The Longstanding Debate over Vegetarianism in Tibet

🤓 Admin Zone 🛠️ hidden to non-admins
view on research edit on research Add an excerpt Add a bilingual page Add full text subpage

Article

LibraryArticlesBibliography

Please note that many items in our library are simply pages that represent a detailed library catalog entry and citation of someone else's work, presentation, or performance. Read our General Disclaimer for more information.

Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

Eating other beings may not seem like the most intuitive choice for those following the Mahayana Buddhist path, but that is exactly what many Buddhists have done for centuries. In Tibetan culture, the consumption of meat has been the norm, yet given the basic Buddhist prohibition against killing, meat-eating has always posed significant ethical problems. How, then, have Tibetan meat eaters justified their actions? And how have vegetarians in Tibet argued their case? In The Faults of Meat, edited by Geoffrey Barstow, we find a rich amalgam of translated works by major Tibetan authors on the topic of meat-eating, from those who vigorously argue for vegetarianism to those who carefully defend meat’s ingestion.

Read this article here.

Citation

Lindsay, Rory. "The Longstanding Debate over Vegetarianism in Tibet." Review of The Faults of Meat: Tibetan Buddhist Writings on Vegetarianism, edited by Geoffrey Barstow. Lion's Roar, June 16, 2020. https://www.lionsroar.com/the-longstanding-debate-over-vegetarianism-in-tibet/.

Interconnections

Works related to this item

1 Review of

Barstow, Geoffrey, ed. The Faults of Meat: Tibetan Buddhist Writings on Vegetarianism. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2019.

Books2019About this item

Should all Buddhists be vegetarian?

Vegetarianism is an important topic of debate in Buddhist circles—some argue that Buddhists should avoid meat entirely while others suggest that it is acceptable. For the most part, however, this ethical query has been conducted in the West without consulting traditional literature on the subject. The Faults of Meat brings together for the first time a collection of rich and intricate explorations of authoritative Tibetan views on eating meat. These fourteen nuanced texts, ranging from scholastic treatises to poetic verse, reveal vegetarianism as a significant, ongoing issue of debate for Tibetans across time and traditions, with a wide variety of voices marshaled against meat, and a few in favor. Authors include many important Tibetan teachers:

Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen (1292–1361) Khedrup Jé (1385–1438) The eighth Karmapa, Mikyö Dorjé (1507–1554) Shabkar Tsokdrük Rangdröl (1781–1851) Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö (1961– ) and many more.

These Buddhist teachers recognize both the ethical problems that surround meat eating and the practical challenges of maintaining a vegetarian diet; their skilled arguments are illuminated further by the translators’ introductions to each work.

The perspectives in The Faults of Meat are strikingly relevant to our discussions of vegetarianism today; they introduce us to new approaches and solutions to a contentious issue for Buddhists. (Source: Wisdom Publications)