If eating meat makes a person somewhat impure in Mahayana Buddhism, was Siddharta Gau
...since he ate meat even after attaining enlightenment?
Do Mahayanans see more wisdom in the Jains and Devadatta who scoffed at Buddha for eating meat and refusing to make the sang ha vegetarian, or in Buddha who said vegetarianism's unrelated to achieving enlightenment?
I would listen to the founder if I were inclined to follow someone based solely on the authority of their position but I would rather follow advice that rings true...
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
Buddha
We have been created (Evolved) to be able to gain sustenance from the flesh of other animals and so I 'believe' it is not only acceptable but proper to do that which I was created to be able to do (Evolved an ability to do that led to my current existence).
Lord Buddha, though he did attain enlightenment, was after all a man like every other man. He did not think it was wrong to eat meat. There is nothing that says a person stops or has to stop eating meat once he/she attains enlightenment. Lord Buddha's position about vegetarianism and enlightenment is the correct one. Enlightenment is not dependent upon such petty and insignificant things. You won't get to heaven any faster is you're a vegetarian.
Actually, there's nothing wrong with eating meat in Buddhism. I think Trungpa Rinpoche explained it best when he described how some vegetarians believe they're being more pure by eating vegetables, but never consider the insect and animal lives lost on farms, due to chemicals and whatever else may doom them. Not only that, but in areas like Tibet, how are they supposed to be vegetarians? It's nearly impossible. Buddhism has to change with the Earth it sits on and the times it's practiced.
If memory serves, the official rule is that as long as the meat was not specifically prepared for you, i.e., it's scraps or left overs, then it's not a bad thing.
I am personally a vegetarian, but I'm not disturbed by anyone who eats meat. It's a lifestyle choice, and I think it did something good for me that I needed. Perhaps other people don't need what I needed in terms of realizations.
if you engage in eating meat, taking lives, endorsing others to murder for your own personal greed and selfish desires for flavors, that is a representation of your lifestyle, beliefs, and mind. It is because some people haven't studied the Buddha drama enough to see the subtle consequences and the apparent karmic consequences when they say eating meat has nothing to with becoming enlightened.
If your mind is pure and your attachments and habits extinguished, eating meat is no different from eating vegetables because there is no difference in the sensations of taste, texture, flavor, etc. If you perceive no discrimination's and differences like the Buddha, then meat or vegetables are the same and you plant no causal affinities or attachments that would further bind you to this world.
If you deliberately choose to eat meat when you have the choice between vegetables and meat, then you are obviously representing a desire for flavors. You are also saying it's okay to take a sentient being's life for your own nourishment. EATING MEAT CLEARLY REPRESENTS SELFISHNESS AND GREED. It means you inconsiderately, selfishly take another life just so you can eat. On top of that, you create negative karma and causal affinities with that life that you allowed to be taken for your own benefit. The reason why this causal affinity is created is because your mind created it the moment you made the choice to sacrifice a life for your own.
If you eat meat unknowingly and had no choice or thought or affect in the decision to eat the meat, then you have planted no mental causes. It wasn't your fault. If you beg for food systematically like the Buddha did in the past, and if you are to eat whatever is given to you without any affect on the decisions, the systematic process and ethic in begging is the reason why you do not plant negative causal affinities should you have meat. Beggars can't be choosers.
So we choose the vegetarian diet because don't need to survive off of taking the lives of sentient beings. To take this "loss" now means we don't have any debts to pay. If we choose to take a life when we don't even have to, that's like making a purchase, and we will have debts to pay.
Deliberately eating meat when you could easily live a vegetarian life means you are causing negative affinities with that life you took. It also represents your attachments to flavors and food, including ignorance and selfish lack of consideration. That is the harsh truth of it all. There is no comforting in bad deeds and we must be truthful and honest to not be indifferent or brush off karmic deeds so lightly. Condoning eating meat is condoning selfish behavior, attachment, suffering, and murder.
If we all stopped eating meat, we'd all learn to live compassionately and value life a whole lot more in society. Animal farms would cease to exist and there wouldn't be all those genetically mass-produced animal farms. In fact, if we all resorted to vegetarian diets, we'd be able to feed the rest of the world considering how much land is wasted and used for animal farming.
There's no real legit reason to condone eating meat on the Buddhist standard. naturally, you can all do whatever you want! But in terms of Buddhist practice and wisdom's, electing to eat meat is a grave issue that throws you into a karmic cycle of animal rebirth, suffering, and the debts of life.
In terms of practice, eating meat defiles the mind because it is plagued by the karmic actions of murder. You try being a murderer and cultivating at the same time, see if that works out. There's obviously a reason why the Buddha set forth the 5 precepts. The precepts are the boundaries that discipline our bad habits and attachments. The precepts keep us tied up so we can sit still and stop moving around and acting up on our attachments. How can you practice taming the mind, let alone reaching enlightenment, if you keep moving around and attaching to all sorts of actions to satisfy your bad habits?? That is why it's just black and white, flat out the WRONG ANSWER when people say it's okay to elect to eat meat on the Buddhist standard.
When you indulge in killing or indulge in the endorsement of killing, that's what your mind gets affixed to. That's why your mind becomes impure because your mind nature is defiled with murder and karma. Even if you don't think about it because you are ignorantly indifferent while eating the carcass. But the fact that you elected to eat meat was the mental causation. In addition, even if you don't think... so you say... when you eat meat and subtly enjoy the meat flavors as a required standard for your selfish diet, THAT is a mental causation on the subtle side that most are unaware of. These are all defilement's. Why else would you choose to eat meat? You want the flavors, obviously! Otherwise, you're just a cold-hearted killer because you elect to eat meat just to murder someone. I'd hardly think that's true. You obviously eat meat for
Well, from what I understand, everything you do and think is a cause because of attachment. So if you make the choice to eat meat when you have a choice to begin with, you are planting causes that violate the precept of killing.
Greg's answer is harsh, to the point, and sound. It's the cold truth.
I just wanted to add... eating meat has become such a common thing as people become more desensitized to their habits. And people begin to condone eating meat like it's nothing when they haven't even yet seen the anguish that animals are put through just because we "choose" to eat them instead of being more compassionate and eating vegetables instead. It's become such a habit that we start to think it's okay to eat meat. Then we should start eating humans too. It's so frowned upon, but if we started making a system of feasting on certain humans and developed fantastic recipes, I'll bet that it will start being a habit just like eating animals is a habit... and it will be an everyday thing eventually.
I think we should look hard and closely to our habits, the nature of the habit, and the start of the habit. I dunno how people even find the heart to condone it. At least admit the habit and that eating meat causes suffering rather than flat-out blindly condoning it in ignorance. It's like being environmentalALnd denying global warming and saying you're doing nothing wrong.
Wolf's answer... I don't know what to say or if I should even indulge. wow. All I have to say is, you decide on your own volition and your actions speak for your karmic future. And he obviously decided to choose to kill.
Sigh, I eat a little meat now and then. I admit, it IS a habit and people have become desensitized. I really hope I can get rid of this habit more quickly.
I really think Greg's answer is strict and has no sugar-coating, but I value the truth and its fit in the Buddha drama. He's obviously speaking in terms of study, practice, and drama together, rather than support for personal bias, like how some are doing as they rationalize the murder of animals. Thanks Greg for laying it out... though a little whipped cream n strawberries would be nice.. Bahama!
comment on JED's answer:
As for eating scraps... IMHO... no. What is the difference between eating an animal that's been killed and served on a fancy place in a restaurant, and eating an animal that's served in a trash can or another person's scrap plate? You're still choosing to eat meat. You can choose vegetables, but you choose meat anyway. Scraps or 4-star dinner. I don't care, that's still a habit and attachment to eat meat.
I don't need to repeat because Greg just covered the face truth of this topic. Definitely spoken on the drama standpoint and not siding with bias and ego. Good job Greg.
JED... JED JED JED... what???
eating scraps? If you are so willing and compelled to resort to eating the meat scraps of someones plate, I think that says a LOT about your attachment for meat and delicious flavors. You are so willing, to go through such resorts and conditions, to satisfy your CRAVINGS, and hope that you are freed from the karmic consequences, that you eat the meat scraps of anther's food?? I think that says even more about how desperate ones cravings are and how strong their attachments are that they have to grasp at straws and split hairs on the rules to try and make it okay to eat meat. In either case, scraps or not, the habit and attachments are still there and both actions are borne from those attachments. You haven't vindicated yourself at all in either case.
Just eat vegetables.
THE WOLFS.... evolved and created to eat animals... I think Nice World was looking for a Buddhist answer... not some maniac answer. We all have a choice. We can survive independently off of meat or vegetables. One inflicts suffering on animals, one doesn't do anything. You have a choice, to selfishly benefit your attachments to flavor, or to be free from attachments and the controlling shackles of taste sensations.
We have a choice. And obviously, wolf has chosen to kill. That says a lot. Whether or not we were evolved to supposedly eat meat, we can survive on either. And you've chosen to murder. That says a lot about you indeed. Think before you speak WOLF.
If eating meat makes a person somewhat impure in Mahayana Buddhism, was Siddharta Gau
