The Great Compassion: Buddhism and Animal Rights

Buddhism ought to be an animal rights religion par excellence. It has long held that all life forms are sacred and considers kindness and compassion the highest virtues. Moreover, Buddhism explicitly includes animals in its moral universe. Buddhist rules of conduct―including the first precept, “Do not kill”―apply to our treatment of animals as well as to our treatment of other human beings.

Consequently, we would expect Buddhism to oppose all forms of animal exploitation, and there is, in fact, wide agreement that most forms of animal exploitation are contrary to Buddhist teaching. Yet many Buddhists eat meat―although many do not―and monks, priests, and scholars sometimes defend meat-eating as consistent with Buddhist teaching.

The Great Compassion studies the various strains of Buddhism and the sutras that command respect for all life. Norm Phelps, a longtime student of Buddhism and an acquaintance of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, answers the central questions of whether Buddhism demands vegetarianism and whether the Buddha ate meat. He is not afraid to examine anti-animal statements in Buddhist lore―particularly the issues of whether Buddhists in non-historically Buddhist countries need to keep or to jettison the practices of their historical homelands.

• The World Peace Diet: Eating for Spiritual Health and Social Harmony
• The Longest Struggle: Animal Advocacy from Pythagoras to PETA
• Food Of Bodhisattvas: Buddhist Teachings on Abstaining from Meat
• The Path: What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About the Good Life
• Monkey: Folk Novel of China
• Buddhism: Beginner’s Guide to Understanding & Practicing Buddhism to Become Stress and Anxiety Free (Buddhism, Mindfulness, Meditation, Buddhism For Beginners)
• The Buddha, The Vegan, and You: Part1: Meat, Myself and Irony (Volume 1)
• The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory (Bloomsbury Revelations)
• Buddhism and Veganism: Essays Connecting Spiritual Awakening and Animal Liberation
• Chinese Mythology: A Captivating Guide to Chinese Folklore Including Fairy Tales, Myths, and Legends from Ancient China