An interesting question was raised during a recent class – ‘Is it okay to feel gratitude for the meat we eat?’ This is sometimes asked for the absolution of guilt, while seeking a way to rationalise or justify meat-eating. I answered that having gratitude is definitely better than not having any at all. However, if one keeps having gratitude for meat that one keeps eating, something is not quite right. Now, why is this so?
Imagine this scenario… Jim enters a fast food joint and orders a ‘super-duper double-couple wham-bam bumper-burger’. (Totally fictitious stuff!) He spends a few moments in mindfulness of the sacrifice that the animal(s) had gone through for him (albeit indirectly) for the burger to be possible. He then chomps into it with appreciation. The next day, he does this again. And the day after, yet again…
Pop quiz… What’s not quite right about Jim’s sense of gratitude? Surely, it cannot be sincere enough – because it is impossible to be always aware of the sacrifice of animal lives while always demanding it. Jim might have confused or mixed his gratitude for meat with greed for it… because he eats meat unceasingly AND out of choice, he is definitely driven by greed, even if in a way too subtle for him to detect.
That is to say, preceding his gratitude is greed. Whether he is mindful of this or not, gratitude is an attribute of goodness, while greed is a root of evil. If so, how can goodness spring from evil? It might appear possible, but this good is actually not good enough, because it lacks good faith to the animals he consumes – which makes it somewhat hypocritical… repeatedly. If there is true gratitude from true sincerity, there should be no looping back to greed and demand for meat; it should lead to weaning off meat instead. No one would see another who bites a piece of oneself everyday with profuse thanks to be sincere.
That said, even organic vegans have to be grateful for the sacrifices that animals and insects go through for their food to be possible. This is so as there is the inevitable loss of some sentient lives in the process of growing, harvesting and transporting crops. The consumption of meat is linked to many more deaths though – as the meat animals have to eat much more processed crops in their lifetimes. Organic veganism is simply the path of least violence. Better still, eat raw – to expend less energy, as the generation of electricity and gas affects sentient lives too.
Related Article:
The Many Kinds of Vegetarianism
http://moonpointer.com/index1.php?itemid=2449
I personally find it more of indebtness than gratitude. Gratitude is something positive. If in my heart I know the animals are killed for me and I can feel gratitude, I think the gratitude is not true gratitude.
It’s just like you and your pet or your good friend, whom you don’t wish to see them hurt in anyway, are caught by barbarians, they kill him to feed you because you are starving. Even if I can eat their flesh, I can’t feel any gratitude at all, I just feel really really bad and that I owe him something.
Dunno? =]
So it seems, this form of ‘gratitude’ is actually a form of disguised and rationalised guilt, that is simply not sincere enough towards the animals… because the one expressing ‘gratitude’ is still an adamant ‘repeat-offender’; a repeat-demander of the animals’ flesh. As long as the guilt that leads to repentance does not surfaces fully, the ‘gratitude’ will remain a shield.
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