Tibetans/South India and the (vegetarian) Kalachakra

[Guest guest]

We attended the Kalachakra spiritual event at Amaravati in Andhra Pradesh with

the Dalai Lama (and 100,000 Buddhists from all over the world but mostly Tibet,

India, Bhutan, etc. -- only about 500 people from the western countries which

could include Singapore, etc. were there). Young Tibetans from Tibetan

Volunteers for Animals worked hard at making this a completely vegetarian event

-- and no where in the entire town was meat to be found or served see their

photos and story at:

www.loveanimal.org/kalachakra_2006/veg-kalachakra-success-story.htm (website

currently having difficulties please check later). Tibetans are traditionally

a nonvegetarian society.

 

This was an important event for me and for more background on this issue please

read my article on " Life as a Vegetarian Tibetan Buddhist Practitioner " at

www.serv-online.org/-Weintraub.htm part of the online group Society of

Ethical and Religious Vegetarians.

 

We ate and helped out at the Tibetan Volunteers for Animals restaurant (even

though the entire event and town was vegetarian we felt most at home here) where

you could get a great meal for 25 rs. (about 50 cents ). Beautifully done

t-shirts for 100 rs. which said " Meat is Murder -- still you love it? " or

" Vegetarians - People of the Future " were a real deal too. Hats off to the

young and dedicated Tibetans who came at their own expense from all over India

to make this booth a success, they also had activism and displays. Truly many

people there did not know about slaughterhouse conditions or have access to the

info we do about the horrors of factory farming etc. so the posters and

education is needed and does convince people not to eat meat.

 

The Dalai Lama spoke repeatedly asking Tibetans to be as vegetarian as they

could (and many elderly people had come down from Tibet to S. India see him --

don't forget he still cannot visit Tibet) and he asked them, especially in

Tibet, to help protect the wildlife. The Wildlife Trust of India also postered

the event in Tibetan educating about wildlife issues that concern Tibetans. In

Tibet they are not free to do so; therefore they took advantage of this

important opportunity to get the word out to Tibetans to help animals. The

Dalai Lama spoke almost angrily about the Chinese decimation of native wildlife

and their treatment of animals; referring to Paul McCartney's boycott of China

and some horrendous practices like Chinese eating live monkey brain. He

mentioned that six people had died during the event; due to old age -- this

could be expected from an event of this size and we should pray for them.

However, the Indian government had rounded up and killed many stray dogs before

the event in order to " clean up " the area and who, the Dalai Lama asked, was

going to pray for them? So he asked us to do this. Hopefully for the next

event the Tibetan organizers can request that this does not happen again. He

spoke of an insect that he tried protecting from the Kalachakra crowds to no

avail but joked it was hard to find compassion for the mosquitoes.

 

Personally I felt seeing the state of the poverty and poor health of many of the

refugees and those from Tibet itself it is obvious they have a lot of challenges

in their lives already and making a change in their diets may not be possible

very easily; but for the young and healthier Tibetans in India it is important

that they hear this message and not become addicted to meat early on due to

their affluence.

 

We did meet and spend time with some Jains - Chhanrendra Harish and Shantila

Jain -- in Guntur (in Andhra Pradesh); part of People for Animals (Ms. Maneka

Gandhi's organisation that has helped all India animal welfare groups). They

came and very excited to see the Tibetan Volunteers for Animals booth and it was

great that different type of animal activists could meet. Pradeep Nath,

President of VSPCA, had previously contacted these people to help us navigate at

the mind boggling Vijaywada train station. These people are incredibly

energetic and fanatically inspired to help animals but can't quite agree on ABC

and euthanasia issues -- sounds like our U.S. animal shelters! They were bowled

over to meet westerners and hosted us royally for the few hours we could spend

with them. Any other animal activist who can visit the area and bring animal

welfare/rights literature would be most welcome by them.

 

Weintraub

Seattle, Washington