On January 3, 2007, the leader of the Karma Kagyu tradition of Tibetan Buddhism, His Holiness the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, made a strong statement against eating meat within his monasteries and centers around the world. These rules went into immediate effect that date:

1. No meat is to be prepared in the kitchen of any Kagyu Monastery or Center.
2. No one is to be involved in the business of buying and selling meat — for all of his students this practice must stop.
3. There is to be no killing of animals on Kagyu premises.
4. Karmapa is aware of monks in robes going to buy meat and does not want to see this ever again.

Below is a very well done video of the above rules that the Karmapa has laid out. Note: This video is important, but not for the feint of heart, nor for children.

I started thinking about vegetarianism a few years ago, but I was misinformed by the American medical and food industries. One book I read brought me a long way on the road to a meat free diet though, Eat to Live by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, I highly recommend it. I have educated myself, and with the help of some good friends, I am getting better and better at eating a solely vegetarian diet. This is not an easy task in America. This is the land of the fast food burger, pepperoni pizzas and even our American past time, baseball, demands you enjoy a hot dog or two.

December 28th, 2007, that was the date that I said, I can do this, to eating vegetarian. Yes, I have cheated a few times since then, but in large part I have been meat free. Beans have become my friends, though those around me may counter that comment. Salads are now a mainstay of my lunch and dinner. They have even become a breakfast option for me, and I like it too. Fruits and veggies were always high on my list, now they are simply the largest part of that list, along with grains, rice and other staples. Have I mentioned how much I love fresh tofu yet? Not the stuff you get in Wal-Mart or the local grocer either. Nope, I love the stuff you get in your city’s Asian district. Hey, I live in Oklahoma City, if I can find fresh tofu surely you can too.

Let me speak for a moment about vegetarianism from the Buddhist standpoint. The Buddha said, among other things, that we should give up evil actions. I view the killing of animals as an act of aggression against a sentient being. Every action produces karma, good or bad, without consideration as to our intentions or the outcome. Eating the meat is no different from being the person who slaughtered the animal for you to eat that flesh. To think otherwise is an illusion. Being a person on the path to Enlightenment, foloowing the Dharma, means I listen and try fervently to follow the Buddha and those in his lineage, such as H.H. 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, Orgyen Trinle Dorje.

I feel better physically when I am meat and dairy free too. I used to eat lunch or dinner and feel bloated and lethargic, not anymore. Here are some links you might find helpful.

• Vegetarian books I can personally recommend are found here
• Vegetarian cook books in general can be found here
• Shabkar.org is an excellent site devoted to vegetarianism for Buddhists

I know this is a big step for anyone, let alone an American, so just think about it. Be mindful of your actions, show compassion and educate yourself.

In that timeless moment when the multiverse erupted from a single point in non-space, when all that we see today was only pure energy; was there a remnant of thought and understanding there? Before the first neutrinos coalesced out of the flowing energy foam, before the first atoms began to bind together into first structures, and eons before the first differentiated points in this new space were formed; was there a compassionate Buddha-nature pervading that energy as it raced out to become all that there is?

The table that my laptop rests on as I write this, the mass that is the table, it was present there in that moment of the big bang. In fact, all that I am, was there in that moment too. The atoms, the elements that make my body, my skin, my hair and my heart, all of those atoms where nothing more than energy in that super-expanding ball of energy. This is a very hard idea to grasp. Of course the thing trying to grasp this idea was in the Big Bang too… my mind.

How is it that the electrical impulses that are the foundation of my consciousness were at one point rolling around the formless void of pre-space? In the moments before the multiverse became substantial, what was all of this energy? Was it really the size of a pin head? Super-compacted into this point of potentiality? Hard concepts to speak about without being mystical too.

I know that Hinduism teaches the universe is in an endless cycle of rebirth, even to the point that the universe itself collapses and is reborn anew. At the end of a Kali Yuga, the last stage of the universal timespan, the universe will chaotically devolve and then upon destruction be reborn, in effect restarting the clock. By the way, a Kali Yuga, which we are living in now, lasts 432,000 human years in traditional Vedic understanding and is known as the Iron Age. The qualities of this age are: the climate is one quarter virtue and three quarters sin and the human lifespan is 100 or 120 years. (Read more about the Hindu theory of time here: Hindu Theory of World Cycles)

But, getting back to my earlier thoughts about the nature of energy and mass again; it is believed in many schools of thoughts that intentions focus energy, that prayer is like focused laser of pure energy. So, and this is fun to think about, when we pray we are releasing actual energy back in to the universe. When I chant the Chenrezig practice with my friends I am sending out waves of energy into the universe. When my mother-in-law says the rosary she is doing the same. There is even a belief in Tibetan Buddhism that an entity can be generated by sheer meditation. I actually believe this could be so, given that we know that thought is the formalization of energy and that mass is energy at the basest level.

It is clear I am not a scientist, and if you have read my words before then you also know I am no monk, priest or philosopher; but that doesn’t keep me from day-dreaming.

Matt