By Dr. Colin Simonds
In a recent newsletter, Dharma Voices for Animals shared a preliminary finding from our research on Buddhist centres in the United States: out of just over 950 centres, only 4.4% publicly identify as vegan and only 6.7% publicly note that they offer meaningful vegan options.
Now, it is possible that these numbers are higher in practice and there are centres that would fall into either of these categories without publicly advertising as such. Likewise, this list is inclusive of centres that may not be residential and may not offer regular food service. Our team will be working to refine this data in the future. But at the very least, we can say that
This data prompted a great deal of response from our community, many of whom asked the same questions: “Why are these numbers so low? Why aren’t more Buddhists vegan?” The answer to these questions has elements that might be obvious to those in the world of animal advocacy while others are unique to our Buddhist context. Over the next month, we will feature four articles that explain some of the reasons why more Buddhists are not vegan. And this first article is on a familiar concept for many animal activists: speciesism.
Speciesism is a term first coined by Peter Singer in his 1975 book Animal Liberation. He defines speciesism as “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species.”¹ Typically, in Western contexts, speciesism is justified through an appeal to the lesser intellectual capacities of nonhuman animals, their purported lack of self-awareness, and their lack of linguistic capability. As a result of these features, speciesists not only hold bias towards members of their own species (i.e. humans) but are also able normalize and develop a numbness towards the oppression, exploitation, and mass slaughter of members of other species (i.e. nonhuman animals).
Speciesism is the default position in North America. The overwhelming majority of us are conditioned since birth to engage with nonhuman animals in a speciesist way and efforts are few to get us to do otherwise. Most scholars trace back this perspective to the Great Chain of Being in Christianity wherein all of creation is placed on a separate rung on the hierarchy: God at the top, angels below Him, then humans, animals, plants, and nonliving things. In this formulation, each category has dominion over the lower categories. Animals were thus divested of agency, given little moral consideration, and were explicitly placed below humans.
Now while Buddhism does not have a creator god, it might perhaps come as a surprise to learn that it nonetheless holds quite similar speciesist views. The first, and arguably still the best, study on speciesism in both Christianity and Buddhism is Paul Waldau’s monograph Spectre of Speciesism. In this book Waldau makes a strong case that early Buddhists approached the category of the nonhuman animal through a speciesist lens. He conducts a sweeping analysis of early Buddhist literature and uncovers some clear evidence that canonical Buddhism viewed the animal as a lesser kind of birth.² It’s worth therefore going over some of this research.
Waldau notes how the terms used to refer to animals in early Buddhist literature are varied and include satto (creature, sentient being), jivo (living things), bhuto (beings), and pāṇo (breathing things).³ Each of these terms is broad enough to include both human and nonhuman animals, but others are more specific. For example, tiracchāno is a term that specifically refers to nonhuman animals and reflects the diversity of the animal world that we understand today. The Majjhima Nikāya provides a list of what is covered under this term, which Waldau translates as follows:
“There are, monks, animals, breathing creatures that are grass eaters. These eat moist and dry grasses, chewing them with their teeth… Horses, cattle, asses, sheep, deer, and whatever other… There are also… creatures that are dung-eaters… Cocks, swine, dogs, jackals, and whatever other… There are also creatures that grow old in the dark and die in the dark such as beetles, maggots, earth-worms and whatever other… There are also creatures that are born in water, grow old in water, die in water… Fish, turtles, crocodiles, and whatever other… There are also… creatures that are born in filth, grow old in filth, and die in filth.”⁴
In this sense, nonhuman animals, or tiracchāno, are a specific ontological category in Buddhism that include mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fish, and insects.
What separates these animals from humans is clear in this early Buddhist context: intellectual capacity. Waldau cites the Majjhima Nikāya’s statement that “men are indeed a tangle, whereas animals are a simple matter”⁵ to argue that “all nonhuman animals are both intellectually and morally inferior to humans”⁶ in Buddhist contexts. This argument is supported by a host of other scriptural statements such as when the Milindapañha states that “[c]onsideration is one thing, wisdom another. Of these (two)… goats, sheep, cows, buffaloes, camels and donkeys have consideration, but they have not wisdom.”⁷ Such claims have led scholars like Lambert Schmithausen to conclude that nonhuman animals are missing propositional knowledge or wisdom “and hence [they] cannot attain liberating insight as long as they are animals.”⁸ Thus, there is an apparent fundamental gulf between the human and nonhuman animal worlds on the specific basis of their cognitive faculties.
I might add that this perceived intellectual lack is morally significant in Buddhist contexts because it means that nonhuman animals are incapable of pursuing the primary salvific aim in the Buddhist worldview: practicing the dharma and achieving nirvana. This is not to say that there are not differing aims in lived Buddhisms (something we will see in a later article) or that aims other than liberation are somehow “inauthentic.” However, the vast majority of texts in the Buddhist philosophical tradition (especially those found in later Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions) are concerned primarily with the striving for and attainment of nirvana.
This idealized goal of liberation from duḥkha is only achieved through the mastery of wisdom, ethics, and meditation, and, crucially, humans alone are capable of achieving this goal. This makes them different (and above) nonhuman animals not only ontologically but soteriologically. This hierarchical positioning is codified in the Aṅguttara Nikāya in which the Buddha states: “Monks, I do not see any other single bondage that is as cruel and as terrible, or such an impediment to attaining peace from bondage, as the bondage of hell or the bondage of the animal realm.”⁹ By separating nonhuman animals from human animals on the specific basis of their perceived intellectual lack, not only does the canonical Buddhist view of animals subscribe to a classic speciesist rhetoric of treating other animals differently on the basis of their perceived lesser intellect¹⁰ but it reinforces this view through its soteriological structure.
As a consequence of these views, the excellent scholar Reiko Ohnuma argues that birth as a nonhuman animal was explicitly seen as an unfortunate destiny in Buddhist contexts. In her eponymous work Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imaginary, she surveys a host of early Indian Buddhist literature to show the “radical discontinuity”¹¹ between humans and nonhuman animals in early Buddhist contexts. Beyond the categorical distinctions identified by Waldau, Ohnuma shows how early Buddhists explained the nonhuman animal’s lack of prajñā¹² through appeals to karma.¹³ She writes how “the animal is defined in opposition to the human being, with the difference between them being the difference between bad karma and good karma—and the fruition of each in an ‘unfortunate’ or a ‘fortunate’ realm of rebirth.”¹⁴
Further, since their unfortunate destiny is a direct consequence of bad karma, early Buddhists found justification in Buddhist cosmology for the active exploitation of nonhuman animals. Ohnuma highlights a passage in Aśvaghoṣa’s early biography of the Buddha, the Buddhacarita, which makes this clear:
“In these states, they are pitifully killed for their flesh, hides, fur, and tusks, out of hatred, or just for thrills—even as their relatives watch. When they are oxen or horses, they are forced to work, their bodies wounded by whips, tormented by hunger, thirst, and exhaustion, even though they are helpless and powerless. And when they are elephants, even though they are stronger, they are burdened by the weaker, beaten by the heels of [men’s] feet, their heads injured by hooks.”¹⁵
Thus, far from being something condemned on ethical grounds, the active exploitation of farmed animals and killing of free roaming animals are considered as “a natural, inevitable, and karmically appropriate feature of the animal rebirth.”¹⁶ In this sense, while she concedes that “Buddhism’s ethical stance toward nonhuman animals may well be more generous than those predominant in the West,” Ohnuma argues that “when it comes to the question of an ontological distinction between human beings and animals based on their mental faculties, moral agency, and spiritual potential, the Buddhist view is really quite similar to those that have predominated in the West.”¹⁷
On top of this speciesism, Buddhism holds carnist impulses as well. Carnism is a term coined by Melanie Joy to denote “the belief system in which eating certain animals is considered ethical and appropriate.”¹⁸ In this system, which is the dominant ideology we find concerning nonhuman animals around the globe, “carnists eat meat not because they need to, but because they choose to, and choices always stem from beliefs.”¹⁹ In my use of the term, carnism describes the arbitrary positioning of certain species above others. Whereas speciesism is, in Peter Singer’s words, “a prejudice or attitude of bias in favor of the interests of members of one’s own species and against those of members of other species,”²⁰ carnism projects human beliefs on to other species in a way that creates a hierarchy of moral consideration within the nonhuman animal realm. It is why, to quote the title of Joy’s book, we love dogs, eat pigs, and wear cows.
In the Pali Bhesajjakkanda, the Buddha forbids monks and nuns from eating ten kinds of meat: the meat that comes from humans, elephants, horses, dogs, snakes, lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and hyenas. The reasons for these abstentions vary from insulting the king (as elephants were associated with royalty), social taboo (as is the case with dogs), insulting local deities (as in snakes and the nāgas), and because one’s smell after eating predators might attract them and cause them to attack you.²¹ In Tibetan contexts we find a similar list with some types of birds such as owls and some reptiles and amphibians added to the list.²² In both of these cases, we find human social, religious, and political norms projected onto nonhuman animals in a way that causes some animals to be treated differently than others. Put differently, monastic regulations upheld the carnist attitudes of their dominant culture and imposed a carnist hierarchy on nonhuman animals through Buddhist belief.
It is clear then that Buddhists have had lots to say about how we humans are dissimilar to and more important than nonhuman animals. Canonical statements from the Buddha’s own mouth have reinforced the idea that nonhuman animals are simply an unfortunate destiny and that their exploitation at the hands of humans is merely the ripening of their bad karma. There are of course many in the tradition throughout Buddhism’s long history that would speak out against this exploitation and would argue that Buddhism’s values logically lead to the compassionate treatment of our dear animal friends. We at Dharma Voices for Animals are one such example. However, both speciesist and carnist attitudes can be found in every Buddhist tradition across time and geography.
So why aren’t more Buddhists vegan? Just as most in the West eat meat, eggs, and dairy as a consequence of unexamined speciesist views, so too do many Buddhists eat meat, eggs, and dairy due to speciesist and carnist views. Left unchallenged, these views lead to the same result in both cases: the exploitation of animals. Thankfully, Buddhist texts also have much to say about why we should abstain from meat and why we should treat all sentient beings with compassion. If you’d like to hear more about these teachings, check out DVA’s compilation of Buddhist teachings on animals here.
REFERENCES
Singer, Animal Liberation, 6.
Paul Waldau, The Spectre of Speciesism: Buddhist and Christian Views of Animals (Oxford University Press, 2001).
Tamara Ditrich, “Presentation of ‘Living Being’ in Early Indian Buddhism and its Ethical Implications,” Asian Studies 11, no. 2 (2023).
Waldau, The Spectre of Speciesism, 116.
Quoted in Waldau, The Spectre of Speciesism, 8; M III 167.
Waldau, The Spectre of Speciesism, 9-10.
Quoted in Waldau, The Spectre of Speciesism, 132; Mil I, 43.
Lambert Schmithausen, Buddhism and Nature (The International Institute of for Buddhist Studies, 1991), 15; quoted in Waldau, The Spectre of Speciesism, 132.
Quoted in Reiko Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination (Oxford University Press, 2017), 6; A III, 353.
Peter Singer, Animal Liberation (Ecco Press, 2002).
Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny, 15.
Tib. shes rab. Lit. wisdom.
Tib. las. Lit. action.
Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny, 178-179.
Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny, 16; BC I, 159.
Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny, 16. Emphasis in original.
Ohnuma, Unfortunate Destiny, 23.
Melanie Joy, Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism (Red Wheel, 2011), 30. Emphasis added.
Joy, Why We Love Dogs, 30.
Singer, Animal Liberation, 6.
The Book of the Discipline (Vinaya-Piṭaka), Vol. IV (Mahāvagga) (trans. I.B. Horner. Pali Text Society, 2007), 270-300.
Seventeenth Karmapa Orgyen Trinley Dorje, Meat is Murder, 27-28.