A Prayer for Compassion

How can we expect ourselves to have

lives of joy and freedom and spiritual clarity

when we are sowing the seeds

of the opposite of that?

It's almost like some mad scientist

like Satan himself designed these systems

that are being used now to raise animals.

It is absolute insanity.

- I don't get how you can love everything Jesus says

and then participate in

a mechanized system of mass slaughter

that involves pain beyond your wildest imagination.

Even keeping quiet and silent

about the violence, you are part of that violence.

- There's another passage in the Quran that says that

because of the wrongs of humanity,

there has been much corruption

seen in the oceans and on land.

So for a few moments in which we're

enjoying what is really just a palette preference

we're taking what is most essential to animals,

their very lives and that's the opposite

of compassion, it seems to me.

- We are ashamed of our ancestors who owned slaves.

We are ashamed of our ancestors

who believed in segregation

so too, our grandchildren will be ashamed

of what we allowed to happen on our watch.

Each of us has to ask ourselves a spiritual question,

what side do I want to tell my grandchildren I was on?

Was I on the side of mercy and compassion,

or was I on the blind side that helped

to perpetuate suffering?

This one is for you.

This is my daughter Melody.

She's the reason I'm making this documentary.

It's for her and it's for all the children

who will inherit whatever world we choose to leave them.

We've got a potato.

Thank you for this food

and let it nourish our bodies and our spirits.

Let it keep us healthy and happy

and full of life and love and compassion

for all of creation.

And be vegan.

- Be vegan and be a champion for the people

and be a champion for the planet

and be a champion for the animals

and be a champion for ourselves.

And for all of these things we say

thank you and so it is.

- And be champion for the animals, so it is.

I haven't always been a vegan.

I was born in a small town in South Georgia

during the late 60s

and I was raised a southern Baptist

and I grew up eating the a southern version

of the standard American diet.

Comprised mainly of meat, dairy, and eggs,

mixed in with huge helpings of fast

and processed foods.

And like so many other kids eating the SAD diet,

I suffered the sad consequences

which ranged from mild asthma to

severe allergies to tons of ear infections,

sties, viruses and zits and too many more ailments

that were considered normal to list.

Okay...um...I'm making this video

for, you know, my family back home and uh...

Um...I'm making this...okay,

I'm making this video...I'm looking at the mic...okay.

It wasn't until my mid 30s living in New York City

and attending a Unity Church that I became a vegan.

It was studying the teachings of Jesus

about kindness and compassion

and starting a daily meditation practice

that really led me to a non violent diet

even though no one at Unity or anywhere else

had ever even suggested I be vegetarian

and I had never even heard the word 'vegan'

much less knew any. Though it wasn't long

before I started noticing that during Sunday brunch,

the same ministers and chaplains who were teaching me about

kindness and compassion for all were for some reason

not including the innocent animals on their plates.

But who was I to judge the choices of another?

So I decided to live and let live

and try to be a good example.

And that worked for almost a decade

until after my daughter was born and suddenly

I found myself with skin in the game

and a reason to care about what happens in the future.

Really, is that so?

And then I saw the documentary Cowspiracy

where I learned that not only does animal agriculture create

over half the greenhouse gases on the planet

but it's also the number one user and polluter of water

and the major cause of deforestation.

Not to mention that the grains we use

to feed billions of animals that we breed

just for slaughter could much more effectively

be fed to humans and could help

save the nearly nine million people

who die from hunger each year.

I felt I had to do something

but I didn't know what, so I did what I often

do when I don't know what to do.

I prayed and I meditated about it

and during that meditation this question

popped into my mind.

How is it possible that a compassionate,

spiritual or religious person

could support an industry that is responsible

for the unnecessary suffering of billions of people

trillions of land and sea animals

and the devastation of the very planet we live on?

That question would end up taking me on a journey

throughout the United States and around the globe

to explore the teachings of kindness

and compassion that form the basis of all the world's

main religions and the not so main ones as well

and try to understand how so many people of faith

are doing unto others that which

they would never wish done unto themselves.

The journey started when I traveled back to New York City

to speak to Victoria Moran who I'd met

once years earlier when she spoke

at the Unity church I attended

while living in that beautiful city

that never sleeps.

I personally don't understand

why some of the people that I admire the most,

people whose words and whose writings

I completely revere, are eating our fellow creatures.

- Victoria Moran is a much sought after speaker,

best selling author,

and host of the Main Street Vegan Podcast.

She's been an animal rights activist and vegan

for over 30 years.

- A great deal of spirituality is about belief.

That's why we call it faith.

I'm a person of faith. I'm a Christian,

a yogic Christian and yet I understand

that there are people who have other

spiritual beliefs and other spiritual views.

So what can bring all spiritual people

together as a whole believing community?

To me that is compassion.

Because compassion is at the center

of the message of Jesus,

it's compassion that got the Jews

out of bondage and to the promised land.

We have all the eastern religions that are

Ahimsa based, non violence based.

So can we all agree that however

we see God, however we see the road

to salvation, being compassionate to one another

and expanding that compassion out to all that has life

is the true essence of spirituality?

What else could it possibly be?

I think all of the world's religions,

if you distill them, the wisdom down to one sentence

it'd be something like this:

whatever you most want for yourself,

give that to others. That's a basic understanding

to give to others what you would like.

Another way of saying it is whatever you sow, you will reap.

It's also the same thing,

whatever we put out, it'll come back.

- Victoria put me in contact with Dr. Will Tuttle

who's a musician, an international speaker

and the best selling author

of the World Peace Diet.

I sat down with Dr. Tuttle in Ocala

where he and his spouse Madeline

were currently living in the solar powered

RV that they use while traveling around the country,

speaking about animal rights and performing music.

From the time we were born,

we were forced to participate in mealtime rituals

by our parents and teachers and

everyone in our community

that essentially numb us and disconnect us

so that when we get older,

we take out our wallets and we vote for it

and we don't just vote for it, we then eat it.

So we actually bring it into our body,

we give it to our children.

This is not only toxic from the point of view

of the level of physical heath but

it's toxic from the point of view of our spiritual health,

from the point of view of our cultural health,

from the point of view of our ethical health.

We don't actually hold the knife ourselves,

we don't actually hold the electroshock prod

ourselves, we don't actually hold the

raping sperm gun ourselves and fire it,

but we pay someone else to do that

and so we pay other people to do things

that bring out the worst in them