Attached to Being Vegetarian?
Meatguy: I think you are too strongly attached to being vegetarian.
Shi’an: I’m not. I’m just aware that animals are attached to their lives, and that my choice of diet prevents more deaths.
Meatguy: Didn’t the Buddha teach that all mind and matter is without self?
Shi’an: Yes, but all the parties involved have not realised non-self yet.
Meatguy: Who?
Shi’an: Everyone! Me, you the eater, the butchers, the sellers and most of all, the animals.
Pray, don’t talk to me about ‘non-dualistic wisdom’, that eating meat is okay.
Not when you are as dualistic as the animals, who crave to stay alive, to not be killed.
Pray, don’t talk to me about the ultimate truth of emptiness,
when you ignore the conventional truth that animals need our compassion.
Maybe the Meatguy had realised non-self that’s why he said what he said. But if he truly had realised non-self, would he still say what he had said?
If only he could hear the animals screamed and struggled for their lives when they were about to be killed. Certainly those animals do not care whether you, me, he or she had realised non-self or not because they definitely have not!
To use emptiness as an excuse for our deeds, speech and thoughts without first fully realising it, is literally just an empty talk and a really lousy excuse.
è´ªåƒè€…未空。
被åƒè€…未空。
空者åƒç©ºè€…？
愚者说空è¯ï¼
阿弥陀佛…
do not breathe as it will kill living organism.
To survive inevitably kills some living beings, so the point of compassion is to minimise killing. If we don’t eat meat, we won’t die. If we eat meat, animals will die. If one doesn’t breathe, one will kill oneself. It is not a solution as one will be reborn again.
erm, because we breathe and kill living organism so we should kill animals and eat them? how about this – since we are killing animals to eat, we must well kill everybody and eat them as well?
Do we have a “self imposed” scale to value the lives of all beings (i.e. inscects, earthworms, pigs, etc.)? If so, how come we can’t be compassionate enough to hear the cries of earthworms & inscects when farmers harvest plants for our vege food, or even as we build temples for the greater good? A white lie is still a lie, so as unintentional/ignorant killing is still killing.
So the point here is this – get our piority RIGHT! To be truly compassionate & avoid all killings, the ONLY way is to do our part to perfect the Dharma so that we all can get out of Samsara asap, instead of “attachingly” focusing on certain issues/arguments (e.g. abortions, euthanasia, etc.), that deemed to be the Righteous way.
Of course, there are virtues in being vegetarian & cut down in meat-eating, but let’s not be so self-righteous to condemn others who doesn’t share the same view.
*Fact – During His time, Buddha was also not so uptight about being a vegetarian himself. Hence let us have the clarity to see the “whole picture” of LIFE, rather than just a small part of it…
Vegans follow the advice in the Surangama Sutra to avoid trampling on grass to kill insects, earthworms and such. Vegans see the WHOLE picture of life. The same sutra has the Buddha’s advice on veganism, which is a way of living life as harmlessly as possible – beyond just diet – in terms of various other consumables like silk and leather – which result from animal exploitation and eventual deaths. More can be seen at http://moonpointer.com/bvf.php?itemid=384 Mahayana Buddhists believe that the Buddha advocated veganism gradually, probably to prepare his followers, culminating in seriousness towards the end of his teaching career. He even mentioned the ills of meat-eating in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra (the last sutra) as that which extinguishes the seed of compassion. There is no record in any scripture of the Buddha eating meat personally, while many sutras record his teachings speaking against it.
No vegan would propose ignoring insects and earthworms as veganism avoids killing the most. To eat meat is to feed animals with much more crops to fatten them up, which are produced with the killing of much more insects.
While it is true that exit from Samsara can make killing zero personally, veganism can minimise killing while in Samsara. It would not be compassionate to justify killing just because we are are in Samsara, when we can clearly minimise it further via our choice of lifestyle.
Self-righteousness is to think veganism is self-righteous, when most vegans are concerned more for fellow sentient beings than themselves, thus the willingness to speak up for animals; even when fellow humans accuse them of being uptight about killing them and eating their flesh.
It is also compassion in action to dissuade abortion and euthanasia. Remaining silent, we might as well be Buddha statues pretending silence is golden. Even the Buddha spoke against killing and suicide.
If we deny the cries of audible animals, why even talk about the inaudible ones like insects and earthworms? Not to say that they are not equally important, but how does it make sense that we can talk about not eating lives of inaudible animals while eating the ones we can hear? We are not denying the fact that many insects die during plantation and harvests, but 1/3 of the world’s crops are used to feed farm animals while many 3rd world countries’ people starve to death. These crops could actually be used to feed these starving people directly, instead of for rearing more and more animals. If the meat consumers are not to be blamed, do we blame the butchers? But the butchers will not kill if there’s no demand from the meat consumers. It’s basic supply and demand at work. Certainly, the butchers do not kill for vegetarians or vegans, and the meat consumers do not buy meat for the vegetarian or vegans. When a person intentionally buys meat, he or she is intentionally partaking in the supply and demand cycle. When you know these animals have to be slaughtered to be on your plate, how can anyone feign ignorance?
How compassionate is it to continue ignoring the hard fact that animals have to die for us because of our greed? What is perfecting the Dharma while we willfully ignore the screams of animals and continue to eat them? Abortion and euthanasia are both taking of life too. As a Buddhists, we have to dissuade all kinds of killing, including suicide. It would be cold and unkind if we keep silent and do nothing. I don’t know how ignoring these issues has anything to do with Buddhism? Isn’t the first precept about no killing? Isn’t stopping killing a right as part of Dharma practice?
We do not condemn others who do not share our views. But we do not condone people who brush aside animals’ lives and label them as ‘emptiness’ when great masters like H.H the 17th Karmapa, the Ven. Cheng Yen etc also encourage their disciples and followers to be vegetarian. Are these masters self-righteous as well? Eating meat is a choice, but it’s just lame if ‘killing is inevitable’ is used for rationalising it – because it can be minimised much further.
The fact is we are not monastics who live via random alms. So we have choice with the things we put into our mouths. Monastics who go alms rounds are not supposed to be choosy. That’s one of the disciplinary codes that monastics have to follow. In the Buddha’s time, there are no farm factories where animals are cramped and tortured from the very first day they were born till the day they are slaughtered as meat. Now we have thousands of such factories around the world. If you could spare a few minutes to watch the horrible state of things at http://www.meat.org , you probably would understand better. And compared to Buddha’s time, import and export of vegetables were not as readily available as now, which enables even environmentally harsh places like Tibet to have fresh vegetables today.
A small choice in life can make a difference. I only hope my tiny little choice of non-meat diet can save lives. No wait, what am i saying? It definitely does save lives!