Talk on Vegetarianism by Orgyen Trinle Dorje, Karmapa XVII
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Description
Kagyu Monlam, Bodhgaya, January 3, 2007
This is a transcript of a half-hour talk on vegetarianism delivered by the 17th Karmapa at the 24th Kagyu Monlam. Speaking informally and personally, he addresses the question of meat-eating from multiple angles — Vinaya, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna — and concludes with concrete institutional directives for the Karma Kagyu community.
The Karmapa begins by acknowledging the standard Vinaya position on threefold purity but argues that for beginner bodhisattvas, even technically permissible meat is to be avoided, because attachment to the taste of meat leads inevitably to complicity in killing. He draws on the Laṅkāvatārasūtra and Bodhisattvayāna sources, and cites earlier Kagyu masters — including the 8th Karmapa Mikyö Dorje, Karma Chakmé, and Jamgön Kongtrul — who spoke strongly against meat consumption. On the Vajrayāna question, he follows Karma Chakmé in holding that the ritual use of the five meats applies only to the most advanced practitioners and cannot justify ordinary consumption.
The Karmapa also speaks personally, describing his own childhood attachment to meat and his decision to give it up, and connecting the practice of abstention to life release and the removal of obstacles.
He closes with a set of binding directives for Karma Kagyu institutions: no meat-related business by monks, nuns, or lay followers; no slaughterhouses on monastery grounds; no meat cooked in monastery kitchens. For those unable to give up meat entirely, he proposes a graduated approach — reducing to one meal per day, abstaining on special days, or at minimum generating compassion before eating.
