Turkeys at a farm. Photo courtesy of Pixabay.

Every year in the United States, tens of millions of turkeys are killed for the holiday of Thanksgiving, which is this Thursday, November 24, 2022. Lama Zopa Rinpoche offered advice in a 2018 teaching to help benefit the turkeys killed, and how we can think during the holiday.

In “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving”, Rinpoche explains,

“If you are Buddhist, or just someone who does not want to suffer now or in endless future lives as well, having to experience unbelievably suffering, you need to purify your past negative karma and stop creating any more so that you will not be reborn as a turkey over and over again. … If you do have to eat turkey because of some family obligation, then at least do some mantras and prayers to benefit the turkeys, such as the four immeasurables with tonglen. Otherwise, if you just enjoy eating turkey together with the rest of the Americans who are not Buddhist, who do not know Dharma, who have not generated compassion for the turkeys, you create much negative karma.”

In this teaching Rinpoche provides detailed instructions on practices to purify negative karma, such as Vajrasattva, taking the eight Mahayana precepts, reciting sutras, engaging in nyung ne fasting retreats, generating love and compassion through the practice of tonglen and the Four Immeasureables, practicing Chenrezig, Medicine Buddha puja and specific mantras. Rinpoche also offers a special dedication to purify any negative karma that could cause future rebirth as a turkey.

Rinpoche explains that these practices can be applied beyond the Thanksgiving holiday, “These are simple methods, but they have unbelievably profound benefits, like the sky. You can also do more or different practices as well. These are just suggestions. You can also do these practices at Christmas or on other occasions where turkeys and so many other animals are sacrificed and eaten.”

For links to practice materials these detailed instructions, we invite you to read “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving”. Included on the page is an additional short teaching from Rinpoche which we include below.

Further Commentary and Advice for Thanksgiving

Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Boudanath, March 2022. Photo by Ven. Roger Kunsang.

I don’t think the general population of America accepts clairvoyance, but if it did, people would understand where all the sufferings, such as depression, come from. The way people normally think—for example, what causes depression—is very limited. They only think about things that are to do with this life. If they had clairvoyance they could see much deeper; they could see things such as past and future lives. People normally think of only this life, not past and future lives.

In the past, many of the turkeys that Americans are eating were Americans who in the past had killed turkeys. Often it could even be a past family member that they are now eating.

There’s a sutra story about Buddha’s disciple Shariputra, who excelled in wisdom. Once when he was on his alms round he looked into a family’s house and saw that the father, who used to catch fish in his backyard pond, had died and been reborn as a fish in that pond. The mother, his wife, who had been very attached to the home, had also died and been reborn as the family dog. And the son’s enemy, who had been very attached to the son’s wife, had died and been reborn as their child. The son was holding the child, his former enemy, eating the fish, his late father, and beating the dog, his late mother, while it chewed on fish bones. Shariputra then observed, “The son is eating his father’s flesh, beating his mother with a stick, and cuddling his enemy on his lap—samsaric existence makes me laugh.”

If we have animals we have to remember this story and take care of them well. It is very important to understand the benefits of taking care of our pets and other animals by giving them food and drink. Think that you are making charity and don’t just do it out of attachment, thinking that you love the shape of the animals or something, doing everything simply for your own happiness. It’s the same with looking after your children. You create a child with attachment, for your own happiness, thinking how your life would be unbelievably happy if you had a child. Then you take care of the child, but it is for your own happiness.

It is also important to recognize and remember your animals’ most unbelievable kindness, how they have been kind to you in three ways, and then with that awareness give them food and drink. First recite OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ and then blow over the food and drink to bless it. If you have mani pills, it’s good to crush them and put them into the food and drink, or even add blessed water. You don’t have to get blessed water from a lama; you can make it yourself. Whether or not you have daily commitments, recite OṂ MAṆI PADME HŪṂ and other mantras, such as OṂ PADMO UṢHṆĪṢHA VIMALE HŪṂ PHAṬ, the Mitrugpa mantra and so forth, and then blow on the water. You can recite however many repetitions of each mantra you want, like seven, ten, fifteen, or more, blow on the animal’s food or water and make prayers as well. Similarly, you can keep a bottle of water nearby and when you’ve done your commitments you can blow on the water and then use that to put on the food and water that you give to the animals.

Then make this dedication prayer:

Due to all the past, present, and future merits collected by me and all the merits of the three times collected by numberless buddhas and numberless sentient beings, may all these animals (you can also include your family members, especially your father and mother) never ever get reborn back into the lower realms but be reborn in a pure land where they can achieve enlightenment, or, if not, at least receive a perfect human body, meet the Mahayana teachings, and a perfectly qualified guru revealing the unmistaken path to enlightenment, and by pleasing the holy mind of the virtuous friend may they attain enlightenment as quickly as possible.

Finally, please remember the unbelievable benefits of making charity of food to the animals. As the Buddha said, “Anybody who makes charity well during the period my teachings exist will receive great enjoyments for 80,000 eons, even if the material that person offers is merely the size of a hair. That person will be free from pain and disease, will enjoy great happiness, will be enriched with all manner of desirable things, and will eventually achieve the result: peerless cessation and complete enlightenment.”

This advice has been extracted from the page “Prayers and Practices to Do for Turkeys at Thanksgiving,” which shares a teaching and advice given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche in Switzerland in 2018. Scribed by Holly Ansett. Edited by Nicholas Ribush, November 2020.

For more mantras and resources for mantra recitation, visit FPMT Education Services’ page on mantras. You can find a full catalogue of all FPMT prayers, practices, and advice materials on FPMT.org.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche is the spiritual director of the Foundation for the Preservation of Mahayana Tradition (FPMT), a Tibetan Buddhist organization dedicated to the transmission of the Mahayana Buddhist tradition and values worldwide through teaching, meditation and community service.