By fellow initiate Zhao, Mainland China

It is often falsely believed that meat eaters are stronger than vegetarians, but an experiment conducted by Professor Irving Fisher of Yale University on 32 vegetarians and 15 meat eaters showed that vegetarians had more endurance than did meat eaters. He had people hold out their arms for as long as possible. The outcome of the test was very clear. Among the 15 meat eaters, only two persons could hold out their arms for fifteen to thirty minutes. However, among the 32 vegetarians, 22 persons held out their arms for fifteen to thirty minutes, 15 for over thirty minutes, nine for over one hour, and four for over two hours; in addition, one vegetarian held his arms out for over three hours. (Excerpt from the sample booklet The Key of Immediate Enlightenment).

I am a teacher and have followed a purely vegetarian diet for the past six years. During this time, I have been virtually free of illness, except for an occasional cold. In the summer of 2000, the school where I teach organized a teachers' tour of Zhangjiajie, Hunan Province and Chengdu, Sichuan Province. Over fifty people participated in the tour, during which we climbed numerous mountains in Zhangjiajie. On the first mountain, some members of our group were already exhausted half-way up and had to continue the journey by different means of transportation, such as sliding cable and sedan chair, while I was the first to reach the top on foot.

On the third day, we went to Tianzi Mountain to watch the sunrise. We first took a bus halfway up the mountain, and then got off to climb. Again, I was the first to reach the top. On the way down, only three other teachers and I descended on foot, and the others all came down in cable cars. When I reached the parking lot, I could hear loud applause coming from the bus. The other teachers greatly admired my spirit and energy!

From Zhangjiajie, we traveled to Chengdu, where we climbed a few more famous mountains. It was just like walking on a normal road for me, and some colleagues joked about my "flying feet." All the other members of my tour group saw me travel on foot up and down the mountains without relying on other means of transportation as they did .

During the trip, I had a small bowl of millet congee with two steamed buns for breakfast, and two tomatoes, one or two cucumbers, and a bowl of rice for lunch and dinner. These were my regular meals throughout the trip, which lasted over ten days. The other members of our group had at least eight and sometimes nearly twenty dishes of meat each day. But no one could keep up with my pace during the trip. As word of my physical feats spread among my other colleagues after we had returned to school, they no longer thought that vegetarians are less healthy than meat eaters; on the contrary, they began to believe that vegetarians have greater stamina.

On an earlier occasion, the holiday of May 1, 2001, more than ten of us teachers took a trip to 71 Glacier in Jiayuguan, Gansu Province. Traveling with me was my daughter, a high school freshman, and like me, a complete vegetarian . The 71 Glacier is 4,600 meters above sea level and people normally develop the high altitude syndrome when climbing it, because of the severe lack of oxygen at this elevation. I developed signs of the syndrome, but they were not as intense as those experienced by the others in my group. My daughter showed no such signs at all, and was always in the very front of our hiking party. She reached a much higher altitude than our companions did, again demonstrating that vegetarians have more energy and greater stamina than non-vegetarians.

All in all, there is no question that the vegetarian diet is a benefit to health, and that it improves physical strength and endurance. As Albert Einstein said, "It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind" (Letter to "Vegetarian Watch-Tower", December 27, 1930). The 21st century is the beginning of the era of vegetarianism, so let us share its great benefits!