On Wed, 30 Jan 2002 11:56:59 +1100, Dean Pistilli
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Actually, Tibets did and still do eat a lot of meat. They love their
>meat in fact.. and why not, since in the Himalayas you won't last long
>on sprouts and plants.

Beeing a supporter of Tiber and Tibet culture I'd like to throw
in a little. Not a correction of facts, but of view.
Indeed Tibetans like to eat meat.
But .. there isn't much of it.
If you'd count the average grams per day it will be very little.
Yaks are kept for their milk (particularly butter) and the died
cows are few. Also there will not be much fedder to "produce" yak meat.
In the west, the biggest part of the harvest is fed to animals, and many
animals are brought up just to convert this grain fedder into muscle and
fat. That's impossible for the limited agricultural area in Tibet.
So, they love to eat meat, but the staple is barley.
Roasted barley (Tsampa).

>The Tantric form of Buddhism that Tibet took up also involves a lot of
>meat eating in its rituals and other "non buddhist" elements ....

The tantric ritual involves the inclusion of 7 otherwise not recommended
items. As Symbols.
Including alcohol, meat, roasted grains, sexual intercourse.

>the Dalai
>Lama is also more geared to the new "vegetarian" thing

The Dalai Lama was raised vegetarian as would be recommended for a very
spiritual oriented buddist. Later, as he writes in his autobiography,
his doctors started to recommend him eating meat - what he did.
That was after he had some problems probably involved with eating nuts.
I've no message that he went back to be vegetarian so far.

Buddism and I think most other religions which follow the ideal not to hurt
any living beeings (ahimsa) does *not* demand to abstain from meat.
It's just that the animals musn't be hurt.
So, if you find a "accidentally" dead animal, you can eat it delighted.
Some animals fall off the mountain (really, in spring).
But also common is to interpret the leftovers of a yak,
found "by accident" in a buthers store as allowed.
As long as it was not ordered (very important).

The buthers are muslims and have a good living releaving the buyers by
taking over their karma (they are guilty of the killing, if it wasn't
ordered). But a bad reputation.

>and aims at
>taking out many of the older tantric meat practices).
All symbols can be substituted by different symbols. Flowers etc.

>Its no co-incidence Vajrayana took off in Tibet and died out everywhere
>else.

Vajicarana? A most important part of ayurveda (india).

regards,

Amadeus S.