December 4, 1997
GOATS AND VEGETARIANISM
I thought to mention here about the goats, about the life story of the goats. I’m joking! I’m joking!
Yesterday I went to see one of the well-known top Tibetan lamas. There are four Tibetan Mahayana traditions: Sakya, Kagyu, Nyingma and Gelug. Within the Sakya tradition there are many different traditions and there are quite a few top lamas, head lamas of the Sakya sect. His Holiness Chogye Trichen Rinpoche is also one of His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s gurus. He taught His Holiness the Dalai Lama what is called Lamdré from the Sakya tradition teachings as well as giving various deities’ initiations. Over the past years, I have taken many initiations from Rinpoche. His Holiness Chogye Trichen Rinpoche is one of the top lamas, one of the existing, well-known, great holy beings of Tibet, one of the top lamas.
So I went to see Rinpoche and then I went to the stupa to do a little prayer. On the way back, there were these goats. There was a table with goat meat, already chopped, and below the table were these goats, tied up. On top of the table, there was the goat meat and below the table the live goats.
One time in Varanasi… Sorry, the story is already getting longer! The last time I was in Varanasi I went to Sarnath. In Sarnath there were some goats tied up by the road. So, I thought to buy them but there was no place to put them. I thought I could ask the head lama who built the old Tibetan monastery at Sarnath if he could take care of them. He was the only one I knew around there that I could ask but I wasn’t sure whether he would do it or not. On the way back from visiting Sarnath, the goats were gone—probably they were already killed—so I missed the opportunity to save them.
Imagine if that was human beings there [instead of goats]. It would be terrible to be tied up there next to a table with all the pieces of human flesh and knowing that you could be killed at any time. Three or four human beings tied up there—that would be the same thing. Here, in Kopan, we have had a few goats in the past, from time to time, but they probably passed away. Maybe they all went to a pure land. Or maybe they all went to the West! Maybe some went to Africa and others went to the United States. No, I’m joking.
[A student asks Rinpoche a question, inaudible]
You can’t say that Buddhists eat meat, because there are many Buddhists who don’t eat meat or fish. Among the Tibetans there are many who don’t eat meat. And especially Chinese Mahayanists don’t eat meat. Among the Tibetans, in the monastery there are people who eat meat, but there are also people who don’t eat meat. So it’s not that all Tibetans eat meat. According to my knowledge, there are many vegetarians among the Tibetans.
I try to be vegetarian except when I go to see my gurus. When they give me meat, I will eat it, but normally, in my own house, I’m vegetarian. That doesn’t mean I regard those who eat meat as bad. Even though I don’t eat it, I don’t use that as a reason. We cannot judge bad and good from the outside; we can only judge bad and good if we can understand the other person’s motivation, the other person’s level of realization, their level of mind. Only then can we judge that person’s actions, not only eating meat but any action—working, sitting, sleeping, even eating vegetables! We can’t understand whether just eating vegetables is good or bad, whether it’s a harmful action, in the sense of negative karma. If it’s negative karma, it’s harmful, even though it might just be eating vegetables or drinking tea. If it becomes negative karma, it’s harmful to the person and it’s harmful to others. Therefore, we can only judge whether an individual person’s actions are bad or good by understanding their level of mind, their motivation. Otherwise, it is difficult.
The best way to judge is by having an omniscient mind, by being an enlightened being. Then we see everything directly, without the slightest mistake in our perception. Then we have the clairvoyance to be able to read and judge others’ levels of mind. Otherwise, it is not easy to judge whether it’s bad or good. It’s not an easy subject. We can only judge a hundred percent that something is bad or good, including eating meat, by understanding the person’s level of mind, the motivation.
Generally speaking, even with vegetables, so many insects die when the land is plowed. There are so many worms and other insects in the ground that have to be killed [to produce the vegetables]. For example, rice. One grain of rice grows from another grain of rice, which in turn has come from another one. To get all that rice, animals like buffaloes, as well as the people, have to be out in the very hot sun, and there are countless insects in the ground who die in the rice harvest. During that time, so many sentient beings suffer or are killed, and many others create negative karma to obtain this rice. But then, the rice from this harvest has come from rice [from previous harvests], and again many sentient beings suffered and died for that. Everything is like that, you see. When we check the continuity of even one grain of rice we have on our plate or our spoon, we can see that numberless sentient beings have suffered so much or died and others have created so much negative karma to produce it. For just that one grain of rice that is in our mouth, in our teeth, on our spoon, on our plate, countless numbers of sentient beings have died and suffered, and many others have created negative karma by harming them.
REPAYING THE KINDNESS OF OTHERS
Even in a glass of water there are so many tiny beings, so small they can only be seen with a microscope. When the water is boiled, they die. So generally it’s like that; it’s not just meat. Numberless sentient beings suffer and die, numberless create negative karma for us to have any food.
All our happiness, our comfort and our everyday survival completely depend on these numberless sentient beings who died or created negative karma for our welfare. Because of them, we have the opportunity to learn the method, the path, to cease all sufferings, to stop the cycle of death and rebirth, to never again experience it by ceasing the cause. Because of them, we can come to know what samsara is and what all the different levels of suffering of samsara and its causes are. All this—our happiness, our survival each day, the opportunity to practice Dharma and create the cause of happiness—is totally by the kindness of all these numberless sentient beings. That is how it happens, by so many of them suffering and creating negative karma.
Look at this temple and where we sleep here in Kopan. This is the place where every day we purify our mind, by meditating on the lamrim and especially bodhicitta, and by doing various practices such as prostrating and reciting those precious powerful buddhas’ names. Every day, we purify so much negative karma and collect so much merit, skies of merit, by generating a bodhicitta motivation and especially by meditating on bodhicitta. In this place, we learn the path to enlightenment, and we direct our life toward enlightenment. Because this place was built, we have this unbelievable opportunity and all the comforts of sleeping and so forth.
However, just like our home in the West, all this comfort and protection for our lives has come from so many sentient beings who suffered when the foundations were laid and during the construction. Many sentient beings died and were harmed and many, such as the builders, created negative karma.
It’s the same with the clothes we wear, even if they are not made from silk or from the fur of an animal that has been killed, even if they are made from wood! Whatever our clothes are made of, so many sentient beings suffered and created the negative karma of harming others for us to have them. When we look at the evolution of the clothing, we can see this.
There is no enjoyment, no comfort that we have ever experienced without depending on the kindness of sentient beings, absolutely none. Numberless sentient beings have suffered or created negative karma by harming others for all of the comfort and happiness that we experience from having shelter, food and clothing.
The conclusion is this. Including our everyday survival, to be able to be a human being and have this precious human body, everything totally depends on the kindness we received from mother sentient beings. Therefore, when we think about this, it becomes impossible to live for even one day without the thought to benefit others. We must at least have some concern or thought to benefit those numberless sentient beings who died and suffered so much or who created so much negative karma in order to give us all this comfort and enjoyment, and even our survival. We have got to do something to benefit them.
Even if we can’t [physically help] for a whole day, or even an hour, a minute, a second, if we can think of their kindness—there are many ways to meditate on the kindness of sentient beings—even just that is part of repaying the kindness. It is unbearable to live our life only with the thought of seeking happiness for ourselves alone, thinking only of our own happiness. To do that for even an hour, a minute, a second, that is something we cannot stand.
We have no choice. It would be very shameful to do otherwise. We must practice a good heart; we must make our life useful for other sentient beings. We have to keep this in mind in our everyday life. As I mentioned the other day, in our everyday life, when the day begins, we must generate the thought to not harm others and to benefit them. We must have that as our main aim in the bottom of our heart, that our life is to benefit others, to cause them happiness. The purpose of our life is not just to obtain happiness for ourselves, not just to solve our own problems, but to free all our kind mother sentient beings, who equal the limitless sky, from all their sufferings and to bring them to every happiness including the highest happiness, full enlightenment. Not just the happiness and comfort of this life, not just the happiness of every life, not just everlasting happiness, liberation from samsara, not just that, but the highest happiness, full enlightenment.
We can do this even if we are not a Buddhist. Even if we don’t think about enlightenment, we can think that our life is to cause other living beings happiness, to free them from suffering and problems. Even a non-religious person can have this attitude to benefit others. We can still practice a good heart even if we are a non-religious person, with no particular faith. We can generate this thought of benefiting others, the good heart, by thinking about the meaning of life.
Right after we wake up, we should rejoice, thinking, “So far I have not died. Today I am still a human being and have this perfect human body. I have the opportunity to practice Dharma.” Then, we can think of the purpose, the meaning of life. Then comes the determination, “This is the meaning of my life. My job, my responsibility is to serve others, to cause others to have happiness and to free them from the suffering. That’s my job. That’s my duty, my service. I have this responsibility.”
When we have a good heart, compassion, loving kindness, numberless sentient beings, starting from the nearest, our own family members, and all the rest, don’t receive harm from us. That is peace. The absence of harm is peace for them. Numberless beings receive so much peace from us. Then, as we develop our good heart, numberless other living beings, starting from those nearest us, also receive so much help, so much benefit from us. There is so much peace and happiness from us.
OUR EGO BLOCKS US FROM REPAYING THEIR KINDNESS
Unless we generate a good heart, the attitude in our heart is the self-centered mind, egoism. That’s what happens. Without a good heart, the ego takes over. Then, when there’s ego, harmful thoughts such as anger, desire and jealousy can easily arise, which give rise to actions that harm others. Directly or indirectly, from life to life, from these attitudes, these negative thoughts, the actions that come out are negative, harming others and harming us. That means we harm ourselves and all the numberless beings from life to life. We might just be one person not transforming the mind, not practicing a good heart, but it is extremely dangerous because numberless other sentient beings will receive harm from us, directly or indirectly.
As I normally mention, historically it has often happened in this world that one person who was very influential did not practice a good heart, did not get the education of the good heart, compassion. Because of that, many millions and millions of people suffered, were tortured and put to death. If, on the other hand, that person had not only that much power but also had the education of a good heart and practiced compassion for others, then totally the opposite would have happened. Instead of millions and millions of people in the world receiving so much harm, they would have received so much happiness. Because of that person’s power and influence, there would have been so much benefit to the world. On top of influence and power, if there had been a good heart and compassion, many millions and millions and millions of people could have benefited. That’s just one example.
Really, even if just one person doesn’t practice a good heart, compassion, then numberless sentient beings will receive harm from that person from life to life, directly or indirectly. It can happen, like those people in history who had such influence and killed many millions of people. Therefore, it becomes crucial, it becomes unbelievably urgent—the most urgent—that each of us practice the good heart.
Even if every one of the numberless other living beings gets angry with us—every human being in the world, every animal in the world, every living being—even if they harm us, even if they kill us, we are just one person. No matter how much we want to have happiness and to avoid suffering, we are just one. The others are just like us in wanting to have happiness and to avoid suffering, and they are numberless. So, even if everyone gets angry at us or even kills us, they do it because they want happiness. We might believe we are so precious, so important, but we are just one, whereas others, who equally want happiness and do not want suffering, are numberless. Therefore, the others who are numberless are most precious, most important.
Therefore, in our daily life, whether others practice patience and compassion or not, from our side we must practice patience and compassion. In other words, first we ourselves should practice patience and compassion. We become an example, an inspiration for others, and then others will learn from us. In that way, through our example, more and more people will transform their minds, becoming good human beings.
Changing our attitude is how we can benefit the world, how we can bring so much peace and happiness to the world, to the whole entire universe, to all sentient beings. We can transform our negative thoughts that cause others suffering, that torture them, into positive thoughts. We can renounce our disturbing thoughts that bring so many problems, so much confusion in life, to ourselves and to others. We can transform our mind into a healthy mind, one with a positive, peaceful, attitude. Then we can develop a good heart, compassion, loving kindness, bodhicitta, the thought of cherishing others. And then wisdom, transforming our mind from ignorance into Dharma wisdom, particularly the wisdom realizing the ultimate nature, emptiness only, recognizing what is the hallucination, recognizing what is false and what is the truth. The realization of wisdom is an extremely important education.
All our happiness and comfort, all these incredible opportunities to practice the Dharma, to cease the whole of suffering completely, including the cause, and to achieve everlasting happiness, especially fully enlightenment—all these things happen totally due to the kindness of the numberless sentient beings. What I mentioned about their kindness of others is just one small part. Therefore, we should lead our life by dedicating it to benefit others, by doing good things for others. That is the general advice. Now I will give specific advice.
SERVING OTHERS IN THE BEST WAY
I normally mention that although benefiting others by causing them to have happiness in this life is very good, that alone is not enough. We should give food to somebody who is dying of starvation; we should give medicine to somebody who is sick; we should give shelter to somebody who is homeless. If we have money, we should give some to those who don’t have any in order to help them. We should give all these things for the happiness of this life. These are just examples. We should be happy to give to others. Whether it’s a small thing or something big, of course, we should attempt to do it. We must try, but that alone is not enough. That alone does not solve their problems.
I’ll put it this way. This life’s happiness is not only the happiness they need. This life only lasts a short while—a few years, a few months, a few days—so they need happiness not only in this life, but also in all future lives. Therefore, we need to cause that. Long-term happiness, the happiness of all the future lives, is more important; to benefit them in that way is more important.
It is more important that we help them completely end their suffering, the cycle of death and rebirth, educating them so they no longer have to reincarnate in samsara. That means they don’t have to suffer anymore: they don’t have to get sick anymore; they don’t have to have operations, abortions, anymore; they don’t have to worry about big expenses anymore, such as all the debts from going to university where they have to borrow money and do nighttime jobs. They don’t have to do any of these things anymore. All their sufferings are completely finished; all the problems, all the suffering, the karma and delusions are ceased. This service, this benefit, is the ultimate benefit. Helping others cease all suffering and its cause and achieve everlasting happiness is the ultimate benefit we can offer them. It is extremely important; it is what they need.
Now, even more important than this is the perfect bliss of full enlightenment, the state of mind that is the cessation of all mistaken minds and the completion of all realizations. To bring sentient beings to full enlightenment is the most important benefit we can offer them.
There are so many different levels of benefiting others. To be able to achieve all this happiness, including liberation from samsara and full enlightenment, they have to actualize the remedy and attain the path. Even if we ourselves had all the realizations, we could not transplant our realizations into them, not like we could transplant our brain or heart or kidneys to others. The way we liberate other living beings is not that way. They can be totally liberated from all suffering and its causes and even from the subtle mistakes of mind and achieve liberation from samsara and enlightenment, but for that they have to actualize the entire path to enlightenment through method and wisdom. That is the actual medicine that removes all the gross and subtle delusions.
In other words, in order to achieve liberation from samsara and full enlightenment, they have to actualize the realizations of the graduated paths of the lower capable being and the middle capable being and achieve the renunciation of this life and the renunciation of future life’s samsara. They need to have the renunciation of the whole of samsara. They need to practice the higher training of moral conduct, the higher training of concentration, shamatha, and the higher training of wisdom. To even be liberated from samsara, from the whole of suffering and its causes, these are the fundamental realizations they need. Then they have to actualize bodhicitta, which is the door to the path to enlightenment, and they have to practice the complete paramita of morality. They have to practice the six perfections: the perfections of charity, morality, patience, perseverance, concentration and wisdom.
According to the Mahayana Paramitayana, the Sutra path, they have to complete the five Mahayana paths and the ten bhumis. Then on the basis of the three principal aspects of the path—renunciation, bodhicitta and the right view of emptiness—on the basis of these common paths, there is the particular path, the Vajrayana path, which they have to actualize to achieve enlightenment quickly.
Even if they only practice the Mahayana Sutra path by following the five paths and attaining the ten bhumis, at the very end, in order to achieve enlightenment, they will have to take a highest tantra initiation that will allow them to cease the gross mind and actualize the extremely subtle mind, the clear light. Only then can they achieve full enlightenment, otherwise they cannot.
This is just an example. For us to free all living beings who are suffering in samsara, to liberate them from the whole of samsara, we must reveal the truth to them. They have to realize the ultimate truth, emptiness. Only with this wisdom can they eliminate the root of samsara, the root of all suffering, ignorance, the mind that is unknowing of the ultimate nature of the I and the aggregates. Unless they know this, they cannot be liberated. Without realizing the ultimate nature of their own self and aggregates, the ultimate nature of their own mind, they cannot be liberated from samsara. For that we need to reveal the teachings on emptiness to them and show them the ultimate nature. This is how the Buddha liberates us sentient beings from suffering, by giving us the teachings and revealing the truth.
To show all these paths, we ourselves must first actualize them. For example, in order for a doctor to teach others to become doctors so they can cure many sicknesses, they themself must be fully qualified. They should have all the education, all the training, all the experience, so that they can educate others to become fully qualified doctors. In exactly the same way, to liberate all sentient beings from samsara and bring them to full enlightenment, we ourselves need to actualize all these paths to liberation to enlightenment.
Therefore the best service we can do for others is to learn the Dharma, to practice the Dharma and to have all realizations of the path to enlightenment. Now you can see how this becomes the best benefit we can offer. The ultimate benefit we can give others is to learn and practice the Dharma and have all the realizations of the path. Then we can directly guide them, liberating them from all the suffering and the causes of suffering and bringing them to liberation and enlightenment.
Now I’m not going to repeat any more. I think I’ve repeated enough! Somehow, I got distracted.
SNAKES CANNOT CEASE THE CAUSE OF SAMSARA
I would like to give the final answer to Sharon’s question! There are many things to explain about eating meat, but the final answer is what we should do. Maybe I’ll bring up a story!
Some years ago in Singapore, we bought a lot of animals, including four or five snakes. No, we didn’t use them for food! They weren’t snacks! There were many frogs and so many different types of fish, and many different turtles. Some turtles eat other fish. What’s the other name? Tortoise. The problem I found was when we bought a few snakes, if they were left in the shop, they were killed. They were skinned alive and because they were very long, they suffered so much. But if we bought them from the shop and liberated them in the water, they ate the frogs and fish, and if we liberated them in the forest, they ate the mice.
So what do you do? There is not much you can do! They cannot meditate. They cannot come to the course. We can explain to them what meditation is, what is the cause of suffering, what is the cause of happiness, virtue, nonvirtue, the four noble truths and so on—we can explain all that to them for eons and they would still not understand! Because they don’t have a human body, because they have taken an animal body, they have blocked the opportunity to understand the meaning of the teachings.
We can train animals. When we give them food, they do things for us and they follow what we tell them. From outside gestures, they follow. I’ll put it another way. How can they be liberated from samsara? How can they cease the cause of samsara, karma and delusions, so that they don’t have to reincarnate anymore as a snake, as a mouse, as a frog, to be eaten by others? But also as a human being, so that they harm others and create negative karma for themselves and for others? As an animal, we have suffered so much and harmed others; as a human being, we have suffered so much and harmed others. We have to finish everything so we and others don’t have to suffer. That’s the solution. Otherwise, it will always be like this, where one eats the other. In the animal realm, it’s always like that. One animal becomes food for another one. And it’s the same in the human realm, where people are always harming each other.
The solution is to be free from samsara, by ceasing the causes of karma and delusions. That is what we should attempt for ourselves and that is the aim that we should have for others. For example, if we ourselves become liberated from samsara—not even enlightened but free from karma and delusions—we won’t have to reincarnate anymore, and then other living beings, other human beings and animals, won’t have to suffer for us. We don’t give them trouble and they don’t have to suffer for us. This is what we should think, otherwise whatever we try is just a temporary solution. It doesn’t solve the problem because karma and delusions are still there.
At that time, it was so hard to know what to do with the snakes. Of course, we chanted mantras, we blessed the water with many powerful mantras, sprinkling it on the animals to purify their negative karma and help liberate them. Although a lot of negative karma might be purified, that doesn’t mean it becomes impossible to be reborn in the lower realms, but it becomes much less likely for them to be reincarnated in the lower realms and suffer so much. But it’s very difficult to not harm others and to not suffer. That is the nature of samsara. That is the nature of life. That is the karma of sentient beings. There is no other choice.
Some people keep snakes as pets. In Australia, I think, one couple kept a snake as a pet. They kept it for how many months? A few years or something. But one day, after the owner and the snake had been together a long time, the snake bit the owner.
[Recording ends]
