20210228大仁大勇入人群Promoting Vegetarianism with Great Courage and Great Compassion
Do you like eating vegetarian food? Why?
I like it, because I want to protect Earth, care for animals and be in good health.
When I was pregnant with him, I still carried on being a vegetarian. When he first noticed that animal meat is actually served on people’s dining tables, I explained to him, if these lovely animals all became food on people’s plates, their family would never find them. So, when he could feel empathy for the animals, he knew this wasn’t what he wanted.
We need to care for all living beings every day. In our world, there are over 7.8 billion people. Every second, there are over 2,500 animals being consumed by people. In one year, 80 billion animals lose their lives in this way. Think about it, to sustain life on Earth, the animals have to consume food. The animal food we humans give animals is also grain crops; how long do we have to feed them? At least half a year.
After half a year, they end up on people’s dining tables. It takes people only half an hour to finish up the meat. Totally, there meals on dining tables last no more than half an hour, but it takes at least half a year to raise the animals. In fact, the grain crops we use to feed animals are also food for us humans; how many of the crops we have to use on animals?
We raise animals as food. All this is to only satisfy our appetite and cravings for meat, not because eating meat is good for us or our health; not at all. Further, there are numerous bacteria people swallow down with the meat, they end up in our stomach and intestines and multiply themselves. So, we should really develop great compassion for animals.
We should love animals, sustain their lives, rather than take their lives. Or, if people stop farming them, they can live freely in their natural habitat and go through their natural circle of life. Animals are also sentient beings; they have their families and they have the ability to love. Yet, humans won’t leave them alone, always going after them, butchering them; truly, in the human realm, humans are creating negative karma.
The Buddha said that Buddhahood cannot be attained in the heaven realm, and one cannot learn the Dharma in the hell realm; those are only possible in the human realm. In the human realm, there are both good and evil. If you want to cultivate, you need to be in the human realm, where you can utilize your love, because there are so much suffering and delusion in the human realm.
Education is needed to turn a lost soul around and living beings in the human realm need bodhisattvas’ guidance.
Great Love, according to Master Cheng Yen, is expressed through our actions and it’s a love for nature, a love that treats all beings equally.
We are promoting vegetarianism today. We have vegetarian recipes and ingredients, as well as eco friendly to go bowls and cups. We hope that when they go home, they’ll try making vegetarian dishes, and promote vegetarianism in the community. We want to share the concept of vegetarianism to the 300-400 households of the community. We hope everyone will be vegetarian.
The majority of people in the Dominican Republic are not vegetarian. Although there are not many Tzu Chi volunteers there, our volunteers, Cili, is there promoting vegetarianism in an on-going effort. At a distribution held in a Catholic church, Tzu Chi volunteers talked about reasons to protect lives and encouraged people to become vegetarian.
A monastic of the church listened to it and said, besides carrying out charity work well, Tzu Chi volunteers love and protect the lives of animals; such concept is correct and praiseworthy. He agreed with it. We work with them as we lack volunteers there. In the Dominican Republic, we lack manpower for identifying care recipients, so we have been working with this group of monastic. They are also very mindful in working with us and giving themselves.
Indeed, their love is very sincere. We give of ourselves, we protect lives, and we promote the beliefs of Great Love.
How many days will you be eating vegetarian meals?
A week.
What about you?
14 days and many be I’ll keep going.
15 days.
A month.
It takes people to promote the Dharma. If there are no people to promote such wonderful principles, people would not know about them. So, when there are people who share the same aspiration as us, even if they’re of another religion, we should do more and be more active in promoting vegetarianism. Eating a vegetarian diet is the core of our love and is the most inclusive love.
We need to figure out how to nurture this inclusive love in people’s hearts. This is why I say that for the past several decades, I haven’t been able to say the things I want to say. What I want to say is for people to harbor inclusive love and to love and protect all living beings. Besides loving our fellow human beings, we want to love all living beings in this world, all those with life.
To safeguard our health, we need to protect the lives of all animals in this world. If we don’t ingest bacteria from eating meat due to our cravings for meat, we will naturally be safe and well. With the pandemic going on now, it’s more imperative that we know about this concept.
People in the Dominican Republic mostly eat a meat diet. This time, volunteers promoted vegetarianism. We saw and heard many people say that they are willing to eat vegetarian meals. This shows that it’s just that we did not have the courage to promote vegetarianism. Now, we need to have great loving-kindness, great compassion, and great courage.
With great benevolence, great courage, great loving-kindness, and great compassion, let us be brave in telling people about vegetarianism. We need to promote about doing good more. I’m grateful to volunteers. We need to bring out the power of love hidden within us.
We must promote vegetarianism, we must eat a vegetarian diet, and we must tell people about vegetarianism. We have to talk about this. I’m grateful to volunteers. Let us unite our hearts and our power of love together to help this pandemic end quickly so that we may have fresh clean air and harmony on land. Then, we’ll be safe and well and every day will be auspicious.
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