The Compassionate Treatment of Animals
The compassionate treatment of animals has been the focal point of speeches and writings by one of the most influential Buddhist cleric-scholars on the Tibetan plateau today, Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö of Larung Buddhist Academy. This essay surveys the Khenpo's broad-based advocacy for animal welfar...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Wiley-Blackwell
[2017]
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| In: |
Journal of religious ethics
Year: 2017, Volume: 45, Issue: 1, Pages: 29-57 |
| Further subjects: | B
Tibetan Buddhism
B Tsultrim Lodrö B reverse orientalism B Compassion B Larung Buddhist Academy B Animal welfare |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (Verlag) Volltext (doi) |
| Summary: | The compassionate treatment of animals has been the focal point of speeches and writings by one of the most influential Buddhist cleric-scholars on the Tibetan plateau today, Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö of Larung Buddhist Academy. This essay surveys the Khenpo's broad-based advocacy for animal welfare and details his discrete appeals to nomads in eastern Tibet to forgo selling livestock for slaughter, to eat a vegetarian diet on religious holidays, to relinquish wearing animal fur, to protect wildlife habitat, and to liberate the lives of animals. I focus on the modernist this worldly dimension of his advocacy, calling attention to how Tsultrim Lodrö goes beyond traditional scare tactics that emphasize the karmic effects of negative deeds in future lives and instead invokes compassion by attending to the lived experience and suffering of animals. In doing so, the Khenpo positions Buddhism as a civilizing force in order to reform certain Tibetan customs and mitigate the influence of Chinese modernity and state marketization policies. I argue that his strategy of reverse orientalism appropriates state civilizational discourse and reverses its terms. |
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| ISSN: | 1467-9795 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of religious ethics
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1111/jore.12167 |