In this episode, Supreme Master Ching Hai discusses the environmental, health, and societal benefits of adopting a plant-based diet.
Now we are complaining about shortage of water everywhere on the planet. We’re complaining about shortage of food. We use 90% of grain to feed animal(-people) instead, and we leave 862 million people hungry. That is in 2008 alone. For the grain that we use for livestock, we can feed two billion people. Many times over for the world hunger people that we have right now. So I do not understand, Truly, with all the intelligence that I have, would somebody explain to me what kind of world we are living in and what kind of policy we are following and what kind of kindness we’re doing to ourselves and our fellow beings, not to talk about animal(-people) yet? Because we cannot even love our own species. So, it would be incomprehensible of course, for many to understand how to love animal(-people). Now you know why.
In Ohio alone, the climate change is going to cost that state US$1 billion because the water bordering of their state, the lake, will be going down drastically due to climate change. And they will have to rebuild their harbors and infrastructure to meet the new level of water, new demand. So, the climate change, it will cost more. And why? Because of (animal-people) meat diet.
All we have to do is just forsake that piece of (animal-people) meat on our plate and replace it with protein from the vegetable kingdom. We have food to eat, we have choices, and they are wonderful, they’re nutritious. It’s not like we don’t have choice. We don’t have to kill to live. We don’t have to degrade ourselves into a murderous agent of the planet. We can live and let live.
The way it is right now, it seems like we will be working forever, forever busy, just to pay tax. Because we earn the money, and then we have to pay tax so that we can have our sickness treated, our body checked up, and that does not even guarantee that we can live – that is the point. So much suffering, so much medicament, so many blood tests and X-rays and operations and all that. All this doesn’t even guarantee that our life will be saved due to the way we don’t treat ourselves kindly, due to the way that we are taking poison for food. (Animal-people) meat is poison, scientifically speaking, physically speaking.
I’m going to leave out the religious side right now, because people will think I try to convert them. I don’t want to convert anyone, because the more I convert, the more I have to work only. So, it’s good enough for me if you can change. It’s good enough for me if people just go vegan, do good deeds. That’s all I ask: Go vegan, do good deeds. Whatever good, you do it right away; whatever bad, you stop. Doing good right now including saving the planet, that means go vegan as well. So, it all boils down to going vegan.
Because if we don’t eat (animal-people) meat, there will be much, much less animal-people raising and it will be much less killing on the planet. And it is the killing karmic retribution that contributes to the danger of our planet right now. Just scientifically speaking, (animal-people) meat-eating contributes to 80% of global warming and pollution. So, if we just throw that piece of (animal-people) meat out of our mind, then the planet will be saved and you will have a longer life. And mark my words, you will be a much happier person, You’ll be less anxious, sleep better at night. You will have no sickness.
If all the planet’s people go vegan, we will have no sickness, almost zero. Because the vegan people also get sick sometimes due to the fact that their immune system is still not completely recovered, because they have not been vegan since childhood, most of them. And then, other people who are not vegan get sick all the time and then transmit it also to the poor vegan people. But if all the people are vegan, nobody gets sick.
So talking about all life is sacred, it begins with us. Let’s begin with the human life, let’s treat us with all kindness and respect to the body that has been toiling day and night for us to enjoy all the pleasures that life has to offer. Let’s begin the sacred life with us, let’s begin to treat our life more kindly by turning to nutritious food instead of poisonous food like (animal-people) meat, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs.
War will stop if we all turn vegan in any case. The best is that war stops also, even before vegan. But if not, the war will stop. Because once we’re vegan, we know why we’re vegan, our heart will be more compassionate and automatically we don’t want any war. So, it’s amazing that we still can produce children and do anything else in life for all the poisons that we take into our lives everyday. But would anybody ever stop for a few moments to ponder themselves, what kind of world we live in. Is this the kind of world that we want?
That we have to kill to live, that we have to murder lives in order to survive or we have to even murder each other to survive. This is not truly the kind of life, the kind of world that we want to live in. We want a better world; we want a more compassionate loving world. So we have to turn around and work to build that world.
It’s a good thing that we should not be extravagant, yes. But extreme asceticism is also very tiring for the mind, and the mind will rebel. Anyway, so we have to treat ourselves nicely. No extremes, because God has created all things for us to enjoy. Asceticism is not going to save our world, or extravagance either. So God has created enough water for us, enough food for us to last even forever, if we but know how to stop abusing the Earth’s resources and Her sustenance. We should not kill our fellow beings to satisfy our greed. And this is the main point of planetary problems right now – our over expenditure on our moral merit and world resources.
All these changing bulbs, new car technology and sparing water, don’t take a shower too long, and don’t turn on the tap water while you’re cleaning your teeth – all this is fine, but they are just scratching the itch outside of the sock. It will not ease our itch. It only makes matters temporarily forgotten and cover the real problem and cover the real solution, you see? It just distracts us from our real goal, real solution, and the planet will get worse if we just keep doing this scratching outside the sock thing. We have to scratch on the skin if we want to ease our itch. What I mean is we have to address the main wound, that is the (animal-people) meat production.
Everybody who has the chance to know, and has the power to know should know by now that (animal-people) meat production is the main cause of global warming. And to stop (animal-people) meat eating is the main solution to save the planet. I do not understand why we don’t go there. If somebody with intelligence explains this to me, I would be very grateful if I have a good answer for that. Meanwhile, we just have to continue doing what we do. Because we need to save this planet to pass onto our grandchildren. If we live the way we do now: (animal-people) meat eating, drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes, all that, and killing each other, killing the animal(-people) – I don’t know how we really can answer to our own conscience. Not talking about religious obligations, nothing at all.
Ever wonder what kind of example we want to offer to our children when they grow up? From all the goodness, the well manners that we expect from them. If we tell them to be frugal – don’t take shower too long, or even don’t leave water running while brushing their teeth and all that, and even suppose we don’t take any more baths even, all of us, or suppose we don’t brush our teeth anymore, suppose we don’t even drink water – how much water do we save? 30%, more or less. What good will that do to us? When we just stop eating (animal-people) meat, then we have 70% plus water to use. You can take as long a bath as you want, you can have three, four swimming pools in your house, nobody will say anything. And you will never feel any guilt, you’ve never done anything harmful to the planet. Just leave that piece of (animal-people) meat out of your diet. Let Peace begin on your table. Thank you.
(Thank You, Supreme Master Ching Hai, for such thought-provoking information. We’d like to move onto our last panel. But before doing so, we’d like to give first a short tribute to the network broadcasting to our global audience, worldwide.) Thank you.
Photo Caption: “Can’t See Me If You Don’t Look with Real Attention: I Greet Your Steps Humbly in the Ancient Forest”
