Buddhism and Veganism Page 10

  When we are consumed by the energy of anger, or stuck in judgmental thinking, we drive people away. We also lose our own peace. When I sit in quietness, and breathe into my heart, whether I’m on my meditation cushion, or on my back porch with a cat on my lap, or even walking through the meat section at the grocery store, what I find is love, a deep love not dependent on circumstances. That is the energy that heals from within, and that will heal our world. It attracts people to our way of life rather than pushing them away.

  As activists, our job is to help awaken the compassion that exists in the hearts of others. I’ve learned that I’m more comfortable advocating from a place of compassion than a place of judgment or anger, in large part because people respond so much better to me when I’m kind, friendly, and understanding. I believe we are more effective advocates when we are rooted in the compassion that lies at the heart of every vegan, every Buddha, and all of us, rather than the anger and despair that come from the inability to alleviate suffering.

  When we engage in debates with others from a place of anger or judgment, we immediately put our interlocutor on the defensive. Both of our egos take over like a tarp covering the ground, preventing the rain from watering the soil. I believe there is a Buddha-to-be in the heart of us all. Few vegans were born vegan. Most of us grew up eating animal products, but there was always a vegan-to-be within us. The more we can see this potential in others, the more easily we can help water the seeds of compassion within them, like the great Bodhisattva Sadaparibhuta, who says to all he meets, “You are someone of great value, you have Buddha nature; I see this potential in you.” When we see the positive potential in others, we give them inspiration, support, and confidence to be the best version of themselves.

  The Buddha’s journey to full enlightenment began when he saw the plight of non-human animals. When he empathized with them, his heart naturally opened to them. Vegan living is based on this insight into the importance of caring concern for animals, and it can put us on a path towards enlightenment. I believe we all have a vegan heart, and that we have the heart of a Buddha and the capacity to be awake and to see clearly. In seeing clearly, we can recognize our connection with all others and the whole of nature. The path of the Buddha is one of opening and of being present for those who suffer, instead of turning away. Above all, it is one of cultivating the seed of compassion within us until it is without limit or boundary. This is the energy that can heal the world. As the Buddha taught:

  Just as a mother with her own life

  Protects her child, her only child, from harm,

  So within yourself let grow

  A boundless love for all creatures.

  Let your love flow outward through the universe,

  To its height, its depth, its broad extent,

  A limitless love, without hatred or enmity.

  Then, as you stand or walk,

  Sit or lie down,

  As long as you are awake,

  Strive for this with a one-pointed mind;

  Your life will bring heaven to earth.

  -from the Metta Sutta

  Descending into the Canyon: A Heart Broken Open

  JOANNE CACCIATORE

  The first peace, which is the most important, is that which comes within the souls of people when they realize their relationship, their oneness with the universe and all its powers, and when they realize that at the center of the universe dwells the Great Spirit, and that this center is really everywhere, it is within each of us.

  —Black Elk, Oglala Sioux

  When I was seven years old, I announced to my family that I was done eating animals. It was 1972, and that was a revolutionary statement for a little Sicilian girl. I’ve always had a heart for animals. I have rehomed countless spiders and beetles, and nursed bunnies and birds back to health. While I don’t completely understand what animal suffering stirs in me, somehow, in the marrow of my bones, I have always felt a sense of connection to animals.

  More than that, I’ve had a nagging sense of personal duty to show compassion to animals, and I’ve been deeply pained by the cruelty inflicted on them by humans. From circuses to food production, from farming to films, the exploitation of animals has felt morally repugnant to me from an early age. These feelings have been central to my identity and I’ve been determined to live my life in alignment with them.

  I raised my children according to these values and learned how to explain to others why I wouldn’t participate in activities that exploited animals or eat foods derived by abusing animals. The philosophical underpinnings of my life have reflected the core reverence I feel for all forms of life. Remaining sensitive to the natural world has been essential.

  But the natural world can be destructive and with forces like hurricanes, floods, droughts, fires, and earthquakes, death may come. I have five children. When my fourth child, Cheyenne, died suddenly and unexpectedly during her birth, I descended into a shattering grief that stole my will to live and erased meaning from my life. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or function. The grief, fear, and despair of her death, and the way others turned away from my intense suffering, exacerbated my loneliness, and took a severe toll on my mother-heart.

  I did not recover from this trauma, but rather gained a capacity to help support others through the natural, not pathological, spiritual crucible of grief. Today, I am a professor at Arizona State University with a research focus on traumatic grief and am creator of a foundation that serves individuals and families suffering with the death of their child. My goal is to help free others from feeling as alone as I’d felt in 1994.

  During these years I gradually discovered Buddhism. In Zen Buddhism, I found a philosophy, an array of practices, and a way of being that fits me well and has helped deepen my commitment to ahimsa, nonharmfulness to all sentient beings and the Earth. Everything in the Zen teachings encourages full engagement with life. The philosophy, taught through Zen meditation and the existential koan practices, rather than being confined to conceptual metaphysics, illuminates the complex dynamics of lived experience and helps cultivate strength and wisdom to achieve compassionate unity in diversity. The mind of meditation becomes the body-mind of living. I practice sitting and walking meditation, as well as a barefoot desert hiking practice like the Carmelite monks of the 16th century.

  The gifts of Zen also include more flexibility in shifting identities. I can choose and take positions while appreciating context and limits, and while also releasing into emptiness. For me, what’s been especially important is how Zen allows me to appreciate the precious particularity of each individual in the world as well as the interconnectedness of these individual lives. This understanding has continued to grow, not only from the study and practice of Zen, but also from walking the path of a vegan life.

  In April of 2015, I was pressed to deepen my understanding of both Zen and veganism, and to go beyond ahimsa as passive nonharmfulness into action propelled by the spirit of the Buddhist teachings. It was a chilly spring morning when I began my hike to Havasupai Falls, a remote location deep in the heart of the Grand Canyon that I’d always wanted to visit. In stark contrast to the barren topography of Hualapai Hilltop where hikers begin the long descent into the canyon, the lush and tropical falls at the bottom of the canyon boast nearly 2,000 species of vascular plants, more than 60 varieties of moss, and 200 species of lichen. After months of preparation for the 13 mile descent, I began my trek, with my camping gear on my back, not knowing how my life would change that day. I would never get beyond the first three minutes of that hike.

  On this particular trail, people often use mules and horses to help carry their packs, coolers, and even lawn chairs. I felt a nagging concern for the animals, verbalizing that to an accompanying friend. Then, just as we turned the first corner starting down the steep, barren trail, I witnessed a scene that still remains etched in my mind and my heart. A horse carrying backpacks, tents, and other supplies that were tied to a wooden frame mounted to his back had fallen to the ground. A yo
ung native man was kicking and punching him, trying to force him back up on his feet. I was stunned. I screamed at the man to stop. He stopped but looked squarely and threateningly into my eyes. My heart was pounding loudly against my chest and I started to cry.

  I imagine it was my tears, well-practiced after 21 years of crying for my deceased child, that disturbed him, as he swiftly took his other horses around to the top of the trail, leaving the wounded one on the ground near me. I bent down and gently touched him. He flinched. I wept more, apologizing to him for the brutality he was enduring at the hands of a human.

  We stayed with this horse as he lay helplessly on the ground. He was bleeding from his head and legs. This once majestic creature, now limp and terrified, was in immeasurable suffering. I was crying, openly, as others hiked passed us, some asking if I was okay. I exclaimed, “This horse, this horse is hurt! He’s been abused!” But there was no cell service or police because of our remote location. The other hikers all walked by quickly. Only one stopped to offer her water bottle for the horse.

  The horse was laboring to breathe. We removed the heavy packs, the saddle and the wooden frame used to tie the packs from his weary, sweat-drenched back. This revealed open and bleeding wounds. His knees and legs were bleeding, he had lacerations on his belly, and he was severely emaciated and dehydrated. Vertebrae were protruding through his skin. His hair and skin were worn down, exposing both hipbones. I stood up and my head spun in circles. It was one of the most terrible things I have ever seen, save the limp body of my dead daughter that I held two decades earlier (which came up in my memory strongly in that moment).

  Then the horse and I looked into each other’s eyes, and he allowed me to stroke him. Something ineffable overcame me: I was that horse many years ago. I, too, had suffered as he was suffering and knew his fear and despair. I, too, had once given up and lost my will to live. Now, as I stroked this horse, for the first time in my life, I had a direct and powerful experience of oneness. I was that horse and that horse was me.

  I promised him that I would help him, though I didn’t understand how or why. I felt that somehow my daughter, Cheyenne, was involved in this as well.

  We sat with him for about an hour as he rested on the ground, and as people passed by, looking up and looking down, but few looking at the horror of the scene. I searched the trail, gathering a few strands of scarce grass to offer him. I held his head and he rested in my lap. I could not leave him. This precious life, my brother horse, child of Earth, just like me, just like us all.

  I repeatedly told him how sorry I was that humans did this to him. Our suffering merged into one suffering. I vowed: “Please remember me. I’m going to get you out of here. I’m going to help you, I promise...”

  We offered to buy him from his owner, twice. Vociferously, the abusive owner declined. And just like that, with pieces of my heart shattered on the parched trailhead, our plans abruptly ended. I left without the horse that day, feeling like I’d left a piece of myself, as if I’d given up on myself. And as much pain and sorrow as I felt, I allowed those deep feelings and I stayed with them, right in the center of my core, until they transformed into what I can only call fierce compassion.

  Within minutes after we got back to the car, I felt a wellspring of wild and untamed fury in my belly. I was going to do everything and anything to save him.

  It was nearly two hours before I could get cell service to make calls. And I made many calls. I called the forest service, the sheriff, the FBI, local police, animal control, legislators, congressional leaders, horse rescues, animal protection groups, superintendents, police chiefs, lawyers, an animal activist colleague, friends, neighbors, strangers, this specific community’s police, and their governmental leaders. For two days, I stayed in my pajamas, made nearly one hundred phone calls and sent more than one hundred emails. I felt hopeless, and even though so many others explicitly told me that the situation was hopeless, I had to keep trying. This animal’s life mattered. I had to exhaust every possible means to rescue him and get him the medical care he so desperately needed. I was told that there was “nothing anyone can do.” Repeatedly.

  But, I was not going to stop. I couldn’t. I saw into this animal’s soul, and I loved him.

  Then, a holy moment.

  One person heard my plea and a team of governmental leaders got behind my effort.

  Seven more phone calls, six emails, and three days later, I got the call.

  “Dr. Cacciatore,” he said, “how soon can you get here?”

  “What?” I asked. “What, really, really? Seriously?”

  “Yes ma’am...”

  That call came in around four in the afternoon and by ten that night we had a trailer. At two in the morning, two heroic men made the five-hour drive and then descended by foot many miles to rescue and rehome this horse. I held fast hope throughout the night and waited, thinking he would likely die. I wanted him to survive long enough to know what it felt to be loved and safe.

  And so, I waited.

  Sixteen hours later, the horse, still alive, stepped off the trailer, tentative, emaciated, dehydrated, and frightened. He stumbled off the trailer, let out a feeble whinny, and walked straight over to me as if to thank me for keeping my promise. To say this was an emotional reunion would be woefully understated.

  I named him Chemakoh, a Pima word meaning “two souls who came together as one in destiny.”

  All my life, I had wanted to hike to Havasupai Falls. I had waited for the right time, and as fate would have it, I was never able to start the hike at all. Now I understand why my heart longed to go there. I was in that place to meet and rescue Chemakoh; all these years for just this one moment in time.

  The first few days after he arrived home were tenuous. We didn’t know if he’d survive. His wounds were deep, and bones had eroded through the hair and flesh on his spine and hips. There were holes worn through to muscle on both sides of his girth. Some wounds were obviously infected, while others scarred over from years of wounding. We faced a long road toward his rehabilitation, both physical and psychological.

  Chemakoh is still with us, the most gentlemanly stallion most have ever met. Three years later, he loves even though he didn’t know love. He is genial despite the cruelty foisted on him. He connects despite years of fear and loneliness. He’s also a terrific teacher for the grieving families with whom I work, along with seventeen other rescued animals now at Selah Carefarm, a sanctuary we created as a place of respite for wounded animals and grieving families to come together in the mutuality of both suffering and compassion.

  The only way to real peace in the world is through making an effort to understand that suffering connects us all in oneness. Being awake means that when we can, we should act with fierce compassion to save the life of another and to promote non-violence for all living beings. Chemakoh knew grief and fear, despair and loneliness. He knew how it felt when people averted their gaze, unwilling to see the pain of the other. They walked past him, passively enabling his continued abuse.

  I, too, knew these horrors intimately. I felt the same grief, fear, despair and loneliness. Others turned away from my grief-stricken mother’s heart. I, too, was hopeless, on death’s door, uncertain of my will or ability to live. Our suffering was the same suffering. My encounter with Chemakoh affirmed that violence against animals anywhere is violence against our very humanity everywhere. Compassion toward animals is also compassion in support of our humanity. We can, and we should, do better for all beings, everywhere. This is the truth of oneness. Nothing less.

  For me, my active veganism, my willingness to gently educate others and influence by example, as well as my commitment to fierce compassion in helping other beings in need, is well expressed in the Four Bodhisattva Vows:

  Creations are numberless, I vow to free them.

  Delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to transform them.

  Reality is boundless, I vow to perceive it.

  The Enlightened Way is unsurpassable, I
vow to embody it.

  Awakening of the Heart

  SHERRY MORGADO

  I think I can confidently say that both my vegan and Buddhist awakenings had their birth in the same event I witnessed as a child. Over these many years of my life since this event, it has become clearer to me that to practice and take refuge in the Dharma means to make an effort to express our compassion and wisdom through the practice of veganism as well.

  I grew up on a small farm in central California, the granddaughter and daughter of Portuguese immigrants. My family raised about five steers each year. As a child, I spent many happy hours in the pastures with those cows, enjoying their peaceful companionship as they munched happily on grass and hay, mooing and bellowing to each other. I loved to pet their smooth and silky hair, and laughed when they licked and suckled my fingers.

  One day, when I was nine years old, I stayed home from school due to illness. It turned out to be a day, I realize now, that changed my life dramatically, because it significantly shifted my consciousness about suffering. It was the day that my father had arranged for the butcher to come to our property and slaughter one of our steers. Before this day, I did not understand where the meat that filled our large freezer came from. I suppose I knew it was from animals, but which animals? Afterward there was no doubt. I don’t think my father realized that the sound of the large rumbling truck and the loud voices of men had caught my attention while I was lying down in my bedroom.

  Curious, I went outside to see what the commotion was. Within a matter of minutes, I saw one of my sweet bovine friends, who had nuzzled me and given me companionship, shot in the head with a gun. What followed was the horror of seeing his body cinched and hoisted up via a crane on the back of the truck where they proceeded to cut his throat, skin his body and cut him into pieces right in front of my eyes— pieces that were later wrapped in white paper and stored in our freezer. Those pieces my mother would then cook and serve us each night. A gut-wrenching realization washed over me: every night I was eating the body of a sweet, gentle creature who had loved his life, just as I did. I knew from my hours spent with these cows that they felt love and fear, that they yearned for companionship, and that they had a purpose on this Earth, beyond the way that humans controlled and exploited their bodies and their lives.