Karmic Lifespans and the Concept of Nature in Tibetan Buddhism

Abstract

Contemporary English speakers often make a distinction between things that are artificial and those that are deemed natural. On the one hand are places, things, and situations that humans have altered, and on the other those that are free (or relatively free) of human influence. This concept of “nature” is an important, if problematic, one: it influences much of the modern environmental movement, where nature often has positive connotations while the artificial is valued negatively. In this paper I will be focusing on an idea found in Tibetan anti-meat literature: that there is a moral difference between eating the meat of animals that “die as a result of their karma” and animals that are slaughtered. This idea, I argue, parallels the distinction between the natural and artificial found in many English language discussions about the environment. As such, my suggestion is that this idea could, with some development, help support dialogue over environmental issues between Western and Buddhist philosophers and communities.

1. Introduction

Contemporary English speakers often make a distinction between things that are artificial and those that are deemed natural. The former are places, things, and situations that humans have altered, and the latter are those that are free (or relatively free) of human influence. This concept of “nature” is an important, if problematic, one: it influences much of the modern environmental movement, where nature often has positive connotations while the artificial is valued negatively. The concept of nature also has impacts well beyond environmental issues, influencing ideas about art, travel, shopping, and so on. But while ideas about nature are important to Western environmental thought, and while the idea probably seems obvious and straightforward to those of us who grew up in the modern West, scholars have suggested that Buddhist thought lacks a conception of nature as a space free from human intervention. This lack of a concept of nature in Buddhism has sometimes been a stumbling block for efforts to promote dialogue about environmental issues between Western environmentalists and Buddhist communities.

In this paper I will be focusing on an idea found in Tibetan anti-meat literature: that there is a moral difference between eating the meat of animals that “die as a result of their karma” (Tib: las kyis shi ba) and animals that are slaughtered. This idea, I argue, parallels concepts about nature found in many English language discussions about the environment. As such, my suggestion is that this idea could, with some development, help support dialogue over environmental issues between Western and Buddhist philosophers and communities.

2. Concepts of Nature in the West

The English word nature is a complex term with a variety of interrelated meanings. On the one hand, it can refer to the inherent qualities of an object or being. In this usage, it denotes a deep sense of the way things truly are, rather than just how they appear, or how they are imagined to be. This is the usage of nature that underlies concepts like “natural law”. It also underlies the concept of “human nature”, suggesting deep truths about being human that we all share. In the film Terminator 2, when the cyborg played by Arnold Schwarzenegger tells John Connor, “It’s in your nature to destroy yourselves” the audience knows that he is making a claim about unavoidable tendencies in human behavior (Cameron 1991). This is also the usage of nature that gives us the “natural sciences”, in which scientists try to uncover truths about the world around us. This usage of nature refers to the way things are in a deep, definitional sense.

But this is not the only way the term nature is used in contemporary English. Rather than referring broadly to the way things are, I am interested in the use of nature as a term for objects and, particularly, environments or spaces that are perceived to be free, or at least relatively free, of human interference. The concept of nature, understood in this way, has a long history in western thought. In The Veil of Isis, originally published in French in 2004, Pierre Hadot (1922–2010) tracks changing attitudes towards nature across the history of Western philosophy, from Mediterranean antiquity to the present. He notes how, across this long history, attitudes towards nature have oscillated between reverence and a desire for understanding and control (Hadot 2006). However, whether viewing nature as something to revere or something to dominate, all of the perspectives that Hadot traces share the idea that nature is separate from more artificial, human-constructed environments. A useful definition of this idea comes from John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). In his 1874 essay Nature, Stuart Mill distinguishes between nature, culture, and intentional acts. For him, intentional acts represent deliberate, purposeful human action, while culture represents the accumulated results of human actions across history. In contrast to these, Stuart Mill defines nature, in part, as “things as they would be, apart from human intervention” (Mill 1874, p. 64).

Further, this idea of nature often, though not always, carries positive connotations. Nineteenth century romantic writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) and Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) idealized nature and the beauty of the natural world. In his 1836 essay “Nature”, Emerson equates nature with beauty, and idealizes retreat to natural areas away from other humans. “The beauty of nature reforms itself in the mind”, he claims, “and not for barren contemplation, but for new creation” (Emerson [1836] 2006, p. 25). For his part, Thoreau presents nature—often personified as Nature—almost as a divinity, serenely outside of the realm of the human. Waking up one morning, he reflected: “there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, no question on her lips. … Nature asks no question, and answers none we mortals ask” (Thoreau [1854] 2004, p. 265). For Emerson and Thoreau, nature and natural environments are idealized and romanticized, giving it strongly positive connotations. This is then explicitly and implicitly contrasted with urban, artificial environments, which carry negative connotations. These positive values associated with nature have continued down to the present and are widespread in English speaking popular culture, well beyond the confines of formal philosophy. We use the word nature to describe a place someone can go where there will be few marks of human presence, or to denote how an object would be if humans had not altered it. This is usually in explicit contrast with objects or environments that are artificial, heavily modified by humans. Thus, we have the idea that an old-growth forest in the Pacific Northwest is natural, while the high-rise buildings of downtown Portland are not.

The positive associations carried by nature and the natural are often invoked by the contemporary environmental movement. Activists may work to preserve particular geographic spaces that they feel are more natural, which is either explicitly or implicitly contrasted with spaces dominated by human intervention, such as cities. The general idea invoked by these environmental activists is that areas with less human intervention are more natural and, therefore, worth protecting. States may respond by designating such a space a “State Natural Area”, explicitly invoking the idea of nature as a valuable space set aside from excessive human intervention. More broadly, environmental activists have long presented nature as something valuable in itself, and thus worth preserving for its own sake. Natural spaces are valued and people fight for their preservation precisely because they are perceived to lack human interference.

While widespread, this usage of the term nature has been critiqued by several philosophers. Stephen Vogel, for instance, points out that the very idea of a space outside of human interference is untenable. Our actions clearly impact all parts of the world around us, even the most remote and seemingly natural areas. Nature must therefore be understood as a social construct, an idea developed by humans rather than an actual state that exists in the world. Further, Vogel argues that the environmental movement’s reliance on this untenable idea of nature is actually an impediment to effective environmentalism, obscuring the degree to which we are entangled with the world around us (Vogel 1996). To my mind, this is a strong critique. By pointing out that humans are not outside of nature, Vogel effectively deconstructs the artificial/natural dualism that underlies the use of nature.

Despite these criticisms, English language popular culture continues to use the word nature to denote a place, product, or other object that is understood to be free, or at least relatively free, of human interference. Whether one agrees with Vogel’s critique or not, the idea of nature persists and shapes dialogue around the environment and human relationships with the more-than-human world.

3. Karmic Meat

Understood in this way, the concept of nature has striking parallels with the idea that animals have a karmically determined lifespan. This idea, found in Tibetan texts critical of meat eating, is that if they are left alone, animals will live out their karmic lifespan and die at the time and in the manner that is appropriate for their individual karma. Humans, however, can interfere with this karmic process, most clearly by slaughtering the animal before it has reached the end of its karmically appropriate lifespan.

There are many Tibetan texts that discuss the question of meat eating, most of which understand it to be a negative act (Barstow 2018). They approach the issue from a variety of perspectives, sometimes invoking the monastic code, sometimes the Bodhisattva ideal, and sometimes approaching the question from a ritual perspective. But across these texts there is a consistent concern that individual humans do not involve themselves with the act of slaughtering animals, which is universally considered a moral wrong. The idea of karmic lifespans emerges in this context, where it is used to draw a strong moral line between eating the meat of animals that die without human intervention and those that are intentionally slaughtered.1

I have seen this type of language in more than a dozen Tibetan anti-meat texts, but in this article I will focus on five examples, which will serve to illustrate the various ways Tibetan authors approach this idea.2 The first example provides the most elaborate formulation, and comes from a ritual for creating the small pills known as “medicine of accomplishment” (Tib: sman sgrub), that was composed by the second Düdjom Rinpoché (1904–1987) in 1952. Medicine of accomplishment pills are made from a wide variety of ingredients, mostly herbs, but also some specific meats. In Düdjom Rinpoché’s ritual, however, these meats are visualized, rather than included in actuality. When someone performs this ritual, Düdjom Rinpoché says that they should visualize “a great pile of meat and blood [from animals] that have died from karma, having used up their lifespan” (bdud ’joms ’jigs bral ye shes rdo rje 1975, p. 597).3 In Tibetan, this phrase is tshe zad pas las kyis shi ba’i phung po sha khrag. The use of the agentive particle kyis following the word for karma, las, makes clear that the cause of the animal’s death is karma. Further, that karmic death comes, Düdjom says, because they have “used up their lifespan” (Tib: tshe zad pas). This explicit claim that animals have a karmically allotted lifespan is implicitly contrasted with slaughtered meat, meat that comes from animals that have been intentionally killed by humans for consumption. Düdjom’s insistence on visualizing meat from animals that were not slaughtered, but which died in accordance with the animal’s karma, means the meat of the animal is ethically blameless for use in the medicine of accomplishment ritual.

A second example of this idea comes from Karma Chakmé’s (1613–1678) The Words of My Kind Lama: The Faults of Meat Along with the Divisions of What to Accept and Reject. Like Düdjom Rinpoché’s work, Karma Chakmé discusses the types of meat that can be used in certain rituals. Among other conclusions, he asserts that the only “suitable” meat comes from animals that have “died from their karma”, las kyis shi ba rung ste in Tibetan (karma chags med 2010, p. 469).4 The Tibetan here is similar to the phrase in Düdjom’s work, with the agentive particle kyis again following las, the word for karma, making clear that karma itself is the cause of death. For ritual purposes, Karma Chakmé is claiming that it is appropriate to use meat from animals that have died from karmic causes, rather than animals that have been killed by human hands.

As in Düdjom’s text, the second half of this comparison is implied in Karma Chakmé’s work, not explicitly mentioning the unsuitability of using slaughtered meat in the ritual. But Karma Chakmé’s text as a whole is unapologetically opposed to slaughter and meat eating. Indeed, the whole point of the text is to persuade people to stop eating meat because doing so results in the slaughter of animals, which Karma Chakmé says is ethically wrong. So when he says that meat from animals that have died because of karma is suitable for a particular ritual, it is clear that he is contrasting this kind of meat, which humans have not killed, with meat from animals that have been slaughtered.

This point is made even more explicit in a third text, The Faults of Meat, by the early twentieth century master Shardza Tashi Gyeltsen (1859–1933). Shardza spends almost the entirety of this text talking about how morally problematic meat eating is. He talks about the suffering that animals undergo as they are slaughtered, calling the meat that comes from such slaughter nauseating, and says that people who eat it go to hell. But then, in a few lines at the end of the work, he abruptly changes tone and says that meat is necessary for human health, but that only appropriate meat should be eaten. And what is appropriate meat? Meat that comes from an animal that “died at the end of its time”, dus zad pa’i shi sha in Tibetan (shar rdza bkra shis rgyal mtshan 1988, p. 333).5 Unlike Düdjom Rinpoché and Karma Chakmé, Shardza does not explicitly mention karma as the cause of death. But the idea he is evoking is similar: meat that comes from an animal that died at the end of its time is morally acceptable to eat. Given that Shardza has just spent the rest of his text critiquing the consumption of slaughtered meat, it is abundantly clear that “at the end of its time” means that the animal in question died without direct human intervention.

The fourth example I will look at comes from Jamgön Kongtrül’s (1813–1899) encyclopedic Treasury of Knowledge. In his discussion of maintaining the various vows, Kongtrül gives extensive lists of practices to avoid. Among these is “eating impure food, which involves eating the meat [of an animal] that has been killed for consumption or profit. This is an ill deed in that it involves ways of livelihood incompatible with the [Buddhist] teachings” (Kongtrul 2003, p. 247). Unlike the previous examples I’ve looked at, Kongtrül does not explicitly mention karma. But his assertion that eating the meat of slaughtered animals goes against one’s vows implies the inverse: the only meat that can be eaten comes from animals that have died without human intervention. The idea that animals that die on their own are acceptable to eat is present, even if the word karma is not.

Finally, a fifth example illustrates how pervasive this idea is in the literature on meat eating and vegetarianism. This comes from Lama Dampa Sönam Gyaltsen’s (1312–1375) Open Letter Promoting Vegetarianism, written in 1344. In part of this letter, Lama Dampa discusses when and how much meat can be given to people of different social statuses, saying that workers can be given “karmic meat … do not give slaughtered meat” (Lama Dampa Sönam Gyeltsen n.d.).6 The Tibetan phrase that I have translated here as “karmic meat” is simply las sha, combining the word for karma with the word for meat. The text then explicitly contrasts this with bsad sha, literally meaning “killed meat” or “slaughtered meat”. Once again, we have the idea that meat that comes from an animal that died at the end of its karmically allotted lifespan is morally acceptable to eat, while meat that died as a result of human intervention is not.

What is interesting to me about this particular phrasing is how brief it is. Rather than explain the whole concept, Lama Dampa simply refers to “karma meat”, with the assumption that his audience would know what he is talking about. Lama Dampa is not alone in this assumption. In fact, across the texts that I have seen, the phrase las sha, “karma meat” is the most common way that authors refer to the idea that some meat comes from animals that have died at the end of their karmically allotted lifespans, in contrast to the meat of animals that were slaughtered. This simple phrase seems to be a common shorthand, enough to convey the idea in its entirety. This frequency of this condensed phrase suggests to me that this idea was common and easily understood by both the authors and readers of these texts. Authors like Lama Dampa could simply say “karma meat” and expect their readers to know what they meant. Throughout the rest of this paper I will follow suit, using the phrases karma meat and las sha interchangeably as a brief way to convey this concept.

4. Theorizing Karmic Meat

While the idea of karmic meat is common in the literature on meat eating, and while authors like Lama Dampa seem to assume that their readers will understand the term las sha, this idea of a karmically appropriate lifespan is not developed or theorized in any Tibetan texts that I am aware of. This is somewhat surprising, as Tibetan Buddhism is famous for its scholastic tendencies, including a propensity to define philosophical terms clearly and unambiguously. This is unfortunate as well as surprising, as the idea behind karmic meat is an interesting one that seems both morally useful and philosophically problematic.

In my reading, by consistently using the word karma to distinguish between slaughtered and un-slaughtered meats, these authors are suggesting that any given animal has a lifespan that is determined by their past karma, what we can call a “karmic lifespan”. If left alone they will live out that karmic lifespan. It’s only when humans interfere that things can go sideways, deviating from that karmically determined life. Importantly, this is not the same thing as living to old age. Some animals may have a long lifespan due to their karma, but others might not. If a young yak is struck by lightning, or a young sheep is hit by a truck, that is still the end of their karmic lifespan, and their meat would be morally acceptable to eat. If a human slaughters the animal or otherwise intentionally interferes in its ability to live out its karmic lifespan, then the meat is not las sha. But if they did not, then it is.

This is clearly a morally useful concept for these authors. All of these examples presented above, as well as all of the other examples of this idea that I am aware of, come from texts that are critical of meat eating to at least some degree. Usually this is because the text’s author believes that doing anything that contributes to the suffering or death of an animal should be avoided, and doing things that support an animal’s welfare should be performed. This is, these texts almost universally make this claim, because doing otherwise would violate Buddhism’s call to have compassion for all sentient beings, a category that includes animals.7

These authors claim that eating meat is a moral wrong because it requires the suffering and death of an animal. Under most circumstances this is clearly correct: in Tibet, as elsewhere in the world, most meat comes from animals raised and slaughtered for their flesh. But karmic meat represents a different context. Here, the animal died on its own, without human intervention. If a yak is killed by wolves, dies in a lightning strike, or is accidentally struck by a car, then the human who eats it can be confident that they are not responsible for the animal’s suffering and death. The killing happened on its own, by the power of the animal’s karma, leaving the human blameless in the matter.8

The concept of las sha is doing important moral work in the anti-meat texts in which it appears. By distinguishing between meat that comes from an animal intentionally slaughtered by humans and meat from an animal that died without human intervention, these authors are able to delineate between meat that is morally problematic and meat that is not. This distinction then becomes the basis for actual dietary choices made by Tibetans, who were able to get nourishment from eating meat without committing a misdeed by consuming only meat from animals that died as a result of their karma.

But while it may be rhetorically useful, the idea of karmic meat is also philosophically problematic, as it seems to go against more normative theories about karma. Most Tibetan discussions of karma agree that what an individual experiences in this life is the result of karma that they accumulated in the past. The twentieth century master Kangyur Rinpoché (1897–1975) puts it simply in his commentary on Jigmé Lingpa’s (1730–1798) Treasury of Precious Qualities, “One’s future experiences are determined by the various positive and negative karmic actions one became accustomed to over one’s various previous lives” (klong chen ye shes rdo rje 1991, p. 27). What we experience in our present life, Kangyur Rinpoché explains, is the result of the karma we have accumulated in the past. Conversely, normative karma theory claims that we do not experience things that we do not have the appropriate karma to experience. As Tsongkhapa (1347–1419) says in his Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path, “If you have not accumulated the karmic causes of happiness or suffering, you will definitely not experience the result of that karma” (Yongzin Lingtsang Labrang 2012, pp. 177–78). In normative karma theory, one simply does not experience something unless that is their karma. In line with other Tibetan philosophers, both Kangyur Rinpoché and Tsongkhapa give elaborate, if fairly straightforward, presentations of how karma works, and neither leave any room for a being to experience things unless they have the appropriate karma.

According to this type of karma theory, therefore, it’s not clear how an animal might be able to die in a way that does not accord with its karma. As discussed above, the idea of las sha creates a distinction between the meat of animals that have died according to their karma and animals that have been slaughtered by humans. And yet this distinction seems fundamentally incompatible with the karma theory espoused by Kangyur Rinpoché, Tsongkhapa, and many other Tibetan thinkers. According to these theories of karma, it seems that an animal that was slaughtered would be reaping its karmic results just as much as one that died in an accident.

Further, these texts typically teach that karmic results come from similar causes. Thus, in his famous The Words of My Perfect Teacher, Patrül Rinpoché (1808–1887) claims that thieves end up being robbed, adulterers are themselves betrayed, and liars are fooled (Rinpoche 1998, pp. 113–16). In alignment with this principle, Kangyur Rinpoché explains that those who kill animals in their present life will be reborn as animals that are butchered (Lingpa et al. 2010, p. 147). From this, one might expect that an animal slaughtered for its meat would be explicitly said to be experiencing the results of previous karma, quite possibly from a previous life when it was itself a butcher. This would align with the principles behind the normative theory of karma expounded by Kangyur Rinpoché, Tsonkhapa, and Patrül. But instead, the idea of las sha suggests that slaughtering an animal is somehow going against the animal’s karma. Unfortunately, none of the (many) authors who invoke the idea of karmic meat actually theorize why this might be.

Thus, it seems to me that the idea of las sha is philosophically problematic at best, and at worst in direct contradiction with core Buddhist theories about karma. But whether it is at odds with these ideas or not, Tibetan authors consistently invoke the idea of las sha to make the moral point that there are two ways that an animal can die: it can die in accordance with its personal karma, or it can die as a result of intentional human intervention, usually in the form of slaughter. For these authors there is a distinction between meat that comes from animals that died on their own and those animals that had been slaughtered, with the former being morally acceptable to eat, and the latter being problematic to one degree or another. And for them, despite its philosophical issues, the idea of las sha was a convenient way to explain that distinction. I find this concept intriguing, because in some important ways it seems to parallel concepts about nature found in western philosophy, and particularly in popular discourse about the environment.

5. Karmic Meat and Nature

There has been considerable debate over Buddhist attitudes towards nature over the last few decades. Many scholars focus on the idea of pratītyasamutpāda (interdependent origination), which suggests that everything in the world arises in dependence on other things. As Rita Gross puts it, “basic teachings emphasize that the phenomenal world is a complete and total matrix of interdependence; nothing stands outside that interdependent matrix and everything within it is interconnected. This central Buddhist concept has been taken up with enthusiasm by some environmentalists because it presents a more realistic assessment of humanity’s status in the natural order and of the impact of human actions upon the environment” (Gross 2006). We exist in an ongoing relationship with the rest of the world, the argument goes, so we should care for it.

Other scholars focus on ideas such as ahiṁsā (non-harm) and karuņā (compassion). Here, the argument goes that Buddhists have a well-established moral duty to care for other beings, and should, therefore, care for the world around us. In “Ahiṁsā, Karunā and Maitri: Implications for Environmental Buddhism”, Barbara Clayton lays out her agenda thus: “I wish to show how the doctrine of ahiṁsa, and the attendant attitudes of benevolence and compassion, may provide a solution to one aspect of the environmental ethicist’s dilemma” (Clayton 1996, p. 77). Over the rest of her paper, Clayton argues that normative Buddhist commitments to these values mean that there is a concomitant commitment to preserving the environment, as doing so supports the welfare of the beings living in it. Similar arguments have been made by Lambert Schmithausen and Christopher Chapple (Schmithausen 1991; Chapple 1993).

While these discussions do an excellent job of exploring actual and potential Buddhist approaches to the natural world, they rarely touch on concepts of nature itself.9 Pratītyasamutpāda, ahiṁsa, and karuņā may guide interactions with the more-than-human world, but they do not offer a way to theorize the distinction between the natural and human spheres. In fact, several scholars have suggested that Buddhism lacks a concept of nature. In “Is there a Buddhist Philosophy of Nature?”, Malcolm David Eckel answers the question his title poses negatively: “If the intention of the question is to identify a simple, unified vision of the sanctity of the natural world, the answer must be no. If anything, there is the opposite” (Eckel 1998, p. 340). By denying the idea of a Buddhist philosophy of nature, Eckel is not saying that Buddhism cannot support an environmental ethic. Instead, he is simply saying that nature, as a category of analysis meaning a place separate from human intervention, is not found in classical Buddhist thought. Chatsumarn Kabilsingh puts the logic behind this absence in simple terms: “Buddhism views humanity as an integral part of nature” (Kabilsingh 2004, p. 130). In a system that sees humanity as an integral part of the natural order, establishing a separation between the human sphere and nature is difficult to countenance.10

Further, there is not, to the best of my knowledge, a term in any Buddhist canonical language that equates to the word nature when the latter is understood to mean a space or environment lacking human intervention. In thinking about concepts of nature in a Theravāda Buddhist context, Lily de Silva remarks that “The word nature means everything in the world which is not organized and constructed by man. The Pali equivalents which come closest to “nature” are loka and yathabhuta. The former is usually translated as “world”, while the latter literally means “things as they really are”” (de Silva 2000, p. 91). But while de Silva suggests that these terms are the closest Pali terms to the idea of nature, they do not actually carry the connotation of nature as a space separate from human intervention.

The Tibetan word most commonly used to refer to nature in a modern context is rang byung khams, meaning a space that arises on its own (Yeh 2009, p. 129).11 The final syllable in this phrase, khams, means a space or area, and is a common term for a designated geographic area or region. The first two syllabus, rang byung, are more philosophically and historically complex. Often translated as self-arisen, rang byung is an established philosophical term that translates the Sanskrit svayambhū. In this classical usage, rang byung carries with it a host of important philosophical and religious implications that complicate the use of the term rang byung khams as a translation of the word (and concept of) nature (Gyatso 1999; Germano 1994; Duckworth 2008). Further, like the Pali loka and yathabhuta, the use of the phrase rang byung khams to translate nature is a fairly new development, arising only in the twentieth century and is not, as far as I am aware, attested in any pre-modern literature.

Buddhism’s lack of a classically attested concept that parallels the idea of nature has sometimes resulted in difficulties and misunderstandings when Western environmentalists engage with Buddhist communities and thinkers. Malcolm David Eckel describes an event at Middlebury College in 1990 in which the Fourteenth Dalai Lama spoke on the topic of “Spirit and Nature”. Eckel notes that “It must have been a surprise when he began by saying that he had nothing to offer to those who came expecting to hear about ecology or the environment, and even more surprising when he interpreted the word “nature” as a reference to the fundamental nature of all reality and entered into a discourse on the Buddhist concept of emptiness” (Eckel 1998, p. 329). For the audience, the concept of nature entailed pristine environments free from human interference, and the came expecting to hear the Dalai Lama speak about Buddhist perspectives on such spaces. For the Dalai Lama, Eckel argues, “the concept of “nature” elicits an image of emptiness and suggests a practice of purification in which the illusions of “nature” are left behind” (Eckel 1998, p. 338). As this instance illustrates, the lack of a Buddhist concept of nature can lead to practical difficulties discussing and acting on environmental issues.

But while Buddhism largely lacks a concept similar to the Western idea of nature, the idea of las sha, karmic meat, is well attested in Tibetan Buddhist texts. The specific idea of karmic meat was in use at least as far back as the twelfth century, and similar concepts can be seen in Indian texts such as the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra (Barstow 2019b, p. 43). The term karmic meat obviously refers specifically to meat, not to nature. But the concept behind it, that there is a significant moral difference between situations in which karma has been allowed to run its course and situations in which humans have interfered, does have striking parallels with the idea of nature. Given that concepts that are parallel to nature are otherwise scarce in Buddhist literature, I suggest that the concept behind karmic meat is a potentially valuable way to think about questions of nature in a Buddhist context.

6. Concluding Reflections

My intent with this paper is to suggest that the concepts behind the Tibetan idea of las sha, karmic meat, are remarkably parallel to conceptions of nature, when the latter term is understood as John Stuart Mill did: “things as they would be, apart from human intervention” (Mill 1874, p. 64). In making that claim, I see three specific parallels. First, like nature, karmic meat carries a sense of non-interference. The less humans have interfered with an area, the more natural it is said to be. The same is true of karmic meat: the less humans have been involved in its production, the more it is las sha. Also like nature, karmic meat has a positive moral value precisely because humans are not involved (or, are at least minimally involved) in producing it.

Second, the concepts of nature and karmic meat are also both philosophically problematic. I have already discussed how the idea of karmic meat seems to contradict more normative interpretations of karma. It is not clear why, from a normative understanding of karma, human intervention should be understood as somehow outside of the process. In normative karma theory, it is pretty easy to just say that it was a sheep’s karma to be slaughtered to feed a nomad family. Nature is similarly problematic when used to denote an environment outside of human intervention. Not only does the scale of human intervention with the world mean that a purely natural space is largely impossible, but the very idea suggests that humans are somehow outside of the natural process.

Finally, despite being philosophically problematic, both karmic meat and nature have proven to be practically useful for those who invoke them. On a practical level, eating only las sha allowed Tibetans who did not want to harm animals to consume meat without actually killing them or being responsible for killing them. Rhetorically, invoking the concept of las sha also served to highlight the moral wrongs associated with slaughtered meat, again functioning on a practical level in these anti-meat authors’ agendas. Similarly, figures in the Western environmental movement regularly use the positive values associated with nature to try and convince people to preserve undeveloped areas. Thus, while both las sha and nature have clear flaws when approached philosophically, they also have a practical utility for those that invoke them.

The broader hope of this work is to contribute usefully to ongoing discourse between Buddhist and Western philosophers on topics related to the environment. We are experiencing an unprecedented environmental upheaval as a result of human-caused climate change. Perhaps the ideas behind las sha can be expanded beyond meat to explicitly encompass a distinction between situations where the karmic process is allowed to play out and situations where it is cut off by human intervention, and perhaps developing the idea in this direction might be useful in the debates around the environment, particularly in Tibetan or Buddhist areas. At the very least, it seems to me that critical discussion of las sha and the concepts behind it could be a fruitful way to reflect on what we mean when we think and talk about concepts like nature in a Buddhist context.