IN 1960, AT THE AGE of forty-seven, the great Dzogchen teacher Chatral Sangye Dorje Rinpoche (1913–2015) stood before the Mahabodhi Stupa in Bodhgaya, India, palms joined, and vowed never to eat meat again. He would be the first Tibetan lama in exile to become vegetarian. The glaring contradiction between his wish to benefit all sentient beings and the consumption of their flesh had become untenable.
“Knowing all of the faults of meat and alcohol,” he said, “I have made a commitment to give them up in front of the great Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya with the buddhas and bodhisattvas of the ten directions as my witnesses. I have also declared this moral to all my monasteries. Therefore, anyone who listens to me is requested not to transgress this crucial aspect of Buddhist ethical conduct. If we eat meat, we break the vows we take when
