(no subject)

[emptycages]

In Buddhism, the most important precept of all is to live in awareness, to know what is going on. To know what is going on, not only here, but there. For instance, when you eat a piece of bread, you may choose to be aware that our farmers in growing the wheat, use chemical poisons a little too much. Eating the bread, we are somehow co-responsible for the destruction of our environment. We can increase our awareness of the fact that 40,000 children die each day from hunger. In order to produce a piece of meat or a bottle of liquor, we have to use a lot of grain. Eating a bowl of rice may be reconciling more with the suffering of the world than eating a piece of meat. An authority on economics who lives in France told me that if only the people in Western countries would reduce their eating of meat and drinking of alcohol by 50 percent, that would be enough to change the situation of the world. Only 50 percent less.

Every day we do things, we are things, that have to do with peace. If we are aware of our lifestyle, our way of consuming, of looking at things, we will know how to make peace right in the moment we are alive, the present moment. When we pick up the Sunday newspaper, for instance, we may be aware that it is a very heavy edition, maybe three or four pounds. To print such paper a whole forest may be needed. When we pick up the paper, we should be aware. If we are very aware, we can do something to change the course of things.

--Being Peace by Thich Nhat Hanh