Shabkar was a great Tibetan Buddhist practitioner in the Nyingma school, a Dzogchen master of the highest accomplishment and renown. In general, Tibetans were meat eaters. For one thing, on the high Himalayan plateau crops are grown with difficulty and on the other theirs continued to be linked to a nomadic culture from the past. Buddhism does not "forbid" the eating of meat in the way, for example, Christianity forbids adultery. And many practitioners of Maha Yoga, Anu Yoga, and Ati Yoga (Dzogchen) of Vajrayana Buddhism feel that the tenets of emptiness make the eating of animals inconsequential. There are also other reasons some people hold in defense of this view.

But Shabkar, master of Maha, Anu, and Ati -- in fact of the 9 Yanas -- did NOT find the eating of animals to be inconsequential. This book puts forth his position. ( )