Meat

What are your feelings about eating meat?

I once watched two butchers take the life of a lamb.
The first made a cut only three-quarters across the throat.
The lamb was still alive, still breathing,
its eyes wide, its body trembling
as the blood struggled to leave its neck.
The suffering goat minutes stretched
and I felt the cruelty in every moment the lamb remained aware.

Later, I saw another butcher take the life of a lamb
with one swift, clean stroke.
In a single breath, the animal’s suffering ended no lingering agony, no prolonged fear.
Both lambs died,
but the two deaths carried different weights in my heart.
One felt like torment,
the other like a sad but merciful truth of survival.

As I stood there,
I felt the strange ache of eating something
that once breathed, once walked, once lived.
And yet, it is this life that gives me the strength to survive.
The least I can do is witness the truth of its passing
with open eyes and an honest heart.

And in that moment,
a voice rose within me like a verse from the Gita clear, sharp, and awakening:


“Arjuna,
cruelty is not in the taking of life,
but in the prolonging of suffering.
A death stretched across moments
darkens the heart of the doer,
but a swift release is a mark of compassion.

He who ends suffering quickly
walks closer to righteousness.
He who eats with gratitude
sanctifies the life that was given.

Know this:
between a lingering death
and a merciful end
lies the difference between ignorance
and awareness.”