Russell Simmons: How Meditation Can Lead to a Vegan Diet | Big Think

[Music] Yoga and meditation inform your diet because it's mindfulness. When you are awake and aware of what's going on, you obviously make better choices.

Certainly, you know, you can feel if you're sensitive. I mean, your physical asana practice or the entire spiritual yoga practice informs how you relate to the world. The first thing in yoga and the eight parts of yoga is ahimsa, or non-harming. No one with good sense, or no one who's aware of their footprint, would ever eat an animal. Under these circumstances, they would not contribute to the abuse of a hundred billion animals per year. A hundred billion—that's the word—comic disaster in the world. I mean the absolute abuse. Born into a life—a short life—of extreme suffering, only to poison the individual and destroy the planet is something no one would want to do. No one who practiced ahimsa, which is the first of the yamas, would ever participate in that if they were aware.

And then, um, meditation, because mindfulness as well—you know mindfulness comes from the physical asana or the yoga practice overall. But no one who's aware and gave any thought to—or just came from, you know, what's etched inside them, this spiritual or this peace of God that's etched inside them—this thing would inform them. If they sat in stillness and made their own decisions, they wouldn't do it. So your diet would change.

Do you know that fifty percent of African American women over twenty have some form of heart disease? All the bad cholesterol—every single bit of it—comes from animal products. I mean, why? You know, when there are so many alternatives that are better, that are cheaper, it just makes good sense to move away from animal products to a plant-based diet.

And then talk about climate change, right? Everybody's discussing climate change and never mentions the greatest cause of global warming: the abuse of these animals and the destruction of all the resources on the planet and the planet itself. The cows alone are more destructive to the planet than all the trains, planes, automobiles, and boats put together—almost times two. So why not mention that when we discuss climate change?

I think people just have to make a choice. But also, this is why we go back to the meditation thing—you meditate so you can be present and aware. You don't have to have the past inform your future. Since the past and the future will never be here, all you have to do is just a second of presence, and you can change on a dime. The past and the future—just the imagination—that never comes.

So if you are present—even in a second of presence—you can shift your life. You don't have to carry the weight or the burden of what's been forced on you or what mistakes you've made. You can just be present and operate from a really free space. [Music]