Vegetarianism II

Motivation And Meat
Being true to the Dhamma in general and the first Precept in particular, would seem to require being vegetarian. Not everyone sees it this way and most Theravadin and nearly all Vajrayanist Buddhists do not interpret it as being so. Today I would like to examine the motives in practicing the Precepts and see how this could be relevant to the meat eating-vegetarian issue.
The Buddha gave three reasons why we should take ethical discipline seriously. (1) The first is to avoid the negative effects of bad actions – usually called ‘bad kamma’ but more correctly ‘bad vipaka.’ This is mentioned by the Buddha many times and is the only one of the three that is ever mentioned in traditional Theravada teaching, giving rise, quite correctly, to the criticism that Theravada is selfish. (2) The second reason is because following the Precepts lays the foundations for positive qualities like restraint, awareness, mental clarity, the happiness of having a clear conscience (anavaja sukha,D.I,) and which lead to the ultimate good, Nirvana. (3) And the third reason is love and concern for others. I avoid killing others because I care about their welfare, I don’t steal from them because I care about their property, I do not sexually exploit them because I respect their dignity and their right to choose, I do not lie to them because I respect their right to receive and know the truth, and I do not intoxicate myself because when I encounter them I want there to be meaningful communication between us. In short, fidelity to the Precepts is an act of love, not just the person I am directly relating to but the wider community. The Buddha highlights this point when he said that right actions are a type of consideration or thoughtfulness (saraniya) to others that lead to ‘love, respect, kind regard, harmony and peace’ (…piyakarana garukarana sangahaya avivadaya samaggiya…, A.III,289). Just so that there can be no uncertainty about what the Buddha said here – piya = love, affection; karana = making, causing; garu = respect, esteem; sangaha, sympathy, togetherness, mutuality; avivada = non-dispute, harmony; samagga = peace, concord.
Those who do not accept that eating meat creates negative kamma should have no problems about eating meat. If they feel that they can develop good qualities like patience, determination, mindfulness, generosity, courage and honesty while having a meat diet, again should have no concern about doing so. But, anyone who genuinely feels that they should develop an expansive love and kindness towards others - all others (and the Buddha said we should), would have to feel uneasy about being connected in any way to the animals being killed. The knowledge that they are part of a chain that leads to some very nasty things happening (and I do not want to regale you with the horrors of the abattoirs) must make them feel uneasy. It would have to motivate a thoughtful Buddhist to try to do at least something about this cruelty; and the least one could do is not be a link in the chain by abstaining from eating meat.
Tomorrow I will present you with a real quandary. Stay tuned.

Vegetarianism I

Buddhist Arguments For Vegetarianism
Many arguments are used to support vegetarianism – the health argument (a meat diet causes various diseases), the biological argument (humans are not naturally carnivorous), the economic argument (animal husbandry is an inefficient form of food production) and the humane argument (eating meat requires killing animals and this is cruel). Some of there arguments are very weak, others less so. But from the point of view of Buddhist ethics the only one of there arguments that has to be considered is the last one. Does the Pali Tipitaka, the earliest record of the Buddha’s teachings, contain anything suggesting that Buddhists should be vegetarian?
There is no place in either the Sutta, the Vinaya or the Abhidhamma Pitikas where the Buddha says his disciples, monastic or lay, should not eat meat. There is one place, and to the best of my knowledge only one place, where he is described as eating meat. At A.III,49 it mentions that the Buddha was once served sukaramamsa with jujube fruit. This term can be translated with certainty as sukara = pig, mamsa = meat or flesh. It is important to point out that the Tipitaka very rarely mentions what the Buddha ate, this not being its purpose. There are several places in the Vinaya where eating meat is mentioned or implied; e.g. where it is said particular types of meat should not be consumed (lion, snake, hyena, e.g.), implying that other types can be (Vin.I,218-8); and where meat broth is recommended as a medicine (Vin.I,206). However, there is no doubt that much of the Vinaya dates from after the Buddha, some parts a considerable time after, and so it is reasonable to leave these references out of our discussion. Advocates of Buddhist vegetarianism like Philip Kapelu Roshi have suggested that the Buddha did teach vegetarianism but that all such references were deleted by meat-loving monks in later centuries. There is no evidence whatsoever of this having been done and this argument can be dismissed out of hand. To sum up, vegetarianism was not taught by the Buddha and was not part of the earliest Buddhist tradition. The Lankavatara Sutra, a Mahayana work composed over four or five centuries, contains a list of arguments against meat eating. Several of there are compelling, most are rather weak and unfounded, e.g. you will smell bad if you eat meat.
The next question is this – could vegetarianism be implied from or be more consistent with the Buddha’s teachings in general? The cardinal virtue of Buddhism is respect for life. This is embodied in the first Precept; not to harm living beings. I use the word ‘harm’ rather than killing because on many occasions the Buddha mentioned not just killing but also cruelty and violence as pertaining to the Precept. For example, he said that someone is unrighteous (adhamma) in body if they ‘kill living beings, are murderous, bloody-handed, given to blows and violence and without mercy’ (M.I,286). It is clear that to kill is to break the first Precept but so is pulling a cat’s tail, flogging a horse or punching someone in the face, although these actions would be less grave than killing. So this is the first point – (1) Killing or being cruel to living beings is against the first Precept.
That true adherence to the Precept goes beyond the individuals’ direct physical involvement in harming or killing is clear from the Buddha’s instructions that someone who has takes the Dhamma seriously should ‘not kill, get others to kill or encourage killing’ (A.II,99). Here the Buddha says very clearly that I should take into account the indirect and even distant implications of my actions. So this is the second point – (2) Trying to influence and encourage others not to harm or kill living beings and to be kind to them would be consistent with the first Precept.
As is often pointed out, the first Precept has two dimensions - avoiding harming on the one hand (varita) and nurturing, protecting and promoting life on the other (carita, M.III,46). This is expressed in the Buddha’s full explanation of the Precept when he said, ‘Avoiding the taking of life, he dwells refraining from taking life. Without either stick or sword he lives with care, kindness and compassion for living beings’ (D.I,). This is the third point – (3) Feeling and acting with kindness towards living beings is a part of the first Precept.
The Buddha’s teachings of respect for life informs several of his other teachings, Right Livelihood (samma ajiva) being but one example of this. He gave as examples of wrong means of livelihood the selling (and/or manufacturing?) of weapons, human beings, flesh (mamsavanijja), alcohol and poisons (A.III,208).Although the Buddha does not specifically mention it, it is easy to see that the reason why these livelihoods are unethical is because they involve at some level harming or killing living things. So this is the forth point – (4) Not killing or harming living beings and being kind to them, is an integral part of the whole Dhamma, not just the first Precept.
Another of the Buddha’s important teachings is that things do not come into existence randomly or through the will of a divine being but through a specific cause or causes. The most well-known example of this is where the Buddha describes the things that give rise to suffering (DII,55.). However, there are other examples of dependent arising – the sequence of causes that give rise to enlightenment (S.I,29-32), to social conflict (Sn.862-77), etc. Using this same principle can clarify issues related to meat eating. Farmers do not raise cows or chickens for fun; they do it because they can make a living by selling them to the abattoirs. The abattoirs in turn sell their meat to the processors, who sell it to the local supermarkets or butchers who in turn sell it to the consumers. I think any reasonable person would agree that there is a direct and discernable casual link between the farmer or the abattoir and the consumer. It may be distant but it is there. Put in its simplest terms; abattoirs would not slaughter animals if people did not purchase meat. So this is the fifth point – (5) Eating meat is casually related to the harming or killing living beings and thus to the first Precept being broken.
Now let us consider what the implications of these five points. Avoiding the complexities of the modern food processing and production industries for the time being, let us look at the simple version of it as it would have existed at the time of the Buddha and how it may still exits in some developing countries and perhaps even in some rural areas in the West. Let’s say that during the Buddha’s time some monks were invited to the house of a devote family for a meal and that they were served, amongst other things, meat. In accordance with the Buddha’s instructions in the Jivaka Sutta (M.II,369) they ate the meat because they had not seen, heard or even suspected that the hosts had gone to someone and specifically asked them to slaughter an animal so that it could be fed to the monks. While eating their meal these monks would have had no bloody intentions, no murderous anger, no perverse fascination in seeing a creature die. It is likely that they gave no thought whatsoever to where the meat came from or what was involved in procuring it. From the narrowest, most literal, strictly direct interpretation of it, the first Precept would not have been broken. But this narrow perspective raises, at least in my mind, quite a few troubling questions. (a) Firstly, as we have seen above, all the evidence shows the Buddha wanted the Precept to be interpreted in a board manner and to have all its implications taken into account. (b) Maybe the monks should have given some thought to implications and consequences of their actions. Did not the Buddha say, ‘Before, while doing and after having done a deed one should reflect, “Will this action lead to my own or others’ determent?”’ (M.I,416). (b) Although they may not have seen, heard or suspected that an animal was killed specifically for them, the monks must have been aware that it was killed for people who eat meat, and that they fall into this category. (c) Even if their role in the death of a creature is only indirect and distant, genuine metta would urge one not to be involved in killing even to that extent. The Buddha said that we should ‘develop an unbounded mind towards all beings and love to all the world. One should develop an unbounded mind, above, below and across, without obstruction…’(Sn.149-50). Saying ‘It wasn’t killed specifically for me and while I ate it my mind was filled with love’ sounds like erecting an ‘obstruction’ to genuine love, it sounds like restricting love within a boundary.
The conclusions of all this seems to me to be inescapable – that intelligent, mature Dhamma practice requires vegetarianism.
Tomorrow I will continue on this theme and look forward to your comments.

The Buddha Didn't Go To Heaven

Sankassa (Sanskrit Sankasya) was a town on the western edge of the Middle Land. Legend says the Buddha descended from the Tavtimsa heaven at this place after spending three months teaching abhidhamma to his mother, who had been reborn their after her death. Supposedly three ladders appeared in the sky - a golden one on the right for the god Sakka, a silver one on the left for Brahma and a jeweled one in the middle for the Buddha. Some versions of the legend say that Brahma held an umbrella over the Buddha as he descended from heaven to earth.
It is hardly surprising that the so-called miracle at Sankassa is not mentioned anywhere in the Tipitaka. The place itself is only referred twice in the scriptures and the Buddha only visited it once, passing through it while on his way to somewhere else (Vin.II,299; III,11). Apart from being incredible in itself, the Sankassa legend contradicts that Buddha’s prohibition against the public display of psychic powers or miraculous abilities (Vin.II,110-111). There is also no mention in the scriptures of the Buddha mysteriously disappearing from the scene for three months. The Sankassa legend’s association with the abhidhamma is a key to its origin and rational.
The abhidhamma is conspicuous by its absence from the Buddha’s discourses. It is not mentioned as one of the nine branches of the Buddha’s teachings (navanga, A.II,103) and the account of the first council describes the recitation of the monastic rules, vinaya, and the discourses, suttas, but not of the abhidhamma (Vin.II,285). As the abhidhamma developed in the centuries after the Buddha’s passing and the books of the Abhidhamma Pitaka were gradually composed, pressure grew to have them considered canonical and included in the Tipitaka. When this happened, an explanation of their origin was needed and thus the legend of the Buddha going to heaven to teach the Abhidhamma Pitaka was created. Interestingly, this legend is not even mentioned in the Abhidhamma Pitaka itself but only in the much later commentaries. This suggests that it was considered just a ‘popular’ legend at the time the Abhidhamma Pitaka became canonical and only became ‘official’ later. King Asoka raised a great stone pillar at Sankassa, parts of which can still be seen there. There is however, no evidence that this pillar was raised to commemorate the legend, which had probably not come into existence at that time. The earliest evidence of the Sankassa legend is a sculptural depiction of it from Sanchi which dates from about the 1st century BCE. The picture opposite is of me and Viraj in front of Asoka’s pillar capital at Sankissa.

The Butcher's Day Off

While the early Buddhists considered killing for any reason to be wrong they also recognized that many people did not agree with them, that some people might want to kill a chicken to have for lunch and that other people enjoyed hunting. Not wanting to impose their values on others while at the same time hoping to create a more humane society, the custom developed in India to have what were called non-killing days (maghata, Vin.I,217) when no criminals were executed, no animals were slaughtered and no hunting was allowed. Such days were usually announced by the beat of a drum (Ja.IV,115). In 243 BCE King Asoka issued an edict banning the killing, castrating or branding of animals on certain days of every month. The custom of observing non-killing days survived even up to the Muslim period. In his Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri the emperor Jahangir (reigned 1605-27) wrote; ‘I ordered that each year from the 18th of Rabiu-l-awal which is my birthday, for the number of days corresponding to the years of my life, that people should not slaughter animals for food.’

If you hang round just a bit longer you will be able to read, from the 1st of July onwards, a detailed examination of the question of vegetarianism and Buddhism.

Praying In America

I mean, America really is different. It’s the land where everyone has a gun, where they have drive-in funeral parlors, where 64% of collage students can’t locate Washington DC on a map, where you can sue your dry-cleaner for $10 million for delaying the delivery of your suit and where, alone amongst industrial nations, nearly everyone believes in God. Or do they? The results of one of the most extensive survey ever conducted on the subject and just published in USA Today, show that the picture is not as simple as that. The overwhelming majority of Americans call themselves Christians and say they adhere to Bible teachings but facts show that this is far from true. Americans will argue vehemently for the truth of some Bible teachings but studiously ignore other bits they don’t like or which don’t suit them. The porn industry in this Christian nation rakes in $4.5 billion a year and as Larry Flint pointed out ‘Hell! Someone must be buying all that smut.’ A survey conducted a decade ago showed that 91% of Americans believed in God but that 39% of these also believed in astrology. It seems that the main difference between Americans and the rest of the industrialized world is that they think of themselves as Christian and yet do whatever they want while Europeans, Canadians, Australians, etc don’t think of themselves as Christians and do whatever they want. In this sense American religiosity is more like Buddhism in its traditional homeland – everyone thinks of themselves as practicing the Dhamma while in fact it only has an effect on limited areas of their lives. Read the report as and see what you think.

Religion today in the USA is a salad bar where people heap on upbeat beliefs they like and often leave the veggies - like strict doctrines - behind. There are so many ways of seeing God, public policy expert Barry Kosmin says, that "the highest authority is now the lowest common denominator." Such are the key findings in latest data from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey of 35,000 Americans. Pew released demographic data in February from the survey, conducted May through August 2007. This new installment focuses on 60 questions about participants' religious beliefs and social and political views. The survey finds U.S. adults believe overwhelmingly (92%) in God, and 58% say they pray at least once a day. But the study's authors say there's a "stunning" lack of alignment between people's beliefs or practices and their professed faiths. Likewise, the long-standing links between highly religious people, conservative ideology and the Republican Party are starting to fray, says a co-author of the study, John Green, a Pew Forum senior research fellow. "There are votes to be had for both Democrat and Republican candidates," Green says. "Evangelical Protestants' votes may be more in flux than in 2004…more open to persuasion." The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percentage points for overall findings. The margin is a bit larger for subgroups such as "evangelicals" (26.3% of adults, who share strict ideas on salvation and common historic origins), mainline Protestants (18.1%, who share "a less exclusionary view of salvation and a strong emphasis on social reform") and historically black churches (6.9%, "shaped by experiences of slavery and segregation"). Among the highlights:
• 78% overall say there are "absolute standards of right and wrong," but only 29% rely on their religion to delineate these standards. The majority (52%) turn to "practical experience and common sense," with 9% relying on philosophy and reason, and 5% on scientific information.
• 74% say "there is a heaven, where people who have led good lives are eternally rewarded," but far fewer (59%) say there's a "hell, where people who have led bad lives and die without being sorry are eternally punished."
• 70%, including a majority of all major Christian and non-Christian religious groups except Mormons, say "many religions can lead to eternal life."

• 68% say "there's more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion."

• 44% want to preserve their religion's traditional beliefs and practices. But most Catholics (67%), Jews (65%), mainline Christians (56%) and Muslims (51%) say their religion should either "adjust to new circumstances" or "adopt modern beliefs and practices."

• 50% say "homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society," but the most consistently traditional religious groups say society should discourage it — 76% of Jehovah's Witnesses, 68% of Mormons, 61% of Muslims and 64% of evangelicals.

• 51% have a certain belief in a personal God, but 27% are less certain of this, 14% call God "an impersonal force," and 5% reject any kind of God. "People say 'God,' and no one knows who they mean," says Kosmin, director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn.

• 14% of all surveyed, including 28% of evangelicals, say religion is the "main influence in their political thinking."

Many who label themselves "conservative" also turn up in agreement with liberals and moderates on issues such as the environment, the economy and the role of government. "Politics doesn't occur in a vacuum," says Green, pointing out a tendency by broadcast and print journalists to "focus on the most outspoken believers, who often tend to be the most conservative" and miss the tilt toward middle ground. Church attendance is the best predictor of political activity - whether people vote - but beliefs predict how they vote, he says. Pew Forum director Luis Lugo attributes the decline of dogmatism to living in a pluralistic society, in which friends, co-workers, even family members come from myriad faiths. The survey found 37% of couples with children were married to or living with someone from another religion or faith tradition, bringing diversity "right down to the kitchen table," Lugo says. "Americans believe in everything. It's a spiritual salad bar," says Rice University sociologist Michael Lindsay. Rather than religious leaders setting the cultural agenda, today, it's Oprah Winfrey, he says. "After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the national memorial service was at Washington's National Cathedral, conducted by Episcopal clergy. After the 9/11 attack, Oprah organized the official memorial service at Yankee Stadium, and while clergy participated, she was the master of ceremonies. "The impact of Oprah is seen throughout this survey. She uses the language of Bible and Christian traditions and yet includes other traditions to create a hodgepodge personalized faith. Exclusivism (one religion has the absolute and exclusive truth) has gotten a bad name in America today," he says. Political science professor Alan Wolfe, director of the Boise Center for American and Public Life at Boston University, says many people, despite their religious claims, "have no command of theology, doctrine or history, so it's an empty religiosity." Still, he finds "a very forgiving quality" to this non-sectarian, no-mention-of-sin view. "No one wants to think their spouse, friends or co-workers are mad or bad." Duke University sociologist Mark Chaves, like Lugo, attributes the shifts to long-term changes in family with rising divorce, increased cohabitation, smaller families and steady increases in religiously mixed marriages. "Don't look at the church, look at home," he says. Among couples (married or living together) with children, 63% say they read the Bible or pray with their children, and 60% say they send kids for religious education. The numbers drop significantly for the 37% in religiously mixed marriages: 48% say they pray or read Scripture with their children, and 44% say they send their children for religious education, says Greg Smith, a Pew research fellow and co-author of the survey. Adults under 30 are further from strict religious adherence than their parents. Although other studies show they cycle back to religion at key moments such as marriage or rearing children, those spirals are getting smaller and smaller, says Tom Smith, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Society at the University of Chicago, which has measured religion and society for decades through the General Social Survey. "Every religious group has a major challenge on its hands from all directions," says Lugo. When he factors in Pew's February findings that 44% of adults say they've switched to another religion or none at all, Lugo says, "You have to wonder: How do you guarantee the integrity of a religious tradition when so many people are coming or going or following ideas that don't match up?" Cardinal Francis George, Archbishop of Chicago and president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, sees in the numbers that Catholics, like everyone else, are shaped by an individualistic culture where "people are trained to trust only their own spiritual experience" rather than in the historic message of the church. "Religion is about conversion, self-surrender as opposed to self-righteousness," he says. "That's hard in any culture but particularly in our own." The Rev. Frank Page of Taylors, S.C., past president of the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, is not surprised by the Pew findings. "The number (of churches that) teach a clear doctrinal Christianity are a minority today. How would people know it when they never hear about how to be saved?" Still, Page is undaunted. "Jesus predicted all this," he says, quoting from the Bible (Matthew 15:8): "People honor me with their lips but their hearts are far from me" "We still work as hard as we can to share the good news," he says, "even though we know most will reject the way."

A Meeting In Tibet, 1950

I have seen this picture many times before but quite by chance I found it on the internet the other day. The photo appears in Heinrich Harrer’s famous book Seven Years In Tibet, in the first English edition on the front cover and as the frontispiece in subsequent editions. Harrer said that he considered it the best photo he ever took in Tibet. The picture was taken in the far south of Tibet in a monastery near from the Indian border in either late 1950 or early 1951. The Chinese had invaded the country, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government waited to see what would happen and finally they decided to flee. The Dalai Lama and his retinue went to the far south so they could negotiate with the Chinese and, if necessary, slip across the border into India. Little news leaked out of Tibet and million around the world listened to their radios for news of the fate of the young ‘god king.’ For Nehru, it was his first major foreign policy quandary but in the end he issued a statement saying that he hoped Tibet and China could settle their differences peacefully. Tibet’s monastic hierarchy was starting to see the disastrous consequences of their policy of total isolation and were in panic and the prayers to Tara didn't seem to be working. One person in India hit on an idea that he thought might help the situation. Just before Independence, the British government had returned to India the relics of Sariputta and Moggallana which had been sitting in a box at the V&A since the middle of the 19th century. Venerable Mativalla Sangharatana of the Mahabodhi Society of India asked Nehru if the Indian Government would allow a delegation from the MBSI to go to Tibet and show the sacred relics to the Dalai Lama – both as a blessing to him and to let him know, in an oblique way, that people outside Tibet were aware of his plight. Nehru agreed. Without informing the Chinese government who, if they had known what was afoot, would have angrily protested about foreign national crossing into the ‘sacred Chinese motherland’ without permission, Ven. Sangharatana and his party set off. They flew to Gauhati and then took trucks, then horses and finally yaks through what is now Aranuchal Pradesh, crossed into Tibet and in three weeks arrived at the monastery where the Dalai Lama and his government were staying. On the far left of the picture is a Sri Lankan monk wearing glasses and with his hands clasped in front of him. This is Ven. Sangharatna. The Dalai Lama holds the casket containing the relics of Sariputta and Moggallana which has just been handed to him by Ven. Sangharatna.
I first met Ven. Sangharatna in (if I remember correctly) in 1975 and a year later I became a samanera under him in his monastery at Sahet Mahet (the ancient Savatthi). Once I asked him about his adventures in Tibet and he told me the full story. He also had some very interesting photos he had taken while there but I think these are now all lost. He mentioned how amazed he was by the utter barrenness of the Tibetan landscape and how awed he was by the Dalai Lama’s presence and the gorgeous and elaborate protocol surrounding him. One thing he said that stays in my mind because the expression on his face when he said it was this. Thousands of people from all over southern Tibet had come to see their king; he never having been there before and many of them probably never having been to Lhasa. When the Dalai Lama appeared to the throng, he said, huge monks with yak hide whips prowled through the crowds lashing anyone who dared lift their eyes to see the sacred presence. Ven. Sangharatna was not a particularly sentimental person and he had very little time for what he considered ‘humbug’ – rituals, miracles, people claiming to be enlightened, etc. When I asked him what the Dalai Lama was like he was quiet for a few moments, he adjusted his glasses and then he said in a very soft voice, ‘The Buddha’. He paused for a moment and added ‘That’s it, he was just what I expect the Buddha was like.’

New Age

New age is a term that became current in the 1980’s to describe a nebulous, pseudo-religious set of beliefs that grew out of the Western counterculture of the 1960’s. The term alludes to the belief at that time that a new spiritual age, the so-called ‘Age of Aquarius,’ was about to dawn. Despite the fact that some Buddhist concepts and practises have been incorporated into new age spirituality, Buddhism and the new age movement have little in common.
A Buddhist can see serious problems with this movement. Its belief that a ‘new age’ was about to begin has been shown to be wrong. Tragically, there has been as much conflict, greed, hatred, hypocrisy and despair since this supposed new beginning as there was before it. New age is highly commercial and in this sense closely resembles the ‘old age’ that it claims to have superseded. A brief survey of new age fairs, shops, magazines and catalogues shows that everything on offer has a price to it, often an exorbitant one. New age has no core concepts or guiding ideals but is fad-driven. Certain beliefs or practises come into vogue (pyramids, crystals, Celtic fairies, shaman drumming, etc.) and are soon replaced by others. New age has a distinct narcissistic and ‘crank’ quality to it. People involved in new age often develop a preoccupation with their health and with diets, additives, quack medicines and treatments, etc. Perhaps more seriously, new age is also naively optimistic. It offers no solutions to the very real and serious problem of human suffering other than platitudes, wishful thinking and vague generalizations.
A Buddhist might say that the new age spirituality does little harm but little good either. One positive thing that can be said about the new age movement is this - it shows that despite the widespread rejection of conventional religion in the West, people continue to have a spiritual yearning. Hopefully, more people will look to the coherent, realistic and time-tested teachings of the Buddha to fulfil this need.

It's getting closer! Starting on July 1st and continuing for a week I intend to discuss the issue of meat eating and the Dhamma from every possible angle.