Dr Will The man 41 Years Vegan This Is Story About Perspectives and Advice

This is Dr. Will Tuttle and I'm a vegan now for about 40 years since 1980. I was raised in a typical family in New England back in the 1950s, eating the usual meals of lots of meat, dairy products and eggs. I never questioned it. I remember when I was about, I guess seven years old, I asked my mother, so mom, the kind of food we're eating, is this what everybody eats? And my mother said, Oh, yeah, let's everybody eats up same food we were eating. And she left when she came back a little bit later on. She said, Well, that's not true. There are vegetarians. 

And I'd never heard that word in my life. And I was so curious. I said, What's the vegetarian? And she said, Hmm, you know, don't worry about it, you're never going to meet one. And my mother was totally right, because I never met one. And she said, I don't know where they get their protein. 

So I thought these poor vegetarians were probably dragging themselves through the dirt and were miserable people that were lacking protein. So I was so glad he wasn't a vegetarian. But then when they went, went away to college, I started to learn there were some vegetarians around. 

And then right after college in 1975, I left home with my brother, we thought we would walk across the country, to California, this was in New England. And we would meditate so we, we hit it off, and we got as far as buffalo. Then we headed south and we walked all the way to Alabama, with no money and so forth. 

It was really a wonderful adventure, and many months of walking and meditating. And we got to Tennessee. And we stopped for a couple of weeks in a community called the farm. And the farm in 1975 was the largest hippie commune in the world. And we live there. And it was so interesting, because there was about 900 people living there, and they were all vegetarians. 

And they were thriving, and they were actually vegans, no one heard of the word vegan in 1975, because nobody knew it. But they were eating no meat, no dairy, no eggs. They didn't use any wool or silk. They were just living what we would call a vegan life, because they were committed to creating a world of peace. And they thought that they knew and this was well understood that eating animal based foods is very harmful to starving people, it takes so much grain to feed these animals while people are going hungry. 

So they told me we were eating lower on the food chain, so there's enough food for everyone to eat. And they told me about the suffering of animals. And so that was it. That was what got me to go vegetarian at that point. 

And then five years later, I was living in meditation centers. And I did more study on my own, I learned about the terrible abuse of cows and hens for dairy products and eggs. So I became a vegan back in 1980. And a few years later, I shaved my head became a Buddhist monk in Korea. And I found myself for the second time in my life in a community that was vegan. And this one they had been practicing vegan for about 750 years. 

They in this monastery in South Korea, based on the ancient teaching of Ahimsa, that if you really are serious about spiritual awakening, and about creating a world of peace and harmony, you cannot be harming other living beings. And so that brought the whole veganism to a very deep level like it was in every cell of my being it seemed like doing so much meditation on that idea from 230 in the morning till nine o'clock at night every day. 

contemplating that for months on end. So I think is very important has been for me very important to see that veganism is not a new idea is an ancient wisdom tradition that goes back many centuries, probably millennia. I'm the author of a book called The World Peace diet, which focuses on the big picture of animal agriculture and how our routine mistreatment of animals for food and other products is devastating. All five levels of our health, not only our physical health, but also our environmental health, our cultural health, as well as our psychological and spiritual health. 

One of the things that I love to teach about is the inner life. I was a Zen Buddhist monk back in the 1980s in South Korea. And a lot of the research that I did for the world peace diet was external research in books and so forth. And a lot of it was internal, just contemplating the deeper connections that we have, not only with animals in nature, but with our society. And with the essence of the being that we are. 

The Zen tradition is actually part of Buddhism and focuses on the quality of our consciousness. And the idea underlying all of it is the ancient Sanskrit word Ahimsa, which means non violence. So the basic idea is that as long as I'm insisting on harming others for my own benefit, that I will not only cause suffering For others, but I'll definitely cause suffering for myself. 

And that suffering is not only physical suffering, but psychological suffering and spiritual suffering. Because it's a disconnectedness from the true purpose of life. The other aspect that weaves in and out along with vegan living and meditation and introspection and self inquiry is music. From the time I was a little kid, I've been playing the piano, my father played the piano and taught me and so I've been traveling actually, for about 40 years around the United States and worldwide, even concerts of original piano music, I compose my own music. 

And so I think that all these things fit together, creativity, intuition, meditation, compassion, they're all part of living a life on this earth, for the brief time that we're here, of exploration of the adventure on the possibility and potential that we have as human beings. And so one of the things I love to do besides writing essays and giving lectures, it's, I feel so blessed, I've been able to travel the world and give over 4000 lectures in all 50 states in the United States in over 50 countries worldwide, the world peace diet has been translated now into I think it's about 17, or 18 languages. 

And so we've been invited to speak all over Asia, and Europe and Africa, the Middle East, North and South America, and Australia, New Zealand, and so forth. And everywhere we go, we see that people are awakening to this. And so to be able to speak about this, to write about this, but also to create music, because I think there's something about music that is a way of expressing ourselves. It's a language that speaks directly to something beyond just the intellect. 

And music, I think because it is a nonverbal language can touch us can touch people in our hearts, and help awaken an ancient knowing that has been suppressed by our upbringing. So one of the things that I love to do when I'm traveling with Natalie, and my wonderful spouse, she's an artist, and we have many of her paintings on display, and she paints paintings that show the beauty of nature and the beauty of animals. And I love to play music that also shows the beauty of nature and animals and on the spiritual dimension of consciousness, which is eternal.

Yeah, the main changes I noticed, were that physically, I became even much healthier. I went vegan quite young, I was still in my 20s. I have to say, now that I'm in my late 60s, it's been a good 45 years, I've never been to a pharmacy. I've never been to a drugstore to get anything. I have nothing at all. I mean, no headache, pill or stomach pill, no Viagra, no anything. 

I mean, no right guard. It's been liberation from the medical system. I haven't had ever had health insurance. I haven't needed to go for any kind of procedures or anything like checkups, whatever, I just stay out of the medical establishment, the thing is to take responsibility for my own health. 

It's been fantastic. And then besides the physical health, there's the psychological health and the spiritual health, I think this is the most important thing. When I stopped eating animal foods, it was like this weight went off my shoulders, I could feel that now I was in alignment with my true purpose. This is this is the reason I'm here on this earth is to awaken out of the delusion of being a fundamentally separate self. 

And so I think what veganism is it's the prerequisite, essentially, of an authentic spiritual path, because there's no way we can be authentically striving for the highest, loving kindness and caring and awakening. And at the same time thinking, Well, I'm not going to think about when I'm putting this animal through, I'm not gonna think about the people that are starving because I'm eating these foods. This is violence. 

It's causing violence and eating violence, and it's unnecessary. on every level. It's been I always say the smartest thing I ever did in my life. Besides marrying my wonderful spouse, Madeline, was going vegan, it's it's a tremendous boost to every level of health. eating animal based foods is not in our best interests. It definitely reduces our capacity to make connections. My PhD at Berkeley was in education. And one of the fundamental things that we understand actually in education is that intelligence is the capacity to make relevant connections. 

It's the capacity to see how things are interconnected, and to respond appropriately to feedback. So with animal agriculture, we have a ritual basically where we're eating the flesh and secretions of abused animals. And of course, we don't want to make the connection with that. We don't want to think about These animals came from what they endured that we have on our plate, the flesh, or dairy products or eggs. 

And these animals, every meal is a ritual of disconnecting every meal is teaching us don't make the connection. And that on both an individual level as well as the social level, is reducing our intelligence, not only our cognitive intelligence, but also our affective or emotional intelligence, we learn to numb ourselves to the suffering of others, we learn to see cows, pigs, chickens, and other animals, turkeys, ducks, geese, fishes, and so forth as mere commodities, we buy and sell them by the pound. 

So again, we're reducing our intelligence. And we're also engaging every day basically, in a ritualized behavior with other members of our society. And something that reduces our sense of being part of a benevolent universe, where we're part of nature. So we learn to see nature as something dangerous, something that we have to dominate and control because all of our food, and food is our most intimate connection with nature and with our society. 

All of our food is coming from the domination and exploitation of other living beings. And so when we do this now, as I talk about in the world peace die for 10,000 years, we basically find that we're wounded as little infants born into the society basically compelled to comply and engage in these rituals that reduce our intelligence, just the way it did for our parents, and grandparents, and so forth. So that even though we have tremendous intelligence naturally, and compassion, and all kinds of wonderful capacities, those are reduced. And we find that we have a situation where we as human beings are devastating our planet, we're cutting down rain forests at two or three acres per second were overfishing and destroying ocean habitat. We find massive amounts of disease and conflict in our world, it's completely unnecessary.

Eating animal foods is totally unnecessary, dominating and exploiting animals is completely unnecessary. Once we understand this, we can we can begin to heal our intelligence, not only our, our physical and intellectual, and emotional intelligence, but our spiritual intelligence, because the underlying idea again with animal agriculture is that there is nothing but matter. cows and pigs and chickens are seen as mere matter. 

We see ourselves actually as mere matter we try to sell ourselves in a sense on the market, we think of ourselves as just a physical body that was born and will die. And yet, when we love someone, we know we're not just loving a physical body, right? We're loving a being there's a being in there, and there's so our whole life is oriented around non physical truths. This is where ethics comes in. 

So we are called today more than ever, to develop a vegan vision and to be a vegan voice for not just animals, but for ourselves, our loved ones for all humanity for future generations, for slaughterhouse workers, for the environment, for wildlife, because everything is being devastated by the mentality of animal agriculture, of domination and exploitation of other beings, reductionism, of reducing them to mere commodities that we buy and sell by the pound, on the ignorance and loss of capacities that that basically in genders in us. 

And to awaken out of this delusion and to heal the wound. That has been inflicted on us by being raised in a society based on animal agriculture, where we're terrified of nature of microbes, and so forth. And to realize that what we are, is beautiful, it's a beautiful expression of the infinite life and consciousness that is the source of all life on this universe. And that essentially, we're in harmony with nature. And this foundation has been taken away from us by animal agriculture. 

The problem is that we human beings like to think of ourselves as rational. And I've said many times before, we are not rational, if we were rational, the whole world would already be vegan, we wouldn't have to go around giving 1000s of lectures to try to help people make these connections. So the problem is that we are essentially tribal. And we've been born into a tribal reality, and we just want to be approved by the people around us. We want to conform to the standards that everyone else has. And if those standards are destructive and devastating to nature, and to animals and to ourselves, we very often don't question that. 

So what veganism is about essentially is questioning the official narratives in our society and awakening to a higher wisdom that shines in our heart all the time. The thing we have to remember about spirituality is that has really very little to do with religion. Religions can be very toxic Sick and dominating and encourage us to be separate from and superior to other living beings. But spirituality is about the infinite interconnectedness of all life and seeing beyond the shallow mask of the outer world to the essential reality, that within every body within every physical body, whether it's a human being, or a cow, or a pig, or a dog, or a bird, there's a being in there, and we can relate to that being as a being. And out of that naturally comes a sense of inclusion, we include them in the neighborhood of life, we naturally want the best for them, and we feel a kinship with them. 

And so we have to understand that our society has strayed far away from this. And there are many things happening in the world, to create divisions among us to create fear, to make us afraid of each other to make us afraid of animals, because it's easy to control and dominate people who are afraid. And what veganism is about is the triumph of love over fear, the triumph of kindness over the sense of not caring about others. 

This feeling we have of caring, not only for ourselves, and our own health and the magnificence of our own mission on this earth for the short time that we're here. But to respect the magnificence and beauty of other expressions of life. This is the calling that we are all blessed to have, I think in this lifetime, and especially in right now. Because we're in a critical time, where we can see very clearly that the old ways of doing things are absolutely dysfunctional. And a new world is yearning to be born in as a world based on radical inclusion, including all living beings in the sphere of our compassion and concern. 

And that can only happen when we go deep into our own consciousness and realize that the source of what I am, is not a thing. It's the infinite love that is the source of all life. And when we see that, and others, we naturally love them, we love them what they truly are, and we want the best for them. And we live our life as best we can, as an expression of this. 

And this is the opposite in many ways of the fear, and divided pneus that is being propagated in our society now. And that is really being for many, for many centuries, promoted by animal agriculture, one of the most important principles in the whole movement towards social justice and awakening and helping to veganize the world is that the more people who go vegan, the more people go vegan, it's like a snowball effect. 

And this is really important understand, we're working on basically reaching a critical mass, because the only reason people eat animal foods is because everybody around them does that. The more people who are not doing that, we create another tribe of vegans, right? a vegan tribe. And as that grows, when I say to someone, gosh, you know, it's great to eat if to live a life without harming animals. 

They'll say, Yeah, I have a friend whose daughter is vegan, or they'll know someone, or, or they'll say, Well, you know, there's a vegan restaurant in our town. And so that gives them a point of reference to make it valid. So the whole idea is that it's just a matter of reaching a critical mass where enough people understand this, and we're actually living this. 

So that's why it's so important that each one of us not only do our best to embody veganism, but to share this idea with other people. And when we reach critical mass, then the whole world will change very quickly. I think this we've seen this in general, this is the way change happens in the world, is by reaching a critical mass.

Of course, the main challenges with veganism really are other people. We want our family to be vegan, right? And that's very often the hardest, our closest friends and family. I remember in my case, for example, my my mother, my sister, I really wanted them to go vegan and years went by and I kept bringing them videos showing them different scenes talking about it. 

It never worked. And they sometimes they get angry and say, Oh, you know, this is ridiculous. But I just kept planting seeds to planting seeds. And after about 15 years, my sister wrote and there fundamentalist Christian, she wrote to me and she said, the Lord came to me and told me to go vegan. And I think you know, the most important thing is to just be persistent. To meet any challenge as best we can with love and understanding. 

And it's been so wonderful. Now my sister has been a vegan for Gosh, probably 20 years, and so to see had the big picture and do the best we can, and ultimately, we'll be victorious. I'm sure of that, that the most important thing is to just meet everything we can. 

Whenever negativity comes toward us. Try to turn That around and be loving and positive. In response to that. Whenever I ask people who are vegan if they have any regrets about going vegan, they always say yes, my main regret is I didn't do it sooner. And I feel the same way. Although I'm glad I went vegan pretty early on. Honestly, all in all, I don't have any regrets at all.

 I mean, I think we all could have done better with certain situations in our lives. But we all do the best we can, wherever we are. And the most important thing is to focus on this moment, and know that we create our future by this moment right now, this is the point of power and how we live our lives right now is the way we create a positive future.

My approach to vegan activism is through education, I think that education is the best way to help people transition to veganism, and not so much by trying to change them. I think real education only happens as a spontaneous sharing that comes from within the being, it's myself. 

So the primary education is educating myself so that I'm living, embodying actually what veganism is. So the primary way that I've been sharing the vegan message is through writing books and articles, and then doing lots and lots of lectures, we lived, my wife and I in a rolling home, we call it an RV for 18 years traveling all over North America giving hundreds of events every year, all over the United States, and then then worldwide. So really showing up and being with people, and being an example of of happy, healthy vegan. 

And just to share the good news, you know, it's really I mean, that ancient word gospel, you know, it means literally good news, the good news, that we've all been given a body that does not require any animal to suffer to get all the nutrients that we need to be healthy. And just to share that idea, and that the only reason anyone eats animal based foods. There's only one reason anyone does it. It's because people are just following orders. 

They're just doing what they've been told to do. And so I found that the most effective activism is to model what Gandhi called satyagrah. Satyagraha means truth, power, share your own truth, when I share this truth. It's a universal truth. When I say, gosh, you know, I'm so happy that I discovered that the only reason I was eating animal foods all those years that I did was because I was just following orders. 

And then I realized, they were not in my best interest or in the interest of anyone, so I'm not doing it anymore. And it's fantastic. And then don't say anything more, you're just plant that seed, because it's a seed of truth. 

And that seed of truth will go in to another person, because it's their truth. The only reason anyone eats animal foods is because they're following orders. And their own wisdom and compassion will gradually begin to water that seed, and it will grow inside of them. And at some point, they'll go vegan, and they won't even remember who it was. 

That's the best you know, you don't have to make it about I don't have to make about myself just plant the seed wherever I go, how happy I am, that I discovered that the only reason I was eating animal foods was because I was just following orders. And it's just fantastic to be free of that prison. This is the thing I think when we when we really live this because what is veganism, it's love. That's what it is. It's love and caring, kindness, respect, sensitivity, abundance. 

So if I'm living in harmony with those ideals and with those principles, then every thought word and gesture will promote veganism and I can be writing I can be speaking I can be making movies, I can be putting on cooking classes, I can be talking to people, that part is less important. What's most important is the quality of the consciousness of the being. When that's when we work on that, then all the outer manifestations will be much more effective. 

I think ultimately, because as soon as someone comes at me trying to change me, I'm gonna fight back. I you know, and that's healthy to fight back. But when someone comes and actually is embodying something that is connecting with my inner truth, and naturally I'm going to be drawn to that. So this is I think the hidden secret in our movement is that each one of us as activists have an obligation and a responsibility to embody veganism as radical loving kindness and compassion and caring. 

And that takes work it means in all of our relationships with the people close to us to always live as a vegan with kindness and respect, not only for non human animals, but for human animals as well.

I think the best way for other people to get started is to combine the why and the how. So the Why is very important because that's the fuel so understanding the suffering of animals, the environmental devastation of animal agriculture, the terrible harm it does to us physically, that terrible things that does to the workers who have to stab animals all day, these poor workers have the highest rates of injury is suicide, drug addiction, I don't want to pay people to do that, the hunger and misery because of the unequal distribution of resources, to really make an effort to understand why it's important to stop eating animal based foods to stop taking out my wallet and paying for that and causing that kind of suffering in the world. 

Then the other aspect then to build is the how, which is how do I create meals that are nutritious and delicious, and actually thrive as a vegan in a non vegan world. So that means learning about food, right? So the best thing I think, is to take one meal every day, say breakfast, and make that a vegan meal. 

And kind of you know, if you usually have a little milk and make a little soy milk, or if you usually have whatever it is, you have some cereal or smoothies, you create something that you like, and get used to that, and then lunch, and then dinner, however you'd like to do it, but you can do it in stages. And then while you're doing making the changes to keep doing some research, to reaffirm the why, and then also learn the how of relating to other people, because one of the main problems people have in the beginning is that the people around them are resisting them. 

People say well, you're not a vegan, I can't eat with you anymore. And your your mother's telling you, you know, you don't love it, because you're not eating or cooking. And so, so a big part of the how besides how to make healthy food that's nutritious and delicious, also is how to relate to other people who are not not yet vegan. And that's probably the hardest part. So the main thing is to just understand that people have been brainwashed relate to eating this way, and they're gonna resist, so just to be loving with them understanding and say, you know, I, this is what I feel is right? And to be strong in your conviction, that it is the right thing. 

And then if you do have some problems, either with social relationships, or maybe the food like, is this really healthy? Am I getting enough protein? Am I getting enough vitamin B 12, all these things, it's really good to have a support group, either a friend like a coach, or a few friends or a local vegetarian, or via vegan group of some kind, or maybe an online group that you can learn from. We need we're social creatures. So we need support. 

So it's very important to take responsibility for the kind of support you're you're getting, and learn. It's a big learning curve. And I found actually, that there's three stages, right? There's the beginning stage, which is very hard, all these challenges I'm talking about. If we get through that, we get to the point, the second stage, which is also difficult, I call that the angry vegan stage, because now we understand how to make healthy food, we know how to how to answer all those questions like when people say, Well, you know, if everybody went vegan, that would be a disaster because cows would take over the earth, you know, you got a We can't let that happen. And we know how to answer these questions. 

So we're well established in our veganism, but now we're angry all the time, because people are just deliberately resisting this beautiful message of healing and peace and joy and abundance and freedom. And why are they resisting? Why don't they get it. So we get trapped very often in anger, resentment, and we can then go off and stop, stop the whole thing. I've seen it happen, people just say all the heck quit. 

So it's very important to move through that some people avoid that stage by what I call the closet vegan stage where they just don't want to talk about to anybody and just be a closet vegan. But that's really not very satisfying either. So the solution is to keep moving through that learn more, do more inner work and get to what I refer to as the third stage, which is the deep veganism stage. 

Deep veganism is fantastic, I'd have to say, deep veganism is when we really have done the work, where we understand the big picture on the consequences of animal agriculture, to our society, to our environment, to our physical health, other people to our psychological and spiritual dimension, where we've done the inner work to cultivate a sense of respect and kindness for other people. And where we understand that the best way for us to be a healing force in the world is to live our life as a nonviolent, loving kind way. 

And this is I think, really, there's many stages within deep veganism. But as we go on continuing ever onward, to understand this more, we find our life just gets better and better, essentially. So just the main thing is in the beginning stages to just combine the how and the and the why. So that you're solidly on the path question the official narratives in our society, all of them that have to do with food, that have to do with health, that have to do with medicine, that have to do with environmental use, because we are are possible of another way of living. 

That is tremendously sustainable. Where we live right here we have a food forest, where we get enormous amounts of food we have, like 75, fruit and nut trees, and lots of veggies and berries and herbs, and so forth, just to connect with the earth and let the earth give us the food that we need. The Ghana clee, organically without toxic chemicals, to use alternative forms of energy, all of the energy that we're in our house all comes from the sun, to gather water, to live a minimalist life to try to reduce our footprint is the greatest joy really, in reducing the amount of waste that we create, when I was a Zen Buddhist monk, we would never waste food, we would never throw away a robe, we would, we would say it again and repair it. And we just keep using the same one. 

The whole idea is to honor and respect everything on this earth and don't take more than we need. That's where real joy comes from. And when we do that with animals with each other, and, and take responsibility for our relationships, because the thing to understand is that radiant health is the greatest gift in many ways, physical health and emotional health and mental health and spiritual health. And this comes from eating healthy food. It comes from exercise. And really, I think one of the most important things is healthy attitudes, is I could be eating the healthiest food. But if my mind is upset and angry, and if I have grudges against people, and I'm afraid that my body is creating all kinds of pharmaceutical compounds that are going to make me sick. So the important thing to understand is to cultivate a heart of kindness, of goodwill of joy. 

And the beautiful truth from the ancient wisdom traditions is that the quality of our relationships, and the quality of our consciousness, that's our responsibility, the quality of my health is my responsibility. I don't go to a doctor to get healthy I, I look at myself, and I realize that the way to be healthy is to work on my own consciousness and my lifestyle. 

And I think as a society, we've been pulled far away from that basic wisdom, we're taught to go and depend on an industry for our health, we lose our freedom when that happens, and we lose our health. So to come back home, to the wisdom where we are self reliant, and take responsibility for our own health, that's the only way we're going to ever have freedom, to let other beings be free and take responsibility for our own quality of the life around us and to be a blessing to others and do the best we can to help increase the quality of life for others. 

And then finally, just remember, we're just here on this earth for a few short decades, it goes by very quickly. So every day is precious, we can awaken every morning, give thanks for another day, to learn and grow and contribute to the healing of our world, and to be a voice for those who don't have such a voice, and to live our lives as a blessing for others. 

And then if we actually do this, and let our life being an adventure of discovery, then we will have actually lived a life worth living, we will have fulfilled our unique mission on this earth. And that's the only way ultimately that we can bless others will never bless others by trying to change them. 

The only person we can change is ourselves and bring ourselves into alignment with the truth that we are, then we can plant seeds of positive change in the lives of other people. And this is living our life in a responsible way.

So thank you so much for caring. We have a website called World Peace diet.com where we have a training called the world peace diet facilitator training. So if you'd like to go deeper into veganism and into the deep veganism, of how to thrive as a vegan in a not yet vegan world and how to be effective and vegan advocacy, it's an online training that is available. 

We also have lots of videos my spouse Madeline does beautiful cooking videos. We have videos of our organic vegan food forest of yoga and music and art and lots of different things. And there's lots of essays that I've written there as well. So we're happy to stay in touch with people and to encourage anyone who's on this wonderful path of vegan living.

We have a website called a prayer to the worldwide prayer circle for animals. And we say this prayer together which is compassion and circles the earth for all beings everywhere. Compassion and circles the earth for all beings everywhere. Come Passion and circles the earth for all beings everywhere. And we affirm and understand that that is the truth. Ultimately, the only power is love and compassion.