Split topic: Ethics of Rhino Horn as Medicine

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maybay
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Split topic: Ethics of Rhino Horn as Medicine

Post by maybay »

[Mod note: Topic split from here:] http://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.ph ... 78#p349678


Is anyone else bothered by that reference to rhinoceros horn on the page http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/taking-essence

Don't people know what brutalities are committed in pursuit of rhino horn and other animal parts?
Last edited by Ayu on Fri Aug 19, 2016 2:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: Left note.
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Malcolm
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by Malcolm »

maybay wrote:Is anyone else bothered by that reference to rhinoceros horn on the page http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/taking-essence

Don't people know what brutalities are committed in pursuit of rhino horn and other animal parts?
You don't understand. In Tibetan medicine, Rhinoceros horn is used in extreme small quantities, and from animals found deceased from natural causes.

On the other hand, musk is also used. Bear bile is used. Ox bile is used. In traditional medicine, when such animals were not killed in large numbers for sport, their byproducts are important materia medica.
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by Caoimhghín »

Malcolm wrote:
maybay wrote:Is anyone else bothered by that reference to rhinoceros horn on the page http://www.lamayeshe.com/article/taking-essence

Don't people know what brutalities are committed in pursuit of rhino horn and other animal parts?
You don't understand. In Tibetan medicine, Rhinoceros horn is used in extreme small quantities, and from animals found deceased from natural causes.

On the other hand, musk is also used. Bear bile is used. Ox bile is used. In traditional medicine, when such animals were not killed in large numbers for sport, their byproducts are important materia medica.
The problem with rhinoceros poaching is more driven by an underground need for "folk medicines" that are said to be "miracle Viagara" substitutes or something of the like.

I doubt that that is the intended purpose of this medicine in its traditional Tibetan context, especially given the monastic context of what is being described in the link.

Rhinoceros horn is actually a sustainable resource, which is something I was surprised to learn a while ago. There are traditional methods of extracting the horn of a rhinoceros that don't cause significant pain or death to the animal, and the animal's horn will continue to grow after cut, if the cut is done properly.

The problem is that poachers have no interest in maintaining rhinoceros farms and extracting the horns slowly without causing harm to the animals, they want their money *now*, and its quicker just to kill the rhino and get more horn *now*. Not only is it a cruel practice, but also a stupid practice, because these poachers could be making a more regular income if they just farmed rhinos are stopped poaching them.
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
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maybay
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by maybay »

Coëmgenu wrote: The problem is that poachers have no interest in maintaining rhinoceros farms and extracting the horns slowly without causing harm to the animals, they want their money *now*, and its quicker just to kill the rhino and get more horn *now*. Not only is it a cruel practice, but also a stupid practice, because these poachers could be making a more regular income if they just farmed rhinos are stopped poaching them.
There are farms. But why buy from a rancher if you can just pay a guy with a gun to go hunt some? The mere suggestion that rhino horn has magic powers is a contribution to the problem.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/rhinocer ... tion/1178/
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maybay
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by maybay »

"Sentimentality is the progenitor, the godparent, the midwife of brutality"
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jmlee369
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by jmlee369 »

Most of the rarer and more precious substances are used in minute quantities in the production of these kinds of pills.
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by Caoimhghín »

maybay wrote:
Coëmgenu wrote: The problem is that poachers have no interest in maintaining rhinoceros farms and extracting the horns slowly without causing harm to the animals, they want their money *now*, and its quicker just to kill the rhino and get more horn *now*. Not only is it a cruel practice, but also a stupid practice, because these poachers could be making a more regular income if they just farmed rhinos are stopped poaching them.
There are farms. But why buy from a rancher if you can just pay a guy with a gun to go hunt some? The mere suggestion that rhino horn has magic powers is a contribution to the problem.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/rhinocer ... tion/1178/
To suggest that a rhino horn has no medicinal benefits to Tibetan practitioners, based on no medical knowledge of my own, would be, on my part, both a falsehood and Western cultural Imperialism.

I know that rhino poaching is a serious problem, but many people don't know that rhino could be farmed, not poached, and that could be a lucrative source of legal revenue, that is all.

I am sorry to be :offtopic: , if you, who I only know by the user name "maybay", want to discuss this futher, I would love to have a chat in the lounge, or somewhere else. I don't want to hijack "Nicholas Weeks"'s thread.
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
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maybay
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by maybay »

Coëmgenu wrote:To suggest that a rhino horn has no medicinal benefits to Tibetan practitioners
Well I'm not suggesting that, nor was the PBS article, although it did suggest that the quantities typically used are as impotent as the people its intended for. I just ask that they not advertise it on their website.
Coëmgenu wrote:Western cultural Imperialism.
Put yourself in the rhino's position. Imagine a religious organisation puts up a webpage saying that to further one's spiritual path and manifest compassion for all beings, people should eat pills made from your nose.
Coëmgenu wrote:I know that rhino poaching is a serious problem, but many people don't know that rhino could be farmed, not poached, and that could be a lucrative source of legal revenue, that is all.
Why do you suppose they haven't thought of that? Even if the people who poach could afford to set up a farm, rhino ranching is not exactly a walk in the park.
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by Caoimhghín »

maybay wrote:
Coëmgenu wrote:To suggest that a rhino horn has no medicinal benefits to Tibetan practitioners
Well I'm not suggesting that, nor was the PBS article, although it did suggest that the quantities typically used are as impotent as the people its intended for. I just ask that they not advertise it on their website.
Coëmgenu wrote:Western cultural Imperialism.
Put yourself in the rhino's position. Imagine a religious organisation puts up a webpage saying that to further one's spiritual path and manifest compassion for all beings, people should eat pills made from your nose.
Coëmgenu wrote:I know that rhino poaching is a serious problem, but many people don't know that rhino could be farmed, not poached, and that could be a lucrative source of legal revenue, that is all.
Why do you suppose they haven't thought of that? Even if the people who poach could afford to set up a farm, rhino ranching is not exactly a walk in the park.
I'll notify the moderators to split this thread into a separate sub-thread for this particular issue, because I don't want to monopolize the OP's post with my tangent.

If the resource is sustainable and there is no suffering for the animal, I don't see the issue here. I grew up on a farm with sheep. We sheered the sheep once or twice every year. The same is with the rhino horn. If it is done properly, it causes them no harm or suffering.

Certainly it has its difficulties, but rhino farming would actually be a more lucrative practice, in the long-run, if legal, than poaching.
Then, the monks uttered this gāthā:

These bodies are like foam.
Them being frail, who can rejoice in them?
The Buddha attained the vajra-body.
Still, it becomes inconstant and ruined.
The many Buddhas are vajra-entities.
All are also subject to inconstancy.
Quickly ended, like melting snow --
how could things be different?

The Buddha passed into parinirvāṇa afterward.
(T1.27b10 Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra DĀ 2)
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maybay
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by maybay »

The problem is they can't get the population up fast enough to handle what will happen when they make it legal. The sudden demand will by devastating. They know from experiences with ivory trade.
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Malcolm
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Re: Choden Rinpoche on Chulen

Post by Malcolm »

maybay wrote:The problem is they can't get the population up fast enough to handle what will happen when they make it legal. The sudden demand will by devastating. They know from experiences with ivory trade.
There is not a large demand for rhinoceros horn in Tibetan medicine. There is a larger demand for musk, bear bile and so on.
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Re: Split topic: Ethics of Rhino Horn as Medicine

Post by jmlee369 »

I don't exactly find the FPMT to be advertising the benefits of rhino horn as a medicinal substance, rather, I see it as a matter-of-fact accounting of the ingredients used for that one particular batch of chulen pills made by Lama Yeshe in 1981. And why anyone woud try, of all things on that list, to use rhino horn as medicine instead of the many more accessible ingredients, is beyond me. They also note that chulen pills usually contain far fewer ingredients. Chulen isn't a widespread practice in the spirituality marketplace, so I doubt that the one webpage would spark an increase in demand for rhino horn.
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Re: Split topic: Ethics of Rhino Horn as Medicine

Post by maybay »

Your damage control apologetics are lost on me, but that webpage will continue broadcasting to the world that using endangered animal parts is OK.
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Re: Split topic: Ethics of Rhino Horn as Medicine

Post by jmlee369 »

maybay wrote:Your damage control apologetics are lost on me, but that webpage will continue broadcasting to the world that using endangered animal parts is OK.
As I understand it, your concern is that people encountering the website will cause an increase in production for chulen pills which in turn will drive up demand for rhino horns, increasing poaching and the killing of endangered animals. What I'm trying to say is that the availability of that information online will not lead to increased demand, and will not result in further suffering for rhinos. And if the acceptability of rhino poaching is what people take from Lama Yeshe's teaching, I think it is their loss.
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Re: Split topic: Ethics of Rhino Horn as Medicine

Post by Footsteps »

In regards to the use of rare species in medicinal preparations within the context of spiritual adepts, Hildegard von Bingen was well-known for using ingredients like vulture beak and the like. It's also well known that TCM(sometimes practiced by spiritual adepts) uses a wide variety of medicinal animal or animal part preparations, which may or may not include at-risk or endangered species.

In the modern era, outside of endangered animals, a large amount of endangered or at risk plants are sold each year. These include goldenseal, ginseng, false unicorn root, and osha, to name a few. These herbs are in demand because they are effective. Some have fallen out of use due to their rarity or lack of widespread knowledge of their virtues, however there are still small pockets of people who use them. As long as these people do not exploit these herbs and increase a demand for them, the individual is carrying on the torch of knowledge of the uses of that species if its population were to turn around, and/or for the benefit of historical documentation(if so documented). The goal of such peoples should be to increase the population of that plant or indirectly benefit that plant species within their lifetime in exchange for its use.

In recent human history, management of uncommon resources is lacking. There is little reason why goldenseal, ginseng, and osha should be endangered(false unicorn root is a bit trickier). The wild crafters are fully capable of assuring a continuing population by reseeding and in the case of goldenseal, clonal propagation of roots. Thus, over harvesting such species is avoidable with proper management. Part of proper management is discerning when the population is at a level that supports harvest and when it is not. When it is not, the proper management is not to harvest, and preferably, to take steps to increase the population to a number that supports harvest if such a population increase can be said to be in balance with the environment.

There was an individual living in the East Coast of the United States who earned their livelihood harvesting a specific species of wildlife in it's earliest period of development which is sold to the Chinese to raise, who then sell the finished product worldwide as food. Because this entails removing entire generations of a given species from its natural setting, that disruption follows is rather evident.

After years of harvesting this life form, the individual learned to pick up on a variety of nuances of habit particular to this species. When it became evident that the species was becoming threatened by the industries harvesting it, the individual stopped harvesting and utilized their knowledge of the species habits to enact conservation efforts. Through this person's efforts, they were able to increase the population of the species involved, but had not the person spent so many years harvesting the species, they would not have been equipped with the knowledge to help the species. They gave back.

Lesser known "herbal" medicine outside of the asiatic traditions also use animal parts and products, some of which may or may not be controversial. Usually based on an indigenous lineage or preserved by ethnographic/historic record. These practices are not as widespread as they once were, as the knowledge of the uses of nature has declined and access to the gifts of the natural world is restricted. Nevertheless, some of these preparations are highly effective.

Let it be said, while not for the common man, some individuals are given the "access key" to these medicines in order to carry on a torch of knowledge.

When it comes to animal products, it is important to differentiate between the act of killing the animal for a specific part, and finding a dead animal or the specific part of an animal. It would be wrong to kill a whale for its ambergris. It would not be wrong to utilize ambergris that had been found washed ashore.
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Re: Split topic: Ethics of Rhino Horn as Medicine

Post by tingdzin »

There are many, many things that formerly could have been considered ethical that, due to the overexpansion of the human population, can no longer be considered so. Use of rhino horn and ivory are, IMO, among these. Of course in theory they both could be farmed, but given greed and inadequate policing, that is not going to happen in a viable way.
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