A Prayer for Compassion, Part 1 of 6

“A Prayer for Compassion” is a powerful and thought-provoking documentary that invites viewers to reconsider the meaning of compassion in a world where billions of animal-people suffer for food, clothing, experimentation, and entertainment. Directed by Thomas Wade Jackson (vegan), the film embarks on a global journey through diverse religious and spiritual traditions, exploring a profound question: If compassion is a core teaching of nearly every faith, should it not extend to all living beings?

Thomas Wade Jackson is an award-winning American filmmaker, photographer, and musician. In July 2020, Supreme Master Ching Hai (vegan) presented Mr. Jackson with the Shining World Compassion Award and lovingly gifted him a humble US$10,000 “as a small token of support for his promotion of veganism.”

“It was studying the teachings of Jesus about kindness and compassion and starting a daily meditation practice that really led me to a non-violent diet, even though no one at Unity or anywhere else had ever even suggested I be vegetarian, and I’d never even heard the word ‘vegan,’ much less knew any. […] And then I saw the documentary ‘Cowspiracy,’ where I learned that not only does animal agriculture create over half the greenhouse gases on the planet, but it’s also the number-one user and polluter of water and the major cause of deforestation. Not to mention that the grains we use to feed billions of animals that we breed just for slaughter could much more effectively be fed to humans and could help save the nearly nine million people who die from hunger each year. I felt I had to do something, but I didn’t know what. So, I did what I often do when I don’t know what to do. I prayed and I meditated about it.

And during that meditation, this question popped into my mind: ‘How is it possible that a compassionate, spiritual, or religious person could support an industry that is responsible for the unnecessary suffering of billions of people, trillions of land and sea animals, and the devastation of the very planet we live on?’ That question would end up taking me on a journey throughout the United States and around the globe to explore the teachings of kindness and compassion that form the basis of all the world's main religions – and the not-so-main ones as well – and try to understand how so many people of faith are doing unto others that which they would never wish done unto themselves.”