. We knowingly or unknowingly create our own good - or bad - karma with every single thought, word and deed.
Karma as the Webster Dictionary puts it:
1.) in Buddhism and Hinduism, the totality of a person's actions in one of the successive states of his existence, thought of as determining his fate in the next.
2.) loosely, fate; destiny.
Karma as the Random House Unabridged Dictionary puts it:
1.) Buddhism, Hinduism: action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results , good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation.
Here's how I define karma:
For every action there is an equal or opposite reaction. Karma travels with you; it never goes away and it always keeps perfect score, and your karma has been with you since your soul was created (how ever many lives that is). It is like a guide keeping you in line and making sure you get everything you deserve, good or bad. In other words when you harm others you are harming your self; when you are good to others you get good things in return.
Much of what Western societies believe about animals can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, Romans and various interpretations of the Bible. About the time Buddha reached full enlightenment, ancient Greek philosophers believed that Greek men were superior to all other humans and animals. In Eastern cultures, animals are given much more consideration than Western societies give them, although animal cruelty has always been a universal scourge. Animal cruelty exists for two main reasons: it provides income and/or it provides pleasure.
To a Buddhist or Hindu, it makes perfect sense not to kill animals. In Western societies, animal cruelty is considered an unavoidable fact of life, and in some instances, cruelty to animals is a preferred lifestyle. Yet, virtually all of this mass exploitation is unnecessary. Not a single slaughterhouse, fur coat, hunting season or rodeo do we need. This entire man-made cornucopia of massive butchering, suffering and subsequent bad karma is totally unnecessary.
Unlike the Judeo-Christian tradition, Buddhism affirms the unity of all living beings, all equally posses the Buddha-nature, and all have the potential to become Buddhas, that is, to become fully and perfectly enlightened. Among the sentient, there are no second-class citizens. According to Buddhist teachings, human beings do not have a privileged, special place above and beyond that of the rest of life. The world is not a creation specifically for the benefit and pleasure of human beings. Furthermore, in some circumstances in accordance with their karma, humans can be reborn as animals and animals can be reborn as humans.
In Buddhism the most fundamental guideline for conduct is ahimsa: the prohibition against the bringing of harm and/or death to any living being. Why should one refrain from killing? It is because all beings have lives; they love their lives and do not wish to die. Even one of the smallest creatures, the mosquito, when it approaches to bite you, will fly away if you make the slightest motion. Why does it fly away? Because it fears death. It figures that if it drinks your blood, you will take its life. . . . We should nurture compassionate thought. Since we wish to live, we should not kill any other living being. Furthermore, the karma of killing is understood as the root of all suffering and the fundamental cause of sickness and war, and the forces of killing are explicitly identified with the demonic. The highest and most universal ideal of Buddhism is to work unceasingly for permanent end to the suffering of all living beings, not just humans.
_______________________________________________________________
BUDDHISM AND IMPORTANCE of MANTRAS
Buddhism teaches that it is a collection of thoughts or 'seed' of consciousness, not a soul, which lives on after our physical death and determines our next life. Therefore, much attention is given to the idea of negative thoughts, negative speech, and negative actions. Various mantras and practices such as circumambulating (walking clockwise while chanting mantras) holy shrines and stupas are considered important for purifying negative karma. Even listening to Buddhist teachings implants positive karmic imprints in the minds of people and animals.
Most of us are not highly-advanced meditators who can sit in samadhi 12 hours a day - or even one hour a day. Tibetan Buddhism, therefore, places importance on visiting and venerating stupas, reciting mantras, reading sutras, etc. All these practices leave strong karmic imprints in the mind. Animals, too, greatly benefit from hearing mantras and sutras.
Now, when you do any meditative practices, cats will sense your peaceful aura and sit on your lap. Let them sit there while you recite mantras for them. You can also recite mantras for dogs or any animal. Indeed, it is exceedingly rare for animals to come into contact with the Dharma. According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, letting animals hear these precious mantras leaves strong positive karmic imprints in their minds and in their next life they will hopefully receive Dharma teachings - preferably as a human! The Chenrezig mantra OM MANI PADME HUM is an easy mantra to recite.
Here's an excerpt from the book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying": "The greatest achievement of modern culture is its brilliant selling of samsara and its barren distractions. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all things that lead away from the truth. This modern samsara feeds off an anxiety and depression that it fosters and trains us all in, and carefully nurtures a consumer machine that needs to keep us greedy to keep going.
Obsessed, then, with false hopes, dreams, and ambitions, which promise happiness but lead only to misery, we are like people crawling through an endless desert, dying of thirst."
Buddhism also has common sense: why indulge in counterproductive angry, negative thoughts all day? A rational person realizes that constantly nurturing negative thoughts results in: alcoholism, criminal mischief, trips to jail, drunken tantrums, drunken debauchery, bar room brawls, contusions, street-corner ranting, visits to local mental institutions, etc.
Speaking of Buddhists, one of the world's most respected spiritual leaders - the 14th Dalai Lama - has repeatedly spoken in favor of vegetarianism, and he also favors animal rights causes. A few years ago, the author of this blog mailed a letter to the Dalai Lama (to his Dharamsala, India address), and his personal secretary replied that His Holiness was very much in favor of vegetarianism. The information below was obtained from PETA's KFC website and other websites concerning the Dalai Lama.
In his appeal, His Holiness writes, “On behalf of my friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), I am writing to ask that KFC abandon its plan to open restaurants in Tibet, because your corporation’s support for cruelty and mass slaughter violate Tibetan values … I have been particularly concerned with the sufferings of chickens for many years. It was the death of a chicken that finally strengthened my resolve to become vegetarian. … These days, when I see a row of plucked chickens hanging in a meat shop it hurts. I find it unacceptable that violence is the basis of some of our food habits. … It is therefore quite natural for me to support those who are currently protesting against the introduction of industrial food practices into Tibet that will perpetuate the suffering of huge numbers of chickens."
In the mid 1960s, the Dalai Lama was impressed by ethically vegetarian Indian monks and adopted a vegetarian diet for about a year and a half. While he has eaten meat in moderation ever since, the Dalai Lama has repeatedly acknowledged that a vegetarian diet is a worthy expression of compassion and contributes to the cessation of the suffering of all living beings. However, he eats meat only on alternate days (six months a year). He is a semi- vegetarian, though he wishes to be a full one. By making an example of cutting his meat consumption in half, he is trying to gently influence his followers.
This Thanksgiving, staff of the Fund for Animals are thanking the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, for recent statements in support of animal rights. In an audience with representatives of The Fund for Animals earlier this month, the Dalai Lama commended the animal rights movement for working to end the suffering of animals, and urged everyone to consider a vegetarian diet. Speaking with The Fund for Animals' national director, Heidi Prescott, and program coordinator, Norm Phelps, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize recipient said, "People think of animals as if they were vegetables, and that isn't right. We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn't cause suffering."
His Holiness also condemned the abuse and killing of animals for entertainment purposes, such as the practice of hunting wild animals for sport. The Dalai Lama invited the Fund for Animals to work with his government in exile in India to help encourage people to become vegetarian and to protect animals from suffering.
The Gyalwang Karmapa is the 17th Karmapa - a great Bodhisattva - and he is considered to be the Dalai Lama's future successor. The Gyalwang Karmapa, himself a pure vegetarian, gave a discourse on vegetarianism: “When I spoke about this, I was primarily thinking about the way I lead my own life. I can’t really do anything about how other people lead their lives, but in terms of thinking about myself there are some reasons for this.” He then explained two key reasons that he personally does not eat meat. The first reason is the intense suffering that the animals who are killed go through. Every single day millions of animals are killed to feed us, and many are subjected to terrible conditions to provide us with food. Just a few days previously the Gyalwang Karmapa had shared a story of how, as a child in Tibet, when animals were killed for his family’s food he felt unbearable, pure compassion for them.
The second reason he doesn’t eat meat, the Gyalwang Karmapa continued, is because of his Mahayana training in seeing all sentient beings as his mothers. “We say I am going to do everything I can to free sentient beings from suffering. We say I am going to do this. We make the commitment. We take the vow. Once we have taken this vow, if then, without thinking anything about it, we just go ahead and eat meat, then that is not okay. It is something that we need to think about very carefully.”
Tibetan Buddhist master, Chagdud Rinpoche, stated: "Saving and protecting life creates tremendous virtue. All beings are equal in that they all seek happiness, don't want to suffer and value their lives as we do."
______________________________________________________________
According to Eastern philosophy, humans amass great amounts of negative karma from abusing animals and/or people. Since we can sense, but not see karma, it is assumed that karma is either a myth or a trivial matter - nothing to be concerned about. But the great Hindu saints and Buddhist bodhisattvas inform us that our karma, which we create all by ourselves, is the reason we continue to suffer and reincarnate. We knowingly or unknowingly create our own good - or bad - karma with every single thought, word and deed.
Karma as the Webster Dictionary puts it:
1.) in Buddhism and Hinduism, the totality of a person's actions in one of the successive states of his existence, thought of as determining his fate in the next.
2.) loosely, fate; destiny.
Karma as the Random House Unabridged Dictionary puts it:
1.) Buddhism, Hinduism: action, seen as bringing upon oneself inevitable results , good or bad, either in this life or in a reincarnation.
Here's how I define karma:
For every action there is an equal or opposite reaction. Karma travels with you; it never goes away and it always keeps perfect score, and your karma has been with you since your soul was created (how ever many lives that is). It is like a guide keeping you in line and making sure you get everything you deserve, good or bad. In other words when you harm others you are harming your self; when you are good to others you get good things in return.
Much of what Western societies believe about animals can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, Romans and various interpretations of the Bible. About the time Buddha reached full enlightenment, ancient Greek philosophers believed that Greek men were superior to all other humans and animals. In Eastern cultures, animals are given much more consideration than Western societies give them, although animal cruelty has always been a universal scourge. Animal cruelty exists for two main reasons: it provides income and/or it provides pleasure.
To a Buddhist or Hindu, it makes perfect sense not to kill animals. In Western societies, animal cruelty is considered an unavoidable fact of life, and in some instances, cruelty to animals is a preferred lifestyle. Yet, virtually all of this mass exploitation is unnecessary. Not a single slaughterhouse, fur coat, hunting season or rodeo do we need. This entire man-made cornucopia of massive butchering, suffering and subsequent bad karma is totally unnecessary.
Unlike the Judeo-Christian tradition, Buddhism affirms the unity of all living beings, all equally posses the Buddha-nature, and all have the potential to become Buddhas, that is, to become fully and perfectly enlightened. Among the sentient, there are no second-class citizens. According to Buddhist teachings, human beings do not have a privileged, special place above and beyond that of the rest of life. The world is not a creation specifically for the benefit and pleasure of human beings. Furthermore, in some circumstances in accordance with their karma, humans can be reborn as animals and animals can be reborn as humans.
In Buddhism the most fundamental guideline for conduct is ahimsa: the prohibition against the bringing of harm and/or death to any living being. Why should one refrain from killing? It is because all beings have lives; they love their lives and do not wish to die. Even one of the smallest creatures, the mosquito, when it approaches to bite you, will fly away if you make the slightest motion. Why does it fly away? Because it fears death. It figures that if it drinks your blood, you will take its life. . . . We should nurture compassionate thought. Since we wish to live, we should not kill any other living being. Furthermore, the karma of killing is understood as the root of all suffering and the fundamental cause of sickness and war, and the forces of killing are explicitly identified with the demonic. The highest and most universal ideal of Buddhism is to work unceasingly for permanent end to the suffering of all living beings, not just humans.
_______________________________________________________________
BUDDHISM AND IMPORTANCE of MANTRAS
Buddhism teaches that it is a collection of thoughts or 'seed' of consciousness, not a soul, which lives on after our physical death and determines our next life. Therefore, much attention is given to the idea of negative thoughts, negative speech, and negative actions. Various mantras and practices such as circumambulating (walking clockwise while chanting mantras) holy shrines and stupas are considered important for purifying negative karma. Even listening to Buddhist teachings implants positive karmic imprints in the minds of people and animals.
Most of us are not highly-advanced meditators who can sit in samadhi 12 hours a day - or even one hour a day. Tibetan Buddhism, therefore, places importance on visiting and venerating stupas, reciting mantras, reading sutras, etc. All these practices leave strong karmic imprints in the mind. Animals, too, greatly benefit from hearing mantras and sutras.
Now, when you do any meditative practices, cats will sense your peaceful aura and sit on your lap. Let them sit there while you recite mantras for them. You can also recite mantras for dogs or any animal. Indeed, it is exceedingly rare for animals to come into contact with the Dharma. According to Lama Zopa Rinpoche, letting animals hear these precious mantras leaves strong positive karmic imprints in their minds and in their next life they will hopefully receive Dharma teachings - preferably as a human! The Chenrezig mantra OM MANI PADME HUM is an easy mantra to recite.
Here's an excerpt from the book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying": "The greatest achievement of modern culture is its brilliant selling of samsara and its barren distractions. Modern society seems to me a celebration of all things that lead away from the truth. This modern samsara feeds off an anxiety and depression that it fosters and trains us all in, and carefully nurtures a consumer machine that needs to keep us greedy to keep going.
Obsessed, then, with false hopes, dreams, and ambitions, which promise happiness but lead only to misery, we are like people crawling through an endless desert, dying of thirst."
Buddhism also has common sense: why indulge in counterproductive angry, negative thoughts all day? A rational person realizes that constantly nurturing negative thoughts results in: alcoholism, criminal mischief, trips to jail, drunken tantrums, drunken debauchery, bar room brawls, contusions, street-corner ranting, visits to local mental institutions, etc.
________________________________________________________________
CHRISTIANITY & St. FRANCIS
Most, but not all, Christians believe that humans have a right to kill animals they intend to eat. Really? This seems to be another case of God said we can take what we want - so let's kill it and grill it! But how do Christians KNOW that humans have a right to kill and eat animals? Are they on a higher plane of consciousness where God is blissfully smiling down on all this remorseless animal killing? Are they in communion with God, and therefore know how pleased the Creator is to have his creatures butchered and eaten? Perhaps Christians "sense" that it is okay to eat meat, shoot animals, skin chickens alive - but what if they are simply wrong?
Exactly what Jesus ate for lunch and dinner we do not know, but we do know for certain that he was not a trapper, hunter, or rodeo cowboy. There's also no mention of him branding and castrating livestock. Interestingly, the New Testament contains references to people eating fish, but Jesus Christ himself ate fish only twice. There is absolutely no mention of Jesus Christ being a butcher or eating red meat. Because people ate fish in the New Testament, we cannot logically surmise that Jesus was a hunter or rancher. Such notions of Jesus being an animal abuser are impossible to support using scriptural writings. Simply contorting Jesus to fit personal ideas of morality is not true worship, and it leads to inaccurate impressions of what Jesus taught.
For instance, we cannot assume that because our football team is winning, that Jesus is on our side. Jesus Christ couldn't care less about football, and he'd prefer that people did not bash each other's heads for sport. Nor can we surmise that because animals abound, then it's God's will that we kill them. Unless we have obtained a very high level of consciousness - call it Christ consciousness, kingdom of heaven or whatever - we simply cannot be certain of God's will.
Where is it written that Christians must or should eat meat? Where is it written that Jesus was a hunter or champion bull rider? Where is it written that killing and butchering animals is the road to heaven? I can just as easily portray Jesus as a peaceful man who did not abuse animals, and I'd be far more accurate based on written accounts of his life. A careful study of the lives of Christian saints reveals that none of them indulged in animal killing or animal abuse. Many, many saints were fond of animals.
Indeed, untold millions of sentient beings have suffered immensely over the centuries because of ungodly people inflicting pain, misery, injustice and death in the name of their Almighty. Historically, people have rationalized their ungodly behavior. They will use any rationale - religion or philosophy - as an excuse to conquer, exploit, subjugate, discriminate, or inflict pain.
Eastern and Western saints tell us that Jesus was a very highly evolved being, that he was in fact an incarnation of God. Some contemporary Christians claim to have a relationship with Jesus. But how can mere mortals even begin to fathom Jesus Christ's extremely high level of consciousness? Wouldn't it be more wise to assume that Jesus Christ was very decent toward animals, as Saint Francis of Assisi was? Saint Francis was a great proponent of animals, and one of the most highly revered saints in Western history. I consider St. Francis to have been a much greater being than the average person who simply finds the idea of killing animals convenient or necessary. St. Francis was trying to teach people valuable lessons about animals and the natural world we share with these creatures.
The quality that has endeared St. Francis of Assisi to countless people throughout the centuries from his own time until now, is his unwavering love and concern for nature and for all creatures of the earth. He has rightly been declared the patron saint of ecology. To St. Francis, all creatures are entitled to humanity’s love and concern as creations of God. He definitely had a grasp of ahimsa: the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain belief of nonviolence toward all living beings.
__________________________________________________________________________
BHAGAVAD-GITA
The Bhagavad-Gita expounds on the virtues of compassion: "The humble sage by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [or outcaste].” (Bg.5.18)
Thus, a wise person recognizes the value of life, the soul, within all species of living beings. Because he recognizes the soul in all bodies, he does not cause any cruelty to them. Cruelty or suffering inflicted on any living being will certainly cause harm to ourselves and regression in our own development, spiritual or otherwise. Compassion and kindness to all beings is how we make spiritual progress. Is there anything that is really more important that this? As Lord Krishna explains:
“One who is not envious but who is a kind friend to all living entities, who does not think himself a proprietor, who is free from false ego and equal both in happiness and distress, who is always satisfied and engaged in devotional service with determination and whose mind and intelligence are in agreement with Me—he is very dear to Me.” (Bg.12.13-14)
Lord Krishna further explains in the Bhagavad-Gita (16.2-3): ahimsa or nonviolence is one of the transcendental qualities that belong to godly men endowed with divine nature.
_____________________________________________________________
BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK "FOOD for the GODS"
Pg.45) Although the Buddha himself was a strict vegetarian and forbade the killing of animals for food, he predicted that some of his meat-eating followers would manipulate his teachings to make them appear to condone the practice of flesh-eating. Flexible as he might have been in other matters, the Lankavatara Sutra makes it plain that when it came to the eating of animal flesh he was fiercely uncompromising:
For the sake of love of purity, the Bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh which is born of semen, blood, etc. For fear of causing terror to living beings, let the Bodhisattva, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh....
It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill it, when it was not specifically meant for him. Again, there may be some people in the future who...being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways sophistic arguments to defend meat-eating...But meat-eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once for all prohibited. - Teachings of the Buddha from the book "Food for the Gods"
Pg.82) It was from this region (Gangetic plain) that Mahavira and the Buddha rose up against the Brahmin animal sacrificers and succeeded in abolishing the institution of ritual animal sacrifice that had been introduced into India by the Aryan invaders. Food historian Reay Tannahill credits the Jains and the Buddhists with being catalysts for the spread of ahimsa-based vegetarianism throughout India: "So influencial was the new religions' (Buddhism and Jainism) anti-slaughter campaign that by the first century BCE, even the Brahmin priests had come around to it. - from the book "Food for the Gods"
Pg. 215) For the past 700 years, there have been two philosophical strains within the Church. they are represented on the one hand by the abstemious Cathar-inspired Francis of Assisi who treated animals as fellow beings with immortal souls and on the other by the gluttunous Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), who in his Summa Theologica treated animals as imperfect beings who could be cheerfully killed and eaten.
Steve J. Rosen: The Aristotelian – Thomistic view has, as its basis, the premise that animals exist for our pleasure – their purpose is only to serve us; that’s what animals are for. Period. The Augustinian-Franciscan view, on the other hand, teaches that we are all brothers and sisters under God’s fatherhood. Based largely on the world-view of St. Francis, and being essentially platonic in nature, this school emphasizes love and compassion and, consequently, lends support to the vegetarian perspective.
Pg. 223) Franciscan Brother Ron Pickarski: Yes, Francis probably was a vegetarian, but I would rather error on the side of caution and say he was probably a vegetarian, rather than say he was indisputably a vegetarian. In the Omnibus of Sources, a sick friar was told by Francis that if he were to eat a vegetarian diet, he would be healed. The friar obeyed, was cured, and went to live a healthy life as a vegetarian.
Pg. 213) Many of the monastic orders, such as the Augustinians, the Franciscans and the Trappists, as they were originally constituted, were vegetarian, but during the Middle Ages, they began conspicuously to fall away from their early asceticism. Indeed, they became notorious for their gourmandizing!_____________________________________________________________
DALAI LAMA& 17th KARMAPA CHRISTIANITY & St. FRANCIS
Most, but not all, Christians believe that humans have a right to kill animals they intend to eat. Really? This seems to be another case of God said we can take what we want - so let's kill it and grill it! But how do Christians KNOW that humans have a right to kill and eat animals? Are they on a higher plane of consciousness where God is blissfully smiling down on all this remorseless animal killing? Are they in communion with God, and therefore know how pleased the Creator is to have his creatures butchered and eaten? Perhaps Christians "sense" that it is okay to eat meat, shoot animals, skin chickens alive - but what if they are simply wrong?
Exactly what Jesus ate for lunch and dinner we do not know, but we do know for certain that he was not a trapper, hunter, or rodeo cowboy. There's also no mention of him branding and castrating livestock. Interestingly, the New Testament contains references to people eating fish, but Jesus Christ himself ate fish only twice. There is absolutely no mention of Jesus Christ being a butcher or eating red meat. Because people ate fish in the New Testament, we cannot logically surmise that Jesus was a hunter or rancher. Such notions of Jesus being an animal abuser are impossible to support using scriptural writings. Simply contorting Jesus to fit personal ideas of morality is not true worship, and it leads to inaccurate impressions of what Jesus taught.
For instance, we cannot assume that because our football team is winning, that Jesus is on our side. Jesus Christ couldn't care less about football, and he'd prefer that people did not bash each other's heads for sport. Nor can we surmise that because animals abound, then it's God's will that we kill them. Unless we have obtained a very high level of consciousness - call it Christ consciousness, kingdom of heaven or whatever - we simply cannot be certain of God's will.
Where is it written that Christians must or should eat meat? Where is it written that Jesus was a hunter or champion bull rider? Where is it written that killing and butchering animals is the road to heaven? I can just as easily portray Jesus as a peaceful man who did not abuse animals, and I'd be far more accurate based on written accounts of his life. A careful study of the lives of Christian saints reveals that none of them indulged in animal killing or animal abuse. Many, many saints were fond of animals.
Indeed, untold millions of sentient beings have suffered immensely over the centuries because of ungodly people inflicting pain, misery, injustice and death in the name of their Almighty. Historically, people have rationalized their ungodly behavior. They will use any rationale - religion or philosophy - as an excuse to conquer, exploit, subjugate, discriminate, or inflict pain.
Eastern and Western saints tell us that Jesus was a very highly evolved being, that he was in fact an incarnation of God. Some contemporary Christians claim to have a relationship with Jesus. But how can mere mortals even begin to fathom Jesus Christ's extremely high level of consciousness? Wouldn't it be more wise to assume that Jesus Christ was very decent toward animals, as Saint Francis of Assisi was? Saint Francis was a great proponent of animals, and one of the most highly revered saints in Western history. I consider St. Francis to have been a much greater being than the average person who simply finds the idea of killing animals convenient or necessary. St. Francis was trying to teach people valuable lessons about animals and the natural world we share with these creatures.
The quality that has endeared St. Francis of Assisi to countless people throughout the centuries from his own time until now, is his unwavering love and concern for nature and for all creatures of the earth. He has rightly been declared the patron saint of ecology. To St. Francis, all creatures are entitled to humanity’s love and concern as creations of God. He definitely had a grasp of ahimsa: the Buddhist, Hindu and Jain belief of nonviolence toward all living beings.
__________________________________________________________________________
BHAGAVAD-GITA
The Bhagavad-Gita expounds on the virtues of compassion: "The humble sage by virtue of true knowledge, sees with equal vision a learned and gentle brahmana, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog-eater [or outcaste].” (Bg.5.18)
Thus, a wise person recognizes the value of life, the soul, within all species of living beings. Because he recognizes the soul in all bodies, he does not cause any cruelty to them. Cruelty or suffering inflicted on any living being will certainly cause harm to ourselves and regression in our own development, spiritual or otherwise. Compassion and kindness to all beings is how we make spiritual progress. Is there anything that is really more important that this? As Lord Krishna explains:
“One who is not envious but who is a kind friend to all living entities, who does not think himself a proprietor, who is free from false ego and equal both in happiness and distress, who is always satisfied and engaged in devotional service with determination and whose mind and intelligence are in agreement with Me—he is very dear to Me.” (Bg.12.13-14)
Lord Krishna further explains in the Bhagavad-Gita (16.2-3): ahimsa or nonviolence is one of the transcendental qualities that belong to godly men endowed with divine nature.
_____________________________________________________________
BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE BOOK "FOOD for the GODS"
Pg.45) Although the Buddha himself was a strict vegetarian and forbade the killing of animals for food, he predicted that some of his meat-eating followers would manipulate his teachings to make them appear to condone the practice of flesh-eating. Flexible as he might have been in other matters, the Lankavatara Sutra makes it plain that when it came to the eating of animal flesh he was fiercely uncompromising:
For the sake of love of purity, the Bodhisattva should refrain from eating flesh which is born of semen, blood, etc. For fear of causing terror to living beings, let the Bodhisattva, who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh....
It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill it, when it was not specifically meant for him. Again, there may be some people in the future who...being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways sophistic arguments to defend meat-eating...But meat-eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally and once for all prohibited. - Teachings of the Buddha from the book "Food for the Gods"
Pg.82) It was from this region (Gangetic plain) that Mahavira and the Buddha rose up against the Brahmin animal sacrificers and succeeded in abolishing the institution of ritual animal sacrifice that had been introduced into India by the Aryan invaders. Food historian Reay Tannahill credits the Jains and the Buddhists with being catalysts for the spread of ahimsa-based vegetarianism throughout India: "So influencial was the new religions' (Buddhism and Jainism) anti-slaughter campaign that by the first century BCE, even the Brahmin priests had come around to it. - from the book "Food for the Gods"
Pg. 215) For the past 700 years, there have been two philosophical strains within the Church. they are represented on the one hand by the abstemious Cathar-inspired Francis of Assisi who treated animals as fellow beings with immortal souls and on the other by the gluttunous Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), who in his Summa Theologica treated animals as imperfect beings who could be cheerfully killed and eaten.
Steve J. Rosen: The Aristotelian – Thomistic view has, as its basis, the premise that animals exist for our pleasure – their purpose is only to serve us; that’s what animals are for. Period. The Augustinian-Franciscan view, on the other hand, teaches that we are all brothers and sisters under God’s fatherhood. Based largely on the world-view of St. Francis, and being essentially platonic in nature, this school emphasizes love and compassion and, consequently, lends support to the vegetarian perspective.
Pg. 223) Franciscan Brother Ron Pickarski: Yes, Francis probably was a vegetarian, but I would rather error on the side of caution and say he was probably a vegetarian, rather than say he was indisputably a vegetarian. In the Omnibus of Sources, a sick friar was told by Francis that if he were to eat a vegetarian diet, he would be healed. The friar obeyed, was cured, and went to live a healthy life as a vegetarian.
Pg. 213) Many of the monastic orders, such as the Augustinians, the Franciscans and the Trappists, as they were originally constituted, were vegetarian, but during the Middle Ages, they began conspicuously to fall away from their early asceticism. Indeed, they became notorious for their gourmandizing!_____________________________________________________________
Speaking of Buddhists, one of the world's most respected spiritual leaders - the 14th Dalai Lama - has repeatedly spoken in favor of vegetarianism, and he also favors animal rights causes. A few years ago, the author of this blog mailed a letter to the Dalai Lama (to his Dharamsala, India address), and his personal secretary replied that His Holiness was very much in favor of vegetarianism. The information below was obtained from PETA's KFC website and other websites concerning the Dalai Lama.
In his appeal, His Holiness writes, “On behalf of my friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), I am writing to ask that KFC abandon its plan to open restaurants in Tibet, because your corporation’s support for cruelty and mass slaughter violate Tibetan values … I have been particularly concerned with the sufferings of chickens for many years. It was the death of a chicken that finally strengthened my resolve to become vegetarian. … These days, when I see a row of plucked chickens hanging in a meat shop it hurts. I find it unacceptable that violence is the basis of some of our food habits. … It is therefore quite natural for me to support those who are currently protesting against the introduction of industrial food practices into Tibet that will perpetuate the suffering of huge numbers of chickens."
In the mid 1960s, the Dalai Lama was impressed by ethically vegetarian Indian monks and adopted a vegetarian diet for about a year and a half. While he has eaten meat in moderation ever since, the Dalai Lama has repeatedly acknowledged that a vegetarian diet is a worthy expression of compassion and contributes to the cessation of the suffering of all living beings. However, he eats meat only on alternate days (six months a year). He is a semi- vegetarian, though he wishes to be a full one. By making an example of cutting his meat consumption in half, he is trying to gently influence his followers.
This Thanksgiving, staff of the Fund for Animals are thanking the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, for recent statements in support of animal rights. In an audience with representatives of The Fund for Animals earlier this month, the Dalai Lama commended the animal rights movement for working to end the suffering of animals, and urged everyone to consider a vegetarian diet. Speaking with The Fund for Animals' national director, Heidi Prescott, and program coordinator, Norm Phelps, the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize recipient said, "People think of animals as if they were vegetables, and that isn't right. We have to change the way people think about animals. I encourage the Tibetan people and all people to move toward a vegetarian diet that doesn't cause suffering."
His Holiness also condemned the abuse and killing of animals for entertainment purposes, such as the practice of hunting wild animals for sport. The Dalai Lama invited the Fund for Animals to work with his government in exile in India to help encourage people to become vegetarian and to protect animals from suffering.
The Gyalwang Karmapa is the 17th Karmapa - a great Bodhisattva - and he is considered to be the Dalai Lama's future successor. The Gyalwang Karmapa, himself a pure vegetarian, gave a discourse on vegetarianism: “When I spoke about this, I was primarily thinking about the way I lead my own life. I can’t really do anything about how other people lead their lives, but in terms of thinking about myself there are some reasons for this.” He then explained two key reasons that he personally does not eat meat. The first reason is the intense suffering that the animals who are killed go through. Every single day millions of animals are killed to feed us, and many are subjected to terrible conditions to provide us with food. Just a few days previously the Gyalwang Karmapa had shared a story of how, as a child in Tibet, when animals were killed for his family’s food he felt unbearable, pure compassion for them.
The second reason he doesn’t eat meat, the Gyalwang Karmapa continued, is because of his Mahayana training in seeing all sentient beings as his mothers. “We say I am going to do everything I can to free sentient beings from suffering. We say I am going to do this. We make the commitment. We take the vow. Once we have taken this vow, if then, without thinking anything about it, we just go ahead and eat meat, then that is not okay. It is something that we need to think about very carefully.”
Tibetan Buddhist master, Chagdud Rinpoche, stated: "Saving and protecting life creates tremendous virtue. All beings are equal in that they all seek happiness, don't want to suffer and value their lives as we do."
Eastern philosophy is a vast and extremely profound subject. Eastern religions have been a source of fascination, guidance, and enlightenment for thousands of years. To this day, India , Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet continue to produce most of the world's great enlightened masters. Understanding karma is critical to understanding Eastern philosophy. - By Scott Palczak
VISIT SCOTT'S ANIMAL RIGHTS BLOG 2005-2006 <<Home
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MORE ABOUT KARMA
The following is an explanation of karma from the book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying":
In the second watch of the night when Buddha attained enlightenment, he gained another kind of knowledge, which complemented his knowledge of rebirth: that of karma, the natural law of cause and effect.
"With the heavenly eye, purified and beyond the range of human vision, I saw how beings vanish and come to be again. I saw high and low, brilliant and insignificant, and how each obtained according to his karma a favorable or painful rebirth."
The truth and the driving force behind rebirth is what is called karma. Karma is often totally misunderstood in the West as fate or predestination; it is best thought of as the infallible law of cause and effect that governs the universe. The word karma literally means "action," and karma is both the power latent within actions, and the results our actions bring.
There are many kinds of karma: international karma, national karma, the karma of a city, and individual karma. All are intricately interrelated, and only understood in their full complexity by an enlightened being.
In simple terms, what does karma mean? It means that whatever we do, with our body, speech, or mind, will have a corresponding result. Each action, even the smallest, is pregnant with its consequences. It is said by the masters that even a little poison can cause death, and even a tiny seed can become a huge tree. And as Buddha said: "Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain." Similarly he said: "Do not overlook tiny good actions, thinking they are of no benefit; even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel." Karma does not decay like external things, or even become inoperative. It cannot be destroyed "by time, fire, or water." Its power will never disappear, until it is ripened.
Although the results of our actions may not have matured yet, they will inevitably ripen, given the right conditions. Usually we forget what we do, and it is only long afterward that the results catch up with us. By then we are unable to connect them with their causes.
The results of our actions are often delayed, even into future lifetimes; we cannot pin down one cause, because any event can be an extremely complicated mixture of many karmas ripening together. So we tend to assume now that things happen to us "by chance," and when everything goes well, we simply call it "good luck."
As Buddha said, "What you are is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now." Padmasambhava went further: "If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions."
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VISIT SCOTT'S ANIMAL RIGHTS BLOG 2005-2006 <<Home
_______________________________________________________________
MORE ABOUT KARMA
The following is an explanation of karma from the book "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying":
In the second watch of the night when Buddha attained enlightenment, he gained another kind of knowledge, which complemented his knowledge of rebirth: that of karma, the natural law of cause and effect.
"With the heavenly eye, purified and beyond the range of human vision, I saw how beings vanish and come to be again. I saw high and low, brilliant and insignificant, and how each obtained according to his karma a favorable or painful rebirth."
The truth and the driving force behind rebirth is what is called karma. Karma is often totally misunderstood in the West as fate or predestination; it is best thought of as the infallible law of cause and effect that governs the universe. The word karma literally means "action," and karma is both the power latent within actions, and the results our actions bring.
There are many kinds of karma: international karma, national karma, the karma of a city, and individual karma. All are intricately interrelated, and only understood in their full complexity by an enlightened being.
In simple terms, what does karma mean? It means that whatever we do, with our body, speech, or mind, will have a corresponding result. Each action, even the smallest, is pregnant with its consequences. It is said by the masters that even a little poison can cause death, and even a tiny seed can become a huge tree. And as Buddha said: "Do not overlook negative actions merely because they are small; however small a spark may be, it can burn down a haystack as big as a mountain." Similarly he said: "Do not overlook tiny good actions, thinking they are of no benefit; even tiny drops of water in the end will fill a huge vessel." Karma does not decay like external things, or even become inoperative. It cannot be destroyed "by time, fire, or water." Its power will never disappear, until it is ripened.
Although the results of our actions may not have matured yet, they will inevitably ripen, given the right conditions. Usually we forget what we do, and it is only long afterward that the results catch up with us. By then we are unable to connect them with their causes.
The results of our actions are often delayed, even into future lifetimes; we cannot pin down one cause, because any event can be an extremely complicated mixture of many karmas ripening together. So we tend to assume now that things happen to us "by chance," and when everything goes well, we simply call it "good luck."
As Buddha said, "What you are is what you have been, what you will be is what you do now." Padmasambhava went further: "If you want to know your past life, look into your present condition; if you want to know your future life, look at your present actions."
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