meat eating

I see a lot of question on Reddit asking if people can be meat eaters and be a Buddhist, so when I read this I thought it discussed the topic interestingly:

"The Buddhist Sangha generally prohibits meat-eating and Xu-yun introduced rigorous reforms in the Chinese monasteries when and where he found meat-eating going on. Consequently, he was shocked to discover that it is fairly common for Tibetan Buddhists to eat meat as a matter of course. The Tibetan climate and terrain does not readily yield up vegetable crops and cereals are often scarce. Thus, out of sheer necessary, the Tibetan monks often live on meat. Barley and millet are sometimes available, but rarely in quantities sufficient to meet all needs. Having said that, Xu-yun was a strict vegetarian through his stay in Tibet and obviously found sufficient food to sustain himself. Strangely enough, the Vinaya code does not explicitly rule out meat-eating, largely because monks are supposed to beg or eat what their patrons offer. In China, the Vinaya code is linked with the Brahmajala-sutra, which does rule out meat eating, like the Lankavatara Sutra. Thus, in China, the Precepts do explicitly prohibit meat-eating."

(Footnote 26 in Charles Luk translation of Empty Cloud: : The Autobiography of the Chinese Zen Master Xu Yun, p. 56)

I thought I wrote an eloquent articulation of the opportunity the discipline of vegetarian and vegan presented to Buddhists, but I just got a snarky reply that if it was alright with me, because they had a nut allergy, they would eat meat. I didn't really feel like I was met with the energy I was putting into it, so I withdrew from the online discussion. 

I don't care if people eat meat, my point is the opportunity of plant based, vegetarian and vegan offer an opportunity in support of the gladdening. That most people I know on the path, evolve in that direction. There are all kinds of scenarios, and I have no problem with people listening to their bodies, or using a nut allergy to be omni. Even though I try to be vegan, I often lapse and not read ingredients, or choose to accept food that isn't vegan. I even sometimes choose not to be vegan. I cook a lot of vegan meals and go days and weeks being vegan, but I'm not perfect. 

The above quote doesn't make it a strict yes or no, in some places they find the struggle too much and retreat from dietary restrictions in favor of omnivore diet. That parallels my experience, but I kind of feel like convenience is mostly why I lapse, laziness. I could go hungry more often. I take vitamins and listen to my body, but I wonder if listening to my body is backsliding. I feel positively about the struggle to be better with my food intake, to push myself to improve the nutrition and avoidance of kindness.

Even though the answer is “it depends,” there needs to be discernment.

When Xu-yun become enlightened he composed the following gatha:

A cup fell to the ground

With a sound clearly heard.

As space was pulverized

The mad mind came to a stop.

The biggest thing you can do to help the envirnment

Just watched Cowspiracy and What The Health. (Both on Netflix in the USA by the way.)

Now I've said I have 3 reasons to be vegan: Ethical, Spiritual, health and Environmental. I actually list environmental last, but these two movies really make the case that if you really love the environment and yourself, then you should be a vegan.

Kip Anderson dramatizes how eating meat leads to the most pollution and destruction of the environment, more than transportation by far, more than anything by far. All the envirnmental organizations don't mention that because their bread is buttered by big business that is invested in carnism. Then he demonstrates that health organizations don't mention how deadly meat is, even though they claim to be to help diabetes or cancers...

I think first about the ethical precept to not lie. They lie like tobacco companies did. They suggest you eat meat, which helps you to get diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, heart disease. The best way to cure these things is to eat a vegan diet. There's really no logical reason to eat meat. Or consume meat products, which health wise are just as bad. That is what changed me from vegetarian to vegan. The health factor is so much better for the vegan diet.

My doctor always tells me her macrobiotic friend still got cancer. So what? It's not a one to one correspondence, but it is a factor. But it gives you so much more energy to eat vegan.

Go watch these two movies and talk to me.

My friend thought What The Health over stated their point, which undermines the point, by having a woman who needed hip replacement to be walking around. She still needs hip replacement. But her energy level and whatnot still improved greatly.

People focus on transpiration or whatnot. That's nothing compared to being vegan. The meat industry, the dairy industry is creating all the environmental problems. Go watch these two documentaries. They have a similar format and form, same director.

Vegan 2017

I don't really believe in new years resolutions, because I'm always taking steps forward (sometimes backwards temporarily) and the end of the calendar year isn't the only time for reflection and aspirations to move towards the Buddha, to close the distance between us. Winter is a good time for reflection.

Anywho, one aspiration for me is to be more and more vegan. I know farmers kill insects and other things when they harvest plants. If you really care about plant suffering, you would only eat plants because meat needs more plants for a little meat. But the people who bring up the plants have feeling arguments aren't really sincere about plant feelings. The goal is to reduce suffering in the world, and going vegan clearly, unequivocally does that.

Going vegan isn't an easy things. There will be things you miss. I will admit in 2016 I made few slips, when my vegan sponsor (Anandi) wasn't around and when there were leftovers from my sons, who are not vegan in the fridge. My daughter will be vegan.

Anandi got an instant pot for the holidays. I'm hoping she will write something about it on her wonderful blog: Under the Influence of Food. I try to fill in some spaces when she's not into blogging with my complementary blog: Under the Influence of Cori. Cori is Anandi by the way, that's her buddhist name.

I'm still struggling to get through Eating Animals because it's so horrific. I'm still struggling to watch Earthlings or Cowspiracy. I did watch Gary Yourofsky. I did watch the year in vegan review.

The preponderance of evidence helps me to make the leap, I at first thought impossible. Cittapala took down the Complete Vegetarian, and a bunch of other excellent essays, but that was also part of it. And it always helps to have friends who go the "whole hog". One of my friends and his girlfriend are very passionate about veganism, and that really helped me see the light.

I was reading The Complete Works of Ajahn Cahn and he was saying just eating rich from the begging rounds once a day is a Dhutanga. In Eat Sleep Sit people dropped out because of nutritional deficiencies that Anandi said could be solved by going from white to brown rice.

I read to get a feeling of sangha, to be with someone. I know reading a lot is often seen as not the way to be a Buddhist. Luckily, I don't have a great memory, so I'm not a know it all.

So we're off to find vegan food at a restaurant now.

My favorite places include Veggie Castle, Panorama of the silence-heart,  and Smile of the Beyond. The latter two are Sri Chinmoy joints. I read Cartwheels in a Sari, and the subtitle is "growing up in a cult". Tamm sees it as a cult. The workers are very nice, and the place doesn't bother me. The first place is a Guyanese place. 

Vegan

I passed a test yesterday. I went to an Italian place and didn't get any cheese. Got a veggie wrap. I've decided to be vegan in the new year, a little before that. Of course I have had some slips, but Anandi refocuses me by asking me what my motivation is. So thought I would write about it.

Four reasons to be a vegan:

1. Spiritual: It hurts me to hurt others. Eating animals for meat, or milk, butter, cheese, eggs and honey all exploits animals. Meat violates the first precept, and dairy violates the second precept. The point of ethics in spirituality for me is to allow me to go deeper into spirituality. My meditation is deeper when I'm in harmony with the world. When I think about my impact on the world, I recognize the interconnectivity. The rudeness in which a dairy farmer can exploit the milk from a cow is quite horrible. Someone said, what if plants feel. OK, I think they do feel. But if you really care about plants feeling, you would only eat plants, because animals eat more plants. To reduce the harm to plants, and the environment, you would eat plants. You gotta eat. Just like, I don't think, you need to allow bacteria and viruses plague your body, or let mosquitos feast on your blood, I think you also need to eat. The least harmful way is to eat plants. But people who bring up that plants have feeling aren't really concerned about them. They are into carnism, and the best argument for that is "I want to and it's not illegal yet." But I think it's import to make their own ethical choices, and I'm not perfect. I just wish to develop and feel the gladdening of not harming others. It may seem puny, but I think everyone has an impact in the world.

2. Ethical: It's just wrong. I don't really want to elaborate more on why. We don't need meat. We don't need that much protein and it's one of those things we will look back in the future and say, "... and they also had slavery." The ethical can be part of spiritual, but in this secular age, people can get nervous when people talk religion. So lets talk ethics. What is the greatest good--utilitarianism. The amount of suffering off weighed by the pleasure of eating meat surely cannot be justified. Your taste buds change when you stop eating meat and dairy, and you get the same pleasure. So the pleasure you get form eating meat is artificial, and can be changed. How about principles? The idea that we are the superior species and that we have a right to eat the non-humans is just wrong. You can align such thinking with slavery and sexual abuse. You can quote any religious source, but what makes that true? I'm arguing outside my Buddhist ethics, in a secular ethics, utilitarianism. You can't make a Kantian deontological argument either for meat eating. Vegan diet is the most ethical approach to eating.

3. Environmental. You may notice these all overlap. Spiritual, ethical, environmental and health are interrelated, and I'm not trying to perpetuate a dualism. As I wrote, I'm trying to remind myself why I'm doing what I'm doing because there's quite a pull towards not doing it. Going that extra step from vegetarian to vegan is quite hard for me. I'm from Wisconsin and I love cheese. I love butter. I love eggs. I love honey. Giving up meat is one thing, but giving those up too, is a hard thing. You basically can't eat out any more. Which is generally good, because it's well known that eating out isn't the healthiest thing to do and costs more, and the culture of America is meat eating ("Christian", Materialistic, Racist, Sexist, etc.). I prefer to fight the good fight, and I love the environment, this glorious earth that sustains us earthlings. I sing the Sesame Street song when I say earthlings. I take my sons hiking so they can get more of a connection, but I wonder if people who live in the city feel the connection others do. My aunt and uncle built a house where there was none, to appreciate the great outdoors, but by doing that they reduce the colonized by humans aspects of the world. I think the best thing you can do for the environment is to live in the city. It should come as no news that we're destroying the earth with our short sighted decisions, and corporate greed is one of the sources of that. Getting wholesome food from farmers is an antidote to that. Reconnecting from the land to the table is part of that. Thinking about our own impact on the environment is part of that. I love Thoreau, John Muir, and Aldo Leopold. I have been to the Amazonian rainforest. My hope is that we can treat the world as precious, be smart and work with nature. Not create frankenfood and try to sustain an unsustainable lifestyle.

4. Health. I know the least about this one, but I do know my partner read The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health, and became a vegan. I guess I thought cheese and butter were not as bad as meat, but I think that this study suggests that going vegan is the healthiest thing we can do. It's almost taboo to suggest that anything less than that is wrong on 4 different levels, and I'm afraid to make bold pronouncements, because I could cave in, and not be a good representative. Even when I'm not vegan, I wish I were. I hope I have to fortitude to pull it off.

Nutrition

I think we should cut down or eliminate eating meat because animals suffer, and farming practices are not kind to animals. Chicken beaks are cut off so they don't peck each other to death in their tiny cages, where they break their legs and go psychotic. Once you open your eyes to the meatrix, it's hard to close your eyes.

There are ethical reasons to quit or cut down on eating meat, and then there are health reasons. (There are also ecological reasons.) Recently there's been a preponderance of evidence that meat isn't so great for you. My partner Cori is into nutrition, so I've been paying attention a little more lately.

We wouldn't need to spend all this time figuring things out, except the technologies of the food industry are getting better and better. Add salt, sweets and fat, and you've got a winner.

As humans, we want to fill up because until recently the threat of starvation was real.

Salt is not good for mice.

Salami has been linked with heart disease and cancer.

Meatless Monday is beginning to gather steam.

The amount of bacon you can eat safely is very small.

Food is even sexualized bizarrely.

Bloomberg is trying to do something about it, and it will effect coffee drinkers too.

The other day I saw a horrible photo of a naked woman with a cow head. It was almost like it was straight out of The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-vegetarian Critical Theory, 20th Anniversary Edition

I'm not going to lie. I'm not a strict vegetarian. I eat meat occasionally. I feel too much pressure at times to eat meat, it's too convenient, and I do eat meat occasionally. I'm not perfect, I'm a work in progress. I'm not totally in control of myself, but I do believe in moving towards health. I see myself as a flexatarian who is working to evolve towards full vegetarianism, even towards being vegan.

Spirituality to me is about a direction, not a destination. And I think the ultimate is to become a locavore vegan. That is what I wish to evolve towards, even if I'm not completely there.