Tara Brach - Compassion toward Non-Human Animals - A Conversation between Konda Mason and Tara Brach

Episode Date: March 31, 2022

Compassion toward Non-Human Animals - A Conversation between Konda Mason and Tara Brach - The medicine our world most needs is compassion, and it is crucial that this include all living beings. Our societal conditioning blinds us to the horror of suffering experienced by non-human animals through our cruel system of factory farming. This conversation looks at how facing and responding to this suffering is necessary for the freedom of our own hearts, and the healing of the world.  

Greetings. We offer these podcasts freely and your support really makes a difference. To make a donation, please visit tarabrock.com. Namaste and welcome friends. So today I am excited to have in conversation a truly beloved friend, a co-teacher, Condamation. Just to give you a little bit of a sense of Ganda and Conda's engagements are so wide, ranging. But just to say she's had decades of spiritual practice and training, and she's taught at Spirit Rock Center since 1997, first starting as a yoga teacher and then teaching the retreats, mindfulness and compassion. Kanda and I have taught together here once live and once online

for the D.C. area, people and beyond and totally amazing teacher, really. And in addition to teaching, Konda's a social entrepreneur and the founder, president of two non-profits that are working at the intersection of social, financial, and climate justice into some really amazing activity. So today we'll be exploring a mutual passion, which is waking up around the treatment of non-human animals. It's just this domain of compassion. that's so crucial to attend to for the sake of all beings, really for the healing and freedom of all. So I hope this serves your hearts and minds. And may you enjoy. And Kanda, thank you so much for being with me in this. Tara, thank you so much for having me for asking me to do this. It's absolutely a pressure and particularly to share our, this passion that we both, that we both have around our non-human,

brothers and sisters that are on the planet that we share together. Yeah. Okay, well, let us begin. Beautiful. So I'm going to just invite everybody to become aware right now of their presence that's within them to just allow the body to come fully here into this moment. And if it means that your eyes may close or look downward, whatever suits you right now, to just allow your presence to be fully here, allowing the moments that brought you to this time of this podcast to wash away and to know that you're sitting or standing or lying down, just to know that that is, where you are in this moment, beginning to open up our hearts, open up the vessel that can receive this wonderful conversation that Tara and I will be embarking on, opening up the body to receive that in the heart, knowing that this, this, this space of humanity is the place that we will be talking about, this deep humanity that we all are.

I'm giving thanks for that. Ashae. Namaste. Well, thank you for that. Really helps any pause like that. You know, Kandai was thinking, you know, as a way of getting started, we've talked about a bit about our past. kind of our history with this. And we actually got started very differently. You right from the earliest ages had a kind of sensitivity that I didn't have. And I was hoping maybe you'd share a bit about that just to get going. Yeah. So I had the opportunity to grow up in Southern California in an area where my grandparents had a wee bit of land, right? And on that land, we had, we farmed.

And as we farmed, we actually had a cow and a pig and turkeys and chickens. And my parents went in financially with my grandparents. And so we raised these animals. And every year we would do that. and I would hang out with them on the farm and I loved it. And then the next thing I know, you know, it was food. They were going to slaughter. And I was such a sensitive child.

I couldn't take it. It was so hard for me. And I became aware of that this meat on my plate came from this live animal at a very young age. and as opposed to the grocery store. I think we think it comes in a package from the grocery store. And when I got that connection, I would beg my parents that I didn't want to eat it. And of course, they were like, are you kidding me? And we spread all this money for years to graze these animals for us to eat.

And it's like, you're going to eat this. And it was always difficult for me. And so also on top of that, my parents loved to fish. and we live by an area where everybody. So we did a lot of our own food. I mean, nowadays it would be considered quite a pleasure that we have, that we raise our own animals and that we did our own fishing. And for me, it was hard.

You know, I couldn't stand to watch the fish coming up and gasping for air. And I finally got them to let me not go fishing. They just realized that this child can't take any of this. And so I got to stay at home. So it started from an early age, you know, Tara, that I was so sensitive to the killing of animals and eating them. And I just felt like I never wanted to do that in tandem to that. Who knew, but I was lactose intolerant.

And so there was no word like that back then that I was aware of or that my parents were aware of. And so we drank tons of milk. I loved milk. And but I also never had. the opportunity to have both of my nostrils open at the same time. I was one of these kids that had, like, was always just snorting and, you know, tissues my whole life. And I had stomach issues as well. I had this gastrointestinal issue. And so I was at the doctor. My parents

were all trying to figure out what was wrong. When I got to college, I met someone who said to me, You know, all of that can stop if you stop the dairy and eating meat. And I was like, really? And so I immediately did that. He took me through this process called the mucaseless diet healing system. I went through it and I never looked back. That was 1975. And in 1975, there was no such thing as vegan or anything like that.

But I stopped doing the dairy. my system cleaned out. I could breathe. My stomach problem stopped. And this relationship that I had with eating animals that was painful from my heart, my emotional heart stopped. And so yeah, it all started in 1975 and I've never looked back. I just, this is this is really who I am. You know, and so I was really happy to stop eating and doing the dairy and eating the meat. You know, as I listen to you, I'm aware, how few of us have been brought up in a way with intimate contact with animals that become animals that are part of industrial farming, that when we, if we did, there would be more people probably that would have that sense of, oh my gosh, that's a sentient being. I mean, I was

completely removed from that world, being a suburban person. And it really wasn't until I got into college and I started doing yoga and kind of waking up in my body that I sensed a kind of spirituality that was everything in this living world is equal. Like it's all a precious part of life. And, you know, the plants, the deer, the birds, you know, everything. And so that was, that started bringing up a kind of sensitivity. And then I joined an ashram, a spiritual community that was vegetarian and that was it. It was like, you know, it just felt so natural. But it had to keep going deeper for me. I remember I was teaching a retreat when I was in, I think, my early 40s, and we were in a rural area. There were farms nearby and each morning we would do our early morning

meditation and you could hear the sounds of the mother cows lowing. You know, that's the the grieving because they had been just all separated from their calves. I don't know, Konda, it's like, I mean, many people are aware now in the meat and dairy industries that farmers continually are impregnating cows and then separating them from their calves. And like all mammals, there's this really deep mother-child attachment. Like it's emotionally upsetting. And so there I was a mom. I kind of young mom and it was for the first time that I listened to those like heart rendering kind of bellows and I just imagined being separated from my child and what it would be like.

I just opened to their torment. So as it happened, a lot of people at that retreat were experiencing the same so we did a loving kindness practice every afternoon for them but it went much deeper for me. It's like I started I started watching the video. of what happens at the, you know, in these industrial farms. And you've probably done the same where you just see these tight little stalls or pens, the creatures that can't even turn around and then you sent, and then you hear how it is that they're killed, their lives are unnaturally short.

So it just got me. So I stopped dairy too at that point because it became clear that dairy is as much participating in the cruelty as the meat. It's, but then what happened, and I've shared this with you before, and I still, it's very striking to me, so when I hit my 50s, I went into this spiral of sickness and I had all these different medical people saying, you know, you need more protein, you've got to have, so I went back into eating animal meat and products for a, for a, you know, for a, you know, you need more protein, you've got to have, so, so I, I went back into eating animal meat and products for a handful of years, maybe three, four years.

And what was interesting, Conda's initially it was like it was heartbreaking. Like it was like I weeped when I was doing it. And then I started numbing. And I, it's like I didn't think about it so much. And then over time during that period of time, more. you know, meat alternatives became available. And I started exposing myself more to the suffering. And then I switched completely, you know. And so. But how was your help when you did that when you went back to not eating meat? Yeah. The meat didn't help. It did not. No, it didn't make a difference.

I kept thinking, well, do this, do that. Didn't make a difference. I am now the healthiest. I've almost ever been in my adult life because I'm, I'm not. not just vegan, I'm doing a good kind of vegan. It's like you can eat vegan, but still junk out on things, but I'm really eating a clean vegan. And, you know, vegan, most people are, if they do it well, are going to be somewhat lighter, but feel really good. And not everybody works for maybe, but for me really well. My final thing that was hard to give up for me was eggs. I know that different people have their final thing. And what got me on eggs was when I learned that because I had been kind of soothing myself, well, these are free range. These are organic. And then I learned that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter what they're labeled. Male chicks are always killed. It's not economically viable for even a small farm to not kill the male chicks. And so that, you know, That was hard to be part of. Yeah. And so it keeps growing. I mean, it keeps getting deeper. The sensitivity gets deeper. It's now it feels like there's these concentration camps around the corner that we don't see, but I know we're there with a real horror going on.

And so it's very alive in me now as I know it is in you. Well, I think the more you know, what's important is to be proactive. I have, and I don't think I've told you this, before I have a dear friend who raised his, a couple, they raised their children as vegan. And they said, when you get a certain age, then you can make up, I think, 12 or something, you can make up your own mind,

but you have to understand and be introduced to the meat industry so that you can see and you're fully aware of what you're doing. And so when they turned 12 or 15 or whatever that age was, they introduced them to the industry. And so then you're making a conscious choice and aware of what's really going on. And of course, it was heartbreaking because, you know, at that age, you're like, you're raised a vegan.

You're like, I want to eat a hamburger, right? Like all the rest of my friends. And I think what I understand is one of the, you know, they ate a hamburger or something. And then they're like, I don't want to do this. And ended up choosing because they became aware of the industry and what's happening. And I think that, like you said, it's mostly hidden. And once we know, it's really hard to participate in it. That's exactly right.

And what happens is I sometimes talk, I mean, I try to talk about this more and more because it feels so woven into the spiritual path. And I often will have pushback saying, you know, I came here for spiritual teachings and why are you talking about something that's one of your causes or something? And I'm just curious, like, how do you respond when people say, what does this have to do with a spiritual path? Yeah, it has everything to do with it. All life has everything to do. It's a spiritual path.

I think that one of the interesting notions is that spirituality is in some corner over here. And then there's life over here. And yet, if we're not, if our spiritual path is not interwoven in all of life, then I don't know what the path is doing, you know, and our spiritual path is based on mitigating harm. That's what this life is, this, this, this, this Darmic life, this mindfulness life is about mitigating harm in the world and encouraging wisdom and compassion. And so it has everything to do with it. It has everything to do with the concept of interconnectedness, of all life being interconnected. And so it is, it It is, it's very much involved with the spiritual path.

And that is why it matters so much because we need to, as I'm hoping that our path is to attend to suffering, is to attend to any suffering that's on the planet to first look at the suffering, be aware of it, not to turn away from it, all right? And allow it to break our hearts, allow the suffering to break our hearts. And then to be a part of alleviating as much suffering. as possible by truth-telling and by being aware of the way human beings, there's so much harm that happens around this notion of hierarchy, right? This superior, inferior hierarchy that happens.

And we do it interspecies of humans being, you know, the primal species that we care about and that the animals are not. We do it obviously between us and the earth, this hierarchy of humans over the earth, which is why we have the planet that we have this in so much chaos and trouble. And then we have it between us, clearly, on race and on gender and ableism, all of that is this hierarchical way of thinking that we have. And so why it's important is that we need to, I think, become better humans by becoming aware of those things that we have just, we have been socialized into, right? It's just here

before we got into the planet and it's here and we take it in, we normalize it and it lacks compassion. It lacks really being aware of the harm that we're causing on this earth, you know, and our deep interdependence that we have, all of us, all species, this planet, all of it being interdependent. I love, and I'm going to quote my favorite quote with Dr. Martin Luther King, he says, all life is interrelated. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. And he goes on to say, I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can't be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be,

and that that is the interrelated structure of reality. And so this concept is so true. And when I think about our animal brothers and sisters, you know, they are a part of our world. They are a part of who we are. And it's important that our spiritual path takes a look at that and doesn't exclude them and includes all of that as a part of what.

we're here to do. And so that is why it is to me, it's as integral as anything. It's a part of what we're here to do is to become more cognizant, more aware, and act from a place of compassion. Yeah. I mean, I know you get that question as well around why isn't this just your pet, your pet issue. I do. You know, one of the of the, there's something I shared, I think it was last year when that question came up that came from the Sufi poet Hafez, where a man had brought to him this profoundly enlightening experience, his vision of God and merging with light and love. And he asked Hafez, was it real? And so Hafez asked him, well, do you have any goats? The guy shook his head. Do you have

wife, children, yeah, siblings, parents, friends. The guy kept shaking his head. And he said, the realness shows itself through the kindness you express with each being in your life. And I love that he started with a goat, you know. And the way that keeps coming real to me is that on this human plane, the expression of spirituality is kindness. that is a true reverence. It's that Namaste where we really see the sacred in all beings and know that same, it's the same essence we all come from, that awareness, that love, that all beings have it in them. And it's just, it's such an invisible domain of human domination and cruelty, how we relate to non-human animals. It's so invisible. And that's just, it's

just the conditioning of our society. But, you know, we make these daily unconscious choices that are reinforcing a system of huge violence. And that's something, it's a harsh thing to have to wake up to. And I know for myself, Konda, that the more I wake up to my own unconscious ways of hierarchy, you know, and I'm, you know, I've got all the socialization of anybody, you know, that in some way I'm sensing other beings or groups of beings as less valuable, whether it has to do a species or class or race. But the more I realize that, the more I see how I've been keeping myself separate. Yeah. Like there is any sense of hierarchy, of superior, inferior, keeps us separate. You know, it blocks us from liberation. It blocks us from really being happy in a deep way, knowing our

belonging. So it's become really clear to me that this is the real invisible one for many, that it's just important to lean in, as you said, to face the suffering and open up to. It's challenging. It is. And it's really challenging to bring people's attention to this issue of this kind of suffering. I'm wondering, like, what are the ways that you use to bring people's attention to it. Yeah, well, first, it's become so clear. Humans want to feel good about themselves. We all do. And our default often is that we usually feel bad about ourselves. It's very easy to trigger off the I'm a bad person sense. So what happens in this domain, you know, facing how we are part of being cruel to non-human animals is that people,

take it personally, that I'm bad, it brings up that bad self sense. And with that comes, that's fragility, you know. So we see all the fragility that we often talk about in terms of racism, and we see it. And we see it, you know, there's this angry at the person bringing it up or else defensive or else really guilty, ashamed. And the big one is to kind of numb out and get distracted. And I just want to say, and this is to all of you who are listening, friends, that if any of this is coming up as Kanda and I are talking, you know, any of those expressions of feeling bad about yourself or angry or cutting off or whatever, they're totally natural. And really, we understand because we both have out of work with places in our own lives.

you know, most people in the society assume that it's just how it is, that humans eat animals. Yeah. You know, they just do. And they don't sense these lives as precious because that's the conditioning. So it's really natural. It's natural also to be attached to the pleasure of the ways that we eat. That's really natural. And it's natural to want to pull away from the suffering that's behind the lines.

You know, because as I mentioned, the concentration camps, are out of sight and as condomentioned, you know, the meat we get is saran wrapped in supermarkets and we don't see the factory farms. We don't bear witness. So it's a really deep inquiry, how to recognize the harmful behavior that we participate in, the kind of the blindness of our conditioning without judging ourselves. Or if somebody's listening, if you're aligned and you're already vegan and sensing the pressures of animals, not judging others who that's not yet become something that they attend to in that way. So just I'm speaking a lot right now and I really want to hear the same from you because I've had

a lot of experience working with my own fragility, defensiveness and guilt about in some way being bad for my own, you know, classism or racism. And there's been two main realizations that have helped me. And one of them is that it's not my fault. It's conditioning. It's not personal. Like, we're in this together. We all have the same conditioning. And yet we can awaken from that conditioning. This is the Buddha's noble truths. You know, we can awaken from it. And that lets us be responsible that lets us be able to respond. And the way is to with real honesty and kindness and interest is to start paying attention to whatever reactivity we are experiencing. You know, whatever form of fragility is coming up. For me, a lot of it has been around guilt

and if I pay attention, I find under guilt that there's something I'm really caring about, that I'm not aligned because there's something I'm caring about. And if I open to the caring, it can be a kind of brokenheartedness that then energizes me to get aligned. And one of the reflections that really helps me to attune more is a reflection where I'll just bring to mind different beings, whether it's a tree or my dog or a pig or a cow or a fill. fellow human and just reflect we are friends. And that really helps me stay connected inside, just saying we are friends because in a moment let's say with the tree I say we are friends, then I realize the truth of that you talked about at the interconnectedness.

And if I bring to mind a pig, an individual pig and say we are friends and really sends into that, I realize we are. And so that's kind of how how I work with it, Kanda, it's just, it's not my fault, but I can respond and deepen attention. And the way is by deepening attention to the beings that are our friends and suffering. I love that we are friends. I mean, I really, this is so true. I think that honestly, Tara, I think that inside each and every human being is that underneath the layers of conditioning is just just this, this connectedness that we really are and we feel it with the everything on this planet, that we are connected, that the natural, you know, that this tree that's in front of me or

whatever it might be that we are deeply connected. And we have so many layers on top of that. And what we're talking about here, and I hope that those of you who are listening, we're not, This is, again, you talk about judgment. This is not about judgment. This is not about feeling guilty. I think that I often feel that, tell you the truth, I honestly think that guilt and shame, sometimes guilt is a way of, it diverts us from dealing with what we're talking about or whatever the issue is so that we can go onto the guilt trip.

And then we've left the issue. And now we're in this self-focused moment. But if we can come back and be aware and just stay with it, don't let it go. That's the thing is that we have to stay with it. And by staying with it and not turning away, not turning away, as we said, allowing the heart to break. Yeah. Being in that breaking of the heart is this human thing that arrives. This humanity comes out of our broken hearts, right?

That we try to keep suppressed down because the world, you know, the message that we get on so many levels is to dampen our humanity, is to dampen our humanity. Or else we'd be out in the world crying all the time looking at all the injustices. But how can you be aware of all the injustice? justices, allow your heart to break, be connected to life in a very deep way on every level, and still walk about your life and do your life with an open heart. You know, that's the trick.

And this, this, this, this, this having this equanimity around all of it being, having everything in this container, it all exists. It all exists together in this container of equanimity and that we can hold it. and that we have the ability to hold all of the all of the paradoxes. There are so many paradoxes existing on the planet. And it's like we have this mind that says either or, but it's so often both and. It's so often both and. How can I, as someone who, you know, it cares about the planet right now and all the crises

that the planet is in, right? The code red that we know that we're in from the IPCC report, how can I know that and get on a flight somewhere knowing that I'm contributing to the same thing that I'm concerned about or get in my car and try? So we all participate.

I participate and all that I can do, Tara, I keep in mind to do the best that I can do, to do the best. I'm not going to be perfect. but I'm going to be aware and I'm going to do best that I can do so that when I am participating in something that goes against my own moral code, that my consciousness is there, my awareness is there, the pain and my heart is there, and I know that there are times when I'm not doing that. Can I recognize the times when I'm not doing it?

Can I recognize the times when I'm participating in the part that support you? my moral, my philosophy and my morals, can I recognize that and be grateful for that, right? And I think that as humans, that's that whole guilt thing. We look at what we don't do so often rather than what we do do and honor that and give thanks for this person who, who, you know, bypasses a, a, a bug on the floor and allows that being to live, you know, and I do that. And I do that. that as often as I can. And there's times when I'm walking down the street and I know I'm crushing living beings, you know? And it's painful. And so, you know, I have mantras that I say all the time when I'm walking and then, but I participate in all of it. And we all participate. So the point here

for me is to do the best you can, to live a life as conscious as where as compassionate as you can and to know that it's not going to be perfect and not to feel the guilt, to let go of guilt. Guilt is just, it just, it stops us. It stops us. And I know that's an easy thing to say and not easy to do. And that's why I love this practice, this mindfulness practice, because one of its main tenets is to accept what is life just as it is, life just as it's showing up without judgment.

can we show up without judgment and just allow it to be? Have opinions, work towards justice, all of that is important. So that's, again, the paradox. How do we work towards justice and just allow at the same time things to be what they are? Right? That's one of those big paradoxes. A lot of people think that allowing means that we're going to be passive. and the truth is that we get frozen in passivity if we get hooked on guilt and stories of

I'm bad. But if the guilt becomes, I consider it like a portal because it really does stop us from engaging out of all of our resources. But if you really go under guilt, if you feel it in the body, you'll feel that there's this misaligned, not okay feeling. And if you go deeper and say, well, what wants attention? Deep down, it's because there's something you care about. There's something you care about. It's the same thing under anger. If you're angry, open to it.

It's intelligent. Guilt's intelligent. They all have messages. But listen to the message and keep going in. Don't stop and just stay with the narrative of guilt or anger. Go under it because under the anger, there's something you care about. There's something about life that's being hurt. and if you stay with what's there and go under it, you'll reconnect with the caring and that will

naturally energize you. And I want to like go here, here to what you said about we're all participating in the harm. We can't be alive on this planet with our conditioning and not do it. So it's not to get hooked on bad personhood. You know, we're in this together. We need to love each other into healing and love our world. into healing, not judge ourselves because the judgment creates more separation. It blocks the caring. So go through the judgment. Use it as a portal. Yeah. And that going through it, that reminds me again of what, you know, I love, love, love, Brian Stevenson and the work that he's doing at the Equal Justice Initiative, EJI. And he talks about, you know, he's dealing with a lot of people who are in

incarcerated and who are wrongly convicted. He's gotten so many people out. And so, you know, we're talking about, so this conversation is, is the whole thing. All right. If you notice, we're connecting the dots between all of these, all of these issues because they're all interconnected, because it's our mindset and our heart that that makes those connections. And so he talks about being proximate to the issues that are the hardest for you. Being proximate to it instead of the distance going through it means being right there with it. And I just love that. It's the best word in the world. It's helped me so much because proximate in any situation, if you want to, if you want to understand something, get closer to it. Get closer to a person. Get closer to what the reality, what's going on. with animals. And I have a couple of kind of practical things that people bring up that I really want to bounce for a moment. And one of them is people say, well, you know, what about just getting well-sourced meat and animal products where it's just not involving kind of cruelty,

you know, and I'm just wondering how you respond to that. I don't think there is such a thing that's not involved in cruelty to tell you the truth. I think that one of the things that people don't understand also in the area of supposed non-cruity to animal production is that, you know, the way that there's free range and all that is really wonderful. And yet at the same time when they go to slaughter, I mean, most of them are in these horrendous slaughterhouses. And it's, So I don't think that people are aware that they are still participating in the violence against animals that that exists even in the supposed well done ways of working with me. Yeah. Yeah, I'm with you.

And we hear all the sources that sound good, but 98% of all animals, products that we get on our table, at least in the United States, are from factory farms. So it's not so common. But there's another question that comes up that I think is more challenging, which is many people really believe they need animal protein for their health. And I'm curious how you respond to that. So I think that I have a philosophy, honestly, that we are overconsult. assumptions of protein in our world that we think that we need more than we do. But that's my,

that's my personal opinion. I think that, again, if you are directed by, you know, physicians or whoever is around you, your health care provider, and they're saying that you should eat meat, I think that you take care of yourself. You make the decision that you need to make. You know, you make that decision. And, but again, having a real awareness around it. And it was interesting what you said, Tara, from the beginning about when you got that instruction, you did it and it hurt your heart. And then you started numbing out. You normalize it. Don't normalize it. That's what I would have to say. If you have to do what you have to do, don't normalize it. Allow yourself to stay aware of what is happening and what is behind that

piece of meat that's going into your body. Thank you for that, because this is a hard one. It is hard. I feel like I honor that people have different bodies and different needs, and I'm really agnostic as to, you know, what can work. I mean, I'm open to different possibilities, so I feel like we have to be true to what our understandings are. But I think what you just said is, I just want to remember that one because it's so powerful, which is just in whatever your choices are, stay awake. I mean, that's, we owe it to ourselves and to all beings to just be as awake as we can in it. So what I'm asking you right now are some different questions that I get regularly. And one of them is whether there's a concern that the plant-based movement's elitist in some way that it's insensitive

to the difficulties that low-income people have and, you know, accessing the substitutes. Yeah, yeah. It's true that non-white Americans, non-white Americans are three times as likely as white Americans to describe themselves as vegetarian. The movement within the African-American, particularly I can tell you the African-American community, which I am clearly a part of, the vegetarian and vegan movement is very strong. And I have to say that, you know, studies have shown that as African-American people that we nearly double the risk of dying early from heart disease and strokes than white folks. We have nearly double the risk of dying of heart disease and strokes. And the study also shows that those links and those ailments are linked directly to animal flesh, eggs, and dairy. And so becoming a vegan or becoming a vegetarian for African-American folks and for those non-white people who have this this high risk of dying from these heart diseases and strokes, it's actually a means of survival. It's more than just, it's literally a means of survival.

And when we look back at the traditional West and Central African diets, they were predominantly vegetarian. You know, there was centered around staples like millet and rice and field peas and Okra and yams and all those kinds of things with a little bit of meat if there was meat at all, right? And so, and I think that one of the things that's happening right now, I have a dear friend who is a cookbook writer and a cook, his name is Brian Terry out of Oakland. He's written the most amazing soul food cookbooks. I really big up his work. He talks about slave food, you know, and slave food, where the things that our ancestors had to eat for survival as being enslaved, you know, the intestines of animals, the pig stomach, the lard, all the pig feet and all of that, and that we are,

as black folks, coming out of that whole slave food that was required to eat. So our original food was vegetarian, highly vegetarian. And as I said, we are suffering. deeply suffering, double the amount than white folks are, from eating this food that is linked to the fat and to the animals and to the dairy and the eggs. And so it is a matter of survival for us. And I am a big part of the vegan movement in the black community, which is huge. It's national. It's all over. And we have our own, there's these different soul food kind of vegan festivals in Brooklyn and Oakland in different places. And so elitist is survival. Actually, that sounds really, it's inspiring to me what you just were saying. I was just thinking

of the Soul Fest, the Vegan Soul Fest in Baltimore, because we had one of the founders come down here as part of an event here. And just the aliveness. and wholesomeness and high spirit of thousands of people coming each year. It's really beautiful. And I do think it's survival. I do think that I've heard so many stories of people's health, you know, being down in the dumps and coming back from it. So the one area where, you know, it feels important to keep acknowledging is that there are people in different parts of the world, indigenous peoples who, you know, let's say Alaska, where it's, you know, it's not appropriate. And nara is it based on factory farming? You know, it's not, it doesn't have the same relationship

with animals. The relationship's actually one that's quite sacred and beautiful. And you and I were doing a presentation a few weeks ago. And one woman described something similar in Africa that was just so beautiful and inspiring that it's like this is not one of these, you know, good, bad, right, wrong things. It has to be explored with sensitivity. And yet for most people in contemporary cultures, it's a really powerful option to go this direction. Yeah, you know, I love that you're bringing that up because we are addressing, you know, there's so many layers to this and we're addressing, I feel like, in my mind is like this middle layer of just numbness and factory farming and and and and blindness around it, right? And, and conditioning. The places where the consumption and the killing of an animal is

sacred and it's a part of ritual is a part of, I, you know, that is not what we're talking about. That is not what we're talking about. And I honor, I honor different, different ceremonies and rituals and people who are, that's a part of the sacredness of their, of their spirituality. And so I get that completely. This is not that. We are really, because those, when those animals, when they are, when they are killed in ritual, it is, yes, a being is being killed. and, you know, I wouldn't want to be there, honestly myself, because I told you how I was as kid. I'm still that way. Yet, however, I can, I can bow to the ritual and the ceremony and the

sacredness of it and understand that as sacred. That's not what we're talking about here. This is the furthest away from sacred as one can get the factory farms that we're talking about. Yeah, what we're really talking about. And it comes back to getting proximate is being intimate with life, you know, cherishing life. And as you brought up Brian and that sense of proximate, I was thinking of one person that I was talking with about, you know, that was really questioning, well, this is what humans do and it's just part of our way. And I shared a reading. I'd like to share right now with all that are listening that really has to do with getting proximate. It was done by, written by Dr. Joanne Kong, who from the University

of Richmond and she says this. She says, I'm going to tell you the story of an animal in a factory farm and I want you to imagine and visualize in your minds what I have to say. This is the story of a sow. My entire life, I am kept in a metal gestation crate in half darkness on a grated concrete floor. So imagine that. I can't even turn around. Confined and unable to engage in any of my natural behaviors, I suffer depression, frustration, and neurotic behavior, sometimes screaming and biting at the bars that surround me. My limbs are swollen. I have open wounds and I'm lying in my own excrement. After giving birth from being forcibly impregnated, my babies are taken away from me and I am slaughtered at the age of only three to five years old.

We pigs, like other animals in factory farms, are supposed to be stunned into unconsciousness before being killed. But many of us are still alive as we were hoisted upside down. Our throat slit and we were lowered into boiling water to remove our hair. But did you not know that I have a sense of self just like you? I am more intelligent than a dog or a cat and even a three-year-old child. I'm a highly social creature, intuitive and emotional, just like you.

I have memories and I can recognize myself in a mirror just like you. I love to play even computer games just like you. I care for my young with a bond that is as strong as any human mother, even singing to my babies during nursing. I am not something. I am someone. I'm not pork. I am not bacon. and I'm a living feeling being just like you. Every time I read it it gets to me the sense that every being loves life.

It's like that's kind of the definition of life, loving to live. And it's such an inquiry for us to sense how our choices have impact. How are my actions impacting others, these sentient beings? So again, I'm just honoring what you brought up about getting proximate because I think unless we are willing to get close up to the realness, we can dissociate and keep going in behaviors that cause harm without making the choices that will really make a difference. And you know, I think going back to the question you asked about, what does this have

to do with our spirituality? It has everything, it has everything. How can you listen to that and not know? know that that has everything to do with what this this this path of causing least harm of attending to suffering is about it has everything to do with it and and then the looking away the numbness the not knowing you know it's like we're at a place right now Tara where i believe we don't have the luxury not to know anything anymore yeah Not that we ever did, but we certainly don't now.

We need to understand. There's so many crises going on in our planet. We need to understand and take the time to learn. You know, you say it's not my fault and it's not my fault. But it is our responsibility. It's our responsibility you have. It is absolutely our responsibility to learn and to know. What is causing this climate crisis and catastrophe that we're in?

What is causing the fact that a knee on the neck of a man in Minneapolis and the murder of a man? What is behind that? How are we allowing this whole, it's, it's, it's, it, it's, it, it, everything about this planet. And, you know, people think that as Buddhists, you're not supposed to get involved with politics or be this, you know, this neutral space. And that couldn't be further from the truth.

The Buddha himself was very involved with what was morally right and what wasn't. And it is really incumbent upon us to, you know, I love the saying, the art of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. It doesn't do that by itself. It doesn't bend toward justice just because it's because of each and every one of us who wake up and are aware and work for justice. We have to work for justice. We have to work for this earth that we can stay on. We have to work for life for each other. And that life,

that life on this planet, you know, causing less harm is so important. And so this path is everything. And thank you for reading that. It just breaks my heart. And you think of that one pig that you just talked about. There are millions of them, that's their life. Millions and millions of cows and pigs and the chickens and their coops and they can't move. And everything, everything, everything.

The industry is horrific. It's horrific. and it just there's no way that any human being could see that or hear that and their heart not break and then that feel so i i just want to say again not guilt awareness there's a big difference you know when i i take my awareness and i make it become guilty versus i i take this awareness and I get proximate and I learn more and I get curious and I go deeper and I go through. That's what we're being called to do right now on this planet in every way. We do not have the room to not know.

On any level, we need to know if we're going to really heal and be healed. And I feel like what you're pointing to so much is if we are willing to pay attention and know we will naturally be moved to act in ways that help, compassion and action. And a lot of people wonder with this and what can we do. And just to say that the collective movement towards a plant-based diet is huge. I mean, we're doing this all together and you're part of it. It's just like with fossil fuels or tobacco or other industries, factory farms will shift and be converted into other usages.

you know, the earth's production, food production is one-third of all greenhouse emissions is from food. And if everybody went vegan, not suggesting everybody go vegan, I'm suggesting movement towards, but if they did, the world's food-related emissions would drop by 70% by 2050. 70%. And so it's a huge deal on the impact of the earth. you know, what we eat is a really huge deal. So that's one domain of how we can make a difference as daily choice on food. And the other is that talking about it makes a difference because it's contagious. You know, your caring is contagious. When you talk about it with other people,

it plants seeds that are so important. You know, it really makes a difference. And the other thing is that there's a growing number of nonprofit groups that are working all over the globe, really good groups. And Conda and I can both post, you know, resources. For me, if you go on tarabrock.com's backslash resources, you'll find it. There are a lot of vegan resources for how to go plant base and what groups are really vetted and really good and so on. But this is something we each can do. and we do it together. And it feels overwhelming if we think we're alone in it. Yeah.

But we're not. No, you know, I want to, I know we're going to come to the close soon. I want to share with everyone something that I just love that my friend and mentor and colleague, Larry Yang, that he wrote. And it sticks with me. I think about it all the time when I think about, you know, not being perfect, you know, not doing anything perfectly and like and how to am I just justifying it or whatever right but how do we live this life this life is not easy choices are not easy but he has the saying that I want to share and he says again Larry Yang may I be as loving and compassionate as I can be if I cannot be

loving in this moment, may I be kind. And if I cannot be kind, may I be non-judgmental. And if I cannot be non-judgmental, may I not cause harm. And if I cannot not cause harm, may I cause the least amount of harm as possible. That's real. May I cause the least amount of harm. as possible. That's real. May it cause the least amount of harm as possible? Well, that's a beautiful spirit within which to hold a final reflection, because that really is the intention on the path to really, our intentions to love, to live love, and the other side of that is to not cause harm. So yeah, thank you for that. Thank you, Larry Yang. Yeah. Oh, gosh, Tamara, this has been great. I so appreciate, you know, it's so wonderful to have come into each other's lives for you to come

into my life, for sure, and to learn and to get to know you more and that we have so many passions that cross. And this is one of them, and there are more. And yeah, we're toying with this idea of coming back and doing other podcasts together. So I hope that happens. Which I love and I think will happen. Yeah. Well, thank you, my dear friend, for being part of this. And thank everyone for your listening.

And we'll do a closing reflection together just as a way of bringing our hearts and minds together. This is a reflection on not leaving anything outside of our heart. How can we wide in the circles and include life in our heart? So for all of us, just take a moment to invite yourself right here. If it helps to lower your gaze or close your eyes, please do. Perhaps as you bring the attention inward, you'll become aware of the movement of the breath and the body, let yourself feel that. And you might even extend the breath.

So there's a more full in breath, perhaps counting to five. matched with a slow out breath and again breathing in filling the chest in the lungs and perhaps with the out breath sensing a softening down the length of your body one more full breath breathing in deeply and letting go relaxing outward the out breath and as your breath then resumes in its natural rhythm You can gently scan the body and sense if there's anything that wants to let go a little more right now. Widening the scan now, just sensing in your life, if there's a non-human group of living beings that you'd like to explore more including in your hearts. could be a cow or a pig, chicken, or some other creature that you'd just like to feel their

realness, feel that sense of we are friends, that interconnectedness. You might notice first just what gets in the way when you bring one of those from that group to mind. Is there a sense of judgment or a barrier, unfamiliarity? Is it just a habit of inattention, some sense of dislike? Whatever comes up, whatever seems between you and being proximate with these beings, just regard that with kindness, interest, presence. now out of love for truth for reality, take some moments to get more approximate with this being

that represents this group, an individual cow or pig or chicken or whatever the animal is, just using your imagination, sensing that individual being feeling powerless, isolated, frightened, hurting. Imagine how much that being wants to feel safe, protected, belonging to others, and widen to sense all the beings in that group that are feeling that horrific vulnerability, their lives caged in, not being able to live, the way they want to live, afraid, hurting, and how they all long for that safety, that well-being, long to thrive. And you might imagine some of those beings just expressing, feeling well, happy, natural, alive. And as you do, just feel and express your wish for these beings.

for their well-being. May you be free from harm, free from pain, free from suffering. Just since we are friends, that there's a belonging, a deep, sweet, beautiful belonging between you and all these beings

and really all beings that it's possible to live from that heart space that knows we are friends with all beings, living a line, compassionate, and where we're misaligned, it's possible to bring our forgiveness, our care, our interest, to continue widening the circles in a way that heals and frees us in all beings.

May all beings everywhere realize their essence as loving awareness. May all beings live from that love, live from that awareness. may there be increasing compassion and justice and peace on our earth. May our earth flourish. May all beings everywhere awaken and be free. Again, namaste and blessings. Thank you, beloved Kanda. Thank you friends for being part of this.

Thank you, Tara. Thank you for being a part of what I am, my podcast as well, and for being such a dear, just as such a dear teacher and dear friend. I'm so grateful. Blessings. Blessings.