Danny Strikes Again

First things first:  Shakya's b-day is Monday, his 29th (he thinks he's getting old.  HA!), so he took six of us out to lunch today at a Nepali/Tibetan restaraunt in Pasadena.  That's right, he took us out to lunch.  He was going to get some cake to share on Sunday, but I have expressely forbidden him to purchase his own birthday cake.  I'm going to take care of that and we're going to have cake Sunday afternoon.  On Saturday, Shakya is going to take the eight precepts and fast for 24 hours, so I'm sure he'll be mighty hungry come Sunday.

After the lunch today, we stopped by a Sri Lankan temple in Pasadena and met briefly with the abbot and one other monk.  Dr. Warnasuirya had to get back for a meeting, so we only stayed a few minutes, but here are some pictures.

This is the group of us in front of the temples Bodhi tree.  I was surprised to see it as I've never seen one except in pictures before.  This is the same species of tree under which the Buddha achieved enlightenment.  The shape of the leaves is distinctive.

From left to right: Dr. Warnasuriya, Ven. Alice, me, Ven. Wei Ming, Tiffany, and Shakya.

This is the small Buddha image set under the Bodhi tree outside.

This is the rear side of the temple.  It's an old catholic church.  The Bodhi tree is there on the right.  The rectory is not in the picture, but it's to our right also.

This is the main Buddha image inside the temple.

In other news, my friend Danny has written an excellent post about Vegetarianism and the environment.  You can read it here.  Apparently, raising livestock for food generates far more greenhouse gasses than all the cars combined.  Yikes.  There are of course the ethical issues of eating meat vis a vie killing, which Danny also addresses eloquently, so I won't rehash that here.

As for myself, I was vegetarian for 13 years before getting Lyme disease the fall of '02.  After two months of being told to eat meat again by one of the lamas at TMC when I was having trouble recovering, I finally relented and started eating meat.  The surprising thing is that it seemed to help.  A couple of days ago, however, I decided to cut out red meat, mostly for health reasons, though the environmental issues were in the back of my mind.  I also don't eat seafood.  I will eventually cut out pork and chicken and see how it goes health wise.

There is another issue that I don't think Danny's post presents.  It takes far more feed to produce one pound of beef than to produce the same amount of chicken.  So just cutting out beef would be a huge step in the right direction.  All that land that goes to produce food for cows could be used to produce more food directly for human consumption.  We should also get rid of the large poultry farms and free up more land to grow food for people.  Or let it go fallow, plant things on it that eat up carbon dioxide and fight global warming and overuse of water on two fronts by getting rid of the waste in producing meat and using that land to absorb CO2.

I encourage all of you to visit Danny's blog, read the entry and click the link to the accompanying article he cites.  In fact, I challenge all of you to give up meat entirely for three full days.  Think of it as an adventure as you can try all sorts of yummy vegetarian things that you might not have tried otherwise.

Comments

[Danny Fisher]

Thank you for the shout-out, my friend. By the way, you might take a look at the comment section of my post--the same points about agricultural waste that you raised here are currently being discussed there.

Also...new glasses? They look sharp!