They say the Buddha even ate pig-people’s feet. He never did. No. He even said whoever eats animal-people meat is not His disciple. You all know that. But nowadays, people just don’t care about that. In the beginning, Buddha allowed it because some people just came in and didn’t know anything. So the Buddha said, “If you have to eat animal-people meat, then you eat this kind of less-karma meat, no-karma meat, like already dead on the street, or died a natural death. Or somebody killed them, but not for you personally and you don’t hear the cry of the animal-people when they are killed.” But this was just in the beginning. […]
Because at that time, the Buddha just lived under the tree, in the tree – like some trees have a hollow. A big tree like a bodhi tree, the body of that tree could be like a house or bigger, even, and there was a hollow in that tree near the root. When they separated during the process of growing, then the Buddha would sit in one of those hollows, like many of the monks before. And now some still do that, or sit in a cave or something. So people came to see the Buddha. They did not understand that they had to be vegan or anything, so they had to go out to the market to buy food, eat and come back again to see the Buddha later. Buddha didn’t have a house, didn’t have a kitchen, nothing. He went out begging. So these newcomers, even monk newcomers, they would come and go, come and go and eat.
If the Buddha knew they ate animal-people meat – they had to, because they didn’t know what vegetarian is, they didn’t know what vegan is, they didn’t know where to buy; they had to eat animal-people meat – then the Buddha had to be lenient and advised them, “If you have to, then eat this kind, that kind of meat. Otherwise, the karma is too heavy for you.” So that’s how they did it. But later on, the Buddha said, “You’re grown up already. You know the Truth, the Dharma already. So, you don’t eat meat anymore. Anyone who eats meat is not my disciple; it’s a disciple who belongs to maya.” So now you know.
And then later, the Buddha had an ashram, a room for Him. They called it “fragrant room.” It was for the Buddha, and there were many other rooms for the monks. But sometimes it was not enough because some other monks came back, elderly monks or visiting monks from other schools, and didn’t have enough room. Then even Rāhula, son of the Buddha, had to go sleep in the toilet area. That’s how the Buddha trained Him to be humble, to be accepting in any situation. The son of the Buddha, even. A prince also – He was a prince, of courfse… and had to go sleep in the toilet area.
There’s a sutra that recorded all that from the Reverend Great Ānanda. We have to thank Him, of course, for many sutras. And we have to thank many other reverends under the Buddha’s protective wings who have recorded all these true stories and true Dharma teachings from the Buddha for us. Many sutras are missing or destroyed. Of course, after the Buddha’s Nirvana, many of the reverend monks gathered together and collected all the stories and all of Buddha’s teachings and put them together in categories accordingly. Also, many people wanted to learn, so they came and made copies. But after the Muslim and other invaders came, of course, they killed the monks, destroyed the temples and burned many, many of the sutras.
But some are still left over because some took them to some other countries or some other areas where it was not invaded. That’s how we still have many sutras nowadays to study and to know what the Buddha’s teaching was, to follow and to try to be good, noble disciples of the Buddha’s. Not all of the whole package, of the whole teaching of the Buddha came to one country at that time because some monks had to run and take whatever they could with them to hide for their own lives and to protect the sutras. So some countries would have a lot more sutras than other countries, and some would have different sutras than other countries.
So some are practicing, they call it Mahayana. They follow the teachings of the main sutras that have been left behind, like from India, then Xuanzang – a great Master Who went to India and took some home, or translated there and took home to China. And then from there, it spread to many other countries.
But there were some who also went to other, different countries because the monks went where they could, or to the country they belonged to, before they came to retrieve the sutras from other monks in India, for example. Therefore, whatever they got is what they got, and they practiced accordingly. So, some of the monk schools followed the first teachings of the Buddha. That’s why they call it the “original” Buddhist teaching, wherein the Buddha still allowed some of them to eat animal-people meat, three kinds of… they call it “purified meat.” Like I told you before – the animal-people died naturally, nobody killed them. Or if you have to eat some animal-people meat – if those animal-people are not killed for you, particularly personally, then you can eat it. But, of course, they recited a lot of mantras, a lot of purifications that the Buddha taught them, and they knew already in their hearts this is not supposed to be, but they just temporarily did it while they were still learning.
In the old times, it was not easy probably to go to buy vegan food for those who were from other countries, other provinces, or other counties, who were not used to the life and the way around the towns or cities where the Buddha was. So they just said to eat whatever they could, to eat whatever the people gave them temporarily until they settled down and learned with the Buddha, or stayed there, and then they would know everything. So that was the original first Buddha allowance. So people, for example, from another country nearby India at that time, like Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, maybe they got those first scriptures and sutras from elder monks from India. They took them home, and they didn’t have time to take other sutras, or they were not available over there where they were. So they took whatever they could. In the old times, we didn’t have airplanes, we didn’t have big yachts, we didn’t have cars or trucks to carry a lot of things. So imagine, just some monks… maybe they could rent a cow cart or something. But not everywhere had. So they had to consider that they have to carry the sutras by themselves on some road, in some area, where they had no car, no bus, nothing.
Like, in the Himalayas where I went up, in many areas, I just walked all the time. Only one time I went on the bus, because we were already near some city, and the bus was there. Somebody rented the bus, and they let me go with them. That’s it; that’s the only time in the Himalayas. Of course, later, when I went down into a town, to go home, there were horse carts and all that.
But in the Himalayas, where I was walking – nothing. Just walking every day. And my shoes were wet, my feet were swollen. I had only two pairs of Punjabi kind of clothes – trousers, of course, and a long tunic that covers your body up to the knees or below the knees, so it’s more dignified for the people to wear. Men and women wore that in the old times. But no car. And always I wore wet clothes, wet shoes and had swollen feet, but I was in love with God. I feared nothing. I didn’t care about anything. I didn’t think much of anything whatsoever. I never thought or compared or wanted better – nothing.
I didn’t have a lot of money either. It had to last, so I couldn’t even afford to have anybody to carry luggage. So I just carried my clothes. One pullover – I thought maybe I needed, because that’s all I had – and another pair of Punjabi pajama-like clothes inside the sleeping bag to protect from the rain. And one I would wear, that’s it. I couldn’t afford anything more. And a plate to cook chapatis and make tea at the same time. And one little aluminum cup and a spoon I also had to sell later. Everything’s too heavy when you’re going up to the higher area of the Himalayas. And I never had to wear the pullover because I kept walking and I was just always warm, even when I was wet. Somehow, God protected me – wherever was supposed to be dry, it was dry. Only the feet were wet because they were always walking in the wet area. When the snow melts, it’s messy and muddy also, and always wet. But that I could not do anything about. I had only one pair of that sport shoes. And I had no socks afterward.
I didn’t even have two pairs of socks. I had to wash and wear them, but they never dried, because I never had enough money to rent a place next to the fire, which people provided in the pilgrim area. You have to go quickly to such a house of refuge, because otherwise you’ll be left in the dark, on the street, in the jungle or on the mountain. In the Himalayas, you have nobody you can ask, no neighbors, nothing, just some simple mud houses they built here and there, far away from each other, for the pilgrims in case they need them. And all the pilgrims had money somehow. They paid, and I just stood behind them and put my socks in the air – behind the group of people who stood – not right in front of the fire.
But I never felt bad or cold or anything. And if they were dry, I would wear them; if they were wet, I would wear them, because the next morning you’d have to leave anyway. You can’t stay in that house alone. You’re not allowed to either. You go and another group will come. I didn’t know much about anything. If people went, I just went. Sometimes I had to walk alone because they walked a different way, and they walked so fast. And I’m alone with just a stick, and the sleeping bag would get heavier and heavier because the rain soaked into it. Also, the road was difficult and I was going upward. But I was happy. I did not think too much about anything.
Photo Caption: Dancing for the Sun with Gratitude
