Fw: A vegan take on what goes around, comes around

[Guest guest]

-

Emanuel Goldman

VeggieJews

Monday, January 31, 2005 4:35 PM

[VeggieJews] A vegan take on " what goes around, comes around "

 

 

http://www.circleofcompassion.org/articlewhatgoesaroundcomesaround.htm

 

What Goes Around Comes Around

by Will Tuttle, Ph.D

 

One of the fundamental ideas found throughout the world's religions and

emphasized by spiritual teachers of many times and cultures is that in the

big picture we inevitably reap what we sow. We are all connected, after

all, and to the degree we love, give to, and bless others, we will

ourselves experience being loved, given to, and blessed. The same is true

of harming and using others. This idea has gone by many names, including

karma and the Golden Rule, and in our culture it's usually been applied to

our relations with people, but not with animals because, well, we've been

raised to believe that animals don't matter much.

 

We're learning, though, that animals - particularly the food animals we

slaughter by the billions - are profoundly capable of physical and

emotional suffering, and in light of this, it's remarkable to see how our

mistreatment of them boomerangs back to us, just like the old " as you sow,

so shall ye reap " adage would predict.

 

For example, we pump huge quantities of drugs into millions of defenseless

animals, and as a culture we find ourselves experiencing drug abuse, drug

dependence, and all the perils of living in a society increasingly drugged

with both medical prescriptions and illicit substances. We force farmed

animals to live in extremely polluted environments, breathing noxious air,

living in their own waste, and eating contaminated feed, and we find

ourselves living increasingly in our own waste as our air becomes more

polluted and our water and food are increasingly contaminated.

 

Looking further, we can see the chickens coming home to roost in virtually

every aspect of our shared cultural reality: we force food animals into

cages, and we find that more and more of us live in gated communities,

behind bars and locks, or in prisons, with prison construction being one

of the biggest growth industries in America today. We torture them by the

millions and we find Amnesty International reporting that human torture of

other humans is at an all-time high. Forcing horror on animals, we find

horror in the mass media and in popular entertainment increasing. As we

kill animals for food at a young age, we find child and teen suicide

skyrocketing. As we terrorize animals in slaughterhouses and in laboratory

experiments on fear, we find our own chronic fear increasing, along with

terrorism. As we force them to be fat, diseased, overcrowded, afraid, and

stressed out, we become the same.

 

You can probably think of many more examples. Animals are lined up to be

stabbed, one after another, and in today's high-volume cardiac units,

people who have eaten many animals line up to be stabbed, one after

another. Ultimately, what we do to animals we do to ourselves. Though

animals cannot retaliate like people can, our violence toward them itself

retaliates.

 

Scientists are hard at work now breeding food animals that will be as

dull, insensitive, and controllable as possible, in order to better

survive the unimaginable pain and stress they are forced to endure on

factory farms. They want to create animals with minimal feelings and

awareness, animals born with broken spirits, with no zest for life and

with no purpose other than to serve the ends of their dominators. That

would be good for business. Are these really the seeds we want to be

sowing?

 

As a culture, we're called to ponder deeply the wisdom of the Golden Rule

before it's too late, and begin to actually live it with respect to the

animals who are at our mercy. What goes around comes around, and it's

coming around all around us.

---

Will Tuttle, Ph.D., composer, pianist, and Zen priest, is cofounder of

Karuna Music & Art and of the Prayer Circle for Animals and Circle of

Compassion ministry.

 

 

 

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communities dedicated to supporting Jewish vegans and vegetarians of all ages

and spreading vegan, vegetarian and animal rights values into the Jewish

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