The Beginning of the World.

Yesterday I went to a place called the 'Vegan Joint' in West LA to eat... I go there a couple times a month, if not more. The reason I bring this up is, in the last two talks I've given, I've made a reference to a movie about the beginning of the world.

We had the boiling water, then land, then the first creatures on land, then some more creatures and some more, now we are up to 7 Billion people, walking around on planet earth.

In my talk, I put it this way," And what is the first thing those creatures did? They killed something to eat... And what is the second thing they did, they had sex so they could have more creatures... And what is the third thing they did, killed some more... So they could eat again, they were hungry from having all that sex."

Now, this always gets a laugh, because it's such a strange way of looking at the beginning of the world and what life did when it finally got a chance to live, it killed. As humans we haven't come that far, we still like to kill, eat and have sex. It seems to be just how we're put together, hard wired if you will.

In Buddhism we have the five precepts and one of the five, is not to take life. The Buddha said, killing is not good... Any kind of killing. Yet as humans we find ourselves killing stuff all the time, sometimes by choice, sometimes by circumstance. We like to watch killing on TV and in movies... We read about killing in newspapers, magazines and books. No two humans ever seem to die in the same way, I often wonder about my own death and how I'm going to go.

I said to myself, if there are 7 Billion humans walking the earth, how many animals of all kinds are killed everyday just to feed the humans. I asked a few people, they and no idea and wouldn't even venture a guess. So I did what anyone would do, a Google search and here we go:

"World wide, an estimated 140 BILLION animals are killed for food every year. This includes marine animals (about 50 billion). So about 383 million animals every day (including marine animals), or 246 million land animals slaughtered every day for food."

The average American meat consumption for 2007:

87lbs of chicken (est 40 chickens)
17lbs of turkey (1.5 turkeys)
1lb of veal (1/100 of a calf)
1lb lamb (1/30 of a lamb)
66lbs beef (1/12 of a cow)
51lbs pork (1/2 of a pig)

Total of 227lbs

"There is a very simple way we can prevent the greatest amount of animal suffering from taking place: By adopting a vegan diet we can personally save up to 95 animals a year, and thousands during our lifetimes."

Okay, I'm not saying we all need to be Vegans, but maybe we need to wake up to the fact that we, you and I are responsible for the killing of a whole lot of life, just so we can live another day.

That being the case... What good have we done with our life today???

Here is the first verse and chorus from a song by Daniel Nahmod called, 'Last Song"

(verse 1)

If this is my last song / If this is my final day... If tomorrow I’ll be gone / What do I want to say... If this is my last song / If it’s my time to go... When my body’s moved on / What will I have to show... No not fortune or fame – they scatter to the wind... The things that make a name – just don’t matter in the end

(chorus)

Is the world a little more peaceful... Oceans and sky a little more blue... Is humankind a little bit wiser... About the good that we can do... Does the sun shine a little bit brighter... Where before there was only rain... If so, then I’m glad I came