The Things We Do for Peace

I was in Siem Reap, Cambodia for a week to attend the Annual Assembly of the Cooperation Circle leaders of the United Religions Initiative in South-East Asia and the Pacific Region (URI SEAPac).

If you don't know what URI is, visit our website at http://www.uri.org/.

I won't make a detailed write-up of what we did during the eight days we were there.  I don't intend to write a novel.  One thing I must say, though, is that the formal assembly wasn't perfect.  In fact, it was far from perfect.  Rest assured, however, it was a good learning experience for all of us.  What mattered was we were there and we got to share experiences and good practices in Peace building.  It was basically a gathering where we asked each other, "Hey, how are you?  What have you been doing for Peace this year?"  The awesome part was that we weren't only telling each other things; we were learning new useful ideas in the process.

Beyond sharing ideas and listening to inspiring stories, I must say the most important thing about the assembly was that we got to see good old friends and make awesome new ones.  The URI SEAPac has recently gone through major changes that have affected a lot of us.  People have parted from us and the goodbyes said were not necessarily happy.  For over a year, it has been an emotional roller coaster but, thankfully, we've been able to get through it without too many wounds.  The cuts and bruises in our hearts will heal in time.

Anyway, there were over 30 of us in the assembly, coming from five countries in the region (Australia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines) plus a guest from the URI Global Hub in the U.S.A.  We had different faith and spiritual backgrounds (Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Universalism, Quakerism, Brahma Kumaris, Baha'i Faith) and we came together to build peace through dialogue, understanding and loving acceptance.  We went there with a cup of blessings to offer and left with so many cups more and hearts filled with immeasurable joy and love.


So, in a nutshell, during the assembly...

We discussed stuff.

We prayed together.

We ate.

We shared ideas.

We danced a Khmer dance in a circle.

We line danced.

We shared experiences.
That's me talking.

We sang a John Lennon song.
Imagine

We played games.

We had serious circle forums.

We sang in a chorus.

We shared ideas over food and tea.

We shared smiles and made new good friends.

We went shopping at Siem Reap's old market.

We went shopping at the night markets.

We went to pubs and didn't drink but had fun anyway.

We rode tuktuks.

We visited Angkor Wat.

We visited the Bayon Temple in Angkor Thom.

We visited the Preah Khan temple ruins.

We visited a Theravada Buddhist monastery.

We visited a Jesuit-run Roman Catholic Church.

We visited a Sunni Mosque.

We strengthened old bonds and forged new ones that will indubitably last forever!

Photo credits:
     - Brother Rem
     - Brother Samphors
     - Me

On Religion and Salvation

Imagine an isolated community somewhere in a vast valley surrounded by lofty mountains fenced by a thick, hostile jungle.  To top it all off, the said valley sits on a hard-to-get-to island that Google Earth doesn't have a clear shot of.  In simple terms: very few people know about it and only a selected number of people know that humans actually live and thrive there.

The people in the community live peaceful lives.  They live by principles that always consider love to be a core value.  They do not have violent practises such as ritual killing like other known tribes do; they share their resources equally so that all may enjoy them and so that there is no notion of wealth or poverty; they do not ostracise people born under unfortunate mental or physical circumstances; and women and men are regarded as equals.

These people, isolated as they are, have never been exposed to the modern conveniences that most people have today.  They have their own way of doing things and they are content with their lives.  They seem like the perfect community, don't they?

Let me give you one more piece of information about them:  The closest thing they have to a deity is an entity they refer to using a word that we could roughly translate as "spirit."  Such is the same term they use to refer to Love and the concept of Selflessness.  They have never heard of Jesus or Buddha or Chaitanya or Muhammad or any of the great teachers and benevolent figures that we revere and try to emulate.  They don't even have any notion of an authoritative figure that watches over them; they simply live by the principle of Love and Selflessness.

Now, let me address something to people who profess exclusivist religious principles:
Can you, with all faith in your heart which you have for Jesus Christ or Yhwh or Allah or Jehovah, accept the idea that, just because such people have never come across your holy scriptures, they're automatically bound for hell even though they've lived Loving and Peaceful lives?

If your answer is yes, you should really be ashamed of yourself.

A Roman Catholic priest once told a story about a warlord who caused the deaths of over 50,000 people in his lifetime.  On his death bed, he asked to be baptised and he allegedly repented for his sins.  "He made peace with Jesus," the priest said and ended his tale with "That man is now in heaven with Him."

That story was one of the most appalling things I've ever heard in my life!  Come on!  You're not spreading the good news of Christ's teachings; you're spreading an utterly convenient way to fool people into thinking they won't go to hell if they accept Jesus through your principle of vicarious atonement.

[NOTE:  Not all Roman Catholics and Priests adhere to such a twisted principle.]

Remember the 50,000 people the warlord murdered?  What about their orphaned children who are likely to be driven to lives of crime because some fanatic nut job decided to murder their parents?  Won't the warlord be accountable for their miserable lives?  If his debts were suddenly wiped clean because of his possibly arbitrary decision to repent through a Catholic priest, what of those children?  What if they die never knowing Christ?  Will they go to hell?  Mind you, if we follow an exclusivist logic, they most definitely will.  And where's the justice in that?  Isn't it said in the same book you base your faith in that God is just and that God is infinitely good?

People with exclusivist principles should think about this very deeply.

You see, as far as I'm concerned, there is no hell.  I'm a Universalist Quaker and a student of Theosophy and I believe in the attainment of enlightenment and union with the Divine over the course of several incarnations.  I also believe that the Divine Spirit (that which is called God) is infinitely just and Loving and that Love itself is proof of this.  Selfless and Compassionate Love, to me, is Divine service that no creed can ever surpass.  Isn't this the teaching of every great religion?

For the fundamentalist Christians and other hell believers who are reading this, let me direct your attention to 1 John 4:7-8 of the Bible.  There, it says:  "Dear friends, let us Love one another, for Love comes from God.  Everyone who Loves has been born of God and knows God.  Whoever does not Love does not know God, because God is Love."

Do you find any resonance in this or is this one of the many Bible verses you choose to simply ignore in favour of the more violent parts that condone killing your enemies, harassing the LGBT community, subjugating women, segregating races and selling your children to slavery?  Oh, are you appalled?  Let me tell you that if you read the Bible meticulously enough, you will find that such things are really sanctioned by so-called Divine Authority.

I'm not telling you to leave your religion.  I'm making an appeal for you to be intelligent about life.  If you believe in the concept of God, you probably accept the idea that God gave you a thinking mind for very good reasons so use it wisely.

If this article has offended you, then it may be for the best.

Take five minutes of your precious time to ponder on all this.


May Peace Prevail on Earth.

Why Fear Death?

The Silver Cord ― that which represents the soul's connection to the physical body

Why do most people fear death?

Is it because of the pain that usually comes before it?  Is it because of concern for those they're leaving behind?  Or is it because of the uncertainty of what's to follow after humans leave their physical bodies?

Death is a form of liberation, if we think about it.  Death is not the opposite of Life.  Death is a part of Life.  Therefore, it is never really possible for any Earthly force to take Life away.  Death simply means another page is turned.

Beannachtaí Oíche Shamhna

Eid al-Adha Mubarak

LifestyleBohol * World Meatless Lunch is Tomorrow

This article is exactly as you will see it on the September 30th, 2012 issue of LifestyleBohol.  I'm posting this here as a public service effort to reach out to those who aren't subscribed to the Bohol Chronicle.

webpage heading of worldmeatlesslunch.org

Granting that you’re reading this on the very last day of September 2012, tomorrow would be Monday, October 1^st.  To majority of Bol-anons, it is the beginning of the Month of the Holy Rosary.  To the more socially aware lot, it marks the first of 31 days of wearing pink ribbons, clothing, and accessories to point to the fact that it’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.  Yes, you read it right.  A whole month dedicated to the color pink.  Soothing, isn’t it?

Every shade of pink will be proudly displayed throughout October by Bohol’s hippies and social advocates in an effort to promote awareness on research endeavors and developments on the very long still-under-construction road to curing breast cancer.  More than that, it’s also a symbolic extension of hands to those presently living with the disease.  I’m urging everyone reading this article to join the movement.  You can wear a pink ribbon on your chest, a pink baller band, a pink sticker on your I.D. card, or maybe a couple of pink stripes on your lanyard made using a marker.  Anything, really.  You can get creative with pink.  A simple positive gesture makes a huge difference.

Anyway, let’s move on to my primary reason for writing this entry.  Another thing happening tomorrow is something called the World Meatless Lunch.  It’s an awareness initiative created by Filipino environmentalists headed by Dr. Custer C. Deocaris, a molecular biologist who cares deeply for the planet.  This idea was inspired by Meatless Monday, an international campaign run by the Bloomberg Public Health School of Johns Hopkins University, one of the most prominent and advanced medical research institutions in the world, promoting a vegetarian diet every Monday for the improvement of personal health and the health of the planet.  The latter has a Filipino version called Luntiang Lunes, for which a bill to proliferate the campaign and institutionalize the concept in schools is already in its early development stage.  It will mark every single Monday as a day to rejoice for veggie lovers and a day to dread for professed carnivores.

Tomorrow’s event, the World Meatless Lunch, however, isn’t quite Meatless Monday yet.  It’s simply a call for everyone to forego meat for just one meal—lunch.  It encourages solidarity where, at lunch hour, we imagine ourselves on one enormous dining table munching on vegetables and fruits with the rest of the world.

Some of you may be wondering how this meat “mayhem” relates to the environment since this is, as I said, a movement initiated by environmentalists.  No worries, I’m getting there.  Most of you have probably heard secular vegetarians and vegans cite health as a reason.  On the other hand, those whose basis for their special diet is religion or spiritual study would tell you that compassion and kindness to all sentient beings is their primary motivation.  However, an inexplicably large beneficiary of a vegetarian diet is our very own Planet Earth.  Why, you ask?  I’ll give you a number of reasons.

FACT:  45% of the Earth’s habitable land area has been cleared for raising livestock and growing crops to feed them.  To cite a rather extreme example, 70% of the Amazon forest’s original tree-rich terrain has been flattened for this purpose.  Several wildlife species endemic to it are at risk of extinction because of our perceived need to produce so much meat.

ANOTHER FACT:  In November 2006, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), for which Filipino artist Lea Salonga has been recently selected as a Goodwill Ambassador, released an official report as a result of several scientific studies stating that conventional livestock farms produce more greenhouse gas emissions than all the world’s conceived forms of transportation combined.

Read the above statements over and over again until they manage to get drilled in your head.  Industrial meat production is the #1 culprit of climate change.  That means if the beef steak on your plate was produced inorganically, whoever owns the farm that grew it should, in part, be blamed for the unusually frequent flooding or excruciatingly long drought periods.  Don’t blame legislative propositions!  You should even point a finger or two at yourself for not being conscious about whether or not the production method for your meat was humane.

It’s not that I’m waging a war against meat consumption altogether; I’m merely giving you a few very good reasons to lessen your hunger for flesh.  If you care enough to translate thoughts into actions, you can start by joining the rest of the nation’s caring citizens in turning tomorrow’s World Meatless Lunch into an impactful statement both to others and to yourself.  Make it a test run to see if you can manage a meal without flesh obtained by killing a previously living, breathing creature.  That means you should have lunch with no pork, no beef, no chevon (kanding), no chicken, no fish, no shrimps, not even bivalve shells—just dairy, eggs, and vegetables.  You will find it very light on your tummy afterwards.  You might even decide to forego meat for the rest of the day.

My hand, as a vegetarian, is permanently glued to the cause of compassion, health, and environmental healing through meatless meals for the rest of my life.  It’s a conscious choice I’ve made which I happen to be very, very happy about.  I know this is extremely difficult for most people but I’m glad to say there is a growing number of vegetarians in Bohol.  We are not aiming to proselytize the rest of the province into taking the same path.  We are merely appealing to your good nature to count yourselves in along with the thousands of people observing World Meatless Lunch tomorrow.  Come hand-in-hand with us even if it’s just for one meal.  Surely, you could bear it.  Command yourself to muster the willpower.  If you can’t do it for yourself, do it for our Mother, the Earth.

Why Vegetarian?

Broccoli - My Favourite Vegetable

I don't have anything against people who eat meat.  I'm perfectly fine around meat eaters as long as they don't coerce me into consuming animal flesh or relentlessly question my food choices.  In such a scenario, I'd usually end up saying "because I've realised I actually don't like dead animals anywhere near my mouth—let alone in my body."  That's the raw truth and I try my best to avoid saying it around meat eaters.  However, I might be forced to say it if I exhaust my bank of euphemisms.

I don't want to have to kill sentient beings to live because, as far as I'm concerned, I can maintain a perfectly healthy existence without relying on the death of living, breathing beings.  Animals can have a fruitful existence and serve an ecological purpose for the Earth without me killing and eating them.

Some people argue that animals exist primarily as food for us humans.  Nothing could be more human-centric than that.  With that kind of premise, it also means that if we allow animals to thrive freely and live fully, their lives would be useless.  I can't accept such a statement.  I don't think animals' lives would go to waste if we don't kill them.  If a mother sow could speak, she wouldn't agree with you if you tell her that her piglets' lives would be wasted if we don't kill them just so we could serve lechon de leche for Christmas dinner.

While I don't deny that humans are omnivorous by nature, choosing to live a path free from animal flesh doesn't make my existence any less fulfilled than that of people who eat meat.  Additionally, it has been proven time and again that we don't need meat to survive unless we live on ice.  It's not like we have to forage for vegetables and fruits like our early ancestors did.  We have, as intelligent species, mastered the science of crop agriculture.

There are certain living circumstances where I recognise vegetarianism to be impractical for humans.  Alaska, the Arctic Region and the places close to the Himalayas are perfect examples.  They need meat to fuel the generation of heat in their bodies because they live in such cold, cold places.  In addition, the crops that grow in those areas (if any) would hardly suffice for their nutritional needs.  I wouldn't condone going to those parts of the world and speaking about the benefits of vegetarianism.  They are meat eaters and hunters out of necessity and I bear complete consideration for their choices of food and even give thumbs up if their livestock is self-raised.

Anyway, the purpose of this post is primarily to point out publicly that I have reasons for being a vegetarian beyond the boxed perception of so-called healthy eating.  It's more ethical and environmental than it is for health.  I'm a vegetarian because I know I will live a healthy and fruitful life without having to put myself at the end of a chain of animal murder.  I live in a part of the world where meat eating is not a physical necessity.  Therefore, I will not eat meat.  Moreover, I don't want to take part in wrecking the environment with large-scale industrial meat production.  It's very disheartening to think that climate change is worsening everyday and conventional livestock farming is one of its primary contributors.  If you don't bear the same principle, that's entirely up to you.

I must also point out that the cruelty and dire conditions that animals are forced to experience in large conventional farms is unfathomable.  In large poultries, chickens' beaks are cut off and some of them are unable to heal properly so they end up bleeding to death.  In cattle farms, cows and bulls are painfully de-horned as calves and beaten senselessly if their behaviours prove frustrating to the workers.  In hog farms, mother sows are put in very tight cages and cannot even turn around or stand up.  They are raised for food but they aren't given respect in the process.  If you're going to raise an animal so you could eat it, you should at least respect it and let it live properly.  At least most indigenous tribal communities, despite being meat eaters, recognise such a need.

If you're a meat eater, you don't have to justify your diet of choice to me or anyone else.  I'm not imposing vegetarianism on anyone reading this, I'm simply presenting my reasons in the process of making a not-so-subliminal suggestion.  I'm advocating it because, to me, it's an ethical way of living.  It's a choice I've made in order to adhere to my principle of compassion for all sentient beings no matter what phylum they belong to and as long as they don't threaten my life.

Vegetarianism is my way of expressing respect and love for the Earth and all her children.  What's yours?

___________________________________________

O, hidden life, vibrant in every atom.

O, hidden light, shining in every creature.

O, hidden love, embracing all in oneness.

May all who feel themselves as one with thee,

Know that they are therefore one with every other.