http://veg-tv.info/Earthlings
Why would the issue or eating or not meat come up on this page?
Compassion and insight are the core values on the Buddha's path to enlightenment.
Here is a film about insight into how we live and feed made in a very compassionate way.
Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche suggested to watch it 100 times.
"This meat and not to eat, that is the answer."
6 comments:
http://www.ecobuddhism.org/wisdom/interviews/karmapa1/
Dzongsar Khyentse Rinpoche's foundation's July communique for July on Global Impact:
https://atl.etapestry.com/prod/viewEmailAsPage.do?key=&databaseId=KhyentseFoundation&jobRef=1422.0.119325775
Subscribe at: http://www.siddharthasintent.org/
Pevous Communiques: http://www.khyentsefoundation.org/downloads.html
Shabkar: http://shabkar.org/teachers/tibetanbuddhism/index.htm
Animal abuse is cruel. Cruelty to animals is inhumane, stupid, and weak. It is always weak to hurt the weaker of anyone or anything. Animals are undoubtedly the weaker of the living beings that inhabit the earth. What makes animals such fascinating and full of majestic beauty is that, unlike humans, animals cannot hesitate. They go on instinct, they learn from whatever mistakes they make, and they grow and prosper based on that. That is the philosophy of the beast. If they feel that they have not made a mistake, it is because they haven't. For example, if a cat eats a person's pet bird the owner may be angry with the cat, but the cat still found the bird to be delicious. This is what this documentary, EARTHLINGS, fails to point out. In it's first sixty seconds, it elaborates on the idea that abuse of the weak is inhuman. After the opening minute is over the film takes what it's supposed emphasis is built on, and blows it.
Instead of elaborating on what makes animals weak, the film instead takes a shock approach to the material. From the second minute onward, the film takes graphic footage of the holocaust, acts of racism, acts of abuse, acts of rape, acts of pedophilia, and acts of sexism and hatred toward minorities, and then immediately trivializes all of it by juxtaposing it with explicitly violent sequences of animal torture, abuse, and murder. That is where the film lost what it had built on in it's first minute. This is no more a documentary than it is a series of footage intended to outdo all the vicious images of actual violence and murder we see everyday on television and on shockumentaries. The film is more focused on displaying extreme visual situations to pull the viewer's heartstrings in order for the viewer to agree with them. It is exploitative, it is disgusting, and it is completely unethical and dishonest. This film is nothing more than propaganda designed to get people to not eat meat.
This is among one of the most disgusting gorefests I have ever seen in my life and I absolutely hated myself for sitting through the entire thing. Not since 'The Passion of the Christ' have I ever felt so disgusted at filmmakers who, rather than challenge or entertain the viewer, decide to depict a celebration of violence and torture and gore and flayed flesh. Instead of making a film about the joy of life and about the joy of animals, they decide to instead just ditch that approach and concentrate on what humans do to animals on a regular basis behind the closed doors at restaurants, at farms, in the comfort of their homes, etc. With a film with a title like EARTHLINGS, you really don't get the sense that the filmmakers even bothered to try and depict any aspect of life in a positive way. Let me just take this time to say that, despite what this shockumentary tells us, the animal kingdom is a million times far more cruel to it's animals than any human could ever even hope to be.
I must confess, I spent about sixty of the film's ninety minute runtime with my hands covering my eyes. I have no desire to see actual footage of animals being tracked down, tortured, humiliated, abused, and finally killed. What I saw was far more than enough. I saw more blood and gore in the mere thirty minutes that I did manage to watch than I did in any film I can think of. This film may please those of us out there who yearn to be nauseated by a film and go to the video store to rent shockumentaries such as 'Faces of Death', 'Mondo Cane', or 'Goodbye Uncle Tom'. I can only imagine those people getting any sort of entertainment out of this. For many folks, this film will most definitely have an effect.
Most people will admire how the film will show them horrible things they never imagined that they would see. Most people will watch the film, become vegans or vegetarians because of it, and then will either go and join PETA and protest KFC and protest animal/human interaction in all forms, or will proceed to go on with their life and won't change. Either way, the film is going to have an effect. The effect it had on me was utter disgust in the fact that anyone with a reputation and with money can go out and edit hours of animal torture together and call it a documentary when it really is nothing but exploitative propaganda of the lowest form.
So in the end EARTHLINGS is, in reality, nothing more than junk. The film was designed to get a reaction. That is all. The film was not made for any audience, which means that it has no purpose for even existing. There is no reason to watch this. If this film makes anyone become a vegetarian, then that's their problem for allowing themselves to be manipulated by dishonesty and propaganda. I love animals. I believe that animals should not be abused. However, I refuse to call them victims. Animals are killed everyday, sometimes in very cruel ways, just as humans and plants are. Life is violent and full of misery and pain. There's nothing anyone can do about that. If you love animals, go watch one of those documentaries like 'Microcosmos', 'Winged Migration', and 'March of the Penguins' and don't waste your time with this junk that only dwells on nothing more than the simple horrors of daily life.
Gyalwang Karmapa’s Advice on Vegetarianism:
http://www.kagyumonlam.org/english/Lectures/20071224_HHK_Advice_Vegetarianism.html
http://semchen.org/
http://www.ecotibet.org/
http://vegpeace.org/buddhistvegetarian.html
thanks for all the links and the insightful comments. for those who are interested another excellent documentary on where our food comes from is Food Inc. which can be viewed in parts on Youtube or complete here.
Anonymous while I agree with some points I find some of the other troubling.
You say there is nothing anyone can do about the suffering but this is in direct contrast to the laws of economics - supply and demand. If you eat less meat there will be less supplied. We have a very real impact on the number of animals bred and slaughtered.
The point of the film was not to disgust people. It was to show that species-ism is the same as racism, sexism, etc. We no longer consider keeping slaves as appropriate but yet we torture and kill animals. The film is asking us to consider whether they are the same destructive thought patterns. For this reason it is very interesting.
You say that animals are not victims? Why is this? Is it because they are not humans? If a human underwent the same things that pigs do in a pork farm you would consider them victims.
That is the point of the film.
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