National Burger Day, U.S.A.

Amber Larson, Xochitl, Dev, Pat Macpherson, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly (TEST KITCHEN); Lassens.com (LassensLoves.com, LivingNaturally); Moonbeam (FollowYourHeart.com); YF

There are yummy vegetarian things our families eat (that we unabashedly love)!

The Moosewood Collective says, “Our all-time favorite, luscious burgers the way we make them now: Vegan and wheat-free. “Tofu burgers have been a favorite at the restaurant since we can remember. Our customers often call to ask, “Are tofu burgers on the menu today?” In the early years, we served them on a thick slice of whole wheat toast with lettuce, tomato slices, and Russian dressing. Now we serve them... (Jim Scherer)

 

Wednesday, May 28, 2014, more than a month before it's needed, is National Burger Day. Presumably we're celebrating carnage like that of the Battle of Hamburger Hill.

Now, what if it were possible to have flavor, health, and compassion? What if National Burger Day could be celebrated in style free of heart attacks, cancer, obesity, bad karma, a jump in cholesterol (as our body tries to protect itself against the free radicals we're dumping in with animal flesh, acrylamides, and fermented toxins used in flesh burgers), or harm to the environment?

It is possible! We do it all the time. There are so many center "patty" options, and the best we've found is the amazing new Hilary's Hemp & Greens Burger at Lassens (online).

10 Meat-free Grilling Tips

Lassens edited by Wisdom Quarterly

Grilled blocks of barbecue-flavored tofu (SH)

The start of summer is the perfect time to enjoy delicious, sizzling meals straight off the grill! As we get set to fire up our BBQ grills, instead of the ugly and likely germ and GMO-contaminated flesh fare, cook up some grilled veggies instead. Going flesh free means opening up a world of many more options with smoky barbecue flavor.

 

The world of vegetables is amazing on the grill -- squash, tofu, hemp seed, onions, tempeh, garlic, quinoa, tomato, lettuce greens, chives, gobo root, chia seeds, lentil, eggplant, zucchini, potato, green jack, bell pepper, beet, portabello 'shrooms, and so much more! Plus, meat-free grilling is an easy way to add nutrient rich, fiber rich, healthy seasonal produce to our diet, which reduces disease.

"Eating [any] meat, particularly red and processed meat, can increase risk of heart disease, diabetes, and various forms of cancer," says Allison Righter, MSPH, RD, Meatless Monday science adviser at the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future.

And it's not just the amount of animal flesh someone eats -- it's also how someone cooks it. "Cooking meat at high temperatures, like pan frying and grilling/charring over an open flame, forms [toxic] chemical compounds in the meat that have also been linked to cancer," Righter says.

Kids love it -- vegan, hypoallergenic, cruelty-free, dairy-free cheese (followyourheart)

 
The good news is that many of these chemicals are NOT formed when grilling vegetables or fruits. "So [people] can enjoy their grilled flavor worry-free!"  So get grilling and take a break from toxic flesh with these 10 easy summer grilling tips: More

Golden potatoes are an excellent complement to cruelty-free burgers with all the fixins.

• Go meat-free one day a week: Meatless Monday
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• World's Best Veggie Burger (Hillary's Eat Well)
• Animal protein linked to diabetes risk
• Why would anyone go meat free?
• How vegan teens manage meals
• Vegan diets gain popularity
• May shopping specials
• RECIPES from Hillary

The Zen of Field Tripping ($10 tour)

Roshi Jeff Albrizze, Wisdom Quarterly; The Buddhist Progress Society (hsilai.org)

Hsi Lai Temple ("Going West" Monastery), Hacienda Heights, suburban Los Angeles, CA

Hillside parking lot, main entrance, Hsi Lai (Jesse Kaplan/TheGuibordCenter.org)

  

Courtyard with dining hall behind

PasaDharma provides a place to practice Zen. With an idea of having no ideas but "just sitting," the trip often remains on the mat. However, on Saturday (March 29) the local sangha will take up mats and walk around the grounds of the largest Buddhist temple complex in the western hemisphere: Hsi Lai ("Going West") on a hill that separates the eastern suburbs of Los Angeles from Orange County. This is a field trip.

Carpooling provided from Pasadena at 10:30 am. Those driving themselves are invited to meet at the temple at 11:00 am or join the carpool caravan going east to the temple. Chinese vegetarian lunch at 11:30 am. Tour starts at 1:30 and concludes at 3:00 pm.

• Saturday March 29th, 2014
• 3456 S. Glenmark Drive
• Hacienda Heights, CA 91745

What is Hsi Lai?

WQ at Hsi Lai full moon observance

This massive Taiwanese Mahayana Buddhist temple encompasses 15 acres and a floor area of 102,430 square feet. The temple's dynastic Ming (1268-1644 CE) and Ching (1644-1911 CE) architecture is reflected in its buildings, gardens, fountains, and statuary. Chinese speakers may regard Hsi Lai as "Coming to the West," signifying the dedication of the Buddha's Light Mountain (Fo Guang Shan) Buddhist Order to spread the teachings of the Buddha to the Western world. It is incluseve and provides Theravada as well as Mahayana teachings, having established the first Buddhist universities (University of the West) in the US. The founder, Ven. Master Hsing Yun, had previously established Fo Guang Shan, the largest monastery in Taiwan, which encompasses over 600 acres.

Going West under a full moon (WQ)

The temple was built to serve as a spiritual and cultural center for those interested in learning more about Buddhism and Taiwanese/Chinese cultural practices. This form of Mahayana came to be called "Humanistic Buddhism" aimed at creating a "Pure Land" on Earth. Built to fulfill these goals in the USA, the temple's objectives are to benefit society through charitable programs, nurture missionary activity through education, spread Dharma through rich cultural observances, and to edify people through traditional Buddhist practices.

RSVP (Roshi Jeff Albrizze at 626.529.4074 or jeffalbrizze@hotmail.com) so an advanced count can be provided to the temple.

CARPOOL: Meet at the Pasadena School District parking lot, 351 S. Hudson Ave., Pasadena, cross street East Del Mar Blvd.

MEET: Main entrance outside first Buddha Hall at 11:00 am; the group will then proceed together to dining hall for lunch, followed by tour starting at the Information Center at 1:30 pm.

DRESS: Out of respect dress comfortably but appropriately: avoid tank tops, shorts, or mini-skirts, smoking, and please avoid bringing meats of any kind or outside foods and beverages.

DONATION: $9 (cash only) per person covers delicious all-you-care-to-eat buffet Chinese vegetarian lunch. Museum admission is an additional $1. There is also a temple gift shop with prayer beads (malas), Dharma books, statuettes, souvenirs, and art.

Humanistic Buddhism & Leadership Online Certificate Program (uwest.edu)

St. Patrick's Day celebration, SoCal

Seth Auberon and Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly; Moonbeam, FollowYourHeart.com

I'll destroy the pagans and make sure snakes do not return with their nature worship! (CP)

Flowery bhumi-deva Pagan ceremony, Avebury (Solar/Shahmai Network/shahmai.org)

   

It might be better to be in Amherst, Mass.

CANOGA PARK, California - Deep in "The Valley," the world-famous stretch of suburban flatlands that end only as the sea and mountains and desert get to be too much, there is an interesting old park. Well, it's less grassy "park" than asphalt town: Canoga Park held its St. Paddy's Day party with a parade that began at the Madrid Theatre on Sherman Way with a sidewalk march. There were stilt walkers, bag pipers, the sanctified patriarch himself, and friends all over Old Town Canoga Park. It culminated in a lot on Owensmouth with live Irish music from Jerry McLean and tales by True Thomas the Irish Storyteller. (CanogaParkCal.com)

Follow Your Heart!

For health, longevity, spirituality, love, and herbal cures, FYH has it all at (818) 348-3240.

  

Yoga unites body, mind, and breath (spiritus).

The jewel of the city, however, what puts it on the map and makes it worth visiting, is an awesome institution called Follow Your Heart (FYH)! It's a health food store, a vegetarian restaurant, a health center with free seminars and group meditation, a yoga studio, a product brand, a hippie haven, a hangout bar none near the California communes of Topanga in the wooded hills above and behind Santa Monica and Malibu beaches. More

• So Bohemian: Topanga: Malibu's hippie cousin? (CNN)
• VISIT: 21825 Sherman Way, Canoga Park, CA 91303
• The Real History of St. Patrick's Day
• St. Patrick's Day: 5 places to find a bit of blarney

"The Ghost Stories" (Petavatthu)

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Abbot Karunananda (Bodhi Vihara), Wisdom Quarterly; G.P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Pali Proper Names  (Pali Text Society)

The "Brown Lady" ghost seen manifesting as ecstoplasm on the staircase (answers.com)

 

Seance, circa 1920 (C2C)

PETA VATTHU: The seventh book of the Khuddaka Nikāya (The Miscellany) consists of stories of persons born in the peta (preta, ghost) world owing to karma manifesting as various misdeeds motivated by greed, aversion, and/or delusion.

 

Dhammapāla wrote on it a commentary called the Peta-vatthu-vannanā, or Petavatthu Atthakathā, which forms part of the Vimalavīlāsinī (GV.60), the commentary on the Vimāna Vatthu, which describes the splendor of various space abodes belonging to different devas, obtained by them as a result of meritorious karma performed in previous lives.

 

The Realm of Hungry Ghosts (peta loka)

The arhat Mahinda -- the son of the Indian Buddhist emperor Asoka, who together with his enlightened sister Sanghamitta traveled south as missionaries to Sri Lanka with a cutting from the original Bodhi tree the Buddha gained enlightenment under, which is the oldest documented tree in the world and the progenitor of most bodhi trees (Ficus religiosa, sacred fig or pipal) in Buddhist temples today -- preached the Peta Vatthu to Anulā and her companions on the day of his arrival in Anurādhapura, Sri Lanka (according to the island's own history, the Mahavamsa or "Great Chronicle" (Mhv.xiv.58).

 

What is a peta (Sanskrit preta)? Dr. Gabor Mate, the Canadian drug and addiction specialist, explains that it is a "hungry ghost." This refers to a poltergeist, a German term for a restless, unquiet, or "unclean" spirit, a banshee, a howler, a disturbance.

There are countless worlds. The Buddha categorized them into 31 general planes of existence. Their diversity is unimaginable. Consider, for example, the Animal Realm (tiracchana), which includes lazy tigers and hungry termites, slimy amoeba and my puppy Rocky, and more than a million other kinds of sentient beings. Such is karma that it leads to this specificity in impersonally doling out results.

Stories?

(spiritualia.be)

The ancient Buddhist book that follows the Vimana-vatthu is the Peta-vatthu. It contains stories of beings in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, which is in this world but mostly goes unseen. Once when the Buddha's male disciple "foremost in psychic powers," corresponding to the chief female disciple with the same designation (Ven. Uppalavanna), Maha Moggallana surveys an area to find how the hungry ghosts there were reborn into that realm. One passage states, "This woman ate meat and deceived with a lying word" (Petavatthu 3.4). 

 

In another passage, a hunter kills deer and shares the meat with children every time he arrives back in town. In spite of his generosity, which when it comes to fruition will lead to fortunate and welcome results, the hunter is reborn as a hungry ghost because of murder -- killing of deer and butchering and distributing flesh (Petavatthu 3.1). 

Ghost of Borobudur (Winterlicht/flickr.com)

This happens not because killing animals leads merely to rebirth as a ghost -- it generally leads to far worse -- but because destination depends on when karma ripens. If it should ripen right at the moment of death/rebirth during what is technically called the "rebirth linking consciousness," it is a course of conduct that can lead to a miserable plane of existence, a world of torment far worse than the moderate "plane of deprivation" (apaya) ghosts exist on. The book also contains verses showing that the Buddha was offered vegetarian foods gathered and given out of compassion. Does this mean eating flesh (Dhamma Wheel) thereby causing and encouraging the captivity, cruelty toward, and killing of animals is unwholesome, unskillful behavior? Who can say?

What leads to rebirth in this miserable destination among ghosts? Missing the mark of upholding The Five Precepts:

1. to abstain from taking the lives of living beings or encouraging others to harm,
2. to abstain from taking what is not given or encouraging others to steal,
3. to abstain from sexual misconduct or encouraging others to violate this precept (which Wisdom Quarterly spells out elsewhere from the sutras as having sex with people who are off limits and not as being what we might imagine in our guilt-ridden Christian-Catholic-Jewish context but rather, more generally, as harming others motivated by our sensual lust),
4. to abstain from false speech (perjury, slander, harshness, babble) or encouraging others to speak falsely,
5. to abstain from intoxicants that lead one to violate these precepts or encouraging others to become intoxicated occasioning heedlessness.