We Cannot Live Without Harming Others By Kyabje Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Institut Vajra Yogini, France (Last Updated Dec 9, 2013)

At the 2009 CPMT meeting in France, in a question and answer session with Lama Zopa Rinpoche, NicholasRibush, director of Lama Yeshe Wisdom Archive, suggested that FPMT promote a policy of veganism. LamaZopa Rinpoche gave the following response. Edited by Nicholas Ribush. Published in Mandala magazine,July 2013. See also On Becoming a Vegan: When Vegetarian is Not Enough.

Nicholas Ribush: Rinpoche, how do you feel about FPMT promoting a policy of not only vegetarianism,but also veganism, because of the cruelty to animals inherent in the production of dairy products and soforth?

Lama Zopa Rinpoche: The reality is that we cannot live without harming others. Theres no way we cansurvive without others being harmed, killed. We cant survive for even a day without causing suffering toothers.

This is how life is in samsara and thats why the ultimate answer is to get out of samsara, to be liberated fromit. Only when you free yourself from samsara by actualizing the remedy, the true path, the wisdom directlyperceiving emptiness, which directly terminates the delusions, the disturbing thought obscurations, and the

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negative imprints, the seeds of delusion, will you no longer have to reincarnate, no longer have to go throughthe cycle of death and rebirth, experiencing all the sufferings of the six realms, one after the other.

Its only when youre liberated from samsara that others dont have to suffer for your happiness, only then thatothers dont have to be harmed or killed in order for you to survive. Therefore, actualizing the path is of theutmost urgency; thats the emergency.

Otherwise, even if youre eating a plate of vegetables, its likely they were sprayed with insecticide when theywere grown. And if you eat unsprayed ones, there may be many tiny green insects on them under the leavesand so forth that you dont notice because the leaves are green too. So when you prepare food, you have tocheck each piece very carefully and put those with insects outside gently so that the insects can continue tolive on them, not just throw them in the trash.

Many times Ive seen vegetables brought in from the garden with many tiny insects on them. You really haveto inspect them carefully inside and out, because if youre unaware, if you havent seen them before, youwouldnt think there were insects there since they blend in so well. Of course, if they didnt have a mind, ifthey didnt have feelings, it wouldnt matter, but they do; so you have to be careful with unsprayed vegetablesand put those with insects on them into a separate container and take them outside.

Also, of course, many insects die in the growing of food itself. When gardens are dug and fields are plowed,so many insects get killed. As I always say, think how many die for even one grain of rice. Paddies are dug,flooded and drained; many sentient beings die at each stage of growing one crop of rice. And that rice camefrom a previous crop, and that from the one before and so forth back to the time when rice began to beharvested, perhaps thousands of years ago. So how many beings have suffered and died during thatincalculable period? And how many people have created negative karma harming others in that way? Theseare unimaginable numbers. For one grain of rice.

So now think of the whole plate of rice. How many sentient beings suffered and died for that? Think back towhen rice began to be grown in this world. When you contemplate all this carefully theres no way, no way,you can eat the rice without wanting to do something meaningful to benefit all those numberless sentientbeings who died for each grain of it. You feel its impossible to eat just for your own happiness; eating foryourself, completely ignoring all those beings who died and who created negative karma for that rice,becomes the most difficult thing, most painful thing, to do.

This is just to give you an idea of how many sentient beings have to suffer and die for your happiness, foryour life. Theyre numberless. Wow!

Then theres water. The water we use is full of sentient beings that can be seen only through a microscopeand that have to die for us.

Its the same with the clothing we wear. Whether its made of fiber thats grown or derived from animals, it hasa long evolution and theres a huge amount of fear, suffering and killing for the many sentient beingsinvolved. Think, for example, of the silkworms that are boiled alive so that we can make silk thread from theircocoons. Can you imagine the pain they experience?

Then there are the buildings we live and work in. Many beings get killed and many others create negativekarma during their construction.

So you can see, theres basically no pleasure or comfort we enjoy that does not involve numberless sentientbeings suffering, death and negative karma. Thats why its so urgent that we practice Dharma. Its the mostimportant thing we can do, more important than anything else.

If you dont attain liberation from the ocean of samsara or enlightenment in this life, then you need to get an

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upper rebirth in your next life, meet and practice Dharma, develop your mind, and in that way achieveliberation from samsara and eventually the full enlightenment of buddhahood.

So achieving liberation from samsara is the main answer, the most important thing for your own sake and thatof other sentient beings, for them not to suffer or die. Freeing yourself from samsara is the solution to all that.And then, of course, on top of that, achieving enlightenment so that you can liberate numberless sentientbeings from the ocean of samsara and bring them to full enlightenment too. This is your greatest purpose andthe best way to benefit others: achieve enlightenment for the sake of all sentient beings.

Thus you can see how achieving enlightenment in order to liberate numberless sentient beings from theocean of samsaric suffering and bring them to enlightenment is of the greatest urgency, the most importantthing in daily life. Wow!

In order to do that you need to attain the path, which starts with the three higher trainings or the gradual pathof the lower capable being, taking refuge and following karma. That means abandoning negative karma andpracticing good karma, avoiding the ten nonvirtues and living in the five lay vows. That allows you to avoid alower rebirth and get a higher rebirth so that you can continue developing your mind on the path to liberationand enlightenment by practicing bodhicitta and the six paramitas and then the tantric path.

The fact that we have met the teachings at this time shows that we are the luckiest, most fortunate people inthe world. Not only have we been born human, which is extremely rare, but we have also received that rarestof human rebirths, the perfect human rebirth, with all the freedoms and opportunities that brings. However,such a life does not last long and can stop at any time. This incredible, wishfulfilling opportunity where wehave met the entire Dharmasutra and tantracan finish at any moment.

Therefore, the most important thing we can do with our life is to learn and practice Dharma and actualize thepath. Thats more important than anything else in life. Along with that we can engage in many other activitiesto give other sentient beings the opportunity to meet the Dharma, thereby bringing happiness to many others.We can give others the chance to study and practice Dharma so that they can learn to overcome sufferingand escape the cycle of death and rebirth and not have to continuously go through the sufferings of the sixrealms, one after the other, and eventually achieve enlightenment.

Thus for both ourselves and others, attaining enlightenment is the ultimate thing. But of course, the basis ofthat, the basic practice of Buddhism, is not harming others, and on top of that we try to benefit others asmuch as possible. The more we reduce the harm we give others, the more we benefit them.

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