Written long ago and re-posted for self-consumption.
So, let’s begin the story. But before starting the story, I tell you, many confused individuals will not be happy about what I write here because I am sure what I write here will never please them. Let me begin the story by looking at the food we eat this information is what I come across while I perform my duty in the field and may not be necessarily right for many reasons. But I tell you, I have seen them practically.
We eat lots of meat. This is a fact no one can deny. They include beef (mostly), chicken, mutton, et cetera. But many eaters of meats never see what types of animals are used for putting them into our plates and we know why. It is because we look only at our plates. We do not even look at how the meats are pieced, treated, and preserved. But what do I mean by saying that we eat meat? Here is the answer. We do not want to kill an animal for consumption but we like to have meat on our daily menu. So, we are impostors, bloody impostors we must agree. I have seen that even those who advise many of our villagers not to kill animals eat lots of meat. Look at their plates; they are always full of meat items. We want to eat but we do not want to kill. Why is it so? If it is a sin to kill isn't eating a sin? If it is like that, two plus two must be three or five and not four because if it is two plus two equals four people would kill animals only if there is someone to eat.
So, our eat the meat but do not kill the animal's character has opened up several avenues for people outside our country, especially around the southern border towns and we know meats (of whatever animals) travel from Phuntsholing, Gelephu, Samdrup Jongkhar et cetera to as far as Bumthang and we must know that those are the animals, say for example beef, those animals that give beef to us in Bhutan are unwanted poor quality animals often left unfed, dirty and those that consume cartoons from the dustbins and the pits of neighboring country cities. There are high possibilities that these animals are diseased and are carriers of many zoonotic diseases and who knows many of our people may be dying due to such diseases. My question is why we don’t eat our own good animals. We know very well that our animals eat good grass in our good forests. Can’t we consume them and keep our money for ourselves instead of giving them to our neighbors that also for sick, underfed, malnourished, and dirty animals? I do not see any problem in putting our own animals (of all types) on our plates because we do it anyway even if it means importing from as far as Thailand (those packed meat items). If you believe it is a sin to kill animals you must also believe that it is a sin to eat as well. As I mentioned above if you do not eat, there will be an automatic reduction in several kills, but if you eat, someone will kill for you, and that way I believe eating is directly proportional to killing. So, if we eat we must learn to kill as well. Further, if you eat the sin must be there (look at it logically) whether it is an animal killed in India, Nepal, Thailand, the US, or Africa. Because there are eaters like us, animals have been converted to consumable goods (in whatever form, pickles, tinned items et cetera).
Street Cow, Bikaner, Rajasthan (Photo: Kelsi Nagy, 2011). We in Bhutan eat cows like this from India.
So, what I mean here is “we must eat good meat, keep money in our country, and of course make our people rich.” Our livestock officials tell us that Indians in the meat business collect all sorts of animals only for us since we eat any kind of meat once it is said it is beef (at the least). But there is another choice and that is we can give up meat as a whole and consume vegetables alone so that we are Buddhist in actual spirit and not in just name. Our situation is like the mixture of “Choedha Jigten” – religious and lay lives thoroughly mingled and mangled. But I know a line from a renowned Buddhist Master “Choedha Jigten Nyikoo so so ray” meaning the lay and religious life are two different things. So, our farmers ought to follow what the master says and not get much into the religion without knowing the deeper meanings. Yes, we need to believe in religion because it is the basic fundamentals of how we as a human should live. But we cannot disagree that we like a comfortable life. What I mean here is that to live and peaceful and happy life we should earn a decent amount of money. We know we must live and die with dignity and that would come only if we have enough money. One of the best options for our farmers is to rear livestock for all purposes (I mean cheese, butter, egg, meat, fish, et cetera) so that they can sell and make money. What I see in the villages (wherever I have visited) is not pro-developmental. It is sin to keep livestock at home. So, they do not rear livestock for meat production but only for milk and plowing or something like that. If they have some animals that are of not much use, it is marked for tshethar (liberation before death – I am not sure what it means, maybe it means the animal is liberated in its lifetime) to accumulate positive deeds so that one would go to heaven after death. Frankly enough, I hate the concept of Tshethar because those Tshethared animals I see are living under very torturous conditions. I do not want to specify examples here because my intention is not actually to defame what our Tshethar associations do but just to keep my thought penned. Thank god we do not have an animal rights group in Bhutan otherwise we could be quizzed for torturing the animals in the name of Tshethar. But when I say this, I should not be misunderstood because I was once told by a Tshethar Tshogpa member that it looked like I believed in Christianity. The reason for his belief was the way I explained how animals should be treated before showing him the exit door of my office categorically denying state forest land on lease for his Tshethar animals. I told him that animals including humans would die someday and they should be allowed to live free life instead of putting them in a cage or fence without much to eat and drink. Visibly annoyed he asked if I followed Christianity – a religion that I could follow if I choose to. One cannot feed a pig to such an extent that it cannot move. Doing so would mean you are torturing the animal. You also cannot keep the number of goats increasing because there could be environmental hazards if we do not check the number of goats (goats eat every green thing). One cannot also dump fish into a sewerage tank without much air to breathe. These are all against the animals’ rights.
All these factors (half-baked religious thoughts, whether, and not to kill but eat attitude) put together to give us dirty imported food while wasting our really good foods. We even import vegetables very heavily and I guess they are better than the meaty items. The vegetables might carry pesticides and insecticides that could even threaten the health of our people.
Now I have bullshitted enough, so what’s the solution? My ideas are as always as ordinary as possible. Use our animals to eat, use our vegetables, and use our things amicably. If our religion forbids killing, let’s all work together to make that simple. Let us accumulate millions of merits to liberate those animals we use to eat. I guess Buddhism has that option because I believe the great saint Naropa sent all the fishes he ate to heaven (I am not serious about it) through his miraculous powers of animal liberation. Let us all learn that technique from our Drupthops otherwise, our eating of imported dirty food will never stop and we will never see the light of richness. The other option is not to mix religion and lay existence. If it is agreeable let’s put our best efforts to save ourselves (our economy, peace, and prosperity). Otherwise, the only window to our self-reliance looks always closed. It is about time that we wake up and throw all our weight into animal farming.
But my readers must know that I am a born Buddhist who believes in every idea of Lord Buddha. My idea here is to bring comfort and peace to the people living with confusion.
These are the whims and
fancies of an individual like Jigme, the author of this page. But all these
thoughts are verifiable facts. However, readers (if any) must keep in mind
that the thoughts expressed here do not represent a country, nor a community, and not even my friends who toil with me deep into the jungles and the
villages. Further, these thoughts are not scientifically analyzed because many
of my friends (those who do not like statistics and of course many of us) hate
to look at the columns and graphs (I do not mean that they are poor in
statistics which is the fact). Not that I cannot do it but that they might go
less understood.
So, let’s begin the story. But before starting the story, I tell you, many confused individuals will not be happy about what I write here because I am sure what I write here will never please them. Let me begin the story by looking at the food we eat this information is what I come across while I perform my duty in the field and may not be necessarily right for many reasons. But I tell you, I have seen them practically.
We eat lots of meat. This is a fact no one can deny. They include beef (mostly), chicken, mutton, et cetera. But many eaters of meats never see what types of animals are used for putting them into our plates and we know why. It is because we look only at our plates. We do not even look at how the meats are pieced, treated, and preserved. But what do I mean by saying that we eat meat? Here is the answer. We do not want to kill an animal for consumption but we like to have meat on our daily menu. So, we are impostors, bloody impostors we must agree. I have seen that even those who advise many of our villagers not to kill animals eat lots of meat. Look at their plates; they are always full of meat items. We want to eat but we do not want to kill. Why is it so? If it is a sin to kill isn't eating a sin? If it is like that, two plus two must be three or five and not four because if it is two plus two equals four people would kill animals only if there is someone to eat.
So, our eat the meat but do not kill the animal's character has opened up several avenues for people outside our country, especially around the southern border towns and we know meats (of whatever animals) travel from Phuntsholing, Gelephu, Samdrup Jongkhar et cetera to as far as Bumthang and we must know that those are the animals, say for example beef, those animals that give beef to us in Bhutan are unwanted poor quality animals often left unfed, dirty and those that consume cartoons from the dustbins and the pits of neighboring country cities. There are high possibilities that these animals are diseased and are carriers of many zoonotic diseases and who knows many of our people may be dying due to such diseases. My question is why we don’t eat our own good animals. We know very well that our animals eat good grass in our good forests. Can’t we consume them and keep our money for ourselves instead of giving them to our neighbors that also for sick, underfed, malnourished, and dirty animals? I do not see any problem in putting our own animals (of all types) on our plates because we do it anyway even if it means importing from as far as Thailand (those packed meat items). If you believe it is a sin to kill animals you must also believe that it is a sin to eat as well. As I mentioned above if you do not eat, there will be an automatic reduction in several kills, but if you eat, someone will kill for you, and that way I believe eating is directly proportional to killing. So, if we eat we must learn to kill as well. Further, if you eat the sin must be there (look at it logically) whether it is an animal killed in India, Nepal, Thailand, the US, or Africa. Because there are eaters like us, animals have been converted to consumable goods (in whatever form, pickles, tinned items et cetera).
So, what I mean here is “we must eat good meat, keep money in our country, and of course make our people rich.” Our livestock officials tell us that Indians in the meat business collect all sorts of animals only for us since we eat any kind of meat once it is said it is beef (at the least). But there is another choice and that is we can give up meat as a whole and consume vegetables alone so that we are Buddhist in actual spirit and not in just name. Our situation is like the mixture of “Choedha Jigten” – religious and lay lives thoroughly mingled and mangled. But I know a line from a renowned Buddhist Master “Choedha Jigten Nyikoo so so ray” meaning the lay and religious life are two different things. So, our farmers ought to follow what the master says and not get much into the religion without knowing the deeper meanings. Yes, we need to believe in religion because it is the basic fundamentals of how we as a human should live. But we cannot disagree that we like a comfortable life. What I mean here is that to live and peaceful and happy life we should earn a decent amount of money. We know we must live and die with dignity and that would come only if we have enough money. One of the best options for our farmers is to rear livestock for all purposes (I mean cheese, butter, egg, meat, fish, et cetera) so that they can sell and make money. What I see in the villages (wherever I have visited) is not pro-developmental. It is sin to keep livestock at home. So, they do not rear livestock for meat production but only for milk and plowing or something like that. If they have some animals that are of not much use, it is marked for tshethar (liberation before death – I am not sure what it means, maybe it means the animal is liberated in its lifetime) to accumulate positive deeds so that one would go to heaven after death. Frankly enough, I hate the concept of Tshethar because those Tshethared animals I see are living under very torturous conditions. I do not want to specify examples here because my intention is not actually to defame what our Tshethar associations do but just to keep my thought penned. Thank god we do not have an animal rights group in Bhutan otherwise we could be quizzed for torturing the animals in the name of Tshethar. But when I say this, I should not be misunderstood because I was once told by a Tshethar Tshogpa member that it looked like I believed in Christianity. The reason for his belief was the way I explained how animals should be treated before showing him the exit door of my office categorically denying state forest land on lease for his Tshethar animals. I told him that animals including humans would die someday and they should be allowed to live free life instead of putting them in a cage or fence without much to eat and drink. Visibly annoyed he asked if I followed Christianity – a religion that I could follow if I choose to. One cannot feed a pig to such an extent that it cannot move. Doing so would mean you are torturing the animal. You also cannot keep the number of goats increasing because there could be environmental hazards if we do not check the number of goats (goats eat every green thing). One cannot also dump fish into a sewerage tank without much air to breathe. These are all against the animals’ rights.
All these factors (half-baked religious thoughts, whether, and not to kill but eat attitude) put together to give us dirty imported food while wasting our really good foods. We even import vegetables very heavily and I guess they are better than the meaty items. The vegetables might carry pesticides and insecticides that could even threaten the health of our people.
Now I have bullshitted enough, so what’s the solution? My ideas are as always as ordinary as possible. Use our animals to eat, use our vegetables, and use our things amicably. If our religion forbids killing, let’s all work together to make that simple. Let us accumulate millions of merits to liberate those animals we use to eat. I guess Buddhism has that option because I believe the great saint Naropa sent all the fishes he ate to heaven (I am not serious about it) through his miraculous powers of animal liberation. Let us all learn that technique from our Drupthops otherwise, our eating of imported dirty food will never stop and we will never see the light of richness. The other option is not to mix religion and lay existence. If it is agreeable let’s put our best efforts to save ourselves (our economy, peace, and prosperity). Otherwise, the only window to our self-reliance looks always closed. It is about time that we wake up and throw all our weight into animal farming.
But my readers must know that I am a born Buddhist who believes in every idea of Lord Buddha. My idea here is to bring comfort and peace to the people living with confusion.
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