Please Stop Eating and Hurting Animals Immediately!
If you are a Buddhist, then with zero ands, if’s and buts, PLEASE STOP EATING MEAT.
There is so much other things to eat without meat. After a while, you will not miss eat. Even the thought of it will make you want to vomit.
Don’t talk Bodhicitta, love and compassion. Don’t drop tears when you hear about suffering, but then turn around and eat meat.
Take a vow in front of the Buddha and wish all animals to be free from all and any sufferings and vow not to take meat. Do it for them. Do it for your spiritual growth.
You will have no regrets. May all animals stop being used, beaten, abused, murdered, tortured and finally eaten.
Tsem Rinpoche
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Buddhism teaches compassion and by compassion we should treat all animals as sentient beings.
Why satisfy our love for meat by indirectly killing them? Animals have feelings too. They can also feel the pain and are terrorised being tortured.
When the buying stops the killing will stop too.
Hi Rinpoche and all, what if a pious Buddhist eat meat, meat stays in the tummy, it gets blessings as the Buddhist does his sadhanas, prostrations, circumbulations etc., compared to the other piece of meat that is not eaten and left in the fridge, or eaten by someone else who would not care labout practising Dharma? Just an entertaining thought from my monkey mind. Of course, I am all for vegetarianism.
People often say that they are animal lovers and yet they eat meat, I think that it’s very contradicting. Animal lover means you love all kinds of animals and will not eat them for the sake of just eating. So if you claim that you’re a animal lover, they why do you still eat them? You make them all suffer just to fulfill your own taste buds, and how is that something good? True animal lovers don’t do that. Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
After a while not taking meat, it is true that you will not miss having a meaty diet anymore. Even when you eat meat after being a vegetarian for a period of time, when you bit on the meat, it will make you feel like vomiting.
I am a Buddhist and i am a vegetarian. I am proud to be a loyal vegetarian. To me, it doesn’t matter what religion you are. As long as you love animals, you can become a vegetarian to make a difference. You just need to be a good and caring person.
A lot of people say that they love animals, but after that, they will turn around and continue to consume their flesh. My friend once asked the same question, if we do not eat them, they will go to waste. But I told her if you buy it, you are actually indirectly ‘convincing’ the slaughterers to kill more. She agreed too. Most of the people will take this as an excuse to eat more meat, and I do not agree with that..
Thank You for sharing Rinpoche.
Love, beatrix.
“If you are a Buddhist, then with zero ands, if’s and buts, PLEASE STOP EATING MEAT”.
It is THIS very sentence which I saw on http://www.kechara.com website more than 2 years ago which stopped me and think, and within seconds, I made a decision to become vegetarian.
I think in life, we will meet powerful quotes which made big impacts on our life. All I can say is thank you Rinpoche and the website.
May more people take on vegetarianism and lessen the unnecessary killing.
How can buddhists who subscribe to Buddhism believe that just so our pallete is satisfied with the taste of blood we can influence ourselves and others to take the life of sentient beings?
“From eating meat arrogance is born, from arrogance erroneous imaginations issue, and from imagination is born greed; and for this reason refrain from eating meat.”
I am in complete agreement with Rinpoche. How can we even begin to show by example if we ourselves create the causes for such suffering towards animals. Forget doing your daily sadhanas, going for pujas, being all holy shmolly, calling ourselves Buddhist if we can do this one SIMPLE thing. NOT LOGICAL! However, let me stress that doing what I mentioned above is NOT BAD, in fact far from it. I merely want to point out our flaws as people and how we tend to be selective of what WE WANT to do and what WE DONT want to do. If we were truly genuine in our practice, let this be the first step in THE RIGHT direction. This makes absolute sense! Thank you Rinpoche for pointing out the obvious yet again!
We are full of contradictions, we say one thing with conviction and then act in ways that contradict what we’ve said. I have used this example before, but I think it is illustrating the topic at hand here very well. This is the story of the TUNA & DOLPHINS: we can sign petitions and campaign against the fishing industry because dolphins get caught in nets made to fish tunas and they get killed in the process and yet we eat tuna with no conscience problem whatsoever… I remember this very well, there was a huge campaign to save the dolphins about twenty years ago in Europe. The campaign was so efficient that the fishing industry had to turn around and find a new design for the fishing nets allowing for the dolphins to escape and then there was (I tought) no more problems. The cans of tuna even indicated that “no dolphins were hurt during the process”. Now we could eat tuna without a heavy conscience, well that was my tought back then… The question really is: why did nobody get upset with the fact that we could still get involved in the killing of tuna? Whys was it wrong to kill dolphins and why was it right to kill tuna? The campaign to save the dolphins was great, it was efficient and it saved many lives, but it was not enough. We justify the killing of animals when it is of some use to us, for food, for clothing, for experimentation, for entertainment even, yet none of this is necessary, we can be vegetarians, we don’t need animal products for clothing, we can experiment without using animals and we are better entertained with acts of compassion rather than acts of cruelty.
There is no possible validation to the killing of animals, there is no need, and it comes down to a personal choice of our conscience. The fact is, I think, that we all know that very well.
I will eat less meat. I will try to be vegetarian either once a month or once a week. I do not think I will have the least of regrets. After a while, I will try my best to become vegetarian just like my Mama and Aunty Susan. May all animals stop being used, beaten, abused, murdered, tortured and finally eaten.
I really wish they will not get any more of this inappropriate sufferings even though it might just because of their dreadful Karma. They really did not do any single things to deserve this horrible sufferings! To all those animals that still suffer during this day. TAYATHA OM BECKANZE BECKANZE MAHA BECKANZE BECKANZE RANZA SAMUGHATE SO HA. To those animals who feel slightly angry or sad during this dark period of their lives. OM MANI PADME HUM!
Featured in the May 2010 issue of Flavours magazine, Kechara Oasis is lauded as a restaurant that feeds the spirit, promoting a vegetarian diet in the name of non-violence and compassion towards all sentient beings. (For more information, pleace click http://www.kechara.com/dining/press/press-coverage/kechara-oasis-food-with-heart/)
With the increasing of alarming environmental issues, global warming and pollution, scientists and researchers are looking for evidence how vegetarian can benefit the environment. What came out is that there’s very good evidence that suggests livestock industry accounts for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transport sector and emerging evidence that it could actually account for 51% of all out greenhouse gas emissions. (Please click to see more details http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM)
So lets support the good motivation of H.E. Tsem Rinpoche and go Vegetarian as often as you can.
PAUL
Talking of Kechara Oasis, this very modern, new age restaurant has a very nice decor. When you walk into the main entrance, you will see a very nice standing Tara greeting you with her beautiful body, and her posture as if she is dancing to bless and welcome you. Walking around Kechara Oasis, you will notice many beautiful and expensive Himalayan artifacts, these are some of the items collected by the management, while travelling on many pilgrimage trips in the past.
Recently Kechara Oasis got nominated in the “Hospitality Asia Platinum Awards 2010-2012 (HAPA)”, Malaysia Series.
H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche biggest wishes are that bring others to the Dharma through the combination of hospitality and good vegetarian food!
(for more details, please see http://www.kechara.com/dining/news/accolades-for-kechara-oasis/)
PAUL
Yeah! Please stop eating animals right away!
In year 2009, H.E. Tsem Tulku Rinpoche has conceptualized Kechara Oasis, a vegetarian restaurant to promote non-animal abusing and stop cruelty to animal meat.
Kechara Oasis has a wide range of vegetarian menu; my favorite is “Butter mushroom”, a crispy yummy deep-fried oyster mushroom. These special recipes and dishes are available only at Kechara Oasis. If you don’t know what you want to order, speak to the friendly staff, they will help you and tell you what is the house favourite.
Due to its excellent performance and results, Kechara Oasis has been nominated and won the “Malaysia Top Signature Dish Award 2009”. This really says something about being vegetarian in Kechara, and Kechara Oasis makes it specials for us by just simply being outstanding.
So, who says being vegetarian is not cool?
Paul
How scary is that! When the elephant’s alive, it’s so majestic, reigning the African savannah with such awesome power…and now look at it, so helplessly winched up like that. In a way, that’s kind of like how we’re going to be when we die…now we’re alive, we feel like we’re the most goddamn important person in the world, but once we’re dead, we’re just another carcass, just like the elephant.
And in reply to jerry loudon, it’s called supply and demand. You might not think that alone you have the power to change how businesses operate and what choices they offer but actually, supermarkets ARE changing the variety they offer to vegetarians (as are restaurants) because they recognise a growing number of consumers who don’t want to eat meat. It takes one person to change, to inspire another, to eventually affect the collective consciousness. Besides, it’s a matter of principle, and a matter of each individual taking the responsibility not to harm others.
I don’t really agree with this idea that we can continue eating/buying meat just because it has already been killed, prepared and on a supermarket shelf. If everyone thought like us, and everyone continued buying meat just so it’s “not wasted”, then the demand for the meat will continuously be there – and as long as there is a demand, there will be a supply, which will mean more animals will continue to be killed to meet that supply.
Once, Rinpoche asked a whole group of us, in turn, how many chickens / lamb/ fish we think we may have eaten in our lifetime (depending on what was our favourite meat). When we thought about it, over all the years that we have been alive, it amounted to a shocking number: 60 chickens, 20 lambs, 100 fishes etc. When you combine all the numbers of all the people who answered, it amounted to a disgusting amount. We may think that as just one person alone, we can’t make any real difference to curbing the killing of animals, but when we add it all up in this way – over lifetimes and as a group – we really can tangibly save a lot of lives.
To me, whether it was killed by someone else or it was killed by me is not the point. The hard fact is that whoever did it, the animal was still killed, still had to go through immense unnecessary suffering, fear, pain and torture in its last moments – when I think about that, I automatically don’t want to eat it anymore. It is painful and repelling to me to think that what I am eating is a result of so much pain, fear and suffering… just for the sake of my tastebuds. How can that momentary sense pleasure, just for a few passing moments, be worth all that pain?
It’s just a big ugly habit. But the best part is that we can change it! If we were brought up not knowing we can eat these furry friends, and only ate veggies…then we would not have this mind of us saying it’s ok and part of the staples. So it’s a conditioning that we can surely recondition ourselves Some people say you’ll feel more calmer once you stop eating meat 🙂
Just stop eating! period! makes life simple. It’s really a simple economy : no demand no supply hence no killing and suffering!
Yes, the meat will be wasted if not eaten but why do you want to eat something that is not good for your body. Lets not talk about Bodhicitta. Before an animal is kill or slaughter they go through great fear, pain and sadness. Alot of toxins has been release into the flesh. It is also full of negative energy and toxins. Do you want to put that all that meat into your body. Think about it even eating it once a while.
what if the meat is prepared and you are not buying it and it will go to waste. You are honest with yourself that it would be wasted and that you are not buying it and not tricking yourself in any way. I have not bought any red meat or pork for many many months. I am slowly getting to the point of stopping but I look at it as such, if I am not greating a drive for the market to produce more meat, the animal has already been killed and the food has been prepared and will be wasted, is that ok for me then to eat it infrequently.