Are You Heeding the 6th Buddha’s Advice Yet?

The 17th Karmapa’s Kagyu office produced an impressive booklet called ‘Guidelines for Mitigating Climate Change’. I received it via email as an attachment file from a Dharma friend, who cc-ed it to a few other friends too. It happened that all of them are vegetarians. I could not resist sending the below to the sender, who is a stubborn meat-eater and admits his ongoing caving in to cravings for meat, but does little to resist, while even occasionally telling us about ‘yummy’ meat treats. Ironically, he hangs a big portrait of the Karmapa in his hall at home (as above) and had attended his teachings in person, during the period when he began seriously advocating the importance of eating less meat. (Sadly, even if he reads this post, which is unlikely, he is likely to just shrug it off.)

On page 21:

Eat less meat or become completely vegetarian: In simplest terms, food is energy and the food that requires the least amount of energy to produce is vegetarian: grains, vegetables, pulses, fruits and so on. Animals that live on plants take energy from the earth. Those of us who eat meat take up even more energy than these animals. People should consider giving up meat not only to practice compassion for animals, but also to reduce the burden they are putting on the Earth. All Kagyu monasteries practice vegetarianism–they should also encourage individuals to cultivate compassion for all living things and lighten the load the Earth already carries.

Consider heeding the advice of the 6th Buddha la! (It was prophesised that the 17th Karmapa will be the Buddha after Maitreya Bodhisattva becomes Buddha.) Not nagging at you… I’m only following his advice in red above to encourage you! Amituofo.

Related Article:

2007 Talk on Vegetarianism by the 17th Karmapa
http://moonpointer.com/bvf.php?itemid=2285