"American born Philip Kapleau has been a Buddhist monk for 25 years. In 1966, upon his return to America from Japan, where he had trained for 13 years, he finally renounced what he calls, ?my reluctant cannibalism,” the eating of every kind of flesh food. ?While in Japan,” he says, ?I wrestled with my conscience, trying to reconcile the first Buddhist vow to refrain from taking life with my obvious complicity in the slaughter of innocent creatures whose flesh I consumed. I pretended to love animals while at the same time regularly eating them..."