by Will Tuttle
Animal agriculture wastes enormous quantities of fresh water. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of beef. It takes about a thousand gallons of water to produce one gallon of milk. Animal agriculture is also the leading cause of species extinction, ocean dead zones, water pollution, and habitat destruction. Animal agriculture is the leading cause of global deforestation.
Looking again at Thich Nhat Hanh’s “Blue Cliff Letter,” we read:
Buddhist practitioners have practiced vegetarianism over the last 2000 years. We are vegetarian with the intention to nourish our compassion towards the animals. Now we also know that we eat vegetarian in order to protect the earth, preventing global warming from causing her serious and irreversible damage.
Thich Nhat Hanh does not command his students to be vegan, rather, he invites us to look deeply into the consequences of our food choices. He believes that when we see the suffering in our food, and have developed compassion for farmed animals, we will naturally stop consuming animal products.
Waking Up with Each Bite
In many ways, we are like sleepwalkers living in a dream. We have created a way of eating that is destroying trillions of living beings each year, the web of life on our planet, and ourselves. As followers of the Buddha, “the awakened one,” we are called to wake up.
For me, veganism grows out of this path of awakening. The path has not been linear; it has evolved gradually and organically. I have seen new ways to grow my compassion, make changes, and allow those changes to become the new normal. The path of awakening is a path without a destination. It is a path of increasing insight and awareness.
For me, eating is a core practice because it involves looking deeply and cultivating compassion. The Five Contemplations Before Eating guide my eating. I have found that the quality of my eating reflects the quality of my spiritual practice. When my practice is strong, I find myself eating mindfully and looking deeply into each spoonful. When I forget to eat mindfully, it is a sign that my practice is not strong. Because we eat multiple times throughout the day, our meals can be helpful reminders to return to our practice and to our true selves, to look deeply, and in this way weave mindfulness practice into our daily lives. Every bite of food can be an opportunity to practice awareness and compassion. Every bite of food can be an opportunity to awaken.
Where the Dharma and Animals Meet
BOB ISAACSON
I often wonder what it was that connected me with the suffering of animals. Was it something in my childhood?
I was born and raised in Chicago, and have been an authorized lay Buddhist teacher for the past dozen years in the Theravadin/Vipassana tradition, having practiced on extensive residential retreats for many years. I am also a vegan animal rights activist and in 2011 co-founded Dharma Voices for Animals (DVA), the only international Buddhist Animal Rights/Advocacy organization.
For twenty-five years, I worked as a human rights/civil rights attorney fighting for the lives of women and men facing the death penalty, primarily in Chicago and San Diego, which included supervising over 500 death penalty cases in the Chicago area as the Death Penalty Coordinator in the Cook County Public Defender’s Office. I retired from a satisfying and effective career so I could fully immerse myself in the practice of Buddhism. Not too long after I left Chicago, the Illinois death penalty was abolished, directly saving the lives of nearly 200 women and men.
After making the connection between the animals slaughtered and the food on my plate , I became vegetarian over 40 years ago. I didn’t know a single vegetarian and had never heard the word “vegan.” In 2004, I became vegan.
What was it then that opened my eyes to the suffering of animals? I loved my dog Wizz who was my best friend during the early part of my life and was always there when I needed him. I remember when I was a young child visiting the Museum of Science and Industry on Chicago’s south side. I would always stop at an exhibit that was a live demonstration of baby chicks hatching. The chicks were adorable when they first appeared after pecking their way out of their shells, and experiencing their first taste of life. I fell in love with the chicks and was happy that it appeared they were safe inside this incubator. It never occurred to me that anyone would harm such cute, defenseless animals. I eventually realized that in the real world, billions of baby chicks are hatched each year, and that millions of male chicks are intentionally ground up or suffocated to death in garbage bags, which was probably the fate of the tiny ones I watched being born into life. The challenge for me became to find a way to bring this heartfelt experience of the beauty of the beginning of life and the contrasting experience of unfathomable violence and suffering to the consciousness of Buddhists, and to make it relevant to our Buddhist practice.
An important Dharma teaching is the principle of karma, that we reap what we sow. It is said that someone is eventually reborn into this world with similar habits of mind as in their previous life. It’s also said that we should treat all beings with love and compassion because our deceased and prior mothers and fathers might be currently incarnated in another living being. Why then would we harm others?
When I first discovered the Buddha’s teachings in 1994, I was deeply touched by his admonition to refrain from harming others, and to treat all beings who can feel pain with compassion. This seemed like a religion and spiritual path with the practice of not eating animals at its core. So, for a number of years I assumed that all the teachers and students were at least vegetarian, if not vegan. It came as a total shock on a cool November day in 2000, several days after the infamous Gore-Bush election, when I walked into our local food market with one of the better-known Western Dharma teachers to buy lunch for the afternoon. We both walked over to the pre-packaged salads with me picking up one with grilled veggies and my companion claiming one with grilled chicken flesh. I quickly attempted to correct his misstep by warning that his selection contained chicken to which he replied with the two words that still haunt me, “I know.” I saw my life flash in front of me the next few moments, but more importantly, the mission for the rest of my life had just been born.
The central teaching in the tradition I practice, called Theravada, is to show up in the present moment as much as possible. This practice, called mindfulness, is complemented by a parallel practice called the Brahma Viharas, i.e., heavenly abodes, of which there are four: lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity. The point here is to incline the mind and heart toward each of the four in an organized, disciplined way. The first Brahma Vihara is lovingkindness or metta (the word in Pali, the language the Buddha spoke), best understood as friendliness. The instruction, which is quite precise, is to send heartfelt thoughts of kindness to all beings in the universe, animals as well as humans, without distinction. So, it seemed quite certain to me before that November aha moment that if we Buddhists continuously send our friendly wishes to fishes, chickens, and pigs, we certainly shouldn’t be eating them. But all that changed when I heard, “I know.” Certainly, the Buddha could not have instructed his followers to express their unbounded friendliness and kindness to animals on the one hand and on the other hand looked the other way when these same followers chomped into an animal’s body. Something was rotten in the state of Dharma.
As one of the most esteemed Buddhist monastics in the world, Dharma Voices for Animals’ Advisory Council member Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, puts it, quoting George Bernard Shaw, “Animals are my friends, and I don’t eat my friends.” Who would disagree? Or so I thought as I immersed myself in the Buddhist practice by attending one retreat after another.
I soon realized that my life’s work was to bring to the attention of Buddhist leaders and centers, starting in the U.S., the disconnect between these sacred teachings on the one hand and, the practice of indifference to our intentional complicity with the terrible suffering we cause animals when we eat them and use the products of their bodies on the other.
Several friends, similarly dismayed and disconnected, did what I did for a
number of years after my eye-opening experience in 2000: discuss this disconnect with Buddhist leaders in the West. But, without the power of an organization, no one took us seriously. That all changed when David, Patti, Kim, and I launched Dharma Voices for Animals in 2011. DVA brings like-minded Buddhists together with a single purpose and mission: to be an effective voice for animals in Buddhist countries and communities around the world. As our numbers have grown, so has the strength of our collective voices. Many of the most respected Buddhists in the world have become DVA members and have self-identified as vegan or vegetarian, and Buddhist centers around the world have begun to respond positively to our message.
The good news is that the Buddha’s message couldn’t be any more animal-friendly, but the bad news is that many, if not most, Buddhists haven’t been paying attention. The Dharma teaches us to treat animals as we would other human beings— with kindness, compassion, and without harming them—yet hundreds of millions of Buddhists (of the approximately one billion worldwide) are eating animals and animal products. This non-compliance exacts a significant price from those violating both the spirit and letter of the Buddha’s teachings, such as diminished health, an increased sense of disconnectedness and entitlement, and a more challenging meditation practice. Meditation is central to Dharma practice, and the challenge results from living at odds with the Buddha’s message of respect for others. But the animals pay a far steeper price for this noncompliance with the Buddha’s teachings. They lose their purpose, their freedom, and their very lives.
Being a practicing Buddhist organization, DVA naturally works to encourage Buddhist governments, centers, communities, and individuals to adopt vegan ways of living and practicing. Establishing relationships around the world, DVA as a Buddhist organization can transcend the distrust and suspicion often accompanying interactions that cross cultural and racial lines.
DVA provides international support for those who courageously rock the boat of the establishment by publicly self-identifying as vegan or vegetarian, by talking about which of the numerous teachings by the Buddha inform that choice, and by sharing with others the many advantages of a plant-based diet. It warms my heart to see many Buddhist leaders becoming vocal about their conscious diets.
We all know that the influential and well-funded meat, poultry, fish, and dairy industries have been active in their opposition to plant-based and vegetarian organizations throughout the world. These industries use scare tactics and systematic distortions. As a Buddhist organization, DVA emphasizes that, according to the Buddhist precepts, the truth must be told. We remind Buddhists that we are each individually responsible to articulate these truths: 1) that each year animal agriculture causes the unthinkable suffering of hundreds of billions of defenseless and vulnerable animals, 2) that animal agriculture is the single greatest cause of global environmental devastation, and 3) that leaving animals out of our diet significantly enhances our health.
One common question is, “You do so much to help animals, but what about humans? Why don’t you work for them?” Many may respond saying, “I do work for humans. I work for social justice. I advocate for peace. I help political candidates who support equitable solutions such as national health care.” My history provides me with a clear answer. As mentioned earlier, as a human rights and civil rights attorney for twenty-five years, I specialized in defending people against the death penalty. My work was literally a matter of life or death for my clients. As a white male, I had the privilege of representing clients who did not have enough money to afford their own attorney. As a public defender, I was appointed by the court. Ninety percent of my clients were people of color. It was impossible to miss the racism directed towards my clients, both in court as well as out of court while I spoke to witnesses, conducted other types of investigations, and in the press. However, every night I returned to my nice home, in a nice neighborhood. You might see where I’m going with this. The work I now do, which is the work many others are doing, is literally a matter of life or death for countless millions, often billions, of defenseless, feeling beings. Both my work on behalf of humans and my work on behalf of animals have involved the protection of vulnerable beings: human rights and animal rights, human protection and animal protection.
Throughout the Buddha’s teachings, it is clear that not only are Buddhists expected to refrain from harming humans and animals but also are responsible for protecting them. Yet, many Buddhists worldwide not only fail to protect animals, but are directly involved in causing their suffering. How did we get to this point? Why are many Buddhists around the world attached to the view that as long as we don’t kill the animal ourselves, we are not responsible for their death or suffering no matter how complicit we are in the process of their death? Just stating this deluded thinking exposes its baselessness.
So, what does DVA do to protect animals and to be their voice when others, either directly or indirectly, try to harm them? We have a number of programs intending to reach out to as many Buddhists as possible. It is estimated that there are approximately one billion Buddhists in the world with over 98 percent living in Asia, which means that the vast majority of animals killed to feed Buddhists live in Asia. Accordingly, most of our resources are dedicated to Asia.
Throughout Asia most Buddhists seem to accept that they “should” not eat animals, but are worried about practical issues such as nutrition, what to cook, where to buy food, and even how to cook vegetarian or plant-based for some of their family when other family members want to eat animal flesh. Our challenge at DVA is to provide answers and effective support to help people make animal-friendly changes.
The largest number of Buddhists, estimated at between 250 and 750 million, live in China. Other countries with many millions of Buddhists include: Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, Myanmar, and Japan. DVA has sponsored two major Asian Buddhist Animal Rights Conferences, one in September, 2016, in Seoul and the other in October, 2017, in Colombo. These were the first two conferences of their kind and our plan is to host similar conferences in Asia every year. In the Buddhist country of Bhutan, we have been publicly challenging the government’s plan to build slaughterhouses.
We launched our first large-scale project in a specific Buddhist country, DVA’s Sri Lanka Project, in 2017. We hope to use the template created for Sri Lanka in other Buddhist countries and in countries with sizeable Buddhist populations. Our Sri Lanka project implements a social media strategy intended to reach millions of people in that country. We also work to move Sri Lankans toward veganism, or at least vegetarianism, by organizing public events including talks, seminars, workshops, and forums, and using our army of advocates including monastics, political leaders, scientists, nutritionists, and entertainers. In Sri Lanka, we have also been championing landmark animal rights legislation for the past several years.
We have also established and developed chapters in other Asian countries as well as in major population centers in the West. These chapters allow us to have a feel for how Buddhist communities treat animals and what our response should be.
A number of our programs, however, focus on Buddhists in the Western world. For example, Eyes and Ears focuses on Buddhist monasteries, temples, and retreat centers, primarily in the West, where we encourage animal-friendly changes that affect the greatest number of animals by limiting the number eaten and setting a positive example for visitors to see. One of the dramatic successes of this program has been at a large Buddhist Center where we successfully ended the practice of serving animal flesh at teacher training retreats and also encouraged reducing, by tens of thousands, the number of eggs used each year.
Our leaders and members give public talks about how the Buddha’s teachings should lead us to refrain from eating animals and their products such as eggs, cheese, milk, and butter. I have given public talks around the world, including most of the major U.S. cities as well as many of the largest in Asia and Europe. It’s heartening to see that in just over six years Dharma
Voices for Animals has become a highly effective global Buddhist animal rights and advocacy group, recognized as a Regional Center by the World Fellowship of Buddhists.
To move Buddhists toward a compassionate diet and to encourage discussion within Buddhist cultures and centers, DVA created a documentary film with Keegan Kuhn that features respected lay and monastic teachers from diverse Buddhist cultures. Appearing in the film, for example, are DVA members Jetsuma Tenzin Palmo, Bhante Gunaratana, the Venerable Geshe Phelgye, Guy and Sally Armstrong, and vegan author Will Tuttle. The film also prominently features Theravadin scholar Bhikku Bodhi, and A Plea for the Animals author, the Venerable Matthieu Ricard. Translated now into ten languages, it uses the words of these and other teachers to show the depth and consistency of the Buddha’s pro-animal message and to debunk the most commonly used excuses by Buddhists to justify eating animal foods and using the products of their bodies. DVA has also produced a number of materials discussing why Buddhists should stop eating animals. These resources can be found on the Resources and Right Eating pages of our website.
Dharma Voices for Animals has close relationships with influential monastics including Master Hai Tao of Taiwan, one of the world’s leading animal rights voices, who advocates for compassionate food choices and oversees forty animal sanctuaries in Asia, as well as the Venerable Thich Thanh Huan of Vietnam, a leader in the Vietnamese Buddhist Sangha (VBS), which has tens of millions of followers. We cooperate with these Buddhist leaders to bring DVA’s message of compassion for animals to as many Buddhists as possible. Our members receive our e-newsletter that keeps them up to date on what we are doing and are eligible for free plant-based mentoring. Anyone can become a member and support our work on our website.