By Michael Ferguson
The Dalai Lama has said, “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” Many would assume, based on this quote and his preaching’s, that His Holiness The Dalai Lama is a vegetarian. But guess what? He is not.
Some may view him as a hypocrite for this. Is the Dalai Lama a hypocrite for promoting compassion, but eating meat?
Let the truth be told that the Dalai Lama is much more of a realist than some may believe. In fact he eats meat for one simple reason – he needs the protein. When he was young the Dalai Lama tried to be a vegetarian. However, during the 18 months he tried he ended up becoming very ill. He developed jaundice and his body became all yellow.
He did not want to abandon his quest to be a vegetarian, but eating mostly milk and nuts just wasn’t going to cut it. His doctors suggested that he eat meat to get better. He really had no other choice, so he did, and it worked!
Today, the Dalai Lama continues to eat just a little meat. Most of the meat he eats comes when he travels outside of his home in Dharamsal. He will eat vegetarian on alternate days.
He likes to call himself "a Tibetan monk, not a vegetarian." Some consider him as going against his own advice. So, is the Dalai Lama and hypocrite or just a realist?
His Holiness the Dalai Lama will speak on Oct. 18 and 19 at Western Connecticut State University, and the public is invited to a free showing (video simulcast) in the Ives Concert Hall, 181 White St. To help promote this opportunity, WCSU students in the Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process Department's Advertising, Copywriting and Promotions class created a Twitter page. and they are writing this blog daily.
