Welcome to The Vegan Report.
My name is Ryan and today we are going to talk about veganism and Buddhism.
There are maybe hundreds, if not thousands of vegan outreach initiatives out there, but
among them there are relatively very few seeking to open dialogue with religious leaders.
I think, for instance, that I never saw Earthling Ed debating a rabbi or a priest.
Yet strategically, I believe it is more valuable to share the vegan message of compassion with
religious leaders than school children, college kids or random people in the streets, since
those religious leaders will influence the hearts and minds of believers for decades
to come.
For this week's episode, I want to turn my attention to Buddhism, the fourth most practiced
religion with approximately 500 million followers worldwide.
To give you an idea of how big this number is, think that the global vegan population
– this is you and me, listeners – is of approximately 79 million people.
79 vs 500.
Imagine what the world would look like if those 500 million Buddhists considered adopting
veganism.
To discuss this topic, I have with me a vegan monk, Piku Sonio, who resides at Bodhinyana
Monastery in Australia.
Venerable, welcome to the show.
Thank you so much for being here.
Thank you so much, Ryan.
I haven't really talked about veganism before in my position as a Buddhist monk, but I'm
happy to do it with you today.
I do know Earthling Ed as well.
Really?
He often engages in very wise debates.
From the Buddhist perspective, we maybe approach things more from the heart as well.
Maybe we can talk about that a little bit more later as well.
From previous conversations with you, I've learned that you already know quite a lot
about Buddhism as well.
That's very nice.
Of course.
Maybe listeners should know that I have a bias since I identify as a Buddhist.
Me too.
I also have a bias.
Exactly.
I'll try to be objective in my questioning and thinking about non-Buddhist perspective
to the conversation.
The first question I wanted to ask you in order to launch this conversation is, what
is surprising about Buddhism is that the religion has a long history of respect and regard towards
animals.
For example, Ashoka, a Buddhist emperor, issued humanity's first animal welfare laws.
Of course, there's a long history of Mahayana Buddhism, Buddhist tradition, mostly practiced
in China, advocating strongly for vegetarianism.
My first question for you is, why is it that modern-day Buddhists do not embrace more widely
the animal cause and veganism?
That's a very good question.
I didn't know that King Ashoka laid down the first animal rights law.
That's interesting to know.
I might have to look that up.
Why do Buddhists in general not more widely accept veganism or maybe even vegetarianism
actually is more rare in some tradition than you might expect?
I have thought about that.
I of course don't have a definite answer because I would have to ask all Buddhists why they
individually don't become, for example, vegans.
I think it's for the exact same reasons that other people in the world don't consider veganism
more seriously.
It's just being ill-informed about what is going on in the animal industry, ill-informed
about that it can be healthy to be a vegan.
For me to be a vegan, I have to keep encouraging myself and to keep reminding myself that it's
healthy and that it is very good for animal welfare.
You have to do some deep digging into the subject to really be 100% convinced about
its benefits.
That is something that most Buddhists have not done, just like normal people mostly will
not have done.
If they would, I think they would be coming to the conclusion that there is a lot of benefit
in the vegan diet, not only for themselves but more so also for animal welfare in general.
For example, this is actually an argument that I've sometimes heard from fellow Buddhists.
They know that eating meat, eating animal products leads to harm for animals.
That's very obvious, of course, if you just think about it for a moment.
But then the argument I've sometimes heard is eating a vegan diet also harms animals
as well because you still have to produce crops and you have to feed, sorry, you have
to produce crops and mow the fields and stuff, so you're killing animals just the same.
But it's a little bit of a simplified argument because most people will not know that.
I don't know what the exact percentages are, but let's say that 70% or 75% or maybe even
more of our crops in the world are grown to feed animals.
Your listeners will probably know this.
Most of the harvesting and most of the killing of even smaller animals happens to feed bigger
animals.
If you want to reduce animal suffering, it's like a double whammy if you become a vegan.
First of all, you don't kill the cows and the pigs and the chickens.
You are not involved in their killing.
So you're less involved in the production of crops in the world.
You probably know these things much better than I do, but it's like I heard once that
if all the agriculture that is in the world that supports the livestock industry, all
the grazing pastures and all the soy production and all the maize production, if that was
all stopped, then it would open up an area of land the size of Africa, I once heard.
Maybe it's not that big, but let's say it was half of Africa, then it would still be
such so much.
So that gives you a little bit of a perspective on that the raising of cows and pigs actually
is their killing is not limited just to those cows and pigs, but also in all the agriculture
that goes before it to produce their feedstock like their soy and whatever else they eat.
So that's one thing that Buddhists haven't thought about just the same as other people.
That's just an example, but it goes for other things as well.
The health benefits, the animal welfare things.
Buddhists are just also not informed and I think if they were, they would consider it
more seriously.
What I get from your answer is that you're optimistic or at least hopeful in the fact
that if we put some efforts in talking with Buddhists and maybe even religious leaders,
monastics in the Buddhist community, we would be able to influence them, convince them,
or make them see that veganism is a better choice.
And maybe not complete veganism.
Maybe it's about reducing your animal product intake.
Maybe it's a more moderate message, but I get the sense that you think that the Buddhist
population would be receptive to the message.
I think so because most of your listeners probably won't know much about Buddhism, but
what they probably do know is that one of the central important aspects in Buddhism
is compassion and kindness, not only to other humans, but also to all living beings.
One of the most famous Buddhist chantings is actually about spreading kindness to all
living beings, whether they are human or animals, strong or weak.
May all beings be happy, Whatever living beings there may be,
Whether they are weak or strong, Omitting none,
The great or the mighty, Medium, short or small,
And this is something that is very much in the general mindset Buddhist.
So they should have this compassion towards animals.
I think most people will have this innate compassion towards animals.
I don't want to say Buddhists are better in this or whatever, but they at least should
already be inclined in that direction because of this general tendency to practice compression.
I think it's just mainly misinformation about what I talked before, but also how bad the
animal industry actually is, about how much animals are actually harmed in the process
of making some little bit of food on your plate.
That is also something that might be something that people in general, but also Buddhists,
should consider more because it's always in our minds, it's always weighing costs and
benefits in whatever we do.
And it's the same with veganism.
It's like the benefits are it's easier to not be a vegan.
I mean, the benefits of not being vegan are you can have more choice for whatever you
eat and you don't have to restrict your desires.
You don't have to plan your lunches as much.
But you have to weigh that up against the downsides, which is like what happens to other
beings in the process.
So I do have faith that veganism can grow and also can grow inside of Buddhist population
for that reason.
But of course, there are other factors weighing in as well, which might give you less faith.
But I also always try to focus on the things that give me faith.
Well, then let's focus on that.
And let's dive right in into the argument, the Buddhist argument for veganism, if I can
put it this way.
So you mentioned the Metta Sutta, which is the chanting.
Yes, the Metta Sutta.
In that, yes, the Buddha invites us to spread loving kindness to all beings, to all living
beings.
Can you give us like an idea of how meaningful that chanting is for Buddhists?
And what is the function of it in the Buddhist practice?
Yeah, how meaningful it is to Buddhists, it will differ from individual to individual,
of course.
But in general, it is one of the most well-known chantings and also one of the most well-known
practices.
So Buddhists, we practice meditation.
And meditation, most people will know maybe the word mindfulness, most of your listeners.
And that is one way of meditating.
But we also have a way of meditating that we actively try to develop positive emotional
states of mind, and also positive attitudes of the heart.
So you call it Metta, but it means like kindness or even love towards other beings, not like
sensual love, but just like the love of a mother to a child is what it says in that
actual chant, actually.
So we try to develop that love for all beings.
And if you do that, you will look at the world differently and you will act differently as
well.
I said before, all people will have some innate compassion and love.
People will know what I'm talking about, even if they're not Buddhists.
But if you develop it more actively and remind yourself of it, let's say, every day, like
I do, then it will change your life and it will change not only your mind, but also the
way you act towards other people and other beings as well.
For example, we as monks, we also have a rule that we are not allowed to kill even like
a small insect.
And if we do, we will have to confess it.
By killing, I mean like intentional killing, because sometimes you can't avoid it.
Like I live in a forest, sometimes I walk out door and I step on an ant.
Okay, I can't really do much about that because they're all over the place.
You try to avoid it, but we're not supposed to intentionally go around and stomp on ants.
That's what I'm saying.
Or even if they invade your private space.
I once had an ant's nest in my hut.
We monks, in this monastery, we live in little huts in forest.
They're not like a wooden hut or something.
They're made of stone.
They're sort of pretty strong and nice to live in.
Once I had like an ant invading in my hut, we're not allowed to kill ants.
But I thought my mother, she said, yeah, you should use that ant poison stuff that I killed.
But of course I didn't.
But eventually I got like a leaf blower and tried to blow them all out of the door.
That worked pretty well.
I probably maybe killed some in the process, but not intentionally.
I did my best because there were like hundreds.
Anyway, what I'm saying is this practice of loving kindness, ideally is not just something
that is just a mindset, but also that something that has actual physical results in our actions.
Well, it's a radical attitude of benevolence towards truly all beings, like you said, including
ants.
I find it very incredible in its, like I said, how radical it is and how it encompasses every
being because I think that historically most philosophical traditions and religions have
put the emphasis on humanity.
So you had, for instance, humanism and there was this untruple centrism that came about
where the main focus is our relationship with other humans and being considerate toward
other humans and another word for anthropocentrism is human exceptionalism.
So you had truly a hierarchy of here are the humans, they are like the chosen one, they
have this genealogy coming from divinity or something like that.
Then you had the lesser beings who did not deserve the same consideration and same loving
kindness and those we call animals.
But I feel like Buddhism blurs the line just by the fact of believing in another core belief
of Buddhism is reincarnation.
And so there's this belief that when you die, you could be reborn into an animal, could
be reborn into the animal realm.
And so I feel like there is this truly this attitude of, first of all, you're not that
different from other animals and that makes them just as much deserving of your love and
consideration.
Would you agree with that assessment?
Yes, yes, that's a very good thing actually.
And some religions, they state in their seminal texts, something like God created animals
to serve humans or something like that, or humans to rule over the animals or whatever
it says.
It says something like that in the Bible, in Genesis or something.
But in Buddhism, we don't have that kind of idea that certain beings are higher than other
beings.
And of course, some beings are more intelligent than others by the virtue of where they're
born.
Like if I'm born a human, I'm going to be more intelligent than an ant, probably.
Even that is actually not, it's a little bit of attention, but not really answering your
questions.
Sometimes people say, have this argument for veganism that humans are more intelligent
than animals, but not all humans are as intelligent.
Some humans, they have like mental challenges and we don't go kill those humans just because
they're less intelligent.
So anyway, you can't judge by intelligence which beings are more worthy of others is
what I'm saying in a bit of a bad way.
But to get back to the reincarnation questions or rebirth, yeah, that is something most of
your listeners may not accept.
But in Buddhism, that is the general accepted view that we don't have just a single life,
but we get reborn in other places as well and have been reborn in other lives as well,
including also as animals as well.
And it's also said in the text that to reflect upon all other animals that because we've
been reborn so many times that it is likely that animals you meet, they have been like
your family members in a past life.
It sounds a little bit abstract and maybe a bit far-fetched for some of your listeners,
but that is what Buddhists in general believe, not all Buddhists, but most Buddhists believe.
And so when you, that is something to maybe Buddhists should reflect upon more as well
that if you eat a steak, then you're sort of like eating your, I don't know, your mother
of a past life in a way.
So that is also something that comes back to this compression as well, to realize that
animals right now, from a Buddhist perspective, animals in like a slaughterhouse, for example,
is in a same situation that you might have been in or might be in a future life, maybe
if you're reborn as a cow again, maybe.
So what I'm saying is you relate to animals not as a different species or a lower species,
but you just put themselves in their place.
And you can do this, of course, without a belief in rebirth, just as well.
But the belief in rebirth does give it an extra oomph because you know that it is not
just imagining yourself in a place, but you could be in that place in the next life from
the Buddhist perspective.
And that makes another very powerful argument for any, for instance, Buddhist who would
be listening to this conversation and who is not vegan or who might be considering going
vegan.
Yeah, it will make an emotional argument for sure.
But yeah, I also have to be informed actually how bad these slaughterhouses is because sometimes
you hear like it's humane killing or animals aren't really hurt.
They just get like an injection or whatever, like in a gas chamber or something and they
don't feel anything.
But if you're, I will not explain this to your listeners, but if you're a little bit
more informed about what goes on in those kind of slaughterhouses and even in the raising
of animals, then even in like the production of dairy, a lot of suffering goes on, which
you'll never expect if you just see like you grab a bottle of milk and it has these happy
cows in the field on the front.
And when I was a little boy, I believe that my favorite animal was a cow.
Even gave, when I was like 10 years old, like you had to give these little talks in primary
school and I gave like this talk about cows and how great they are to give milk and stuff.
But now I probably would not give the talk in the same way that I did then because I'm
more informed.
Yeah.
Well, I want to get back to what you said about intelligence because something else
people tend to do who are not vegan or not truly considerate toward animals is claim.
Oh, humans are so intelligent and then they will identify all the great inventions and
all, you know, the symphonies and the rockets and all of those, you know, the medicine and
they will say that those things, you know, humans have done and animals will never do.
But there is a flaw with that, which is those things are the result of yes, humans thinking
and advancing science and all of that, but not all humans.
One percent of humanity maybe, you know, is responsible for all of those great innovations
and you know, should we put moral value on the life of someone because of how smart they
are doesn't seem very compassionate.
Yeah, that's a nice argument.
Well, people might argue that the other 99% of people and able other people, you want
to make the rockets, I don't know.
But it is just to answer again from a Buddhist perspective, because you invited me in the
position of a Buddhist monk is that from our perspective, what makes humans great is not
their achievements in science or technology or even in art or culture.
What makes humans great or gives humans the possibility to be great is their development
of their mind and to be wise, not about I studied engineering as a layperson.
So I had a high degree, but that from a Buddhist perspective, that doesn't make you wise.
It makes you wise how you act, what you do if you act out of kindness, if you act out
of less greed and hatred.
That is what makes humans potentially great.
And in that sense, animals can often surpass certain humans.
I live in a forest in Australia and there are all these animals in the forest, but especially
also kangaroos.
They will never hurt you.
They will just even come to you and smell and are interested in you, but they'll never
go and say anything bad to you or kick you or whatever.
And I'm saying for all the other animals here in the forest, maybe sometimes you didn't
like a spider bites you, but they don't have any bad intentions.
It's just the nature of a spider.
So in that sense, animals are actually, I would say pretty wise actually sometimes.
And also, this maybe goes for, again, for your general listener, a bit far fetched,
but in Buddhism, we also believe that there is higher beings than humans.
Humans have all the possibilities to become wise like a Buddha or develop their compassion
like a Buddha, but we also believe that there's higher beings like what's in other religions
they might call like angels or gods or whatever.
Most Buddhists believe in that as well.
And if you come from this perspective of the more higher intelligent being can rule over
the lower ones, then we should submit that those higher beings should come and do it
as they want.
But Buddhists will believe in them, they know that they don't do that.
But yeah, it's just that this argument of hierarchy is flawed in my opinion for various
reasons.
Yeah.
Well, even if there is no belief in those reincarnation or in higher beings, just the
fact of having this cosmological perspective is fascinating because all this human narcissism
that we have, this entitlement to just destroy forests and use resources like we want and
exploit animals, all of that is reduced by this vision, by this perspective.
This perspective does not allow such actions or thoughts or ways to be.
Yeah, that's an interesting observation.
If it isn't true, what I'm saying about rebirth and everything, even if it's not true, for
people who believe in it, it changes the way they look at life.
And that is already very powerful in itself.
I believe.
Yeah, or can be anyway.
And you mentioned before killing, you know, how you tried not to kill intentionally living
beings.
That is actually the very first precept that any Buddhist is supposed to take, you know,
abstaining from killing sentient beings, whatever that being might be, not just humans, but
including animals.
So I guess right off the bat, hunting is out of the question.
But then you have certain Buddhists who will say, okay, eating meat is not killing beings
because I'm purchasing the meat, someone else is doing the killing.
And that argument, I've read it multiple times, you know, online or on all sorts of articles.
And I was wondering if you had the response to that.
Yes, I think those people have a point but also should maybe reflect a bit more deeply
because the first precept is indeed to not intentionally kill animals for ourselves.
So if you eat meat, you're not intentionally killing animals.
When I was a lay person, I already was thinking about a lay person, like before I became a
monk, that's what that means.
And before I was a monk, I already thought about this.
And I thought, well, I might not be intentionally killing a cow myself when I eat meat, a hamburger
or whatever.
But it is like my diet is connected to the actions of others.
When I go to the store and buy a hamburger, then that gives the message to the store to
buy more hamburgers to sell, which gives a message to the slaughterhouse to kill more
animals.
It's like the sales of their meat directly influences what happens in the world.
So although I wasn't killing animals myself, I still at that point decided to, at that
point, I was a vegetarian mainly because I wasn't informed enough about the dietary side
of veganism.
I thought you needed milk and stuff to be healthy, which I now know isn't true.
But that's what I thought back then.
This is maybe a way to put it.
That first precept is well known for its negative phrasing.
By that I mean, do not kill living beings.
That is the short version.
But in many of the texts, it's actually expanded that first precept.
And it doesn't stop there at the negative.
It actually also adds some positive injunctions as well.
It says, okay, not kill living beings and to live with a compassionate heart towards
all living beings, which is like an idiom says, your swords and rods laid aside, which
means you're not going to stab them or hurt anybody.
But it also is about developing a more kind attitude in general, not just not killing,
but also to make sure that other animals can, just like human animals, can live in a comfortable
way to put it that way.
So yeah, there's more to it than just not killing.
But maybe you have a follow up question for that.
Well, my first, I have two follow up questions.
My first one is why is it the first precept?
Because there are mostly Buddhists will take five precepts and this is the first one.
Is there any importance to that?
The fact that it is the first one?
Not sure if there is.
But even if it's not the first one, it's one of only five.
So it has a prominent place regardless of whether it's the first or the fifth one.
Buddhists practice more than just those five rules generally speaking.
And as monastics, monks and nuns, we have many, many more rules than that as well.
But just considering that it's one of the five like seminal rules in Buddhism to not
kill, not just kill like your neighbor or kill other humans, but kill any animals at
all, that is very impressive to me.
And it's even the first year I've never really thought about that.
But generally in Buddhism, things are ordered for specific reasons.
Actually we have all these lists of things in Buddhism.
I won't bore your audience with it.
But there are some reasons why things are listed and numbered.
And usually there's a reason for it.
So maybe it is at the top because it is so important.
Because the other rules in there are like not stealing and not lying and those kinds
of things.
But killing is maybe if you engage in it comes from the Buddhist perspective from a more
unwholesome unhealthy mindset that even more unwholesome than things like stealing and lying.
Maybe that's why.
Well, let's talk about that because I think when listeners hear me or hear you say precepts,
they hear commandments and they think, oh, what happens if I break those precepts?
Do I go to hell?
And why?
What is the reason for those precepts?
Right.
Yeah.
So we call them precepts, but they're more like training rules.
So it's something that we train in and do our best to practice as well as we can.
I just talked about that first training rule, first precept about not killing it.
It doesn't just end at not killing.
There's more to it to develop a kind and compassionate heart.
And there is not really an end to developing a kind and compassionate heart.
From a Buddhist perspective, you can develop that for your whole life basically.
So it's not like the rule is only about breaking it or not breaking it.
It's about also developing positive sides of it as well.
And even if sometimes you fail to live up to your standards of those rules or those
practice rules, let's call them, then you don't go immediately to hell or something
while you do that.
It is a means of improving yourself and to realize which things in life are not worth
pursuing and which things in life are worth pursuing.
For example, it's a little bit of the topic of veganism, but in case of good analogy,
is the precept about lying.
We practice to not lie and always tell the truth.
But many people, they sometimes tell these small, wide lies and make themselves look
better or whatever.
Maybe it's not a lie, but it's like a half truth.
You know what I'm talking about.
And that is just something that is sometimes so ingrained in our system that we just automatically
do it without thinking about it.
The Buddhist practice is to slowly get better at things.
So first you stop the big lies like, oh, yeah, I was at my work last night when you actually
were with somebody else or whatever.
Those kind of lies, you stop first and then gradually you start also removing bigger lies
from your life.
And it's the same with the killing precept as well.
You start where you can and try to improve yourself as a person.
That's what it's all about.
Maybe that's the way to summarize it.
It's about improving yourself as a person.
And it's unlike other religions, we don't have like a divine deity who's looking over
us and punishes us when we do something wrong.
It's all about our own minds and about how we live our lives.
So if we kill, even if you kill a human being, it's not that there is some divine force who
writes it down in a big book and when you die, they'll come and tell you about, no,
it's all about our own being, our own minds that we try to be more kind and more compassionate.
And that is, first of all, because it leads to happiness for ourselves.
Because when you are kind, you're always much more happy than when you're angry.
And when you're killing beings, you're actually hurting inside as well.
But it's also for the benefit of other beings as well.
Why we practice all these rules with not killing, it's obvious.
But even with things like lying, it's not just for our own peace of mind that we don't
try to lie, but also for other beings as well that they can live in trust with us and don't
have to always doubt.
I wish more vegans would take that perspective with their veganism.
And here I'm talking mostly about new vegans because they have kind of like an Abrahamic
religious expectation towards their veganism.
They think of it as being commandments.
And if they start eating animal products and if they can't have a vegan meal someday at
work or something like that, if they added some cheese and something at some point, well,
they feel so bad.
They feel guilty.
And I truly think that this perspective, this way of looking at veganism is not conducive
to keeping up with your veganism in the long term.
And so I wish vegans would look at it more of like a progressive and soft approach, like
a practice instead of like a religious commandment.
Yeah, I think that's very good, Ryan.
I agree with that.
Sometimes we can look at things in life in very much of a black and white perspective.
Either I succeed or I fail and there's no in between.
And that is also an attitude many people bring towards veganism.
Sometimes even before they even try it, they're like, ah, I'm not going to be able to eat
100% vegan diet, so why should I even try?
But that is all already, first of all, you give up before you even try, which it's never
a good thing to do.
But also it is, as I said, black and white thinking.
Either you succeed or you don't.
But there's also such a big gray area in between.
And you don't have to be perfectly white to be able to make a big impact in the world.
As a monk, I am a vegan, as I said before, that's what I call myself anyway.
But as a monk, your listeners most of them will know that we rely on donations of food
from other people.
We don't cook ourselves.
We rely upon whatever food people bring us.
And there are various reasons for that.
So people keep in contact with the monks and also so we don't have any money as well as
in our tradition.
So we can't even buy food.
But because of that, if a monk or nun wants to be a vegan, it's more difficult than for
a nun or a Dane person because you don't have the ability to go to the store and buy whatever
you like.
You're always dependent upon what other people bring.
And in some monasteries, that's more easy to do to be vegan as a monastic than in others.
But as a monastic, because I am not always in control of my food, it sometimes happens
that I think a certain dish is vegan, that I take that dish and put it in my monks bowl.
We have these bowls for the recording.
You can see it's like a bowl we put food in for the video recording.
And sometimes I always try to get vegan dishes, but sometimes it ends up I put the food in
and I go back to my heart to eat it and I open up and it ends up maybe if it's particularly
has like cheese or meat in it, then I would take that out.
But sometimes it can be that you don't know.
That's what I'm trying to say.
Like does this dish, was it made in vegetable oil or maybe some animal products?
I don't know.
So you can't be perfect as a monastic when you're trying to be vegan, at least not in
my tradition.
I do my best to be as good as possible.
But if I would have that attitude of wanting to be 100% perfect about it, then that would
create a lot of difficulties and then I probably wouldn't be able to do what I do now, which
is at least be 99% vegan and sometimes maybe something slips through the cracks, which
is just the way it is.
So I would encourage everybody who is considering veganism also to not have that black and white
attitude, but just go day by day.
This is another beautiful practice of Buddhism is to live in the present moment and present
moment doesn't just mean in meditation you focus on the here and now, but it also means
don't worry too much about the future or the past in more general terms.
Don't go and plan out your whole life right now because it won't happen the way you plan
it anyway.
But even with veganism, don't envision yourself that you have to be a vegan for your whole
life in order for it to succeed.
Just start today and practice it for one day, see how that goes.
And then tomorrow is another day and another day and another day.
I never said a vow for myself that I'm going to be a vegan for my whole life because it's
just creates this unnecessary tension and unnecessary weight upon yourself.
But if I just say, oh, I'm going to be a vegan today, then it's very easy.
And tomorrow is the next day, I'm going to be a vegan today.
Yay.
And the next day, oh, yeah, let's be vegan today.
And I reflect upon it almost every day when I eat my food.
As monastics, we have this reflection we do before we eat food to not eat food for indulgence
but for the sake of health.
But also one of the words in there is to avoid harm in that reflection.
That's a reflection that the Buddha gave to avoid harm.
And when I eat my food every day, I reflect, oh, I was able to get vegan food again today.
So we have avoided some harm in whatever abstract sense that is.
Because as a monk and nun, if you're not able to choose your own food, it sometimes also
feels like you're making less of an impact by being a vegan.
But that's another topic.
But every day to celebrate every day that you were able to do veganism or vegetarianism
or whatever today and not to only celebrate it if you're able to do it for your whole
life.
That is, I think, an attitude which will make it much more easy to do.
Yeah.
Thank you for sharing that.
It's truly beautiful.
I think it gives another meaning to being vegan when you start putting truly intention
in your veganism, like you said before, eating, thinking about what you're eating and why
you're eating what you're eating.
I want to ask you more about your personal journey, your monastic journey, and also your
vegan journey.
First, one last point about metta, this loving kindness, this compassion, this benevolence
towards all beings that we have been talking about.
There are people out there who are animal abusers.
And vegans, usually we have lots of anger and strong feelings towards those people and
distress too and sadness towards what they're doing.
And I'm thinking here from the workers in the factories, in the slaughterhouses, the
butchers, the hunters, the people profiting from that business of meat trade to the people
we see on the news abusing their dogs and cats and fish, to the pet store owners.
There's a whole bunch of people out there who not only do not align with vegan attitudes
and values and beliefs, but go at the opposite of them.
And I think many vegans have developed this kind of misentropy.
They start to hate humans or have many deep resentments towards their species.
When I first became vegan, I did have those moments of being angry towards family members
or friends who eat meat and are not receptive to my vegan preaching.
So I was wondering what would be the Buddhist attitude and view towards those people, this
whole spectrum of people who go against vegan principles?
Yeah, that's true.
You can have this feeling of resentment to people who do that sort of stuff that you've
mentioned.
But probably when you started preaching to your family, they also had some resentment
towards you as well.
You used the word preaching.
So I was envisioning you around the dinner table and telling them what to eat and what
not to eat.
Then they'll feel resentment towards you as well.
I was annoying.
I confess I was super annoying.
But you thought you were coming from a right place, right?
When you were doing it.
And you were probably.
Well, yeah, but I was mindless, I think.
This is also the case to some extent when people kill other animals, abuse them, engage
in the meat trade or any of that stuff that from another perspective, you might feel resentful
towards is that they are doing what they think is okay, sometimes even good.
Because for example, butchers might not have that perspective on animals that they are
just as sentient as human beings and they look at them more like as an object.
And of course, from another perspective, you might think, oh, that's so stupid.
But if you put yourself in the shoes of that butcher, they also have a family to feed.
So they start killing animals, not just because they're angry with animals or something like
that.
That's not what butchers do.
And it's because they have families to feed.
And this is especially a little bit of a sad situation with slaughterhouse workers, not
like the butcher on the market, but people who are in these big factories.
It's often just the only job they're able to get in their area.
And if they wouldn't have that job, then what else are they going to do?
They end up on the street sometimes.
And if you look at it like that, you can understand why people be more abusive or do that sort
of work.
And you don't feel resentful towards them because you know if you would have been in
that exact same situation, you would have had the exact same mind as them, imagine that
you would, then you would do the exact same thing.
And we can always understand every kind of action that humans do.
People do a lot of bad things, but in the end, they always do it because they think
that is from a strange perspective, but they always feel that that is the right thing to
do.
Even if you go kill another tribe or whatever, because you think you need that land for your
own tribe.
And in a sense, there is a little bit of compassion even in that, although it's compassion only
for yourself and your own tribe and not for the other tribe.
So it's very limited compassion, but it's a kind of compassion as well.
And I look upon people in the meat industry like that, like they are stuck in a situation
that they have to feed themselves and their family.
If there would be alternatives, then they would be easily available, then they would
make the switch right away.
That's what I think.
So I don't feel resentful towards also animal farmers.
Often people have been animal farmers for generations.
Their fathers and mothers were animal farmers, their grandfathers were, goes back all the
way.
And then of course, it's not easy to suddenly drop that whole tradition and start raising
and not animals, but growing, I don't know, corn or whatever.
It's not easy for them to make that switch.
So you can put yourself in their shoes and understand.
And in that way, you don't have to be resentful towards other people.
And also, maybe this is more relevant sometimes, not be resentful to other people who choose
to have a different diet than a vegan diet.
Sometimes I realized for myself, when I have all these downsides of a non-vegan diet, freshly
in my mind and all the benefits of a vegan diet, also freshly in my mind, then I think
like, how can you be so stupid to eat meat?
How can you be so stupid to drink dairy and stuff?
It's not healthy and you're just harming all the animals.
I don't get resentful, but I can imagine how people can be resentful towards other people
around them who don't follow a vegan diet.
But then probably most of your audience at some point in their lives also weren't vegan.
Most of them probably grew up also eating animal products.
I did anyway.
And I ate a lot of meat, especially when I was a lay person.
And then I just remember what I was like then.
And I just couldn't see.
To get back to the start of our conversation, people are often just not informed enough.
And you can't blame people for not being informed enough.
All you can do is try to inform them and then have them make their decisions based on that.
That's why I love projects like this podcast of yours, Ryan, because it'll reach some
people and inform them hopefully about these kinds of subjects.
We have touched previously on how you are a monastic and you're also vegan.
And you mentioned some of the challenges of being vegan and being a monastic.
Why did you make the choice of becoming vegetarian and then vegan?
What convinced you?
Yeah, I wasn't a vegan before I was a monk.
I was a vegetarian though.
It's been a long time.
I came to this monastery 10 years ago and I became a monk nine years ago.
Before that, as you said, I was already practicing vegetarianism.
That convinced me.
It's been a long time.
I can't really remember, but it must have been the animal welfare thing again.
I was already a practicing Buddhist at that time.
I practice in a tradition by a monk called Thich Nhat Hanh.
He is more aimed towards veganism than many other Buddhists.
His tradition is entirely vegan.
His monastic tradition is.
Our tradition is not.
I mean, it's ordained in a different tradition.
But I was practicing as an ordained person, as a lay person in that tradition.
I think it was at that time that I started becoming vegetarian because I realized that
it is very much in alignment with Buddhist ideas to stop eating meat for all the reasons
that we've talked about before.
I didn't become a vegan because I think I said before, I was not properly informed about
the dietary side of things and also about the animal welfare side of things.
I had this idea of dairy cows, they just live in a field and they grow old and they become
grandmothers and whatever.
But it's not like that.
They also get killed.
They're basically still a kid themselves in a sense.
If you compare animal life to human years, I think dairy cows get killed when they're
like in their teens for a human.
I think they're like four or five years old.
But anyway, I didn't know all those things, so I was just a vegetarian.
But then I ordained in a monastery where vegetarianism is not widely practiced, although there's
other monks who do it as well.
At the start, when I came to this monastery, I was able to still be a vegetarian.
But it was already harder for the reasons that I talked about before.
You don't have the choice of your own food, which even if you're not a vegetarian can
sometimes already be difficult.
You just have to eat whatever people give you.
To be honest, in this monastery, we get a lot of food, so the support is great.
But you're not always in this monastery.
We monks, we travel around as well.
We call ourselves monks, but we're not like Christian monks who stay in one monastery
their whole life.
We actually go to other places and we're also sometimes invited to eat at people's houses.
And then we often accept those invitations.
And then you don't get as much choice about your food.
So sometimes it was very difficult being a vegetarian.
And then on top of making that whole switch of living in a monastery, which is already
difficult.
So after maybe one or two years, actually I gave up on vegetarianism living here.
I also felt like I'm not making the same difference that I was before as a lay person.
Because as a lay person, at least when I had to go to the store, I had a choice.
I either buy the vegan thing or I buy the meat thing.
And even that is already a little bit of a distance from the actual killing.
But at least you have this financial power to financial vote to say, I'm not going to
buy this, I'm going to buy that.
If you live in a monastery and you're just relying on what people bring you, you don't
even have that.
So and especially when I was here at the start as just a guest, I felt like, yeah, what difference
is it now making in the world?
Nothing I felt like.
And so for all those reasons, I actually gave up on vegetarianism for a while.
But at some point, people started asking questions of me when I was a monk, like why are monks
not vegan?
And why are vegetarian?
And I actually didn't have good answers.
And then I realized I actually I should do this again.
I should become vegetarian and why not go all the way vegan?
So that was been like four years ago, maybe something like that, four years.
And since then, I've also realized that there actually is an impact I'm making, even though
it's not financial.
When people learn about monks being vegan or vegetarian, then it inspires them, especially
when they're vegan themselves.
And I think that is a more important impact than just the financial impact of not buying
meat, because that is sort of my job as a monk is to inspire, especially other Buddhists
to practice the Buddhist religion.
And many Buddhists are vegan.
And then when they see that monks are not vegan, they get very disappointed and uninspired.
So I think it's sort of my job to show that monks and nuns, well, I'm not a nun, but to
show that panastics in general can also be vegan.
And those Buddhists who are vegan that I know find that very helpful.
So in that way, I do have an impact.
And I have to keep reminding myself of it, because it's still sometimes hard from a dietary
point of view to be a vegan if you can't control your own food.
It's been a while ago, but I was invited to a Thai restaurant to get it with some other
monks to go and eat there.
And it was like a new restaurant.
It was in one of the most expensive areas of Perth, where I live close by on this quay,
this new area.
And it's a really fancy restaurant.
And so they invite us then to not just eat there, but do a little blessing and hopefully
for the success of that restaurant.
That's the idea.
All I could eat there was rice and a banana.
Well, that was a whole table full of dishes, but they all had meat in them.
So that is just an example.
And that's not an exception.
That happened other times as well.
So luckily, that doesn't happen very often because that can make it very difficult.
But it does pose challenges.
But now I'm able to face those challenges more with a positive mindset like, okay, this
is worth it.
Sometimes struggle a little bit with what food you eat.
And I also have to say that the more senior I become as a monk and the more people learn
about my veganism, the more often they actively support it.
We are supposed to just not demand any kind of food.
We can't really ask of laypeople, bring us this food, bring us that food.
But once they learn that you're a vegan, they will know and they'll happily go out of their
ways to bring vegan food.
So all these Buddhists have been very, these supporters have been very inspiring as well.
And that's also what keeps me going now.
So that was my journey with veganism.
And I hope to be able to do it today again.
You know what I'm saying?
I was going to say I hope to be able to do it for the rest of my life, but then I remembered
my own instruction from earlier.
So I'm just going to do it day by day.
Yeah.
Yes, day by day.
And it brings home the point I was making in my introduction.
I do believe your role is important and that you bring inspiration.
I know that you inspire me.
I'm inspired to see a monastic who's vegan and who understands what it is about.
Because often you hear, you know, other community leaders, not just religious leaders, but also
politicians that we vote for and they reject veganism, but they're not rejecting veganism.
They're rejecting the idea they have of veganism and it's the wrong idea.
So it's a misunderstanding of veganism.
They don't understand what veganism is about.
They don't understand the ethical argument and that's what they are rejecting and criticizing
or not being receptive to.
And so to see, you know, leaders who not only understand what is veganism about, but also
have decided to adopt it and support it, it is truly inspiring.
Thank you for that.
I'm not exactly sure what kind of misinformed view of veganism people might have, but I'm
happy to hear that it's inspiring for people like you to see religious leaders to adopt
veganism.
And even if all the animal welfare and health and environmental issues, all these things
we haven't even talked about, but your listeners will know about, even if those would not be
so much of an issue, then for me in my position as a Buddhist monk, it is important to, you
know, be able to inspire or at least not discourage any kind of people who might be interested
in my religion.
For example, I've heard from fellow vegan Buddhists, we have a little connections here
as well, of course, that sometimes they bring their friends to the monastery, their vegan
friends, and they see how much animal products the other people bring and that the monastics
eat them as well.
And then they get really discouraged and never come back to the monastery ever again.
And to me, that's so saddening because they shouldn't ideally just be put off from visiting
the monastery for that reason.
If they are put off from Buddhism for any of its philosophical ideas, if they don't
accept the compassion thing or they don't accept the rebirth thing and say, Buddhism
is just a stupid religion philosophically, then that is fine with me if they reject Buddhism
because of that.
But if they are discouraged for something that I am so that I'm in a position to do something
about like something as simple as changing what I eat, if they are discouraged because
of the diet, then I think that's something I should do something about.
And I know for a fact that there are people who are happy to see monastics enjoy a vegan
diet as well.
Even actually, I enjoy it more than my diet before actually.
I think it's more tasty now that it's only difficult when you have only rice as an option.
But even then actually, now it's not difficult anymore because the taste of meat and dairy
products start becoming repulsive to me like, why would you eat that even?
Even thinking about it now, I get this shiver like, I don't want to eat that.
So now it's very easy actually.
But anyway, I'm happy that it inspires some people.
Hopefully more people will be inspired to pick it up in the future as well because it
does have a lot of benefits for everybody involved, the practitioner of veganism as
well as the animals.
The misunderstanding part, I was talking about an example of that that comes to mind is a
politician, a well-known politician here in Quebec, in Canada, where I am.
He spoke out publicly against a few vegan activists who intruded into a farm to protest.
And he said, the parliament, he said publicly, my message to vegan Quebecers is there are
people in Quebec who like the taste of meat and you should respect that.
And I was thinking, I also like the taste of meat.
This is not why I became vegan.
You're not getting why, what is this about truly?
And I think that there are more and more people, not just vegans, but who look at religious
leaders and we think of religious leaders as the one who have moral clarity, who are
here to guide us through all sorts of difficult, complex choices and decisions we make in our
lives.
And I think their authority and their legitimacy can be undermined when we see them supporting
such a horrific industry and not denouncing it or at least not being sympathetic to the
animal protection cause.
Yeah, yeah, so I can understand why people get put off by some of the more rebellious
side of the vegan movement.
Let's put it that way.
Yeah, if people go and infiltrate animal farms and whatever, I don't have any objections
to it myself.
I would probably support those people as long as they don't hurt anybody else.
But yeah, I think we can approach veganism from different perspectives as well.
I think maybe that as you say, there's the religious side, not just Buddhism, but other
religions as well.
I know you've spoken to a priest as well in your podcast.
Yes, a Catholic.
Okay.
Yeah.
And I think those have something to offer in the conversation as well.
Yeah, I agree.
As maybe a parting question, I wanted to ask about Dharma voices for animals.
I think I got the name correctly.
This is I think the only global organization of vegan advocacy by and directed to Buddhists
and more specifically monastics, so maybe Buddhist religious leaders.
Can you tell us a little bit about this organization and how we can support it?
Yeah, I'm not directly involved in it myself.
They have chapters all over the world.
And the chapter here in Western Australia is sort of in hibernation a little bit.
They used to meet more often than they do now.
The people who were involved still come together and I think they're trying to publish some
sort of booklets and stuff.
But there is a Buddhist organization, Dharma Voices for Animals, and the word Dharma is
D-H-A-R-M-A, and then Voices for Animals.
And as I said, I'm not directly involved with it myself.
I know some of the leaders here from the Western Australia chapter, but we haven't done too
much lately anyway.
But I know it's more active in some other countries like I think the US and Sri Lanka
and things like that.
And I would gladly support them for what they do.
I will leave a link in the description for people who want to check out their website.
So Venerable, did you have anything more to add to the conversation before I stop the
recording?
I think we touched upon all the main things that I would have liked to address, but I
want to just once more highlight this point of not being perfect in veganism.
And this is not just because an attitude of perfectionism makes veganism harder, but also
makes our whole life harder.
And we talked a lot about veganism from this perspective of benefiting animals in the sense
that they don't get harm.
But from a spiritual perspective, we can also practice veganism for our own benefits.
And maybe that sounds a little bit selfish, but I don't mean it in that sense.
I mean it in the sense of when we have the right attitude towards our food, or the right
attitude, I mean, have a better attitude towards what we eat and have come out of compassion.
And as I said, not to eat in a way that causes harm, then we ourselves become more happy
people in my experience.
And so we benefit from it as well.
And if we then have this attitude of perfectionism, then we can take away much of that benefit
that we are able to get out of practicing veganism.
Even if you just practice veganism for a day and reflect upon it, I probably caused less
animal suffering today, then you can be very happy for that.
And then if the next day, maybe you're not able to do it for whatever social reason or
whatever, then you don't beat yourself up for it, but just try again the next day.
I think that is the main message I would like to leave people with.
Amazing.
So again, thank you so much, Venerable, for having accepted my invitation and having answered
my questions.
Thank you very much, Ryan.
And I wish you much success with your podcast.
Thank you everyone for listening.
I kindly invite you to share this podcast with the vegans you know.
Let's encourage more people to take action.
Again, thank you so much for caring, and I will see you next Tuesday for a new episode.