The Rod

Excerpt from “The Rod”:

Everybody fears being struck by a rod.
Everybody fears death.
Therefore, knowing this, feeling for others as for yourself,
Do not kill others or cause others to kill.

Everybody fears being struck by a rod,
Life being dear to all.
Therefore, knowing this, feeling for others as for yourself,
Do not kill others or cause others to kill.

If one, pursuing happiness, strikes
Living beings who also strive to live happily
With a rod or other instrument,
He will reap an unwholesome harvest.

If one pursues his own happiness,
While causing no harm to other living beings
Who also strive to live happily,
He will reap a wholesome harvest.

This passage is from The Dhammapada, a Buddhist text.

There is no doubt that animals enjoy life. All you have to do is open your eyes to see it. They also have the right to live, and, although we humans may seem to be the more advanced among all the species, we do not have the right to take their lives away from them.

Easy ways to help animals

Helping animals is important, but a lot of people aren’t able to donate money to organizations they support, or spend a lot of time volunteering. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t still help. There are a number of ways to help animals (along with other causes) without ever leaving your desk.

The Animal Rescue Site allows you to simply click a button to feed animals in shelters. From this site you can also donate to save the rainforest, improve literacy, put an end to world hunger, provide mammograms, and improve children’s health.

Care2, a social networking and news site based around charity and progressive ideas, has a feature much like the Animal Rescue Site. You just click a few buttons and you’ve instantly helped stop global warming, save the rain forest, rescue baby seals, help the world’s oceans, save land inhabited by snow leopards and other large cats, feed primates, help children in need, help pets in shelters, end violence against women, and help find a cure for breast cancer.

GoodSearch allows you to choose an organization you support, and every time you search, you’re actually donating money to that charity.

What is Ahimsa?

The term “ahimsa” is of Sanskrit origin. It means non-harming, and is a large part of Buddhism (along with a few other eastern religions). As a long-time pacifist (and Buddhist) ahimsa means a lot to me, and it’s the most important virtue to me. I strive toward living a life free of harm to the beings around me. I didn’t learn the term until two years ago, but the ideas were swimming around my head.

A fun fact: The Jains (eastern religious group) take Ahimsa to a level unheard of anywhere else. Jain monks sweep the ground in front of them to avoid stepping on insects. Obviously this would be a bit impractical for lay people, but the idea is very respectable.

Animal rights is the strive to end animal suffering, so ahimsa seemed like an appropriate title for this blog.

What does eating meat have to do with global warming?

In celebration of Earth Day, I want to talk about a huge contributor to pollution and global warming - factory farming. The UN determined a couple of years ago that factory farming is one of the leading causes of global warming, producing around 18% of the CO2 responsible for climate change.

Factory farms are huge. Some of the largest hold over 1,000 cows, 2500 pigs, or 125,000 (!) chickens. One of the obvious forms of pollution is urine and manure, which is usually made into fertilizer to spray on crops. However, much too often it runs into rivers and groundwater, and threatens fish, animals, and humans. Remember the story that broke in the news a couple of weeks ago about how our drinking water was full of antibiotics? The animals raised in factory farms are full of chemicals and hormones that farmers use to make them grow faster and larger. These chemicals make it into the groundwater too (not to mention the steak you buy from the supermarket).

Even though promoters of factory farming claim these institutions are efficient in size, too much land is lost through animal agriculture. The rainforest is being cleared in South America to make room for the animals that will end up on your plate as hamburgers. The last thing we need when we’re on the brink of the  unimaginable consequences of climate change is the destruction of something that will protect us and slow down global warming. Also, all of those thousands of animals need food. Thus, thousands of acres of food is used to feed them. A better use of that land would be to grow enough crops for hungry people. If we used all the land currently being used for animal agriculture for vegetarian sources of food, we could provide enough food to feed everyone - plus enough to make ethanol without food prices going up too much.

Factory farming is dangerous for both living beings and the Earth. I would love for everyone to stop eating meat completely, but I’m enough of a realist to know that some of the meat-eaters reading this post isn’t just going to stop. So, if you’re unwilling to go vegetarian, at least eat less meat. You don’t need meat at every meal. You could also try free-range meat instead of factory farmed. Overall, just be aware of where your food comes from and its environmental impact.

My Vegan Story

I grew up within a family of hard-core meat-eaters. Hunting was something people did for both fun and food, and we almost never ate a meatless meal. However, I was inadvertently exposed to children’s films that put “radical” ideas into my head (at least that’s what I attribute my first foray into vegetarianism to). For example, one of my favorite movies when I was a small child was a straight-to-video film called, if I remember correctly, Seabert. All I really remember of it was that it involved seal hunters and something about the mother seal dying at the hands of the seal hunters. I also adored Ferngully, and Captain Planet was amazing (and still is!) Even though the latter two were geared specifically toward environmentalism, I think they made me realize when I was young that not all was as it should be.

I had weird meat-eating habits growing up. I would eat meat if it was chopped up in a sauce or something, but I wouldn’t eat things like chicken legs or pork chops. I guess it reminded me of the animal too much. When I was in the sixth grade, I tried vegetarianism after a friend started, but it didn’t last long.

In the 10th grade, I finally stopped eating meat. I don’t know the exact day, or what it was that gave me the final push to stop eating meat, but I’m happy I changed my habits. The summer after I graduated high school, in 2005, I decided to take it further and become vegan. I had thrown this idea around a little bit for a while. I finally realized that I was just being lazy because  being a vegetarian was a hell of a lot easier than being vegan.

Strangely, it seemed to me that the change to vegetarian had been harder than the switch to veganism. I think it could have been because I ate vegan most of the time anyway, other than the occasional cheese.

I know I’ll be vegan for life. If I can live on the campus of a very vegan-unfriendly campus and survive, I’ll be fine. Does anyone else have a vegan story to share? Just post in the comments.

A REAL Humane Meat?

PETA is making the news due to a polarizing new campaign: $1 million dollars for humane meat.

Scientists have been working on producing in vitro meat. This means that meat could be produced in a laboratory without killing animals.

This news has surprised a lot of PETA members, and Ingrid Newkirk, PETA’s president, has acknowledged that there is going to be internal conflict over this.

The creation of in vitro meat is a complicated issue for vegans and animal rights activists. On the one hand, animals would not have to be killed for human consumption. However, people would still be eating meat (not to mention a boat-load of chemicals).

I love the idea of animals not being killed for food, and success in producing lab-meat would shut down factory farming. However, I would personally never eat meat, whether it be from an animal or a test tube.

What do you think?

Introduction to Ahimsa

Welcome to Ahimsa, a blog that will relay animal rights and vegan-friendly information and news. I’ve wanted to start a blog focused on veganism for a while, but it’s just now that I’ve gotten everything set up. I hope this blog will aid people in starting and learning about a vegan diet, as well as reinforce those ideas and further the knowledge of current vegans.

I’ll start off the blog with a little information about myself. I’ve been a vegetarian for six years, and a vegan for about 2 and a half. My next post will discuss my reasons for the change. I’m currently a student majoring in political science with a double minor in philosophy and journalism. I love to write, so blogging is just a natural thing for me to do, especially when I get to write about topics I’m passionate about.

I want to make this blog great, so if anyone has any suggestions let me know in the comments. I hope everyone enjoys Ahimsa.