I Can’t Do What Attained Beings Do….
Your questions are valid and well thought out..I am glad you are contemplating. Ghantapa the ‘monk’ had a consort but that doesn’t mean I can have a consort. Guru Rinpoche would scold spirits and regional power beings, it doe…sn’t mean I have the power to do so without them retaliating back to me with harm. Tilopa asked his disciple Naropa to squeeze the breast of a bride getting married, but that doesn’t mean I can ask my students to do that. Ral Lotsawa used Yamantaka’s practice to kill an ‘enemy’ and sent his mind to pure land..it doesn’t mean I can go and kill. HH 13th Dalai Lama asked Serkong Dorje Chang to give his monk vows back to practice with a dakini while at a tantric monastery due to unmistaken visions, but 14th Dalai Lama told me to be a good monk.
Enlightened and attained beings can perform many actions that look contradictory but it does not mean I can do what they do AT MY CURRENT LEVEL.
If an enlightened being beat me, it would purify so much of my karma, but if I did the same, I would just cause them pain. HH Kyabje Zong Rinpoche used to beat old monks and purify their sickness and extend their lives in Gaden-He was famous for that…
At our level of having not realized emptiness, we have to practice double hard, hold our vows double better and avoid all types of harm especially during the Kali Yuga. When an attained being like Shakyamuni eats meat, it benefits the animals tremendously. Because the flesh of the animal is consumed by Buddha whose actions in any way, shape or form can only benefit short and long term. But when I eat meat, I don’t benefit the animal at all.
I cannot look at holy Guru Rinpoche and say well he has two primary consorts, so I am going to copy him. When Guru Rinpoche unites with a consort it benefits all sentient beings, if I unite with a consort, I would just break my vows.
So do not think we are at the level as they are. We should follow the conventional examples they show and at our level not the unconventional. Safer for us… For us not eating meat is to help us generate more compassion and discipline and we have so much variety of food now..
This is not Tibet. This is the new world order where Buddhism represents pure compassion so eating meat just does not fit the image anymore. If we want Dharma to grow, it is a small sacrifice to ‘fit’ the image as much as we can for conventional purposes. No harm there. No harm not eating meat as an outward practice of developing the inner wish of not harming any mother sentient being.
Gaden, Sera and Drepung have all stopped serving meat completely as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama recommended that so kindly to us. Times change, views change, practice changes, methods change. So we cannot quote something from the old to justify our own current attachments in this case perhaps towards meat.
Not eating meat is helpful to promote Buddhism and its ideals as the world views it in this manner. What happens if we do not eat meat? Nothing for most people.. So for the sake of many would be practitioners refraining from meat benefits them, us and the animals.
If I can have the attainments to allow me to eat meat without karmic retribution, then I must show the others signs of attained beings….for example have a still mind that never gets angry, direct perception of emptiness/sunyata, controlling my rebirths perfectly (Like HH Dalai Lama, Trijang Rinpoche, Pabongka Rinpoche, etc) can control my winds/channels/drops, have abiding bodhicitta, perfect memory and the lower attainments such as walking super fast, making healing pills, flying, clairvoyance, controlling fire/water/elements, healing diseases of others, controlling the weather, controlling nasty spirits/elementals, etc etc. I mean why show my attainments by eating meat?
When we are highly, extremely attained, eating meat, ‘breaking’ vows, taking up consorts, etc etc would not incur negative karma since our mind has attained emptiness and not returning to samsara,and hence our actions have no contaminated motivation both subtle and gross and until then, we have to be careful of any actions we do. This is my thoughts. I do not mean to offend or hurt, but I sincerely feel it is more compassionate to not eat meat in the 21st century and for 21st Century Buddhism/Buddhists. What good karma do we gain from eating meat? How does it benefit animals if we murder them and then eat them. Go on the youtube and see how they are butchered. There are hundreds of videos. It is a real lesson and a real dharma practice to wish to not be a part of it. I wish my prayers that all animals will not be hurt and tortured as well as all six realms beings always. Om Mani Peme Hung…
Tsem Rinpoche
Dear Rinpoche,
I have been vegetarian for a while now but i often wonder how attached i should be to being veg, e.g. if i have a meal with family who still eat meat, though now much reduced also
, is it ok to eat food that has been cooked in the same dish?
Recently i miss-read a label on some food i bought for lunch, by the time i realised it i was miles out in the countryside (i work mobile on different sites every day) and i thought that by the time i had returned home it would likely have spoiled, so i decided after thinking for a while that wasting it was worse then eating it, (the poor animal then died for nothing), but i don’t know?
One of the wholesalers i buy from have a free drinks machine, but i noticed lately that the veg soup now has a warning label saying its not suitable for vegetarians! How does unknowingly eating meat affect us?
I am too attached to being correct all the time having grown up in a critical environment, but these are the sorts of things i wonder about. I aim to live by the spirit of being vegetarian, but its tricky for someone at my level to know which is correct when these sorts of questions arise.
Namaste,
Jon
This kind of open dialogue is so valuable for regular people to understand. A lot of these things seem to go without mentioning or people might think they will be thought of as odd to ask Tsem Rinpoche about consorts and such…
I am glad that Rinpoche blogged this and hopefully it should save him from answering the same question 200 more times in the future…
Dear Friends,
I was just thinking and it ties in with some other things I was wondering. In the West, we don’t have the equivalent of a living, human Guru figure.
The concept of a supremely attained, holy person possessed of omniscience, miraculous abilities, transcendent knowledge, etc. just doesn’t exist in traditional Western culture and, loosely speaking, might be reserved for the figure of Jesus alone. This is the only example I can think of.
So a Western person might encounter a dilemma. How to relate to a Guru figure? Because, in the West, the idea of meeting Jesus, the closest thing we have to a Guru figure, in a teaching or empowerment, is something that will most likely never cross the mind of most people because Jesus is conceived as residing in heaven, incorporeal, physically inaccessible, and not available for direct perception and interaction in the way that a Guru can be.
You can’t face Jesus across the room and ask him questions. Not unless you want to have an encounter with mental health professionals, in any case!
So, the question is, how are Western people to conceive of the teacher?
Hi THL,
A teacher in actuality someone whom you can learn from, and who is patient enough to guide you through spiritual matters. To me at least, he does not need to have superpowers or miraculous abilities, but someone who will never ever give up on his students no matter how many times the students fall or disapoint, and who teaches sincerely from the heart in wanting to benefit his students and compassion for not just his students, but everyone else as well, and thus for that to happen he or she would have all the knowledge required. All these can be easily observed by the student, either from afar or by going and checking out the potential teacher. A teacher may or may not have miraculous powers, transcendent wisdom etc, but how would that help you in the long term, or in reality?
The western equivalent would be the combination of a psychologist, mentor, counselor, teacher and a friend/family member who cares deeply. Your teacher is not God, he’s a teacher. Buddha’s not a God, he’s a teacher. A Teacher is someone that has the ability to tell you “hey, if you’re unhappy and feeling empty, you need not feel that way. there are methods for you to feel better and be a better you, and im going to teach them to you”. That is what the Buddha is, and a Buddhist teacher is (they’re the same by the way). So once you’ve accepted someone like that…you should go all the way and be loyal to this person….as you can only have one mentor that you follow closely and not have several, and not question this person at every turn to disprove or test…but because you want to learn.
Anyway, the criteria for choosing a teacher is not as you have said: supremely attained, holy person possessed of omniscience, miraculous abilities, transcendent knowledge, etc…but:
8. (A Guru should be) stable (in his actions), cultivated (in his speech), wise, patient and honest. He should neither conceal his shortcomings, nor pretend to possess qualities he lacks. He should be an expert in the meanings (of tantra) and in its ritual procedures (of medicine and turning back obstacles). Also he should have loving compassion and a complete knowledge of the scriptures.
9. He should have full experience in both ten fields, skill in the drawing of mandalas, full knowledge of how to explain the tantras, supreme faith and his senses fully under control.
(According to the 50 Verses of Guru Devotion)
Everything else is, frankly irrelevant.
It dosent matter if a “teacher” has the ability to fart rainbows, but who gives up on his students easily, or who dodges questions…I would never take that person as a teacher no matter how holy or how much rainbows he or she can fart.
From the 50 Verses:
7. A disciple with sense should not accept as his Guru someone who lacks compassion or who is angersome, vicious or arrogant, possessive, undisciplined or boasts of his knowledge.
I hope i have answered your question, even though i am not western but i am quite familiar with western culture, and i have little experience so i can help to explain.
Dear Joey,
Thank you very much for this explanation, it really makes sense.
It’s just that these great Teachers are so amazing and helpful and we don’t really have models for that in the West so sometimes you can be left scratching your head and going, “Wow” and not really knowing or understanding what they are. I’m not sure how to articulate this.
Your explanation is very helpful, thank you.
Best wishes,
THL
It seems eating vegetables and eating animals are both bad, in that case cut one out completely. Why do both. Our karmic ripening makes us take rebirth always in situations that we cannot avoid all situational karma as a natural by product. But we have a choice to make it less. No matter what we do or how we exist at our ordinary levels, we will accummulate negative karma. So we have to choose conscioiusly to lessen them. His Holiness Dalai Lama, many Tulkus/Geshes/monks in Gaden tells us go vegetarian. The beautiful Master Thich Nhat Hanh and the sacred Nun Rev Chen Yen of Taiwan (http://tw.tzuchi.org/en/index.php? ) with hundreds of centres around the world and the whole accomplished Mahayana Buddhism of China forbids meat.The current Karmapa banned all meats in the Monasteries. Before it was meat and vegetables/rice. Now no more meat. The trend is no meat.
I may have people object, but that is ok, as a Buddhist teacher for the rest of my life I will advocate a no meat diet, produce books, blog posts, works and inspirational examples toward Vegetarianism. If that lifestyle offends/angers others or they feel their spirituality is being put down because of that, I do apologize. But that is not my intent, but it is their perceptions speaking or their perceptions of my motivation for speaking about no meat..If it really upsets them, then they don’t have to visit my posts, my writings and my ideas…LOL…simple as that… In this day and age, when you say things ppl like, then they praise you as a great person, great Rinpoche, great teacher, if you say something slightly off, no matter how they ‘liked’ you in the past, it changes. It’s reflective of the times and dynamics of this day and age. As my guru says, if you practice/teach dharma these days, you become a white crow. LOL..
Make it simple, if you have to eat vegetables/grains/fruits, grow it yourself. And that follows the same for meat, if u savour flesh so much, then raise and kill the animal yourself. Don’t indirectly let other ppl collect the karma for you so you can eat or don’t eat at all…join the formless realms or go to the god realms…
In the tantras such as Tara, White Tara, Vajrapani, Manjushri, Saraswati, Tsongkapa, Dukkar, Avalokitesvara, Oserchenma, Maitreya, etc, it is highly recommended you do not eat meat/eggs when you engage in their sadhanas, practice, retreats. When you do Tara Pujas (Drolchok), you are suppose to avoid meat or you shouldn’t engage in the pujas. In the Monastery, countless times we have to do Tara puja or engage monks to do for us, they have to avoid meat before coming..it was strict. If you are doing Naga pujas, you have to avoid meat and it is a must. There are many types of beneficial naga pujas such as Lutor, Lusang, etc that you avoid meat totally. There’s a very powerful Naga vase (Lubum), which my guru made and I have one for years now, and it is specifically for generating wealth for dharma activities. If you keep this vase, make proper offerings, then with the motivation of dharma, your financial resources will increase to fund the dharma works. 10 years ago, when I was literally down to a few dollars and struggled financially very badly, I called my Guru for divination, he said to get a Naga vase and then with some time it will be ok. He taught me how to make offerings and what to offer and not offer and one big no-no is meat. He said avoid meat…or in my thinking no wealth…LOL. Well I didn’t offer meat, after that yearly I can see growth in Kechara.So no meat in this case was worth it for growth to benefit others.
Thanks Rinpoche.
There is a difference between what an attained being can do and what an ordinary being can do. When Rinpoche tells us the story about how Tilopa instructed his student Naropa to grab the breast of the bride. Tilopa has a motivation and a reason followed by a teaching. We as ordinary beings may not understand what Tilopa is trying to teach Naropa as we have no attainments. Whether a person is really attained or not is not for us to judge. Highly attained beings can come in camoulage to test a persons level of practice. The teacher who is attained is always very humble and doesn’t boast of his knowledge and also very compassionate are the ones that we may guess are attained.
In everything we do, there is positive and negative effects due to the nature of our existence. It is 100% correct you don’t eat meat. HH the Dalai Lama, the highest authority within Tibetan Buddhism recommends we do not eat meat, so that is all we need to remember. Buddha said, we should not lie, or get attached to drinking, singing, dancing, intimacies,entertainments and that we should spend our energies to become enlightened. Are we doing all die and not just the meat part?? People tend to pick what is convenient from the Buddha’s teachings to suit themselves. If we are going to follow Buddha’s teachings or quote, we may ask are you following everything Buddha says? If you are not, then rejoice when others follow the best they can and as much as they can. Since it is the right path for 21st century Buddhists to follow the no meat path, let’s do it. We have so much variety of food. Let’s eat the no meat diet and get on with our practice and basically compassionately go passed the criticisms. It is very simple, do not kill. So hence animals will not die in front of you to eat them…There is no good karma in eating meat..full stop, but definitely there is good karma refraining from eat. Many of the tantras when engaged in the practice prohibit meat as taught by Vajradhara. Many rituals we do in the great Monasteries prohibit meat so the rituals are more effective…..Many who are not monks or not living in the monasteries would never understand that. Reading from books, net or from dharma centres would never be the same as in the monastery. Again, eating meat does not gather good merits for our spiritual practice, avoiding does. Listen to some of wonderful Tenzin Palmo’s views on not eating meat. She is the great yogini who meditated for the longest time in the mountains.TR
Rimpoche,
Thank you for a well thought-out post. I agree with you that, in this day and age, all Buddhist would do well to eschew the eating of meat. We know enough about good nutrition that vegetarianism is a viable option, and certainly in America, nutritious vegetable food is widely available.
I try to be vegetarian, but I find that every so often, my body tells me I need to eat meat. Not just want to, *need to*: I grow weak, I am more susceptible to illness, etc. My own guru, Kyabje Gelek Rimpoche has told me (and other students) that *it is best to eat the diet one grew up eating.* For me, that is an omnivorous diet that includes meat. I try to limit the amount of it I eat to the minimal necessary, and to say prayers and mantras for the benefit of the animals I eat, but I do still find I need to eat meat sometimes.
hi Kate,
have you tried balancing your diet with various vegetables and beans? When the body craves for meat its more often a sign that your diet is not balanced enough and you’re lacking nutritions. Try Oprah’s quick start guide: http://www.oprah.com/packages/vegan-starter-kit.html or the receipes here: http://blog.tsemtulku.com/tsem-tulku-rinpoche/2011/01/dr-jiangs-delicious-healthy-recipesvideos.html and see if your body still craves for meat.
We should follow the conventional examples they show . Safer for us… For us not eating meat is to help us generate more compassion and discipline and we have so much variety of food now..
Tsem Tulku Rinpoche
(Well…I was thinking Rinpoche, not to intrude, that I was being vegetarian in a hospital until I read something from Yogi Chen that says you should be able to bring beings back to life. I went outside and caught an insect between my fingers. When I came back inside I looked at it closely then with some amount of faith and devotion tossed it into the air…it started to fly. Also, people sometimes say I need to take medication even though I have been told it is bad for me. *However, in the hospital I was last in, I pretended to smoke cigarettes while hiding the fact that actually I was being prescribed a form of medical marijuana after telling my story to a Buddhist naturopath. I have even encouraged the practice which has been cited in certain places to be beneficial in small quantaties for Buddhists. I believe in this, yet I have to pretend that I am doing it and also prove that I can. I have also spent a lot of time explaining the harmful effects of medication and how they effect our perception, supposing that we have no ability to see phenomena that other more “normal” beings cannot see. In this way, I try to advocate the Buddhist view which adheres to pure purelands, mandalas, and the Buddhist miracles that cannot be seen by the normal senses and that are based on the concept that the material brain is the only actual substantial reality, rather than the brain being a predisposition that is connected to the mind and that ultimately is viewed as coming from the mind, just like everything in the universe which is connnected with karma. I have personally at the beginning of the year tried to reconcile my personal views with the compassionate aim of vegetarianism. For this reason I am always trying to find a way to remember my vow not to eat meat and that this is also true with the mind altering chemicals that are introduced primarily in restrictive setttings, offering a magical cure. I have taken Setrap as my principal Dharma Protector and even though I still receive injections at the hospital no longer take medications. I feel that there are similar compassionate causes for vegetariansm and not taking medication or drugs. There is a teaching in Buddhism that says when you eat meat you sever the continuity of Dharmakaya. That is terrible to the Buddha. We all have the potential to change from one thing to the next, I guess we have something that is, when properly examined, true goodness. This is what I think of when I consider Buddha nature. When you eat meat you are actually cutting the Buddha nature of another being…it cannot combine with an impure mind though. A Buddha can eat meat because there are no defilements. A Buddha can also take medications, from my experience though, it will not mean that he has a mental illness disorder. It is possible to dissolve medications into light. The idea is that we are made of light, as His Holiness says, “it is a great mistake to think we are not made of light.” The problem with drugs made from the polluted minds of materialist scientists that do not have a connection to religion or the Buddha’s thought is that it will make you think like a Nihilist, or at best, that things truly exist and that you can actually have absolute phonomena that will give you some sort of worldly benefit. I personally take the vow to not eat meat with the knowledge that all sentient beings have been my mothers, and that trying to sever the Dharmakaya even unintentionally is similar to taking life even if you have not done it yourself. It adversely effects the karmic body I believe, which is something to be purified. I pray that in the future we may be reborn in the highest purland after this retribution body is over, having received many impurities that could have otherwise caused us irrevocable sufferings. With great strength I pray that no one must suffer needlessly and that all places where vaccines are given, where medicines are given, and so on, are done with the blessing of Buddha so that all the people will be protected. I encourage everyone who is considering getting an injection of medications or vaccines as we say, to wear a protective amulet. May goodness prevail. The option is always there. That is all I will say. When I tried eating meat on my own though it was a terrible failure. I have tried some other things with wisdom that have turned out in my favor. They sometimes seem miraculous. Oftentimes I often end up regretting what I have done though nonetheless and feel like I cannot live my life the way it was before. The point here, Rinpoche, I believe, is to keep your commitments and vows even if you do mess up thinking that you can do something you can’t. And especially to have the conviction to suffer any of the retributions that may come willingly for the sake of others. If you end up doing out of the world things and then feel like a normal person it does not benefit the Buddha’s way and is not inspiring to others. You can either choose to not benefit the Buddha’s Way or you can choose to not do out of the world things. It is inspiring to hear of someone who understands the limitations of the sentient beings of this age. I have tried very hard to make my life practical in the Buddha’s way, relying on scriptures, Buddha’s teaching, and the methods for tangibly attaining some sort of progress in this life.)
.recite the 8 Verses of thought Transformation clearly. Think and verbally say you will abandon meat from now on and then with a strong resolve recite Shantideva’s Dedication prayer to seal your vow. Your vow was taken in front of the Three Jewels hence it has power. It is different than just not eating meat without a vow…although beneficial. Everyday you hold the vow you reap the benefits of not eating meat and indirectly not having animals killed for you. Then recite one mala of the mantra you prefer and end your session. You can re-affirm this anytime again and again.
If you consciously take a vow, then everyday you hold the vow, you generate merits toward eliminating the causes for that particular attachment. The merits goes direct towards the elimination of the particular attachment you are countering by taking the vows. The vows have power as they are taken in front of Enlightened beings. Anything done towards a Enlightened Being has great power, potential and effects.
For all the meat you have eaten in the past, to purify the karma, do the opposite henceforth…which is to create tremendous awareness tirelessly and patiently to others NOT TO EAT MEAT.
…endlessly work for animals in reversal to all the years you ate meat ignorantly as I have. Work for animals rights, but never do any activities that break the law…stay within the law.
Purpose is to release sentient beings from suffering, in this case animals.
And the reason is their sufferings has moved you to another level of compassion. You are planting the seeds of compassion and wishing not to harm others in any way for this life and future lives. The prevention of their suffering is WORTH YOU TO GIVE UP YOUR ATTACHMENT TO TASTE AND PLEASURE OF EATING MEAT. The pain of animals is nothing compared to your pain of grasping for bloody slaughtered meat that you should no longer have anymore… Anyone eating meat, creates the karmic causes to reincarnate as a animal to be eaten many times over…the cycle is vicious. Break the cycle….now…
On my hands and knees, I Tsem Rinpoche, with folded hands and tears streaming down my cheeks, BEG YOU TO NOT EAT MEAT EVER AGAIN….thank you. Thank you very much….take the vow and hold it…or just stop eating even without the vow…
Tsem Rinpoche
Just a thought, when in considering the approach of Jesus, it is especially interesting to note that at the last supper he broke bread and said “this is my body…eat it in rememberance of me.”
He also said that this drink is my blood. Is blood the drink, though? He did not take blood and say, “this is wine.” Are we able to take animal products and say that this is pure? Much less offer them to others as ourselves? Do you ever see people offering wine, beer, etc. as substitutes for animal byproducts and making toasts? Do we consider ourselves equal to animals…can we offer our own bodies in rememberance of them? Do animals do that for us? Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Eat meat only if you are going to be eaten. And then offer yourself. It is difficult to offer meat and also eat. Don’t eat meat.
Thanks Tsem Tulku Rinpoche