Vegetarian Days

by Andrew Lam
It seemed easy enough, not eating meat for a month but then over lunch on the third day I nearly strangled my best friend. He kept taunting me by feigning adulation for his delicious bowl of pho—Vietnamese beef noodle soup with tender half cooked slices of raw sirloin.
“Yum,” he moaned, “Yum, yum, yum” and slurped the broth loudly.
I was not a fan of chicken so it never figured in the equation. But when it comes to my favorite dish, what I grew up with, it was very tempting to break my vow. “Com’n,” he said , sounding like that snake on the apple tree. “Just one bite.” I shook my head, leaned back, away from the delicious aroma. On my plate three vegetable spring rolls lie listlessly. I stared at them and contemplated on the law of desires, what cause us all to suffer.

My reason was simple: I wanted to honor my maternal grandmother’s memories by not eating meat for a month. She was a devout Buddhist who spent a large part of her life as a vegetarian. This is what she’d taught me when I was still a pious child living in Vietnam: That all creatures know joy and pain and therefore suffer, and to alleviate suffering, we shouldn’t eat them, or at least, try not to eat them too often.

Easier said then done. Many creatures simply taste delicious, especially the vulernable ones: Soft shell crabs, veals, caviar. By the fifth day, I felt very isolated. To avoid temptation and insulting the hosts, I had turned down several dinner parties. People called and asked if I was going through a midlife crisis? A gossip in my circle of friends has it that I have shaved my head, giving up all worldly goods and ambitions, and was about to join a Buddhist monastery in Thailand. What I notice too, is that by following a non meat diet, those around feel uncomfortable – it’s as if I’m betraying them, or worse, judging them for loving meat. It’s far from the truth but that’s the prevailing, if unspoken feeling. Yet along with the increasing isolation and the misunderstanding and frustration, something else too happened: At the supermarket a few days before the terms of my vegetarian commitments ended, it occurred to me that I had walked pass the meat section without lingering like I usually do. In fact, the sight of blood red meat made me a bit queasy inside. Something in my life simplified itself along with not eating meat: I feel different shade of myself emerging: Someone quieter. I feel physically and spiritually lighter. A little more at peace, I would say. And to have weathered those few weeks meant also that I have in some modest ways managed to honor memories of my grandmother.

Even now, when I am back at being an omnivore, I still eat meat a lot less than before. And once in a while, I would prepare a vegetarian meal for myself. I would eat a simple vegetable soup, of bittermelon, say, with some steamed Vietnamese watercrest with bean curds and rice. Fry tofu is great too.

I am learning the obvious all over again: There’s beauty in simplicity, and while eating slowly and in contemplation, I find myself in communion with my long gone grandmother. I’m still a meat eater, but not as much as before. I occasionally partake in a vegetarian meal. I feel healthier. And I know grandma, in nirvana, would approve.

copyrights @ Andrew Lam