by Will Tuttle
After many tests and microscope analyses of my blood, the specialist discovered the source and reason for my poisoning. It was meat and animal products. Basically, whenever my white blood cells were exposed to meat or animal products in the bloodstream they would explode. The exploding white blood cells caused a phenomenon resulting in the creation of toxic biochemicals that were highly addictive. The more I consumed animal products the more I became addicted and craved meat.
During the era in which I grew up, it was a common belief that if you did not eat meat you would die. Where else would we get our protein, if not from meat, dairy and eggs? People did not understand that protein is in virtually everything we eat, and that eating a balanced plant-based diet provides plenty of high-quality protein. Nor did they understand the mechanics of food addiction and how certain foods create chemicals in the body to which one can become dependent.
My mother was shocked to discover that it was the meat, eggs and dairy that were making me deathly sick. Not only that, but the blood specialist explained that most everyone has a food addiction to some degree or another to meat, eggs or dairy. She explained that it is an adaptation for humans to tolerate animal products. Humans do not need to adapt to a plant-based diet because it is the natural diet for humans. Stopping meat and dairy consumption abruptly can thus be potentially dangerous, like detoxing from any addictive substance too quickly. There can be serious withdrawal symptoms.
Once I stopped consuming meat and became vegetarian my health greatly improved and I was no longer a sickly child. Later I adopted a completely plant-based diet that made me not only healthier physically but also emotionally, mentally and spiritually. This diet has had a significant impact on my spiritual growth and on developing compassion for other beings. A vegan diet is estimated to spare about 200 animal lives per year. I’ve discovered that once totally off animal products, most of us will eventually stop craving them and if eaten by accident, we may even feel repulsed or get ill.
Buddha Says, “Stop Meat Eating”
The first precept of Buddhism is abstaining from causing harm and taking life, both human and non-human. There is no better way to meet this precept than to follow a vegan lifestyle. Meat eating is rejected by the Buddha in such sutras as the Angulimaliya, Hastikakshya, the Mahamegha, the Nirvana, and the Lankavatara.
In the Lankavatara Sutra, the Buddha states that meat is not agreeable to the wise. It has a nauseating odor, it causes a bad reputation, it is food for the carnivorous and it is not to be eaten. To those who eat meat there are detrimental effects, and to those who do not, merits accrue. We should know that meat-eaters bring detrimental effects upon themselves.
The Buddha also states that from eating meat, arrogance is born. From arrogance, erroneous imaginations arise, and from these imaginations greed is born. For this reason, one should refrain from eating meat. By greed the mind becomes stupefied; there is attachment to stupefaction and there is no emancipation from birth and death.
Meat is the food of ordinary people, but is rejected by the noble and the spiritual. Meat consumption is wholly destitute of virtue. It is not the food on which the wise sustain themselves. The Buddha asked, “How could I permit my followers to taste of such unwholesome and unfitting nourishment as meat?”
Nowhere in the Mahayana sutras is meat expressly permitted, nor is it referred to as proper among the foods prescribed for the Buddha’s followers. Bodhisattvas, who are ever desirous of purity in their discipline, should wholly refrain from eating meat. As the Buddha said, “Eating meat destroys the attitude of great compassion.”
Awakening the Heart through Veganism
The ultimate authority beyond the Buddha is that of Buddhist wisdom or prajna. This wisdom, or insight into the nature of reality, emanates from the universal heart-mind and leads us toward nirvana. We can obtain this wisdom directly from our own heart that is no longer obscured. The path of a bodhisattva is to uncover the wisdom hidden within the heart. The companion of prajna is compassion, karuna, the direct path to uncovering wisdom.
Bodhicitta is the altruistic wish to obtain enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings. It is the consciousness of compassion. Along with the understanding of emptiness, bodhicitta is one of the two essentials for treading the path to enlightenment. Without the motivating force of altruistic intention, understanding emptiness is not sufficient for one to make progress on the spiritual path. Bodhicitta is thus considered the essential root of the path.
The first chakra to be developed within the womb is the heart chakra. It is the portal from which consciousness and all the other chakras are born, and the last chakra from which consciousness withdraws upon death. We are to cherish the heart and the hearts of others. All beings intuitively know what will help their heart grow and also what will diminish the sacred sensitivity that we all possess but often ignore. If we nurture the heart, the heart will nurture us.
The best way to nurture one’s heart is to be of service to others and to recognize that we are all interconnected. By harming others, we harm ourselves. Service has a cumulative effect depending upon our actions. By consciously refraining from harming or paying others to harm animals, we will over time generate a more loving and sensitive awareness that accumulates good merit and karma.
Good merit transpires into the capacity for deeper understanding of ourselves, and leads to ever-deepening wisdom. This wisdom is universal heart wisdom. There is no greater path than that of cultivating a compassionate heart.
Higher Yoga Practices Require a Vegan Diet
Advanced yogis have observed that what they eat can have a profound effect on their meditation. In Ayurvedic scriptures, the primary force of life is composed of three qualities or principles called gunas. The three gunas are sattva (tranquil or subtle energy), rajas (active energy) and tamas (inertia or dullness). Sattvic food is always fresh, natural, plant-sourced and organic with little to no processing, freshly cooked or raw and perhaps lightly seasoned. It is wholesome food consisting of nourishing carbohydrates, proteins, fiber, vitamins, and other nutrients. Animal products fall under rajasic and tamasic foods. These foods are considered to be of a lower vibration and should be avoided by yogis.
A sattvic diet will make a sattvic person; it is the diet of a bodhisattva. Sattvic individuals are loving and pure-minded. They feel compassion for all expressions of life and face life events positively. Sattvic people have effective control over their emotions. It’s hard to make them upset or angry easily. Sattvic people most often look alert, aware, and full of luster and are recognized for their wisdom, happiness, and inner peace. Sattvic individuals do not easily fatigue mentally. Their meditation and sleep quality is better, so they get good rest even if they sleep for a fewer number of hours.
Generally speaking, the lower one’s resting breath rate, the more likely one will obtain advanced spiritual experiences. The average resting breath rate for an adult is usually between 12-18 breaths per minute (BPM). If one is unhealthy, it can be anywhere between 19-25 BPM. Any higher than this usually means, as an adult, you are suffering and probably dying. Meditation and yoga practice teach a yogi to breathe more deeply and slowly bringing one’s BPM down. Their resting breath rate is usually between 8-11 BPM and for advanced yogis it can be 4-7 BPM.
As we find ways to lower our resting breath rate, we will notice how much easier it is to get into more advanced states of meditation. There are numerous ways to naturally to do this but the most important way is to eliminate all things that create physical, emotional, mental and spiritual stress. An easy way to address all four is to switch to a plant-based diet.
The next step is to explore beyond the mind-body complex. There are layers or dimensions of this complex that are not apparent but can be discovered through advanced yogic practices, revealed by working with the channels, energy-winds, and vital essence. It is the task of the yogi to employ appropriate methods to understand the depths of the subtle fields beyond the physical. It is difficult to make progr
ess when the ingestion of animal substances obscures our ability to sense the subtle aspects of our vital essence.
Veganism and Spirituality Go Hand in Hand
Spirituality is the quality of being aware of spiritual or eternal consciousness, as opposed to material or physical forms. Being vegan includes respecting the consciousness of others and ourselves, through refraining from eating, wearing, or causing harm to them. Can we call ourselves spiritual without such respect?
We don’t know what we’re doing when we turn a blind eye to spirituality. Eating animal-based foods desensitizes us and we lose the ability to empathize with others. We suppress the inclination to go beyond our self-focus or selfishness.
There is hope for us to become more conscious of what is obvious. The first step is to stop making excuses for our behavior. By recognizing it for what it is and taking responsibility, we can make positive changes. Ignorance will not save us. Life is shorter than we think so we can start now.
We can commit to making an effort to minimize harm to others, starting with what we eat. We can measure what we eat by how much suffering went into creating our meal. The less suffering we are responsible for, the more we will progress on the path of compassion. Eventually we may become a bodhisattva or accomplished yogi.
We can take it further and try looking at our suffering footprint on a daily basis. Besides what we eat, what do we consume in the way of products or services that caused harm to others? What about our actions or inactions that may cause suffering? What about harsh words, or kind words that we fail to utter? May we all, brothers and sisters, become enlightened for the benefit of all sentient beings.
Dark Alleys and Bright Aisles
TASHI NYIMA
Having abandoned the taking of life, refraining from the taking of life, we dwell without violence, with the knife laid down—scrupulous, full of mercy—trembling with compassion for all sentient beings.
- Buddha Shakyamuni
When people think of Buddhist monks, if they think of us at all, they imagine that we dwell in clouds of incense, smiling serenely, unperturbed, meditating on nothing. But, as you just read, we are not called to drift placidly in emptiness, but to “tremble with compassion for all sentient beings.”
I thought that the mention of ‘trembling’ was just a rhetorical device, until late one night, returning with my teacher from visiting with refugees, we passed by a dark alley and heard the cries of fear and pain of a youth who was being beaten by a group of five men.
Without hesitation, my teacher approached the men, and smiling broadly, asked them if it would not be “much more fun” to beat up two Buddhist monks instead of one young man. I was not smiling broadly. I was not smiling at all. You see, Buddhist monks vow not to resort to violence, even to defend ourselves. We do not fight. This did not look good at all. Here we were, two pacifists in robes. We were going to get pummeled.
Surprisingly, the beating stopped, the men laughed nervously, uttered some choice profanities, and left. Perhaps they imagined we were Shaolin monks, ready to rain our secret Kung Fu moves on them…
After making sure that the young man was safe and in the care of emergency responders, I asked my teacher if he had known that we would not come to harm.
He responded that he did not, but at the very least, we could have taken some of the blows, and not all would have fallen on that one young man.
And then he told me soberly that it was our duty, when confronted with suffering, to get in the way, to stand between those who harm and those who are hurt.
Not all abuse happens in dark alleys. Much unspeakable cruelty takes place in the brightly lit aisles where we purchase the flesh of animals, their eggs, their milk, their skin, their wool, their feathers, and their fur. Those brightly lit aisles conceal the horrible darkness where animals are confined, enslaved, tortured, raped, and slaughtered for our pleasure. I will not share with you the gory details, but the awful truth is there for you to see, as plain as day.
What makes some beings worthy of compassion, while others seem to merit only our disdain? Is it their intelligence? Is it the ability to speak? Is it the actions we perform? Are we not called to feel compassion for the dull, the dumb, the infirm, and the disabled? Beings are worthy of compassion because they are sentient; they suffer and they feel pain.
If we killed human beings at the same rate that we kill other animals, we humans would be extinct in a mere seventeen days. To desire peace in a world in which only human lives matter is not only hypocritical, it is also destructive.
To want to reduce the suffering of human beings only is nothing but extended selfishness. There will be no world, and no community, unless we stop the enslavement, torture, and slaughter of billions of land and marine animals every year.
If we feel no compassion for the plight of suffering animals, we can at least consider the pain we inflict upon ourselves and future human generations. Animal agriculture is the single largest contributor to climate destabilization, water pollution and depletion, deforestation, species extinction, human disease, and human hunger. What we do unto non-human animals, we do unto ourselves.
I implore everyone to look upon our fellow sentient beings, human and non-human, with compassion. If we cannot prevent the cruelty they suffer, at least let harm not be inflicted for our pleasure, paid for with our money, and executed in our name.
We cannot speak sincerely of loving kindness and compassion while confining, abusing, and slaughtering our fellow sentient beings. Compassion begins in our hearts, but it manifests in our shopping carts, in our closets, in our kitchens, and on our plates.
First among the moral injunctions, accepted and shared by all schools and lineages of the Buddha Dharma, is the precept to abstain from taking life (Anguttara Agama):
I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures.
A disciple of the Noble Ones, abandoning the taking of life, abstains from taking life. In doing so, he gives freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings. In giving freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression to limitless numbers of beings, he gains a share in limitless freedom from danger, freedom from animosity, and freedom from oppression.
This is the first gift, the first great gift —original, long-standing, traditional, ancient, untainted, unadulterated from the beginning— that is not open to suspicion, will never be open to suspicion, and is praised by knowledgeable contemplatives and sages.
Is this injunction to abstain from killing solely inclusive of humans? The Buddha gives this instruction in the Griha Vinaya (Rules for Householders, Dharmika Sutra, Kshudraka Agama):
Let him not destroy, or cause to be destroyed, any life at all, or sanction the acts of those who do so. Let him refrain even from hurting any creature, both those that are strong and those that tremble in the world.
If we fail to understand the universality of this injunction, the Buddha clarifies (Kshudraka Agama):
Whether they be creatures of the land or air, whoever harms here any living being,
Who has no compassion for all that live, let such a one be known as depraved.
And in the Anguttara Agama:
I am a friend of the footless, I am a friend of all bipeds,
I am a friend of those with four feet, I am a friend of the many-footed.
…
May all creatures, all breathing things, all beings one and all, without exception, experience good fortune only. May they not fall into any harm.
Should we intend to skirt the First Precept by claiming innocence of the deed if others do the killing for us? He adds (Kshudraka Agama):
We should not kill any living beings, nor cause them to be killed, nor should we incite any other to kill. Do never injure any being, whether strong or weak, in this entire universe!
In the Brahmajala Sutra, the Buddha says to His disciples, confirming the primacy of the First Precept:
Abandoning the t
aking of life, the ascetic Gautama dwells refraining from taking life, without stick or sword, scrupulous, compassionate, trembling for the welfare of all living beings. Thus the householder should praise the Tathagata.
And in the Dhammapada (Udanavarga):
The one who has left all violence, who never harms any beings at all, whether they are moving or still, who neither kills, nor causes to kill, such a one, harmless, is the Holy One!
Innumerable statements proclaiming the primacy of the First Principle can be found throughout the Theravada and Mahayana canons of Buddhist scripture. The Mahayana sutras, in particular, are unequivocal in their censure both of killing animals and consuming their flesh and other products:
A disciple of the Buddha must maintain a mind of kindness and cultivate the practice of liberating beings. He should reflect thus:
“All male beings have been my father and all females have been my mother. There is not a single being that has not given birth to me during my previous lives; hence, all beings of the Six Realms are my parents.
“Therefore, when a person kills and eats any of these beings, he thereby slaughters my parents. Furthermore, he kills a body that was once my own, for all elemental earth and water previously served as part of my body, and all elemental fire and wind have served as my basic substance.
“Therefore, I shall always cultivate the practice of liberating beings and in every life be reborn in the eternally abiding Dharma, and teach others to liberate beings as well.”
Whenever a Bodhisattva sees a person preparing to kill animals, he should devise a skillful method to rescue and protect them, freeing them from their suffering and difficulties.