Impermanence in the land of steak and potatoes

Veggiyana, the Dharma of Cooking, was released last week with a flourish of signing/speaking events. The enthusiasm for this little book has been startling, all the more so because it spans generations: from college students to the patrician grandmother of a college student. "My granddaughter spent two weeks with us and the whole time she cooked us vegetarian meals that were surprisingly delicious. When she left, she told us we should eat more this way and I just know your book is going to help me," she said.

Being a Dharma book, Veggiyana is garnished only with vegetarian recipes, 108 of them gathered from around the planet. So it seems to bring up the question of meat eating. Surprisingly, many people are struggling with this, trying to make their way through a briar thicket of habit, morals and need. They want to know if they should go "cold turkey" or if it's wrong to eat meat once in a while or eat fish or what. Factory farms, faulty regulation, the diabetes epidemic and the new loud drumbeat of publicity about them seem to have put the ethical issue on speed dial. What wonderful impermanence.

There is of course no one or right answer. Even the Buddha knew that and his equivocation was maddening. So all I say is, there is right effort, right intention. Upon inadvertently witnessing a chicken being slaughtered for his first meal in India, His Holiness the Dalai Lama instantly went full tilt vegetarian and ended up in a hospital. So I have to say it's probably best to hasten slowly, surely, keeping your awareness well honed. I've found the more I myself can stay aware of animals as fellow beings suffering in this life too, the less I want to eat them, and the less I do. But as one woman confessed to me last night: "I was a vegetarian for 38 years and now every so often I just want to eat a cheeseburger, so I do."

Our bodies evolved eating animal protein so we still have that need. One way to fulfill it,probably the oldest trick in the book, is to simply stop eating slabs of roast beef and quarters of chicken and whole lobsters and just use tiny bits to flavor the rest of your food. Last week for example, I discovered that three thin slices of pepperoni diced into fine bits could delightfully flavor corn chowder for three. The whole point is that every time you reduce your demand one way or another, you reduce the slaughter you want to prevent and move closer toward your personal goal.

One or two people proudly told me they were vegetarian but they do eat fish. Yikes. When I asked them where was the difference between not eating one creature but eating another, they were stunned. And then downright disheartened when I said that many Buddhists, particularly Tibetans, will categorically not eat fish because fish are silent and cannot scream to reveal their pain when we kill them. This strikes them as extreme cruelty as does, say, eating 12 clams for one meal. So there are no easy outs or answers.

One young woman asked me what I thought about veganism. I thought this was a loaded question. I stalled by telling her the Buddha wasn't vegan and that I'd once read a book by an Oxford don about veganism used as extreme religious and political heresy. And then it hit me, a connection I'd missed. It's been the non-vegans who actually saved the cow from extinction by recognizing its uniquely precious ability to turn solar and plant energy into valuable protein, giving us a necessary nutrient so we don't have to kill for it. In other words, realizing that milk, butter, cheese and yogurt are life giving to us, gave life to the cow. Wouldn't have happened in a vegan world.

But it turned out, I didn't have to go that far. Having been diagnosed as malnourished, this woman gave it up for plain old vegetarianism-- the usual denouement, I hear. Veganism is not nutritionally sustainable without a lot of supplemental tricks and equipment like iron pots and tea kettles. A little butter on your bread is not going to bring the world to an end. It certainly beats caviar or salmon paté. We have to try to look at our choices that way.

~Sandy Garson"Wordsmithing to attest how the Dharma saved me from myself!"
http://www.sandygarson.com
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