Easter and Compassion

20 April 2014

Two discussions – Easter Sunday and Compassion

I begin with compassion. Today’s Buddhist lesson was about wisdom and compassion and that one without the other would not work.  Compassion without the wisdom to take action could be overwhelming.  Wisdom without compassion leaves people soulless and empty. 

This message was especially pertinent for me because I decided to begin a mostly raw vegan diet today.  And to kick off my campaign, last night I saw a documentary titled,Vegucated,  that reminded me that even though I buy organic cheese and eggs, this does not mean that the product is cruelty-free.  If fact, organic is just a term meaning that the animal was not fed hormones and antibiotics and was fed mostly organic food.  However, all the chicks will travel along conveyor belts separated from their mothers, and the male chicks will drop down into shoots to be destroyed in fan-like slicers.  This is all part of organic egg production. They also use no anesthesia when treating wounds or in castration of bulls for organic beef production.  Drugs are costly and not organic.  In order to keep up with their factory-farmed cousins, organic farms are still factory farms. And just like on all factory farms, the animals are treated like machines.

This is not to say that all organic animal farming is inhumane and uses factory farming methods.  Small local farms tend to be more humane. They allow visitors and trade in smaller quantities usually at farmers markets. 

I’ve done a vegan raw food cleanse several times before.  I always feel amazing, but because of our culture and trying to be more accommodating to others, I have usually given in.  Last night, while watching that film, I decided that even if I don’t do completely raw, I can do completely vegan.  Today, I had a whole mango with green tea for breakfast.  Later I ate a giant mixed green salad with balsamic and organic olive oil and marinated olives. I made a peanut dipping sauce for some cucumber slices, celery sticks, mushroom caps and heirloom mini-tomatoes.  I am completely satisfied. Unlike a heavy Sunday egg filled breakfast, which usually puts me to sleep, I have energy to write this blog.

Another idea of compassion has occurred to me many times over the years.  When I retreat into some form of self-abuse, be it smoking cigarettes or drinking a few extra beers with the pack, or eating dollar brand cheese pizzas, (who knows what’s in that,) I go back to this revelation over and over.  About a year after beginning my Buddhist practice, I realized that the karmic retribution of how we treat ourselves carries the same weight of the karmic retribution of how we treat others.  If we are eating sick, diseased, flesh and eggs from animals on factory farms, laden with toxins and pesticides and more, how can we expect to be anything but sick?  And since I have been reminded that organic animal farming is usually equally as cruel, how can I expect to be anything but sick from eating this form of torture and cruelty and destruction of innocent life?

The film also discusses the book, The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, about a study in China showing that the more animal products, meat, eggs, cheese, milk etc., a town or village consumed, the higher the incidents of heart disease, cancer and other degenerative diseases.

Going back to Easter, this morning as I walked into the Buddhist center, I heard beautiful singing from a choir at the church across the street.  I thought of a friend’s question from a few days ago.  “Why do they call it Good Friday when that’s the day Jesus died?  I asked another friend, a message therapist, Christian mystic and many other things.  He said that because Jesus was a pure soul and had to suffer so much that he had removed all human karmic debt from the past, present and future.

 

I pondered this as I sat in the big room to chant with others.  I pulled out my little notebook and began writing.  Perhaps the resurrection of Jesus from death symbolizes his struggle with all human fundamental darkness (our collective karma) and his victory over the four devils and three demons.  And since my friend and others I presume have credited Jesus with clearing the worlds past, present and future karma, and by clearing our fundamental darkness through the resurrection, he paved the way for everyone’s release from the fundamental sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death.  Perhaps this has already happened; it is just up to the rest of us to realize that we are and have always been free to be happy in each and every moment.  And by chanting, Nam myoho renge kyo, we are able to remove the curtain of illusion of suffering and realize the truth of the mystic law of the universe, the 3,000 realms in one.  And then we can all lift up our voices and rejoice.

And if we stopped torturing and killing, in the United States alone, 8 billion animals per year, we might be a lot closer to realizing our true, compassionate, Jesus and Buddha like natures.  And if Jesus really did do all that work to save people's souls, why should we be wasting them?

Happy Easter.  I hope everyone realizes Ester was a pagan goddess.