On Feb 15, 6:18 pm, Jangchub wrote:
On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 23:42:45 GMT, Janet Baraclough





wrote:
The message
from Jangchub contains these words:

. I have emailed the author to find
out if she indeed said that in any book she's written and would like
to know where she got her information.

From this interview, which was widely publicised ?

http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2004/05/dalai_lama.html

quote

"RD: Do you have a favourite animal?

Dalai Lama: Birds maybe. I feed birds, peaceful birds. I'm a nonviolent
person, but if a hawk comes when I'm feeding birds, I lose my temper and
get my air rifle.

RD: You have an air rifle?

Dalai Lama: Yes, although I shoot only to scare the hawks. " (end quote)

The same interview quotes His Holiness saying he eats some meat.
Presumably it's killed first.

Janet

This is a whole lot different than saying His Holiness shoots
aggressive birds at the feeders with a rifle. Miles different. He
uses the sound of the air gun. He happens to do this not only to
protect the birds of prey, but to help the predators and keep them
from killing and creating more non-virtue, which will hold them for
eons in the animal realm. They eat meat, but they kill with their
talons and beak, ripping at flesh. For H.H. this is an act of
compassion for the raptor.

Secondly, His Holiness eats meat only when his health absolutely
requires it and when he goes to a special award dinner or has audience
with people from other countries which don't know Buddhists are mostly
vegetarians (I am) and will cook delicious meat shrimp, etc. When
teaching, H.H. often says if you must eat meat, eat the meat of a
large animal so only one life had to be taken to feed many people.
Thus, shrimp are out of the question, or fish. He will eat it so not
to be rude. It's not that important for a living Buddha to be
concerned with karma because he no longer creates it.

This is not really a discussion for this newsgroup, but it frustrates
me when people don't look at the whole scope, put all the information
together accurately and report it using wisdom. I can't or won't
allow someone to say His Holiness shoots birds with his rifle when I
know he would rather die.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Back to His Holy Molee topic: We should all be mindful that we make
life and death choices for many animals every day. Most of us eat
animals that someone had to kill. Or we eat the eggs of animals that
destroy the future life of the egg.

Sometimes we put our pet animals down when they get old or sick.
Sometimes we carelessly subject our pets to risks such as when we
expose them to harmful pesticides we spray around our gardens.

I got mad at a bluejay recently when I saw him eating the eggs of a
finch nested on my window sill. The only thing I could do was hope
that maybe someday my cat would catch him by surprise. My cat, whom I
call Princess, is a great hunter, and almost every day finds a rodent
to catch and torture. She's actually quite brutal when she catches
something, throwing it around, chewing its head, flipping it high in
the air, pawing it to try to make it move just a little so that she
can pounce on it again. Sometimes, I feel sorry for the rodent. His
life would have ended more painlessly had someone shot a pellet
through his heart.

The lesson I take from these observations, is that we all kill living
things, little or big animals, plants we don't like in a certain spot,
etc.
Agriculture (monoculture) in general is very destructive to the
ecology and destroys the habitats of many beautiful critters. Yet we
need the food it produces in order to survive. However, I feel better
when I use a kinder way of taking the life of a critter that has
feelings and wants to live, just like me.

-----------------------
If you're interested in more about the damages caused by agriculture,
read "On the Semantics of Evolution" available free online.