This photo brings together a few things about me.  My love of food, my interest in Buddhism, and my interest in activism, in this case on behalf of animals.

The first time I attended the Buddha Birthday festival was in the late 90s, perhaps one of the first ones.  When I realised that the food was all vegetarian, my partner at the time and I went on something of an eating rampage.  We were full and hadn't tried all the things we wanted, so we went for a walk along the river for an hour or two and came back and ate more.  I've done something similar many times over the years, as well as attending dharma talks, tea ceremonies and the rather boring opening and closing ceremonies.

I find for some reason that I don't get too much out of the dharma talks any more.  Whether it is me or Buddhism that has found this limit, I feel I have gotten to the point where I understand enough about Buddhism.  To me in a world where billions of animals suffer in factory farms, where the natural world is disappearing, where oppression and other evils exist, the only path worth treading is one which is directly aimed at alleviating suffering.  Buddhism has this philosophy at its core, which is why it is so appealing, but when you look at the actual practise of buddhists, there is much navel gazing, religious mysticism, and pursuing of the same consumptive lifestyle as non buddhists.

Of course here I am talking to monks.  Monks are used to respect, they are used to people listening to them as some source of, seemingly divine, wisdom.  I don't feel that way, I feel they are people who are flawed, and perhaps more prone to following instruction than they should be.  If they really had a foot on the path of enlightenment, they would be activists, not monks.

The stall was for the now defunct Vegetarian and Vegan Society of Queensland.  I watched it slowly fall, but did nothing to stop that happening, as perhaps I could have.  My friend was manning the stall and I was just wandering around, planning to attend some dharma talks.  When she told me she was manning the stall for the entire day, I told her she had to have a break and I would take over.  I ended up being here for hours, having many interesting conversations. 

One sadness though, epitomised by these monks, is that Asian members of the community never really seemed to get what I was saying.  I'm not sure if this was a language or cultural issue, but they seemed to be sure being a Buddhist was important to them, but being vegetarian, vegan or an activist was less so.  I guess this shows the importance of getting diverse people into our movements, especially in a multicultural society.  People that can communicate with their own community on a level I never could.