“Not to lead a harmful life, nor to encourage others to do so.”
—The first of the Ten Grave Prohibitive Precepts from Buddhism
 

he following article was addressed to a large group of new vegans who were attempting to go a month without animal products. I am sharing it with you because the underlying principle I am revealing is universal despite the content.

Please look to see how you fit in here.

When I became a vegetarian over 20 years ago, I decided to do it because not doing so would hurt my heart.

I was a sensitive, intelligent person who cared about people and animals, so it was the only next logical conclusion for me to stop eating meat. Other vegetarian pioneers were proving that it was possible to go without it, so I knew I could too. Plus, many were reporting feeling better from eating cleaner food and becoming more conscious of what they were putting into their bodies, which was another thing I loved a great deal – consciousness.

As a new vegetarian, I was often embarrassed by the kinds of words and acts I saw fellow vegetarians saying and doing to “convert” others to their point of view. I saw nasty, sarcastic messages with images of people sucking cows’ udders. I saw protesters throwing blood onto women wearing furs. I saw debaters fighting with facts and figures to argue more intelligently about the merits of going meat-free.

I understood why they were doing it. They were angry and taking a stand for the voiceless. But even before my Zen training, I knew that this kind of behavior was simply going to push others away even further from their hearts. People would only associate the vegetarian diet and vegetarians with crazy folks who were out to convert others violently. And it would produce the opposite effect they wanted. It would repulse meat-eaters from making the necessary step inward to access their hearts. Anger and pushing away was only going to be met with anger and pushing away.

I’ve seen it with every major political debate. People on one side with their points of view believing they are “right” thinking the other side is crazy and people on that side believing they are “right” thinking the other side is crazy.

And at the end of the day, no well-formed argument will ever warm someone’s heart to your cause. Consider it for yourself: When have you ever said to yourself “That person yelling at me with their facts and figures was right. I see the errors of my ways. I’m going to change.”

I can’t picture it, and I’m so happy no one ever did that to me to prevent me from finding my way to the compassionate life I have today.

In my Zen training, I learned that the ego and self-hate work to aggressively control the attention. They do that through drama. They operate in the realm of shame, hatred, humiliation, violence, arrogance, delusion, and coercion. This is why I don’t engage with any of that at all.

Instead, I ask gentle questions that open others’ up to their hearts. There’s a part of them who loves animals and wants to care for other living beings, if only their own children. So I know that part exists inside of them. I know that I can talk about my own experience about why I changed my diet. Why it was important to me. How I couldn’t do it anymore or close my eyes to what was happening. How it hurt my heart and how I feel much lighter and happier now.

I know it’s tempting to want to influence others around you to change. That’s what we’ve been doing to each other since before the beginning of beginningless time. We give advice, make suggestions, intrude, and coerce. It’s how we were raised, actually. To be forced to leave who we authentically were as children to become socially conditioned adults.

Acceptance is what all of us are craving and is in so little supply in the world.

What I can tell you is that love will make the lasting change you are searching for. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and the Buddha were all great examples for us to see what it means to make the hard changes with inner compassion first and foremost.

So let the meat-eaters see us as an example. We’re just ordinary people making the step over to something “unusual” and being rewarded by being happier because of our decision. Let them see that the freedom, joy, and compassion is something we have created and is here with us.

That’s very attractive and, in my experience, a more joyful way to help end suffering.