The Blog

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Baseball (and Buddhism?)

I’ve always liked baseball. I grew up a Mets fan (you gotta believe), and have always enjoyed sitting back and watching a game unfold. When people ask why, I usually say that it’s an outlet: an opportunity to get emotionally engaged in something that doesn’t, in the grand scheme of things, actually matter. Unlike religion, the environment, politics, or any of the many other things that I care about, the world doesn’t end if my team loses. And I appreciate that ability to get invested in something purely fun, without feeling like to fate of the world is riding on the outcome.

Now, thanks to Donald Lopez’s recent contribution to Tricycle Magazine, I have yet anther reason to appreciate the sport. Writing in a style reminiscent of Gary Snyder’s Smokey the Bear Sūtra, Lopez crafts a text in which the Buddha explains how he created baseball to teach the impermanence and unpredictability of life. It’s a humorous piece, but he makes a good point: despite being driven by statistics and despite players’ carefully orchestrated workouts, baseball games, seasons, and careers can still turn on the smallest decisions or mistakes. The result is that the game remains unpredictable for both players and fans.

Just ask Bill Buckner.

☞ Buddha Takes the Mound by Donald S. Lopez Jr

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The Faults of Meat: Tibetan Buddhist Writings on Vegetarianism

Cover Image. Links to Wisdom Publications Website.

Today is World Vegetarian Day. It’s also the day that The Faults of Meat, my new collection of Tibetan texts on vegetarianism, is officially published. Coincidence? Actually, yes. But no doubt an auspicious coincidence!

In compiling these texts, my goal has been to provide readers with as many different Tibetan perspectives on the question of meat eating as I can. These texts include reflections on the importance of compassion, on meat in the Vinaya, on the five meats in Tantric ritual, and on the karmic consequences of meat eating. But they also demonstrate an awareness of the difficulty of maintaining a vegetarian diet in both pre-modern and contemporary Tibet, and at least one text—by Khedrup Jé—is an extended defense of meat eating. Together they provide a nuanced view of Tibetan attitudes towards vegetarianism and meat eating, largely in favor of the former, but also sympathetic to the latter.

The Faults of Meat collects fourteen Tibetan language texts on the question of vegetarianism, by twelve different authors. It includes canonical passages from the Laṅkāvatāra and Mahāparinirvāna Sūtras, as well as writings by the Tibetan masters Dolpopa, Ngorchen Künga Sangpo, Khedrup Jé, Gorampa, the 8th Karmapa, Shabkar, Karma Chakmé, Shabkar, Nyala Pema Dündül, Shardza Tashi Gyeltsen, as well as the modern lamas Khenpo Tsultrim Lodrö and Arjia Rinpoché.

As of today, The Faults of Meat is available directly from Wisdom Publications, and for a few dollars less from Amazon.

If we aspire to live with compassion toward all beings, how should we approach meat eating? In Tibetan Buddhism, this question has been debated since the eleventh century. The texts compiled and discussed in The Faults of Meat shed light on conversations about vegetarianism in ways that are at times surprising and always illuminating. This book is highly valuable for scholars of Buddhism, but also for people in the vegan, vegetarian, reducetarian, and omnivore communities who care about animals and grapple with the ethics of our current food system. ~ Barbara J. King, author of Personalities on the Plate: The Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat

This book explores the historical debate over vegetarianism in Tibet and breathes life into the important issuessurrounding the relationship between compassion in action and the more subtle aspects of the Tibetan Buddhist perspective. To read these well-presented accounts, some from centuries long past and others more recent, highlights the fact that today there is more need than ever for people to treat the world around them with respect, and to approach ethical and ideological conundrums with an open, courageous heart rather than an opportunistic, self-serving attitude. Just as important, however, is to be wary of turning the bodhisattva path into a dogmatic ideology that elevates puritanical morality over the wisdom and skillful means that are so essential to it. In particular, it is the vast array of wisdom-based skillful means that makes the Vajrayana so extraordinary and profound. ~ Jigme Khyentse Rinpoche

This book presents an excellent array of texts, all translated for the first time, addressing the gamut of issuesrelated to animal slaughter and meat eating within the context of Tibetan Buddhism, from the cultivation of compassion for animals to the ritual mis/uses of meat. It reveals a long tradition of reflection on the ethics of meat abstention in a climate where it had to have been particularly challenging, given the narrow range of food options. A superb resource both for teachers and students of Tibetan Buddhism and for practicing (or wouldbe) vegetarians and vegans from any climate. ~ Janet Gyatso, author of Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet

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Book Release: Food of Sinful Demons is in the Wild!

Food of Sinful Demons CoverAs regular readers know, I’ve spent the last seven years researching the history of Tibetan vegetarianism, first for my dissertation and then for a book.  After all these years, I’m happy to announce that my book, Food of Sinful Demons: Meat, Vegetarianism, and the Limits of Buddhism in Tibet, is now available from Columbia University Press!  You can follow this link to the CUP website for more info, including a table of contents, description, and so forth.  If you want to order yourself a copy, use the code ‘Barsto’ to get 30% off.

Or you can click below to download the the introduction!

Barstow – Food of Sinful Demons [Introduction]

Finally, some promotional blurbs:

In this first in-depth study of the history of vegetarianism in Tibet, Geoffrey Barstow clearly shows that vegetarianism has always existed in Tibetan culture and was essentially motivated by compassion for the animals. Food of Sinful Demons is a welcome contribution to the important debate over the relationships between and among vegetarianism, health, and religion.

 ~Matthieu Ricard

A creative and nuanced exploration of an aspect of Tibetan religiosity that has heretofore remained largely in the dark. An important and exciting book.

~Andrew Quintman

A very welcome and entirely novel work on the place of vegetarianism in Tibet, Food of Sinful Demons will make a solid scholarly contribution to religious studies, Buddhist studies, and Tibetan studies. Covering a topic of broad interest in fields from ranging religion to animal rights, it offers something new for specialists but is also accessible to undergraduates as well as educated Buddhists trying to understand the role of vegetarianism and meat eating in Tibetan Buddhism.

~ Gray Tuttle

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Book Covers as Art

I was going through some of my books the other day, and was struck by how beautiful (or just interesting) some of the covers are.  So I thought I’d share.  No analysis, just some eye candy.

(click on the images for closeups and captions)

Image looks more Newari to me, but you know, details.
More orientalist fantasy: noble explorers and scowling locals.
I love the shackled prayer wheel. Kind of embodies the orientalist fantasy about Tibet: simultaneously holy and forbidden.
My personal favorite. Aside from elegance, that fade would have been very technically difficult when this was published in 1899.
Yes, that’s a white American pulling a gun to defend the Dalai Lama, while dressed in monk’s robes.
Note the upside down maṇi….

Got a favorite Tibet-related book cover?  Send a photo in the comments.

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Book Updates!

Food of Sinful Demons CoverAs regular readers know, for several years I’ve been working to turn my dissertation into a book.  I’m happy to report that this process is finally nearing fruition!

Food of Sinful Demons: Meat, Vegetarianism, and the Limits of Buddhism in Tibet, will be published by Columbia University Press, with a tentative release date of October 24, 2017.  That’s less than six months from now!  In fact, it is already available for pre-order from both Columbia University Press and Amazon!!

So feel free to go to those sites and get yourself a copy.  You can also get updates by following my Amazon author page and Twitter feed.  It’s been a long road, but it’s almost there!

Here’s the blurb, straight from the Columbia University Press website:

Tibetan Buddhism teaches compassion toward all beings, a category that explicitly includes animals. Slaughtering animals is morally problematic at best, and, at worst, completely incompatible with a religious lifestyle. Yet historically most Tibetans—both monastic and lay—have made meat a regular part of their diet. In this study of the place of vegetarianism within Tibetan religiosity, Geoffrey Barstow explores the tension between Buddhist ethics and Tibetan cultural norms to offer a novel perspective on the spiritual and social dimensions of meat eating.

Food of Sinful Demons shows the centrality of vegetarianism to the cultural history of Tibet through specific ways in which nonreligious norms and ideals shaped religious beliefs and practices. Barstow offers a detailed analysis of the debates over meat eating and vegetarianism from the first references to such a diet in the tenth century through the Chinese invasion in the 1950s. He discusses elements of Tibetan Buddhist thought—including monastic vows, the Buddhist call to compassion, and tantric antinomianism—that see meat eating as morally problematic. He then looks beyond religious attitudes to the cultural, economic, and environmental factors that opposed the Buddhist critique of meat, including Tibetan concepts of medicine and health, food scarcity, the display of wealth, and idealized male gender roles. Barstow argues that the issue of meat eating was influenced by a complex interplay of factors, with religious perspectives largely supporting vegetarianism while practical concerns and secular ideals pulled in the other direction. He concludes by addressing the surge in vegetarianism in contemporary Tibet in light of evolving notions of Tibetan identity and resistance against the central Chinese state. The first book to discuss this complex issue, Food of Sinful Demons is essential reading for scholars interested in Tibetan religion, history, and culture.

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Teaching Animals to Meditate

RaloRa Lotsawa is famous primarily for his willingness to use ritual violence against those who opposed him.  Less well known is his opposition to violence against animals.  But The All-Pervading Melodious Drumbeat—Ralo’s biography, recently translated by Bryan Cuevas—recounts numerous instances where Ralo either personally ransoms the lives of animals, or induces his disciples to do so. (p. 140, 299)  On other occasions, Ralo induces villagers to give up hunting and fishing, often giving them enough resources that they were able to establish themselves in less sinful occupations. (p. 43)

More remarkably, The All-Pervading Melodious Drumbeat recalls an episode in which Ra Lotsawa moves beyond easing animal’s physical suffering, and actually teaches them the dharma:

Likewise, Ralo established many dogs and mice in meditation, and did the same also for the flocks of sheep that belonged to al the landowners in the area.  He established in meditation about six hundred young female and male sheep…  Then a religious scholar names Geshé Yönten Drakpa approached Ralo to dispute him.  He said, “To be established in meditation you first have to obtain a body as support with human freedoms and advantages.  Animals are in a miserable state, and so it’s impossible to establish them in meditation.  Saying you’ve done so is a lie!”  The Great Lama Ra responded, “Yes, generally, I admit that’s true, but in some particular cases nothing is certain. …”  (p. 108)

 

Animals are, according to pretty much all Tibetan religious leaders, dumber than humans.  They are so dumb, in fact, that they are simply incapable of learning the dharma.  If you want to help them, all you can really do is ease their physical suffering (ie: stop eating them), and pray that they will achieve a better birth next time around.  But here’s Ralo, teaching a bunch of sheep to meditate.  Moreover, he’s actually successful!  The remarkableness of this passage is underscored by the presence of his geshé critic, embodying the standard assumptions about animals along with a healthy skepticism towards Ralo generally.  And Ralo does accept his critique, at least in most circumstances.  Most people can’t teach sheep, only someone with Ralo’s level of mastery.

Still, despite this (admittedly large) caveat, this passage opens up the possibility that animals could, under the right circumstances, learn to actively practice Buddhism.  And that possibility represents a striking anomaly in Tibetan narratives about animals.  Perhaps, Ralo seems to suggest, the distinction between animals and humans is not quite as hard and fast as most Tibetans assumed.  Perhaps it is not that animals are too stupid to learn dharma, but that most humans lack the skills to teach them.  And this is a point worth considering in our modern world, as science continues to reveal that animals are, in fact, much more intelligent and emotionally complex than we have often assumed.

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Book Review: The Rise of Gönpo Namgyel

If you're going to shell out the $110, might as well buy direct from the publishers (same price as Amazon).
Click the image to buy direct from the publishers (there’s no discount at Amazon).

A couple months ago I turned over a new leaf on this blog and posted a short book review of My Tibetan Childhood.  Today I’ll continue that trend with a short review of Yudru Tsomu’s The Rise of Gönpo Namgyel in Kham: The Blind Warrior of Nyarong (Lexington Books, 2015).  As with the earlier review, this is not meant to be full, formal book review such as one might encounter in a peer reviewed academic journal.  Instead, it is simply some of my own thoughts on the book (which, fortunately, I quite enjoyed).

Gönpo Namgyel is not an unknown figure to the Tibetological community, particularly to those interested in Kham.  Indeed, his shadow looms large over many discussions of recent Khampa history, seeming to mark a line of demarcation, so that it often feels natural to speak of pre and post Gönpo Namgyel periods.  Further, the basic outline of his story—military conquest of Degé, Litang and much of the region, followed by a fiery death at the hands of Lhasa based troops—is reasonably well know.  Yudru Tsomu, therefore, is not introducing a new figure, or telling a wholly new story.  What she does do, and does with admirable skill as both a historian and a writer, is to flesh out that basic story with a wealth of detail and to situate those events in the broader context of the time.  The latter point is where she really shines, arguing convincingly that Gönpo Namgyel should not be understood merely as a provincial figure from the remote borderlands.  Instead, she shows the degree to which Gönpo Namgyel’s rise was only possible because of weakness in both Central Tibet and Qing Dynasty China.  Further, Yudru Tsomu demonstrates that Gönpo Namgyel’s success conquering neighboring chiefdoms and principalities posed a direct threat to the economic and political ties between Lhasa and Beijing, ultimately reshaping the political landscape of the border.

In broad outline, The Rise of Gönpo Namgyel consists of two major sections.  In the first, consisting of chapters 1 through 4, Yudru Tsomu lays out the background necessary for understanding Gönpo Namgyel’s life and extraordinary success.  To me, this was some of the most interesting material in the book, particularly chapters one and four, where she discusses Nyarong culture. She argues convincingly that Gönpo Namgyel was not on a search for wealth, or trying to advance a political agenda.  Instead, “family feuding, a tradition of vengence taking, banditry, and matrimonial alliances and estrangements were the ingredients that fomented crisis in Nyarong.” (244)

Following this are three chapters that lay out the details of Gönpo Namgyel’s various military confrontations and his eventual defeat.  Some of this material was a little dry and repetitive to me, but it will be gold for those interested in the military and political culture of Kham.  For this discussion, Yudru Tsomu relies heavily on oral accounts and official government documents, and she does an admirable job of creating a nuanced storyline from minimal materials.  I also applaud her inclusion of multiple accounts, when different sources sometimes contradict each other.  I was struck, however, by the near absence of biographical sources (rnam thar and rang rnam).  The events surrounding Gönpo Namgyel are given significant discussion in Jamgön Kongtrül’s Autobiography, for instance, but while this text appears in her bibliography, it was not cited in the text itself.  I don’t know that including this or similar sources would have changed Yudru Tsomu’s conclusions at all, but they might have added something.

Finally, prior to concluding, Yuru Tsomu presents a chapter that looks at the ramifications of Gönpo Namgyel’s activities for Sino-Tibetan relations from the time of his fall through the collapse of the Qing.  This chapter may be the most interesting to those who are interested in Tibetan history, but are not specifically interested in Kham.

On the whole, then, Yudru Tsomu’s work is a standout contribution to the study of Tibetan history.  She has taken a well known (but not well enough known) figure and presented his life with as much depth and clarity as possible.  Perhaps more importantly, she clearly demonstrates why his life and activity matter.  Indeed, if I have any real complaints they are not with Yudru Tsomu’s work, but with the cost of the book and its production values.  I am aware that publishing is expensive, and publishers need to recoup their costs.  But $110 is a lot to spend on a book that is neither antiquarian nor a large format art book.  (In all fairness, I should note that Lexington is hardly the only press to go this route—I’m looking at you Brill and Routledge.)  Further, my copy of the book had a few printers errors.  The margins were off a bit, and there was an annoying black line along the bottom of each page.  More significantly (and amusingly), the entire text block was glued into the binding upside down, leading to situations where I would be sitting in a coffee shop, reading a book that looked upside down to all observers.  Kind of fun, if not exactly classy.

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Book Review: My Tibetan Childhood

So I haven’t been writing much recently, at least for the blog.  I’m working on cranking out my book on Tibetan vegetarianism as fast as I can, and that hasn’t left much time for side projects like blog posts!  But I thought I’d try to fix that by kicking off a series of occasional book reviews.  These aren’t going to be formal reviews, suitable for publication in a journal.  But sometimes a book comes along that really makes me think (or that I simply really enjoy), and this blog seems like a good place to share some of those thoughts in a relatively informal way.

I can’t tell you how refreshing this book is.  Religious life writing certainly has its own beauty, but it is really nice to read an autobiography that depicts the actions and concerns of people who are not elite religious practitioners.  Naktsang Nulo writes with the attention to narrative and emotion of a natural story teller.  And the the translators and editors, Angus Cargill and Sonam Lhamo (whose names do not, unfortunately, make it onto the cover), do a wonderful job of transforming his Tibetan into English prose that is both clear and compelling.

My Tibetan Childhood[1] is marketed as an account of “the lived experience of the forced and violent incorporation of the Tibetan heartlands into the People’s Republic by Chinese troops in the 1950s.” (so sayeth the back cover)  And the author’s depictions of atrocities committed by Chinese forces are indeed heartrending.  These stories, however, comprise only the second half of the book.  To my mind, the first half of the work, where the author speaks about everyday life as a nomadic child, is just as important as the second, if not more.  Naktsang Nulo provides a detailed, rich account of social customs, regional expressions and vocabulary, and the values that sustained nomadic life.  As regular readers know, I’m primarily interested in vegetarianism, so Naktsang Nulo’s depiction of nomadic eating habits was particularly welcome.  To give just one example, he recalls that after his father kills and antelope, his Aunt tells him, “don’t worry, its not a sin if it keeps us from going hungry.” (89)  Other scholars with other preoccupations with no doubt also turn up valuable material.

It’s also worth noting the publication history of this text.  Naktsang Nulo composed his autobiography in Tibetan, and published it in 2007 in China.  I don’t know how official this publication was (ie: from an official press or not) and 2007 may have been the last of the relatively relaxed years prior to the unrest in 2008, but it is still remarkable that this book appeared within China.  This simple fact means that the text not only gives us insight into what happened in the fifties, but also into the kind of material that people felt comfortable publishing (again, officially or not) in 2007.

So who should read this book?  I’d say pretty much everyone interested in Tibet.  It is obviously valuable for those interested in the history of twentieth century Sino-Tibetan conflict, but also gives important insight into pre-communist nomadic life.  And pilgrimage.  The author provides a fifty plus page description of a year-long pilgrimage to Lhasa, pure gold for those interested in Tibetan pilgrimage, and destined to be included in courses I teach on Tibetan religiosity.

As far as complaints go, I have few.  I would obviously like Naktsang Nulo to dwell more on dietary choices and possibilities, but that simply reflects my own obsessions.  The one thing I would really like are better maps.  Naktsang Nulo includes an fifty plus page description of a year long pilgrimage to Lhasa, but the accompanying maps are not nearly detailed enough.

For another, more thorough review, see Jonathan Mirsky’s review in the High Peaks, Pure Earth blog.  Also Woeser’s article on the Chinese version on the same site.

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[1] Buy the book directly from Duke University Press by clicking here.  You could probably save a few dollars by buying it from Amazon, but surely its worth putting those dollars into the presses that publish this material.

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On Tulpas, Tulpamancers and Alexandra David-Néel

Yesterday, Chris Bell’s Facebook feed alerted me to an article by Vice, describing the phenomena of ‘tulpas’ and the ‘tulpamancers’ who create and nurture them.  For those of you who may not be familiar (as I was not), tulpas are beings created in the imagination of the tulpamaner, but which acquire their own sentience.  According to Vice, tulpamancers spend some 200 to 500 hours in intense focus ‘forcing’ their tulpas to appear.  Once that happens, though, tulpamancers are convinced that their creations have independent mental lives of their own.  They can hold conversations with their host, dictate letters and even fall in love.

Really, there’s too much to describe. Go read the article, then come back.  You won’t regret it.

Alexandra David-Néel. Image from Wikipedia.
Alexandra David-Néel in Tibetan dress. Image from Wikipedia.

I’m going to refrain from commenting on wether this is weird or not (Vice certainly thinks it is).  Instead I’m going to focus on the Tibet angle.  Because there’s a Tibet angle.  Again, according to the Vice article, creating tulpas is believed to be a Tibetan practice, brought back by Alexandra David-Néel and described in her 1929 book, Magic and Mystery in Tibet.  Vice quotes David-Néel, and while it fails to provide page numbers, it does provide a quote.  With that quote and the search function in Google Books, I can tell you that the relevant passages are on pages 313-315 of the 1971 Dover reprint.  I have to admit, I was kind of surprised to find that Vice had not misquoted her: David-Néel does, in fact, claim to have created a tulpa, described as a phantom that she created in her mind over several months of meditation, but which, once created, had a mind of its own.  While many contemporary tulpamancers seem to prefer anime characters, David-Néel’s tulpa was, in case you were wondering, a fat monk.

Needless to say, I have never heard of anything like this from any Tibetan.  The term is certainly Tibetan (སྤྲུལ་པ་).  And the term is closely related to the common idea of the tülku (སྤྲུལ་སྐུ་), that particular individuals are born as the emanations of deities or the reincarnation of previous masters.  To me, however, there is a pretty big difference between saying so-and-so is the reincarnation of such-and-such previous master, and conjuring independent entities out of thin air, who then proceed to live entirely within their creator’s minds.

So what to make of all of this?  David-Néel was a pioneer, and we should all be grateful for her work.  While the term tulpa certainly exists in Tibetan, and the practice does bear some resemblance to the theories that account for tülkus, I have never heard of a Tibetan creating, ex nihilo, a being with its own consciousness that only lives in the host’s mind.  My suspicion, as you have probably guessed by this point, is that this is yet another instance of western pop culture picking up a Tibetan idea and then running with it on their own, far beyond its original context.  (See also: Batman does Tögal).  Or maybe I’m just ignorant.  If so, let me know in the comments.  I’d be fascinated to see or hear of something like this in a traditional Tibetan context.

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(Mis)using Buddhist Imagery in Advertising

Mavi jeans - in Tibetan
Mavi jeans – in Tibetan

A couple days ago I was out shopping for new jeans. As I was going through the selection at our local Nordstrom Rack, I came across this pair, made by Mavi. Yes, that’s Tibetan script decorating the back of a pair of jeans.  When I was in college, lots of t-shirts used Chinese characters for decoration (usually in really bad fonts).  Now I suppose its Tibetan’s turn in the spotlight: Tibetan tattoos are all over the place, I’ve seen Tibetan on t-shirts, and now it’s being used on the butt of a pair of jeans. All seemingly to little point: there’s certainly nothing ‘Tibetan’ about these jeans, and I doubt that most people would have any clue the script is Tibetan at all.  Certainly the designer, or whoever decided to turn the ཟ into an ‘m,’ had no idea what they were doing.  At least they used some decent calligraphy.

While it might not make the jeans any more ‘Tibetan,’ use of Tibetan script to decorate someone’s ass certainly has the power to offend. About ten years ago I attended a series of empowerments given by Trulshik Rinpoché in Kathmandu. I would carry my seating cushion back and forth from my apartment everyday in a canvas back from The New Tibet Book Store, which happened to have some Tibetan writing on it. In order to save time, I would just leave the cushion in the bag when I got to the empowerments, sitting on the whole thing. After a couple days, a monk who sat beside asked me to take the cushion out of the bag before I sat. The Tibetan script on the bag, he explained, was sacred (even though it did not say anything religious), and it was inappropriate to treat it disrespectfully by sitting on it. His remonstrance was quite kind, and I happily complied. I don’t have to think too hard to know what he would think if he saw these jeans.  I wonder if the Mavi marketing department thinks the aesthetic value of the Tibetan script is worth it?

Buddha Bowl - Enlightening Snacks
Buddha Bowl: Enlightening Snacks?

Nor are Mavi jeans the only such example of the potential mis-use of Tibetan or Buddhist imagery in advertising. While driving through Virginia this summer, Eliza and I found this bag of popcorn in a Wegman’s grocery store. According to their website, it “exemplifies the true meaning of simple snacking.” I think that’s supposed to sound Buddhist-y. Over at the Columbus Zoo, Buddha statues and prayer flags are used to decorate the dinosaur boat ride. I’m not sure what the connection here is; I guess the Buddhist imagery is supposed to give the ride an exotic flair.

Some of you may recall the Keds scandal from a few years back. Apparently, someone (not actually Keds, but sold under the Keds brand) produced a bunch of canvas Keds sneakers with images of the Buddha, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, and the Tibetan flag. Presumably, said person did not know that in many parts of Asia, the feet are considered unclean. oops. The sacred imagery on shoes caused great consternation among many of my Tibetan friends. People were shocked. Angry letters were written to the folks at Keds. There was talk on Facebook of boycotting all Keds products. Two days after the story broke, Kristin Kohler Burrow, then the president of Keds, issued an apology, removing the offensive shoes from the websites and ‘sincerely apologizing for any discomfort.’ Keds clearly meant no disrespect. Nor do Mavi Jeans, LesserEvil (makes of Buddha Bowl popcorn), the Columbus Zoo or any of the other companies who have used Buddhist imagery to promote themselves. They simply had no idea that what they were doing could be considered offensive. As Robert Mayer pointed out during the Keds imbroglio, you can go to a western wear store online and see lots of pairs of cowboy boots with crosses on them (try here, here and here). Presumably there are lots of Christian cowboys out there that don’t find these offensive.

Dalai Lama Sneakers - image via Phayul
Dalai Lama Sneakers – image via Phayul

So here are my questions: What responsibility do companies have to make their products non-offensive? If no offense is meant, does that mean that none should be taken? Do we—academics, but also informed people in general—have a responsibility to alert companies when we feel their products might cause offense?

I’m not entirely sure what to make of this.  If you have opinions, please make use of the comments section below!