I am scared and don’t want to die
One of my students, Jean Mei, sent me this video to watch. It is extremely heartbreaking and sad to watch.
http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/v20495728Hnctt39N.flv
Or view the video on the server at: http://video.tsemtulku.com/videos/v20495728Hnctt39N.flv
Please click on the above video to watch. Be compassionate and care to watch.
Animals are sentient beings and they do know they are going to die. You can see how this one ox just doesn’t want to go in there because he knows death awaits him. How heartbreaking. How totally frightened he is. Aren’t you going to end up on a hospital bed one day waiting death? It’s inevitable you’ll be waiting for death. Aren’t you scared? If you’re not scared, your bluffing.
Please go vegetarian. Reduce this unnecessary horror and suffering that is completely unnecessary.
I will do whatever I can to reduce cruelty to animals and create less suffering for them in the world. I have encouraged all my students to go vegetarian and I will continue to do so.
Please make a vegetarian pledge now http://www.kechara.com/ladrang/news/tweeting-all-vegetarians/. I will make offerings and prayers for all who commit. Even going vegetarian one day a week makes a difference to the lives of animals around the world. You could have saved this ox.
Don’t just feel bad, or turn away from this video..DO SOMETHING REAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE. GO VEGETARIAN NOW.
Each time you go to a fast food place, resteraunt or hawker and just order an burger, fried chicken, steak or pork, SOME ANIMAL WAS SLAUGHTERED FOR YOU. No animals jumped into the frying pan and waited to be fried so you can eat them like another animal. If you believe in karma and eat meat, then you are not real. Not genuine.
Everytime you eat meat, it’s similar to YOU HAVING KILLED THE ANIMAL YOU ARE EATING! STOP!!
Tsem Tulku
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Cherish lives, cherish animals, all lives are precious. If only animals could speak our language, they would say I am like you people, I want happiness like you, I have fear and anxiety like you, I am afraid to die, same like you, please don’t eat me!
When animals are slaughtered their fear and anxiety trigger toxin in their body and when we consume their meat over time this toxin accumulated in our body causes us sickness and diseases like cancer, heart problems, diabetes, high cholesterol, liver problems, etc.
When we abstain from meat and become vegetarian, we are cherishing lives and at the same time we are adopting a healthy lifestyle.
i think they dont have heart.i m so scared to wack this video.they have hebit to kill animal so that for them no problem to kill.we gess one day how much animal die.ple we must save animal .we must open animal save please.first we need to become vegiterin.then only can save animal.sory my english poor.thanks rinpoche for this video.this video our all member have to see.my heart cry and scared.take care rinpoche.i miss you
Sob..Sob…
I know a lot of people will argue that humans have to eat to survive so it is natural. Some may even say that the animals kill and eat themselves, so humans eating them is no different.
I believe there is a big difference.
Animals do not have any choice. They rely on their instincts to hunt and kill since no one is going to be taking care of them.
Humans have intelligence. Well, most humans do anyways. We always have choice, far more choice than animals.
When we don’t exercise our choices well and compassionately, I guess, then we are really acting like animals and are no longer humans.
Every time someone eats meat, they have assisted in killing that animal. The blood is very much also in their hands.
It may not be something that most people want to acknowledge, but it is the truth.
Why, why, why?
Why is it near to impossible to make so many people make the link between their action of eating meat and the fact that many animal beings must live miserable lifes and die a fearful death for it?
It is so plain, so logical…
And this would be the easiest way to start saving lifes, it does not require for us to do anything, go anywhere or even fight, it requires from us NOT to do something, to abstain…
It is really sad and depressing.
Of course, the cow is not killed in front of us in the restaurant, I have seen restaurants where smily cows and smilly pigs are portrayed on the walls as we EAT them?!?!!! This is PLAIN delusional, it is actually the definition of delusional, an illusion or wrong view so strong that even the facing of the true facts cannot sway our minds from the illusion, that is a delusion, an illusion that resists the exposition to the truth.
Just the other day I saw a full animal leg on the counter of a supermarket, SERANO ham -an expensive speciality, and with my friend Andrew, we could not help but to see suffering being exposed right there on the counter, we actually had the same thought: the leg almost looks human!
It is not that we get disgusted looking at corpses being exposed in places where we bring our mothers and children, or even that people rejoyce in eating them, it is the suffering that is unbearable.
A corpse might be dead already, but it must have been killed in order to be dead.
Who killed this animal?
And for whom was the animal killed?
brrbrbrrrrr…. I don’t want to be involved there… as much as I can in this world that is…. And I pray that more people will feel like me, as for as long as they don’t many animals will continue to suffer.
ugh disgusting.
I remember Rinpoche gave us an exercise once to think about how many chickens/ lambs/ pigs we might have eaten in our lifetime. The numbers were really quite shocking. To think: even if you ate just a part of a chicken, like one chicken wing, a whole chicken was killed for it. Same for a lamb chop, or a piece of bacon. So for every day that we ate a piece fried chicken or even one thin little slice of ham, some animal died for it. I’m ashamed at myself just thinking of this.
Many people think it won’t make much of a difference if they, just one person, stop eating meat. When Rinpoche asked us that question and we each thought about how many animals we could have saved from all those years of not eating meat – the numbers really add up… which does make a huge difference when it comes to individual lives that we are destroying, killing and torturing.
Now that I’ve been vegetarian for almost 2 years, I have to say I don’t really get what the big fat deal is about becoming vegetarian. people get such big hang-ups and attachments about it. what is the big deal?! food is still food – and there is plenty of it here where we live in Malaysia. There will always be something you can eat! It’s all the same anyway, after awhile – it’s just something to keep you full! So elementary. Satisfying your tastebuds lasts only a few seconds – so not worth killing a life for and making it go through such tremendous suffering.
Thank you very much, ‘kam-sia che-che’ Rinpoche, for another truly-needed- reminder for us to live compassionately. Eating is such an important daily ritual – and we could make it meaningful by not harming other beings in the process; truly sad if we have to make another being to lose its happiness, its life, just to sustain ours; especially sadder, since we could avoid doing that to them! I must try to eat less meat!
I started going vegetarian twice a month. Been doing that for the past 2 years. Once a year I will go 2 weeks on vegetarian to dedicate the merits to my parent.
Best is to commit one or two days a month then slowly grow as Rinpoche suggested.
I also discovered I am less aggressive after eliminating beef from my diet completely.
Immediately after seeing the video I copy the doclink and paste it on my msn messenger and skype and even asked my friends to watch the video. Mostly likely most of them would think I’m nuts to ask them to watch this video but I don’t care. I just don’t give a damn and I just want to create awareness among them that these animals that we have taken for granted are not stupid. These animals have the same feelings as we humans do. Upon facing death these animals do experience tremendous trauma and fear, just like any humans do. Only by cutting down the demand for their meat that these animals can be liberated from such sufferings.
Only by understanding the sufferings that other beings have to endure that we can only elevate our compassionate heart to those beings.
Say No to Animal Cruelty, be VEGETARIAN!
I guess this is the samsaric world we live in. Even as we feel for the animals, and even as we condemn the cruel acts, we should remember that said “cruel people” “..know not what they are doing”. To most of them, they are just earning a livelihood to sustain their families. Think of where they are heading.
I gave it a lot of thought before commenting on this post. Why? Up until i encountered Kechara, and had the good fortune to meet Kecharians who helped me see that ALL lives are precious, i too was “shashimi loving, finger-licking, tender-loin chomping” partaker of this cruelty. That was less than 3 months ago.
I am no longer eating meat…the only difference between then and now is that now i have better understanding and appreciation of all lives and liveforms. (Not to mention a much lower BP)
Were we not (almost) all meat eaters once? Until we met Compassion personified in a Guru who taught us patiently and opened our eyes to a bigger picture?
These cruel acts we see on the videos are just sympthoms of a greater disease i.e IGNORANCE, a very potent poison. And it is so pervasive.
And that is why KWPC must take place very quickly…to attract people on a large scale and to spread the Dharma on a large scale and to heal on a large scale.
I have been working in a cannery. Mostly sorting different berries. In one week of working I have seen a dead baby bird, countless numbers of small caterpillars, bees, earwigs ect… Everything we consume results in some suffering. It frightens me greatly to think of the karma involved for the person working in the meat “cannery”.
I’m not sure- how do we value one sentient being properly over another? We definitely have a hierarchy, but it remains mostly common sense and isn’t defined.
I remain vegetarian 4 days a week.. Hopefully I can just cut it off… I’m gonna miss the social events of things like a BBQ, I can hear friends and parents saying “why wont you eat this, just have one.”. Or maybe I’m just overly attached to fitting in at the expense of other beings… That is not who I want to be reflected as.
Thank you Rinpoche for this post, to be reminded again of the REALITY of what’s behind a well decorated plate of meat dish! It’s quite often that I come across friends who are curious to know how i became a vegetarian. Quite often, my friends will voice their wish to also be a vegetarian but admits to the strong attachment of eating meat.
What Rinpoche said about going vegetarian one day a week will make a difference is such a sound advice. I hope the many people who read this blog post will consider pledging to being a vegetarian…start with what you can do and I’m sure one day a week is doable.
Animals feared death as much as we do. I remembered once, when a vegetarian friend told me “Our bodies are filled with dead corpses”. It dawned on me that we are actually killing lives to satisfy our taste buds. I have cut down on meat and will keep on taking meatless meal and dedicate to the long life of Rinpoche and the manifestation of Kechara Animal Care. After cutting off meat, I find that I have no cravings for it and find the smell and taste disgusting now.
share with all of you an excellent documentary. It isn’t just food, you know…
http://veg-tv.info/Earthlings
If God didn’t want us to eat animals, then why did he make them so delicious?
he made them delicious so that he could have a reason to give you cancer and all the other diseases…
Hm…. probably human flesh is even more delicious. Does that give another being the right to eat human flesh?
I’m pretty sure that eating our own meat (with a sprinkle of salt & pepper, and on good days, with a bit of Cajun) would taste just as good as eating chicken.
You should try it, and then tell me: Why did God make humans so delicious?
Well said
To be honest, what you have commented really does echo what most people think. So, thank you for bringing it up.
A lot of things that we want to eat, can be made to taste good, if we want it to. If you’re hungry, whatever you eat will taste a lot more delicious than if you eat it when you’re full.
As compared to the Paleolithic Era (think ‘cavemen’), we, as homo sapiens, had no choice but to eat meat. We didn’t have fancy restaurants where we could pick from an extensive menu or grow our own little cabbage patch in our backyard. It was either: kill to eat or starve to death.
Now, in “modern times”, with fast-food restaurants, fancy fine-dining and quick pop-into-the-oven dinner meals, we don’t think about where our food as come from.
Where has the piece of steak that we stick our forks in come from? Where has that drumstick that has been battered and fried come from?
We ignore the origins of our deboned and de-feathered meat, and seek to satiate the pleasures of our tastes buds.
Akin to not being able to stomach eating your own pet, be it a dog or a cat, doesn’t the same apply for a pig and a cow?
We have CHOICES and ALTERNATIVES nowadays.
Unless you enjoy being ignorant to the millions of animals being SLAUGHTERED, ABUSED and TORTURED to be on your plate and to ‘taste so good’, then perhaps you wouldn’t quiver in your seat watching this documentary (with Joaquin Phoenix), called Earthlings http://bit.ly/Ndwb5.
Grab your popcorn and give the movie a little peek. We can’t always keep our eyes closed to reality.
Animals are already hurt in every way. We cherish ourselves so much that we love this frequent mass slaughter.
I would like to cut down my meat after watching these videos and eventually go fully vegetarian.
How unnescessary cause of anguish, suffering and pain. We all have the choice to be able to eleviate and eventually eradicate these senseless and selfish acts.
It is truly mind-boggling that we as humans choose NOT to “see” this and hide behind a want and a need to “survive”. Do we really need that slab of meat (carcass even) in front of us to consume? Tasty is it? Why do we then disguise the meats we eat with seasoning, sauces, etc? Surely if we were to truly like this so called carcass, we can eat it as it is, like man before us who hunted them down for survival. Now that was truly to survive and we hunted to nourish ourselves and not sit in cosy restaurants ordering “delicacies” which have been “prepared” under the guise of a civilized soceity?
I reckon we are the barbaric ones! We dont even bat an eyelid as to where the source of our so call delicacy comes from. We just know how to pick from the menu and order it purely from our deluded and selfish “tastebuds”. And we complain not about how the animal we had just had a hand in brutally murdering, but at the inefficeincy of the waiter in delivering our orders or the wine that is not quite the temperature we want it to be. Shame on us!
I say this not to mock or to insult anyone in particular. I say this because I too was guilty of this act and perhaps more so than others. However, I made THE CHOICE to go vegetarian and am loving it. Why cant YOU? It is not difficult if one weighs the pros and cons. If you really are honest with yourself, there is NO pros but ONLY cons. The pros are just selfish delusions, truly!
So let us as Buddhist and as students of our kind, generous and compassionate Guru, walk the talk and show by example what Rinpoche and his teachings are all truly about… Compassion!
When i was a kid my parents would buy chickens in spring and in the winter they would cut their heads off and put them to fridge to have food for winter. Was traumatic for me because all the summer i played with the chikens, named them and considered them my pets. The last drop was whan they cut off Gogu`s head, my favorite rooster and then 2 pigs. Our house looked like a slaughter house. I stoped eating meat and i induced myself some sort of nausea only when i saw meat. It was easy to give it up, even if i loved the taste before. So if you wanna quit meat, is easier to think that meat is a dead body just like a dead human, even if is cooked and might look and smell tasty…is just a cadaver that once was inhabited by someone who just wanted to live and be happy. Like my Gogu
( I dont think people should necesarily be judged for eating meat, but they should be aware of what they are doing, and those people who never saw a live cicken in their lives, they should kill animals themselves and then eat them! I may be ignorant on this, but i dont agree with the monks that eat meat and are ok with the fact that someone else killed it. No, is better to kill it yourself , so you are more aware of what you are doing. Is more noble to be responsable than coward. And not just that, also before killing the poor animal say `thank you for the meat you give us and may u have a better rebirth`…or something like that. The native americans had a lot of respect for all forms of life and they never killed animals without thanking them for the meat and help their souls. They considered even the animals as beeing brothers and sisters. We live in a painfully ignorant `civilised` society.
Oh no
Your Gogu experience sounds similar to an incident in the book “Falling Leaves: The Memoir of an Unwanted Chinese Daughter”. In one of the chapters, the little girls father feeds her pet frog to the house dog, right in front of her. I cried reading that!
I agree though, that people shouldn’t judge those that do eat meat, it’s their own prerogative. If they are aware of the torture/abused and slaughter of animals but still eat meat, then there’s nothing much else that you can do, eh?
A lot of my friends who watch the video, say that they can’t even stand the sight of meat without thinking about the video, but they feel(and in their case, I agree) that it’s just a recency effect.
Come hunger and the smell of KFC, and it’ll just be *gobble, gobble, gobble*!
Like the Dalai Lama and 99 % of Tibetan lamas, I make the CHOICE to eat meat because it is healthier and tastier. Besides, killing animals is not so bad. You can always do Vajrasattva practice or something. That way, by eating meat, you actually benefit the animal.
If I am reborn as a chicken, then you are welcome to eat me. (I mean, what else could I accomplish as a chicken?) If there is reincarnation, then the chicken is only inconvenienced. And if there is no reincarnation, then well, it would have died eventually anyway!
Meat-eating is natural for us–just look at our teeth! My brother tried to be vegetarian, until he smelled someone cooking chicken. Then he couldn’t resist eating some of it.
Anyway, why be prejudiced against plants? There’s no firm dividing line between them, despite what Buddhists think. Maybe your cabbage doesn’t want to be killed either! Are we all going to starve as vegans?
Please do allow me to correct your misconception of our teeth and share with you the functionality of our body as a whole. Here are some facts I gathered from various credible sources, my memory from biology classes and my own very experience of the realignment of my body since being a vegetarian:
1.A carnivore’s teeth are long, sharp and pointed. These are tools that are useful for the task of piercing into flesh. Omnivore’s (meat and plant eaters) teeth are similar to that of carnivores. Our’s, as well as other herbivore’s teeth are not pointed, but flat edged. These are useful tools for biting, crushing and grinding.
2.A carnivore’s jaws move up and down with minimal sideways motion. The jaw motion of an omnivore is similar. These are tools that are useful for the tasks of shearing, ripping and tearing flesh and swallowing it whole. Omnivores swallow their food whole and/or with simple crushing. Our’s, as well as other herbivore’s jaws cannot shear, but have good side to side and back to front motion. These are tools that are useful for extensive chewing, crushing and grinding of grains and other high fiber foods. Animal flesh cannot be crushed, ground and chewed with the teeth we have without some degenerating process such as cooking or frying.
3.A carnivore or omnivore’s saliva does not contain digestive enzymes. Our’s, as well as other herbivore’s saliva is alkaline, containing carbohydrate digestive enzymes.
4.A carnivore’s stomach secretes powerful digestive enzymes with about 10 times the amount of hydrochloric acid than a human or herbivore. The pH is less than or equal to “1″ with food in the stomach, for a carnivore or omnivore. For us or other herbivores, the pH ranges from 4 to 5 with food in the stomach. Hence, man must prepare his meats with laborious cooking or frying methods. E.g. Coli bacteria, salmonella, campylobacter, trichina worms [parasites] or other pathogens would not survive in the stomach of a lion.
5.A carnivore’s or omnivore’s small intestine is three to six times the length of its trunk. This is a tool designed for rapid elimination of food that rots quickly. Our’s, as well as other herbivore’s small intestines are 10 to 12 times the length of their body, and winds itself back and forth in random directions. This is a tool designed for keeping food in it for long enough periods of time so that all the valuable nutrients and minerals can be extracted from it before it enters the large intestine.
6.A carnivore’s or omnivore’s large intestine is relatively short and simple, like a pipe. This passage is also relatively smooth and runs fairly straight so that fatty wastes high in cholesterol can easily slide out before they start to putrefy. Our’s, as well as other herbivore’s large intestines, or colons, are puckered and pouched, an apparatus that runs in three directions (ascending, traversing and descending), designed to hold wastes that originally were foods high in water content. This is so that the fluids can be extracted from these wastes, now that all the useful nutrients and minerals have been extracted and the long journey through the small intestine is over. Substances high in fat and cholesterol that have been putrefying for hours during their long stay in the small intestine tend to get stuck in the pockets that line the large intestine.
7.Animal flesh, composed of the most highly complex type of protein that exists, requires vast amounts of uric acid to process. Uric acid is released into the system in amounts necessary to break proteins down into amino acids. Uric acid is a toxic substance responsible for the aging process and must be flushed out and dealt with. That is one of the jobs of the liver. In relative terms, a carnivore’s liver is a tool designed with the capacity to eliminate ten times as much uric acid as the liver of man or other plant eater.
8.A predator has a gait, large paws and claws, which enable him to hunt, chase and trap his prey. These are tools meant to kill. Our gait, as well as other herbivore’s is designed only for mobility. Examine your hand, fingers and fingernails. Is this an apparatus properly designed for catching, trapping, killing and ripping apart cattle, hogs, chicken and fish? How does this work for picking fruit from trees or harvesting vegetables? The foods your hands were meant to gather are typically, high in water content, high also in fiber to sweep the wastes out of those intestines, and collectively contain every vitamin and mineral necessary to sustain human life.
9.A carnivore’s frame of mind is totally geared for hunting and killing. Our frame of mind is compassionate, friendly and reveres life (in most cases…
). When the lion spots another furry animal, something might instinctively click in his head that tells him to hurry up and get dinner. When man spots a furry animal, rather than show his children how to take its life and eat it, a more likely instinct is to pull over, get the camera out and take a picture. Put a young baby chick and an apple in a crib with a six-month-old baby. What will he instinctively attempt to eat and play with?
10. We are not a natural hunters. Every predator, in order to go hunting, MUST be hungry. We cannot go hunting if we ARE hungry! We must have a meal first. Hunger must precede a predator to go hunting. Hunger must follow our desire to go hunting, it cannot precede it.
Surely this makes one think no? Science and Biology explains explicitely what we still would like to delude ourselves into thinking, that we are meant to eat meat. I personally feel we eat meat because we WANT to. Its a want and NOT a need! Hence on that very basis, we all can make the choice. I welcome a healthy debate on this matter should anyone disagree!
Much love… Andrew
We were brought up since young that we must eat balance meal to stay healthy. Food pyramid system shows that stable food followed by vegetables and fruits are our main source of diet. Meat and milk based food are somewhere at the classified at the middle of the food pyramid, this means meat and protein are not our main source of diet. I can agree meat form a small portion of our diet. However, I don’t agree that human can get healthier by eating meat. It is just the western media trying to improve their livestock business. You can actually check from the web that meat could actually do more harm than good.
Chimpanzees split from human evolution about 6 million years ago and the two chimpanzee species are the closest living relatives to humans. Scientists found 94% identical DNA between human beings and chimpanzees. Why did Chimp eat meat? Try to watch Discovery Channel, Chimp started to eat meat was because of famine.
I admitted that I used to think that meat can keep you healthy, but this was the wrong perception given by our naive parents. We are in the era that there is no shortage of greens and we do not need meat to substitute the shortage of green. Hence, we can do away with meat from our diet to spare love and kindness to the animals. I’m not a full vegetarian yet, but I do understand that Rinpoche is trying to promote kindness toward animals. Animals do have feeling. Have you watch Temple Grandin? She was an autistic child with the ability to read animals’ feeling. One of her most important essays about animal welfare is “Animals are not Things”.
If you were Eskimos, then I think it is not fair to request you to be vegetarian as greens are scarce over there. Eskimos have shorter life span too. If eating meat is healthier, then why can’t Eskimos have longer live span than those who eat more greens? If you check yourself correctly, you are actually craving for meat like many of us. Stop giving excuse (eating meat is healthier) to justify your craving for meat. I have to admit that it is difficult to change our diet habit. I am trying very hard to consume less meat.
My family was dealing in chicken business and my parents killed many many chicken. If you said it was ok to kill, why did my family face a lot of problems, i.e. we hardly have peace in our family, we faced a lot of problems, not only financially, mentally but physically too. Why don’t you try to change your profession in livestock business to test whether it is ok to kill? I have questioned this for more than 15 years and I even found excuses to cover their wrong doings like you that it was ok to kill because my parents need to support us. Yes, it is ok to kill and be prepare to face the payback time. My parents have stopped the killing business and changed their profession, but we suffered a lot especially my parents, problems never stop like sea waves. It was actually physically and mentally torture.
Maybe some high lamas do benefit the animals they are eating, but I don’t know if I can say that about anyone. Eating meat is not necessarily healthier, unless there is some health problem and some meat would help. I don’t think is quite right to think that if I’m a chicken I’m no good because I can’t accomplish anything. Every sentient being must be respected and loved and cared for as mush as possible. If I was to act on your idea then I would go around killing all animals and doing Vajrasattva practice for them thinking I am their savior. And while I’m at it I would go around killing some people who I think are not acting accordingly to my principles of what’s good, and pray their next reincarnation would do better. If you are not on the Dharma path and are only interested in your little human life, then ok, eat meat and be happy with your meat eating teeth, but people who try to practice Dharma should try to go beyond their animalistic instincts. People who practice Dharma should praise more the life of a chicken than satisfying their taste buds. I know that our mere existence harms beings around us, we don’t even have to make an effort for that. I know suffering cannot be avoided and in order for us to live things must die, is the law of nature ( animals, plants, air we breathe…anything you wanna put on the list). But if you just find excuses for yourself to not make an effort to go beyond your limited human ignorant views, then you remain stuck here with all the poor ignorant chickens. Humans are no better than chickens, they only have an opportunity to rise above the human condition and go beyond samsara. I don’t judge people who eat meat and don’t practice any spiritual path, just as I don’t judge a chicken for being a chicken. But people who try to better themselves should be more aware. And people who are more aware should be responsible to make everyone aware, not to judge, just make them aware!
Dear Rinpoche,
If I were a meat-lover and have an obsessed craving for beef, then watching this video would have only given me a heart-wrenching moment as I look into the tormented eyes of the ox about to be led to slaughter. But afterwards my craving would have deleted this emotion from my mind as it takes control over me once more.
Obsessive craving for food can reach very alarming proportions.My friend tells me that when she’s dying, she wants only a pot of assam laksa soup by her side and she’d go off in absolute bliss.She was in the midst of relishing a bowl of assam laksa when she said these words.I felt my heart stop as I pictured her dying with her consciousness grasping at the pot of laksa.
Going vegetarian has helped me cut off an excessive craving for food.Now, more than ever, I remember the wise words of my primary school teacher, an Irish nun: ‘Eat to live, not live to eat’.
When I let my kids watch these kind of videos, I was being ticked off by some as they said the kids are not of an appropriate age to watch this freaky, bloody, brutality. However, my 7 yr old girl now has grown more aware of what she eats as compared to me. At times, she would remind me of the poor animal that was killed to be on our dining plate. Frankly, I ate my words sometimes. I realise that it is really due to our conditioning of how we are being raised from a child to adulthood. The thinking that its ok to eat everything dats edible isn’t really the correct view. Watching these kind of videos again and again will slowly change my mode of thinking and I shall take a lil step at a time to change my family’s culture of eating. Thanks Rinpoche for sharing the video.
In my country a calf swam to save his life 25 km. can you believe this? I didn’t know a calf can swim before I saw this.
He was taken with a boat to a slaughter house and he jump off and swam about 20 km back to the shore and finally was saved.
What kind of heart can you have to eat such an animal?
http://www.bucharestherald.ro/dailyevents/41-dailyevents/13999–calf-claudiu-saved-by-lifeguards-at-the-black-sea-after-swimming-28-hours
In the collective words of our Guru regarding the above blog:
” Animals are sentient beings and they do know they are going to die,
you can see how this one Ox just doesn’t want to go in there because he knows death awaits him….
Every time you eat meat, it’s similar to you having killed the animals you are eating!
STOP!!!! DO SOMETHING REAL AND CONSTRUCTIVE, GO VEGETARIAN NOW.”
For these who have compassion in their hearts and interested in becoming a Vegetarian to create the cause for our animal shelter to manifest can adhere to the guidelines kindly provided by Tsem Tulku Rinpoche in one of his teachings”-
- we can take vegetarian vows, with no consumption of meat, eggs, milk, garlic and onions are
permissible.
- Vows can be taken for short periods of time eg. 3 or 5 days a week, a month or at a time.
- After each session, you can take the vows again and again.
- Taking vows is more powerful as it creates the causes through our commitment.
Even our David La in his comment about Vegetarianism, advocated that one can go on a gradual vegetarian diet and not go cold turkey and work towards being a full Vegetarian.
SO WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?
Uncle Eddie
Two oxen were waiting in line outside the abbatoir to be pushed in and slaughtered one by one. When the door opened you can see the oxen retracting backwards. One will be pushed in first . You can feel the 2nd ox was scared when heard the cries of his friend being slaughtered. I notice the ox waiting outside in the narrow passageway leading to the slaughter house tried to turn his head and run but he couldn’t as the passageway was too narrow. I have heard people tell me that they have seen cows crying before they are being slaughtered. And they cannot express themselves are scared and don’t want to die. If most of the people in the world are vegeterians in their daily meals. The animals will not have to die an unnatural death like being slaughtered for your dining table.
Dear Woofus,
I respect your right to choose what you want to do with your life and body. If you think having a set of teeth is for eating meat, that is up to you. A lot of Buddhists also share the same view in the beginning. However, with more learning, we realize its not about what we eat, but whether our choice is at the expense of others or lead to other’s suffering. If we defend the right to have choice, do we respect other beings’ right to have choice too? The video ‘s message is not only about killing – it is about us denying other living beings a choice to live. It is clear the cows were not given a choice to live.
I think my teeth is for eating anything , meat including human’s.But I don’t go for you because I don’t think you want to be eaten or chopped up to be displayed in the local butchers shop.I don’t chew and eat books and swallow glass because it is bad for my health.
The first instance is about moral discipline and compassion and the second is about wisdom.This is what I learn from Buddhism. It is what make us human.
When humans are not mindful to develop the above qualities, we become more and more like animals and just appease our senses without concern for other’s welfare.
If you really believe plants deserved to be spared also, all the more you should spare animals like cows as they are much higher on the ‘ sacredness ‘ scale. I am a Buddhist but will respectfully prostrate to you or anyone who have such hihg rspect for living things.Please mean what you say.
BTW no vegans ever died of hunger and many live much longer, happier and healthier than meat eaters, perhaps because they know they will not have to deal with their conscience when they leave this world.
ooh my gosh! I want to become vegetarian. But i haven’t any idea for that. What should i do?
But then there is also very strong evidence that plants also have feelings. That plants are able to know when they are about to be carved up or pulled straight out of the ground.
When a person walks up to a tree to pick an apple, this is equivalent to walking up to a cow and cutting a chunk of meat off of its body and eating it.
Obviously we need to eat. There is no need to argue about what we are eating, just that it is in moderation.
Plants do not have consiousness. They do not create karma. Their reactions are not that of a conscious being that feels pain or wish to avoid pain. Plant consciousness do not create karma or reincarnate. So eating plants is definitely not the same as animals.
There’s also established evidence that if you talk to plants and ask them ‘permission’ to partake of their vegetables, they grow bigger and ‘allow’ you to take their parts such as tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, pumpkins, etc. They grow bigger vegetables to for you to sustain. For example the beautiful community of Findhorn is based on that philosophy. Google Findhorn. They grow forty pound cabbages, roses in the snow bloom for examples because they nurture and grow the plants for eating/use through care… They give back to the plants by manure, water, care and attention. But they don’t believe the plants have consciousness.
It is definitely established no cow will allow you to take a part of their bodies to eat no matter how much care you give them. Any animal for that matter.
Tsem Tulku
Well that is your belief. I don’t particularly enjoy eating meat. For one thing it jades your palate. All these strong flavors, all that fat and oil.. those can’t be good for you. So yea eat bread, with a multitude of seeds and grains, you can actually make bread flavorful if you know how.
It would be great to have a clean living center, where people learn to live with less, to strove to a point where you consume minimal resources, to reach a point where you are nothing and not dependent on any sort of drug (like caffeine) and live on very little.
Is that right?
And with water, water can taste good if it’s clean, there’s really no need for anything else other than it, what does anyone benefit from any other drink? it’s mostly drugs (Eg. caffeine,) color and sugar and flavor. In the long term, all this will ruin your health.
Am I right in thinking this?
I have decided to become a vegan starting today after i watched the Earthlings documentary. I could never eat any meat ever again without feeling the pain of the animals that were being brutally killed. Thank you Tsem Tulku. I never ever thought that i will decide to become a vegetarian, but after reading your blog and finding out the pain of the animals being killed to become our food, i find it very easy to turn to vegies for comfort…
Thank you
i made a small dedication to my baby girl last year during her 1 year old birthday.
i decided from that day onwards i will be vegetarian minimum one day per week just with the mind of saving our planet earth for our future generation.
after reading this, i felt we should have give more compassion to all sentient being.
i yet to make any vow, but i have been vegan for a week. and wish i can keep this motivation on.