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CultureMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—Lama Shabkar
One day as I went to refresh myself In the middle of a meadow, Many goats and sheep came from all sides And gathered around me. Among them, an old sheep spoke: “Old monk, neither virtuous nor…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not
Adolf Hitler was a vegetarian; the Dalai Lama, the embodiment of compassion, eats meat by his doctors’ orders. Clearly, there’s more to mind than what is put into the mouth: yet, as long as food remains a…
TeachingsMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—Zen Master Ryokan
Once Ryokan was traveling with a young monk. At a certain teahouse they received food that contained fish. The young monk left the fish untouched, as is the orthodox Buddhist custom, but Ryokan gobbled it down without…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—Bodhin Kjolhede
Not long ago a Zen teacher, during the course of an introductory workshop, stated three times, vehemently, “Buddhism is not vegetarianism.” He later argued that to be vegetarian is a kind of attachment. What are we to…
MeditationMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—Philip Glass
The familiar arguments in favor of a vegetarian diet are usually based on issues of either health, environment, ecology, or—from the Buddhist point of view—of compassion. Of these arguments, some are easier to dismiss than others. Take…
TeachingsMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—Gelek Rinpoche
We Tibetans like to eat meat. We don’t care if it’s healthy or not—we like it. Basically, eating meat is a negative. It’s not great. In the old Tibetan practice, if you get the meat from a…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—John Stevens
As a young Indian prince living nearly three millennia ago, Gotama (Buddha’s original name) enjoyed the finest delicacies available to the warrior caste of that ancient era: sali, a high-quality long-grain rice; dairy products such as ghee…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—John McClellan
There would seem to be little justification for eating meat. There’s no nutritional need, it’s hard on the earth, not that good for us, and the factory conditions in which we produce “animal products” are so…
TeachingsMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—Shakyamuni Buddha
Thus have I heard. On one occasion the Blessed One was living at Rajagaha in the Mango Grove of Jivaka Komarabhacca. Then Jivaka Komarabhacca went to the Blessed One, and after paying homage to him, he sat…
IdeasMagazine | Special Section
Meat: To Eat It or Not—Stuart Smithers
What the historical Buddha ate for his last meal has been the subject of much debate. The controversial passage from the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the sutta that recounts the Buddha’s final days, tells us that on his last night…
Meat: To Eat It or Not
A Debate on Food and Practice
Features
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Feature
Finnegan At His Wake
How crazy can wisdom get? Stephen Butterfield questions the Double Mirror of his Vajrayana lineage.
Nothing Special: The Buddhist Sex Quandary
There is sex and then there is sexuality. Sallie Tisdale explores the difference.
The Long Learning Curve
An Interview with Richard Baker Roshi
Personal ReflectionsMagazine | Feature
Letting Go: Life On The Hospice Ward
A new volunteer comes to terms with the ephemerality of relationships in a hospice ward
Beastie Boys: The Big Show
An Interview with Adam Yauch
A Sarasvati Empowerment
With Sakya Jetsun Chimey
A Democracy of the Imagination
From Beethoven to Buddha: Great Art and Great Dharma have more in common than meets the eye
Departments
Thank You and OK!
An American Zen Failure in Japan
Wonders of the Natural Mind: The Essence of Dzogchen in the Native Bon Tradition of Tibet
and Heart Drops of Dharmakaya: Dzogchen Practice of the Bon Tradition
The Protean Self
Human Resilience in an Age of Fragmentation
The Country of Dreams and Dust
Poems by Russell Leong
The Ground We Share
Everyday Practice, Buddhist and Christian
Buddha and The Beasts
Westerners who know little of Buddhism often associate it with vegetarianism. Zen monks in Japan are mistakenly thought to subsist on a diet of nothing but brown rice. A book of “famous vegetarians” features an image…
Lives of the Nuns
Biographies of Chinese Buddhist Nuns from the Fourth to Sixth Centuries
In the News Winter 1994
More Prisons Than Monasteries: The True Map of Tibet “On This Spot: An Unconventional Map and Guide to Lhasa” begins where other commercial guidebooks and maps of Lhasa end. That, according to The International Campaign for…
Magazine | What Does Being A Buddhist Mean To You
Re: Anti-Aging Cream
Ann Setko Iversen Potter Vancouver, Washington “I listen to the sounds of nature and follow its suggestions in daily life. The whole universe is one nonstop motion of flowing time that all things are subject…
Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind
The Zen Journal and Letters of Maura "Soshin" O'Halloran
TeachingsMagazine | Dharma Talk
What Love Is
On the spiritual path, there's nothing to get, and everything to get rid of. The first thing to let go of is trying to "get" love, and instead to give it wholeheartedly.
CultureMagazine | Shakyamuni Buddha: A Life Retold
Wake Up
Episode Seven
Dragon Wisdom
The Life of Ruth Fuller Sasaki
Beyond Optimism
Ken Jones Jon Carpenter Publishing: Oxford, U. K., 1993. 212 pp., £9.99 (paper). Beyond Optimism is good, albeit occasionally bitter, medicine for a species caught between two conflicting realities—total dependence on wealth created by unsustainable economic…
Letters to the Editor Winter 1994
The Real Problem—Not I was very disappointed in the article “Becoming Buddha: The Life and Times of Poet John Giorno” [Vol. IV, No.1]. His life is not exemplary in any shape or form. The real problem…