I live in Portland OR. For those who have never been to Portland, trust me when I tell you that it is overflowing with progressive, pseudo-intellectual youth. Among the many health conscious fads, that make the denizens of this city so unique, are two popular lifestyle choices: vegetarianism and veganism. Obviously these lifestyles are not solely restricted to the Pacific Northwest, but there are few other cities that cater to these herbivores in such a vast array of meat and animal-free ways.

    Let's begin by differentiating between the two. A vegetarian is someone who does not eat meat. There are exceptions, of course. Some vegetarians believe that fish are fair game. Sure they have a heartbeat and a desire to live like any other animal, but screw it, they're fish. While steering clear of animal flesh (or most of it) the vegetarian is known to still eat other animal products, namely dairy and eggs. Every so often (as it is in the case of my girlfriend) you get a pretty particular vegetarian who will go to some unusual extremes to avoid accidental exposure to animal flesh. This includes ensuring their food was not cooked on the same grill as meat, that there are no animal ingredients, like lard, in beans and other fried foods, and even avoiding things like carmine, a food coloring used in candy that's made of insect husks. (Yes it's true, I looked it up.)

    A vegan is like a vegetarian who was exposed to the ooze from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze. (Or TMNT 2:TSOTO as it will be referred to herein) A vegan will not eat meat, nor any product that comes from an animal. No eggs and no milk, which means no dough, no cheese, and no flavor. I think honey is ok, but I mean come on, honey is like natures Twinkie. Seriously, it never goes bad.

    People turn to these lifestyles for a lot of reasons, usually health related. But a big reason to beat the need for meat, especially up here, is a strong belief against taking the life of an animal. Usually, closely tied to this belief is a disapproval for the conditions and circumstances in which livestock are raised and treated. Now after living with a vegetarian for a number of years and having many, many friends who are either a veggie or a vegan, I've heard nearly every argument that can be hurled at a meat eater. Yet I continue to eat meat. Not much, mind you, I never developed much of a taste for red meat or pork, but chicken and turkey are a staple of my diet. Even after all the countless discussions about weather or not it's the right choice to make, I never took the idea too seriously. Then I became more familiar with Buddhism.

    One of the fundamental principles of Buddhism is abstaining from taking life. Period. You just don't do it. So after taking a personal vow to take no life, (bug, pest, or otherwise) I eventually had to confront my ideas on eating meat. I almost immediately decided that my eating of meat did not constitute as taking a life. Which is fine, Buddhism really has no strict laws or moral codes. I can still be Buddhist and eat meat. But my inner conflict still continued. I don't want animals to suffer while being raised to be slaughtered and I certainly don't want them killed in excessively painful, prolonged ways, but there is another side to taking the path of a vegetarian that is not commonly discussed: is refraining from eating meat really enough?

    The test was really put to me when I learned why the Buddha condemned eating meat. In the eyes of the Buddha eating meat meant that you were valuing your life above that of animals, and taking their life to sustain yours showed attachment to the self, attachment being the source of suffering in Buddhist teaching. This is clear enough, but I look at this concept and try to see the intent behind it. As I see it, the Buddha was preaching against attachment when he said this. So the attachment is the real culprit while the meat eating is merely the source. But if this is true than isn't eating of any kind really just an attachment to your want of living? If we are not suppose to value one form of life over another then where does a plant fit in? These are the questions that filled my mind.

    On less existential ground, there are still a lot of questions that need to be answered before making the choice to be a vegetarian or vegan. Sure being a vegetarian is making a personal choice not to be responsible for the taking of animal life, but that certainly doesn't stop it from happening. It's like saying "I'm abstaining from rape, so rape's not my problem", the solution cannot be found by just avoiding the eating of meat. Now we are confronted with whether or not we are going to push our ideas on other people. Like it or not, the only way to truly stop something is to change it. This means changing an entire industry that's been around longer than our country. I know too well that if I decide to stop eating meat, the meat industry could care less. They'll survive. So instead of fighting them, I would do better to increase the awareness of others. But this requires aligning the values others might have with your own, which is no easy task. But to start this process, you would have to ask yourself, "what are my values"?

    Obviously you value the life of animals. Obviously you value animals rights. But do you value the life of all animals? Why just these animals that we use for food and not other animals? Almost every vegetarian I know wouldn't think twice about killing a fly, or an ant, or a spider. And there is of course the big question that all vegetarians face: "animals kill each other to eat, so why shouldn't we"? To which most vegetarians would respond: "because we're above nature, we have the ability to make a choice so we should". In a nutshell, "because we're smarter than them". And here is another gaping hole in the vegetarian train of thought. Most vegetarians seem to think we are above nature, outside of it. This is quite an elitist view for such compassionate thinkers. Humans are most definitely a part of nature. We are made up of the same compounds as things in nature, we have similar habits and lifestyles to things in nature, and we respond to the same threats as the rest of nature, particularly, the will to live. And finally we reach the source of vegetarian and vegan thought.

    Despite the fact that if we all stopped killing animals to eat them at the same time, the immense over breeding of these species would throw off the balance in nature and an army of pigs, cows, and chickens would likely storm the world for their next meal, there is an even more terrifying fear at the core of most modern vegetarians and vegans, in my opinion. The fear of the primal self. The fear that even with all our amazing accomplishments, all our stunning prowess, all our incredible strides in science and art, deep down we are really no different than a pig. No different than a cow, or a chicken. We fight for what's ours, we avoid our predators (illness), we screw to procreate, we wallow in cages of our own design, and that scares us. We want so badly to be above the rest of nature. We want to be better and different and not at all primitive and base. So we try to stop the killing of animals, because we don't want to see the murderer that's in us all. We want to be better than that. Above it.

    The funny thing to me is that most vegetarians, if given the choice of kill that animal and eat it or die, would undoubtedly choose a serving of bacon, or steak. I sit here and eat my deli meat and McDonald's hamburger, but you put the knife in my hand and ask me to kill that cow... I'd learn to love to eat dirt real quick. What's the best option? To eat meat or don't? I only wish I knew.

Labels: Buddhism, meat, pacific northwest, Portland OR, veganism, vegetarianism