A few days before the meat ban happened, I had to drive my wife to town. And every shop failed us. All meat shops were filled with people who hungered for meat and would even fight. I felt terrible. As soon as new stock arrived it was sold out completely. Hotels! Meat vendors assumed the roles of great benefactors. People working in many government offices are far more polite than these meat vendors. But at the end of all - my wife's mission failed. Inside in my head - I was greatly relieved; being a vegetarian and having to buy meat does not go well together.
Anyways - that was that. The following is something I wrote long time ago and I think it is still relevant even now when the nation hungers for meat.
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Of
course there is the need to eat accompanied by the need to survive. Thank god,
our forefathers and their forefathers decided to keep only three meals a day. I
wonder what if they agreed upon some additional meals a day. And then there is
the need to keep healthy. And here we have this notion that no meal is complete
without meat. People can’t imagine organizing a party or any kind of
celebration without meat items. This comes at the cost of hundreds of animals’
lives; cows and pigs and goats and chickens. And there is the need to live
longer and happier, but at the cost of millions of other lives. Some meat connoisseurs
claim their meals are tasteless and that they feel dizzy without having to
consume meat in their meals. And then there is compassion – the defining quality
that separates human lots from the animals – associated with Buddhist
principles. As Buddhists, we condemn killing even an insect.
But
again, every day hundreds of animals lose their lives because of our insatiable
desire for meat. If such an action suits us the Buddhists is for anyone to
judge. Vegetarianism needs no Buddhist masters to encourage it; rather it
should be born out of our love and compassion for the suffering animals. It has
to be understood from our experience of a minimal pain that we go through when
a small thorn pricks our fingers. In other words every animal, big or small,
deserves our sympathy. Feeling empathetic to the plights of animals is paving
our way to turning veg.
I
am not a reincarnate lama or a Buddhist master trying to preach any doctrine
here. All I am saying is that if we slowly start looking beyond our appetite
for meat and turn vegetarians, killing and violence to animals would decrease
in the world. There are many alternatives –our dieticians recommend green
vegetables and doctors urge us to involve in active and healthy lifestyles
minus junk foods. That’s the way to live healthy life devoid of any lifestyle
related diseases. There are so many ways to make meals tasty.
Once
an American friend asked me “how come Buddhism prohibits any form of killing,
yet meat is freely available in the country?” I found satisfaction in telling
him that in the villages, our farmers never kill animals and meat is eaten only
when animals die. To which he sarcastically remarked, “That means once pigs are
fattened, people take them to the nearby cliff and start pushing them slowly
off the cliff. And once the animals fall down, they claim the pigs died on their
own.” Maybe some people weave such stories to tell visitors, but it offers us
some acumen now. We claim we don’t kill. But we eat a lot of meat. That becomes
indirect killing. If not many people relish meat, more hands would develop
mercy. And finally, an Indian butcher had this to say specifically to Bhutanese
meat lovers: “How much ever we slaughter, the meat is still insufficient to Drukpas.”
Let’s promote compassion and spread love. Let’s go empathetically
green by turning vegetarians, all of us, gradually, one at a time.
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So what do you think?