Whoever you are, you were my…
dearest mother
dearest father
dearest brother
dearest sister
dearest son
dearest daughter
Whoever we are, we are one another’s…
dearest mother sentient beings
dearest father sentient beings
dearest brother sentient beings
dearest sister sentient beings
dearest son sentient beings
dearest daughter sentient beings
This is why, from Chapter Eight of the Lankavatara Sutra:
The Blessed One [Buddha] said this to him: For innumerable reasons, Mahamati, the Bodhisattva, whose nature is compassion, is not to eat any meat; I will explain them: Mahatmati, in this long course of transmigration here, there is not one living being that, having assumed the form of a living being, has not been your mother, or father, or brother, or sister, or son, or daughter, or the one or the other, in various degrees of kinship; and when acquiring another form of life may live as a beast, as a domestic animal, as a bird, or as a womb-born, or as something standing in some relationship to you; [this being so] how can the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva who desires to approach all living beings as if they were himself and to practise the Buddha-truths, eat the flesh of any living being that is of the same nature as himself?
Sahdu! :yes:
amituofo