by Will Tuttle
11. “Animal Agriculture & Climate Change,” The Humane Society of the United States. Web Accessed April 18, 2015.
12. “Pollution from Giant Livestock Farms Threatens Public Health,” Natural Resources Defense Council. Web Accessed April 18, 2015.
13. “Livestock and Climate Change: What if the key actors in climate change are...cows, pigs and chickens?” Goodland, Robert & Anhang, Jeff. WorldWatch, November/December 2009.
14. June 2010 report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).
15. Mekonnen, Mesfin M. & Hoekstra, Arjen Y. “A Global Assessment of the Water Footprint of Farm Animal Products” Ecosystems (2012) 15: 401-415.
16. “Executive Summary: Feed Supply,” Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
17. Thornton, Phillip, et al., “Livestock and climate change,” Livestock Xchange. International Livestock Research Institute, November 2011.
18. Butler, Rhett. “Cattle Ranching’s Impact on the Rainforest.” Mongabay.com. July 2012 ; Veiga, J.B., et al. Cattle Ranching in the Amazon Rainforest. UN: Food and Agriculture Organization.
19. Robbins, John. Diet for a New America, StillPoint Publishing, 1987, p. 352
20. “What Causes Ocean ‘Dead Zones’?” Scientific American
21. “Impacts of biodiversity loss on ocean ecosystem services.” Worm, Boris; Barbier, Edward B.
22. Beyond Meatless, the Health Effects of Vegan Diets: Findings from the Adventist Cohorts, by Lap Tai Le and Joan Sabaté.
23. The China Study: Revised and Expanded Edition: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss, and Long-Term Health, by T. Colin Campbell and M.D. Thomas M. Campbell II.
24. How Not to Die: Discover the Foods Scientifically Proven to Prevent and Reverse Disease, by Michael Greger and Gene Stone.
25. http://nutritionfacts.org
26. It is not just most vegans who are deficient in B12, but most meat eaters are, too.
27. Dhammapada, verse 129
28. Abhisanda Sutta - AN 8.39
29. Vanijja Sutta - AN 5.177
30. J`ivaka Sutta - MN 55
31. Brahmajāla Sutta - DN1
32. Bhikkhu Pātimokkha, M.I,369
33. J`ivaka Sutta - MN 55
34. Ariyavamsa Sutta - AN 4.28
35. Old Path White Clouds, Thich Nhat Hanh. chapter 58.
36. Mahāparinibbāna Sutta - DN.16.
37. https://youtu.be/ZQiJ6sSPw1A.
38. Finland is a good example. https://www.pritikin.com/your-health/health-benefits/reverse-heart-disease/252-heart-disease-deaths-plunge-75.html
Waking Up with Each Bite: Contemplations for Meals
ANDREW BEAR
Waking up. Waking up is said to be the vocation of sincere followers of the Buddha. We recall that the word, “Buddha” means “the awakened one.” A Buddha is not a transcendent being, a celestial deity, or a god, but a human being who is awake. The teachings of the Buddha emphasize waking up. We might ask, “awakening to what?”
Since meeting my teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh, in 1991, I feel I’ve been on a journey of awakening. This journey is a path, not a final destination, and one of the most notable ways my life has changed is in my practice of eating. Eating might not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think of Buddhist practice. We may perhaps envision a person meditating under a tree, or sitting on a cushion in a temple, or a monk chanting rituals. For me, eating—the daily, mundane act of eating—embodies my path of waking up.
Beginning to Awaken
About ten years after first meeting Thich Nhat Hanh, I attended a talk that he gave two days after 9/11. My heart was rattled and heavy, and I was fearful about how my country, the United States, would respond to the attack. I was looking forward to words of comfort from “Thay” as he is called by his students. While I found comfort and peace in Thay’s serene and potent presence, he spoke about a not-very-comforting sutra called, “The Discourse on the Son’s Flesh.”
[The Buddha] used the example of a young couple who wanted to flee their country and to live in another country. The young couple brought their little boy with them and a quantity of food with them. But halfway through the desert they ran out of food. They knew that they were going to die. After much debate they decided to kill the little boy and to eat his flesh. The title of the sutra is, The Son’s Flesh. They killed the little boy and they ate one piece of that flesh and they preserved the rest on their shoulders for the sun to dry. Every time they ate a piece of flesh of their son they asked the question, “Where is our beloved son now? Where are you, our beloved son?” They beat their chests and they pulled their hair. They suffered tremendously. But finally they were able to cross the desert and enter the other country.
The Buddha turned to his monks and asked, ‘Dear friends, do you think the couple enjoyed eating the flesh of their son?’ And the monks said, ‘No, how could anyone enjoy eating the flesh of their own son?’ The Buddha said, ‘If we do not consume mindfully we are eating the flesh of our own son or daughter.’
Thay then shared statistics about animal agriculture—its impact on land use, water, pollution, and deforestation. He said that mindfulness will help us see the violence in our food, and that we are essentially eating our father, our mother, our children, and the Earth. The practice of mindfulness helps us see the violence in the food we produce and eat. Thay said, “We should learn to eat together in such a way that compassion can remain in our hearts.”
I began to awaken. I gave up eating meat at this talk.
The next year I was invited to dinner by a friend who lived out in the country. My friend learned that I had never had tri-tip, a specific cut of meat from a cow, and insisted I try it; I decided to be a gracious guest and eat some. After the dinner, however, I felt bad for eating the flesh of a cow, and went outside by myself. I sat down on a patio chair, next to his neighbor’s fence. The neighbor was a rancher, I found out, as a cow came over to the fence and started looking at me. Soon, the whole herd of cows came over, about forty of them. They were all looking directly at me and started mooing! It was a striking experience, and I had the feeling that they knew that I had just eaten one of their kind. I went over to the fence, stroked a few of the cows on the sides of their heads, and told them, “I’m sorry. I promise I will never eat your people again.” I have kept this promise.
It took me about another eight years before I became vegan. Again, it was the influence of Thich Nhat Hanh. I read what became known as “The Blue Cliff Letter,” which Thay wrote in 2007 at the Blue Cliff monastery in New York State. He detailed the effects of animal agriculture, and wrote,
“Thầy believes that it is not so difficult to stop eating meat, when we know that we are saving the planet by doing so. We only need to be vegetarian, and we can already save the earth. Being vegetarian here also means that we do not consume dairy and egg products, because they are products of the meat industry. If we stop consuming, they will stop producing. Only collective awakening can create enough determination for action.”
I remember reading this letter near the end of 2009, and decided to begin a vegan lifestyle on New Year’s Day 2010. My journey of awakening continued.
Contemplations Before Eating
“Looking deeply” is a core practice and teaching in Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition. “Looking deeply” is another way of translating the Pali word, “Vipassana,” which is often translated as “Insight.”
One application of the practice of looking deeply is the chant that many Buddhist traditions recite before meals. This chant is known as the Five Contemplations Before Eating. If we practice the Five Contemplations Before Eating, they will support us as we look deeply at our food and eat with mindfulness and compassion. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s tradition, the Contemplations Before Eating are:
This food is a gift of the earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work.
May we eat with mi
ndfulness and gratitude so as to be worthy to receive this food.
May we recognize and transform unwholesome mental formations, especially our greed and learn to eat with moderation.
May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet.
We accept this food so that we may nurture our brotherhood and sisterhood, build our sangha, and nourish our ideal of serving all living beings.
The first and fourth of the contemplations are the most alive in my practice, and have had the greatest impact in my life.
Food as Ambassador of the Cosmos
The first contemplation is, “This food is a gift of the earth, the sky, numerous living beings, and much hard and loving work.” This first contemplation invites us to look deeply and contemplate our food with the insight of interbeing. “Interbeing” is a word coined by Thich Nhat Hanh that conveys the Buddha’s teaching that everything is interconnected; nothing exists as an isolated entity.
When I contemplate a spoonful of oatmeal, for example, and practice looking deeply, I can see the oat plant in a field, with its roots in the soil. In the soil, there are many nutrients for the oat plant. There are millions of tiny organisms in the soil. There are mycelium and fungi, as well as decaying organic matter. There are insects and worms that help break down the decaying organic matter and there are countless bacteria. I see this whole community of life in this spoonful of oatmeal.
There are also broken rocks and minerals in the soil, which are taken up by the oat plant. These minerals were once part of ancient stars that exploded billions of years ago, so there are literally stars in our spoon of oatmeal!
As I continue to look deeply, I can envision the oat plant blowing in the wind. I know that oats happen to be wind-pollinated, so there would not be an oat plant without the wind. Because wind is caused by differences in atmospheric pressure, flowing from places of high pressure to low pressure, if I look deeply, I can see the changing pressures of our atmosphere are also in the spoonful of oatmeal.
I can also see clouds and the ocean in the spoonful of oatmeal. When the winds blow over the ocean and cause waves, with spray and whitecaps, tiny droplets of ocean water are thrown up into the atmosphere where some evaporate. As warm air rises, it expands and cools, and water vapor condenses, forming a cloud. Cool air can’t hold as much water vapor, so some of the water vapor condenses, attaches to little pieces of dust floating in the air, and forms droplets around the tiny pieces of dust. When these droplets become heavy enough, they will fall to the earth, watering and nourishing the oat plant. So looking deeply, I can see the ocean, clouds and rain in the spoonful of oatmeal.
I can also see the sun in my spoonful of oatmeal. Without the sun, the oat plant would not grow. The light of the sun provides energy that the oat plant uses to live and grow, and gives warmth for the oat plant as well. Continuing to open to the spoonful of oatmeal, I can see the changing of seasons, which influence the planting, growth, and harvesting of the oats. I can see the inclination of the Earth’s axis, which is creating the changing seasons. All of this is in the spoonful of oatmeal.
There is also the farmer who planted the oat seed, those who tended the crop and harvested the oat plant. Looking deeply into these farmers, we see all of their ancestors through time, the social and cultural influences that led them to become farmers or field laborers, and perhaps wonder about the lives of those working in the fields. This may bring up questions of economic justice, human migration, and politics.
We are also in the spoonful of oatmeal, because without our desire for oats, which creates the economic incentive to grow them, the oats might not exist.
The seasons, the soil with its billions of living beings, the stars, the sun, the wind, the ocean, the clouds, the floating dust, the rain, the atmospheric pressure, the farmers and their ancestors, and you and I, are all in that spoonful of oats. If we remove any of those elements, our spoonful of oats would not exist. This illustrates the insight of interbeing, an insight that can grow within us as we practice looking deeply into our food.
As Thich Nhat Hanh says, each bite of food is an “ambassador of the cosmos.”
Food as Ambassador of Suffering
The fourth contemplations before eating is, “May we keep our compassion alive by eating in such a way that reduces the suffering of living beings, stops contributing to climate change, and heals and preserves our precious planet.” This fourth contemplation invites us to eat in a way that nourishes our compassion and reduces suffering for living beings and our precious mother Earth.
If, instead of eating oatmeal we are eating an animal product, when we look deeply we will see abuse and suffering. We will know that humans kill 60 billion farm animals and several trillion fish each year. That means that globally, more than 60,000 living beings are killed per second for human consumption. We can contemplate that and let it sink in. That’s 60,000 living beings now…now…now…and now.
There is a saying, “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian.” The suffering of farm animals, however, starts at their birth.
Looking deeply, we will know that 99 percent of chickens raised in the United States are raised in windowless sheds that hold tens of thousands of birds each. Because they are forced to breathe ammonia and particulate matter from feces all day long, they often suffer serious health problems, including chronic respiratory illnesses and bacterial infections.
We will also see that chickens are bred to grow much faster and larger than normal. The average chicken today is four times larger than a chicken bred in the 1950s. Many chickens are crippled, unable to stand or walk, because their legs cannot support the weight of their bodies.
Chickens also have their sensitive beaks cut off with hot blades, without painkillers, when they are one to ten days old, so they won’t peck each other because of frustration from their intense confinement. Some of these birds will starve to death, because the pain from being “de-beaked” makes eating too painful.
In looking deeply at a piece of chicken flesh, we will see intense emotional suffering due to overcrowding. For example, how does it feel to be in a packed elevator with very little room to move? I ride an elevator daily at my workplace in an older building, so the elevators stop working fairly often. Every time I get on the elevator I am taking a risk and I often think about what it would be like to be stuck in a crowded elevator. Imagine being confined in a crowded elevator for fifteen minutes… or one hour…or one whole day. Now imagine being confined to that elevator for your entire life, crammed with so many people you could barely turn around, breathing in urine and feces. I don’t know about you, but I imagine that I would go insane with suffering.
Marketing chickens as “cage free” and “free range” often gives people the impression that the chickens had an enjoyable life, but these terms are unfortunately little more than marketing gimmicks. “Cage free” operations force intense crowding onto chickens, but without cages. In other words, a cage-free chicken will still be raised in a shed with tens of thousands of other oversized, de-beaked chickens who never see the light of day, without the ability to move about, breathing in ammonia-drenched air with fecal waste.
“Free range” means that the chickens technically have access to a door that would enable the birds to go outside for a portion of the day, but often due to intense overcrowding, virtually none the birds will ever experience sunshine and fresh air their entire lives.
Many people who eat eggs assume that eggs are a fairly harmless animal product. If one looks deeply at an egg, however, one will see even more abusive conditions than those in which chickens are raised for meat, including intense crowding and debeaking. In nature, hens will lay twelve to fifteen eggs per year, and only during breeding season. In the egg industry, hens have been bred to lay between 250 and 300 eggs per year, and their food intake and lighting conditions are manipulated to i
ncrease productivity. After about 18 to 24 months, as hens’ egg-laying productivity declines, these “spent” hens will be sent to slaughter. As a means of comparison, in their native jungle habitat, hens live between ten and fifteen years and play a vital role in the symbiosis of their native forest community.
Looking more deeply, we will see that because male chicks are worthless to the egg industry, they are either thrown into plastic bags and suffocated, or thrown into grinders alive.
The egg industry uses the same deceptive advertising as the “broiler chickens” raised for meat. For example, a prominent egg farm that sells “organic” and “free range” eggs requested and received a waiver to keep their hens inside to supposedly protect them from weather, disease, and predators. Their hens never see the light of day, but they are still allowed to advertise them as “free range.” The owner of this company said, in defense, that although people expect that free range hens all have access to the outdoors, “That doesn’t happen. That doesn’t happen anywhere.”
This fourth meal contemplation invites us to keep our compassion alive and encourages us to make an effort to reduce suffering of all living beings. If we look deeply at our food, and we are subsidizing and eating any animal product, we will see suffering and violence.
It is true that it is impossible to be completely nonviolent, and that all eating involves killing. There are microorganisms that we kill when we boil water. Plants are killed in a vegan diet, along with insects and other animals in many agricultural practices. We may not be able to be one hundred percent nonviolent, but we can make it a practice to minimize our violence, causing as little harm as possible.
Food as Ambassador of Ecological Destruction
The fourth contemplation encourages us to keep our compassion alive by reducing suffering to not only living beings, but also to our beautiful mother Earth. If we look deeply at any animal products in our meal, in addition to the suffering of the animals, we will also see that animal agriculture is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gasses and contributors to global ecosystem devastation.