You're probably thinking of Jains, not vegans.

Close I guess. I'm thinking more of recent convert Buddhist Vegan types. One gave me a 30 minute discussion over the current thinking in their particular vegan community...basically it amounted to being an absolutely impossible task to avoid eating bacteria so they can stay on the list of consumables, but everybody should be mindful of the lives they are snuffing out.

It was all rather eye-rolling. I can definitely see Jains getting in on that nonsense.

Which is pretty funny - Gautama emphasized a practical "middle path" rather than some extremist monastic malarkey, specifically because that sort of crap completely detaches you from daily life.

I've found it useful time and time again to be wary of recent converts of all stripes, whether it's Veganism, Objectivism, Haskell, etc.

> Gautama emphasized a practical "middle path" rather than some extremist monastic malarkey

If I remember, enlightenment was not found in the extremes under Kaundinya.

That message really seems to be lost I think. Both in the purposeful following of an extreme ideal, or in not being mindful of extreme habits.

Even if one is not a Buddhist, the concept of the middle path can be wonderfully freeing from expectations of extreme ideologies that sometimes ferment under civilizations.

Yep, the Buddhist stories say that he spent a while as a rich prince, then some sort of eXtreme(TM) yogi, and neither really worked out for him.

The popular American impression of Buddhism is pretty weird - historically, it's heavily skewed towards Japanese Zen Buddhism, but secondhand, from the Beats* . The way people talk about Zen, you'd think it had antioxidants or something.

* Due to their infatuation with the San Francisco Zen Center, Shunryu Suzuki, etc.