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Tibetan Buddhism vegetarian ?
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And yet (organic) raw milk is so much better for you than anything processed....
This thread is still open?
goes and gets popcorn and steals borrows lobster's cushion
Until all sheep are free this thread must remain!!!!
And goats!
Sheep will never be free in Australia and New Zealand
. It's just they way the world works sunshine.
OMG! You people!
OMG! You people!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_and_drink_prohibitions#Vegetables
OMG @lobster - I have your cushion
$31 a meal is very expensive! Veg*n can be expensive, or it can be cheap. It all depends on how thrifty you are. There are various authors, bloggers, etc. who have full and healthy meal plans for like $5 per meal, sometimes even less. I've even seen recipes for under $1 per meal!
@seeker242 the point is, in some areas food is just a lot more expensive. That is how it is here because we live in a rather remote area. Everything is expensive. And because of our climate, produce in particular is hard to come by in the winter (which is 6-7 months long) because it freezes. Then we are paying $8 a pound for asparagus that is nothing but a pile of thawed mush. I've seen those recipes, and when they list the price they pay for everything, it's 3-5x more expensive here. We have no bulk stores to buy things in larger quantities, and we are several hours drive from stores that do. We garden and participate in our farmer's market but our growing season is only 80 days. Just an example of what other people deal with when it comes to buying groceries. We travel 100 miles every week to grocery shop just to cut our cost a bit and have access to more options. But a lot of people cannot do that. On the rare occasion we can get to a Trader Joes or Aldis, it's like heaven, lol. But they are 500 miles round trip, so it doesn't happen often.
Hi Seeker, my point is nothing really to do with Dharma, but Veganism. The definition of that officially involves the term "practicable." I think it would be fair to say in cases like yours that it just isn't practicable to have a well rounded and affordable nutritions diet without animal products. or some reasoning along those lines:)
The only fight/argument/discord I ever see at the Monastery is vegetarians and vegans fighting over whether honey is 'acceptable' or not.
You can't win for losin' , hahaha.
Mmm honey! I just added some to my morning tea. Despite the costs of groceries, one of the best positives for living here is that so many people are very self-sufficient, and they are all willing to trade skills and chores for goods. We have neighbors and friends that raise chickens and ducks, so we get eggs knowing where they come from and how the animals are cared for. We have other neighbors (when you are in a rural area, everyone is your neighbor, even if they are 5 miles away, lol) who raise bees, so we get honey in exchange for helping them with their horse care. When a huge tree was hit by lightning in our yard, a neighbor helped cut it, for free, if they could take some of the wood. So we kept a small amount for our fire pit and he took truckloads of it to heat his home. We babysit the kids of hunters, and get meat in exchange instead of money. It works out quite nicely, and I wish there was more of that in the world where we traded skills and talents versus just money. In addition to the benefits of quality goods, you foster a lot of community cooperation. While people are so defensive and hoarding of their money, they are usually more than happy to share their skills and the results of them.
Wow @Vastmind ...I love honey and the honey bee and this has never crossed my mind...It's now got the mind buzzing
I was recently given some Scottish honey, made by bees in tiny kilts.
(They have not, however, perfected that irritating monotonous drone of bagpipes....)
A Buddhist would not ask this question, no matter what lineage. People are always trying to make a bargain w/ their ethical responsibilities to the world, but in the end we actually cannot do this.
Anyone who participates in this carnage is directly responsible for the animal's suffering. The world's economies operate on supply and demand. If there are less people eating the flesh of tortured and murdered sentient beings, then there will be less incentive to kill them for food, since less people will be eating them. This is called cause and effect. Why would a farmer raise animals for this purpose when he couldn't sell them? He wouldn't. Meaning he would not be increasing the sizes of his animal holdings, which leads to less sentient beings being born into suffering and death. So every meal that we abstain from this behavior directly reduces the suffering in this world.
@smarino
As a non-Buddhist (see above) of no-lineage, I will continue asking questions, remain indefinable and unrestrained or labled by virtuous pumkin eaters, force feeding me their meatless nut cutlets (too wikid? - must be Halloween)
As far as I understand it food or its restriction, hair or its removal, shoes or their removal, gender or their removal, speech or its absence, will not restrict or enhance awakening ... What will however is attachment to 'our' meatless or other 'virtue'.
Pah humbug!
... and now back to the vegan gore fest ...
PS. No animals, except those with egos, were harmed in the production of this post ...
Oh my Buddha!!
I disappear for one year and all I get is another lousy veg vs carnivores thread gone stale!!
In the end, @thickpaper, it all comes down to personal choices and how well you can live with the consequences of the choices you make.
Precepts are guidelines, not commandments, as another member pointed out above, and you can figure out which way you prefer to live, without biblebashing your lifestyle at other people's nose.
Do what feels best for you.
Respect other people's choices.
This is a personal path.
We are not meant to drag people along to Nirvana by the nose.
I was born and raised in Argentina, so I simply love meat, and enjoy eating meat when I visit once a year.
But when I'm back home in Switzerland, I am mostly vegetarian, leaning on vegan.
I have tried and liked most of the vegan alternatives to animal products, so I must eat meat like once a month, if even that.
I do agree with @karasti, though, that a vegan/vegetarian lifestyle can set back severely on the average family's budget: vegan products are still quite expensive.
Choosing to be vegan is almost a luxury to me.
Don't you feel any compassion for your lobster brothers and sisters as they are boiled alive?
^^. No! I think lobsters are delicious. Told you I was a cannibal.
I also consider animals my brothers and sisters. Yum!
Worse things happen at sea.
'Welcome to the real world'
Morpheus - The Matrix
Welcome home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You've been missed.
Thank you, @dhammachick!!
I've missed the group so much too.
We'll see if my Right Speech skills have improved during this long absence...❤
I hope not - @dhammachick can't fight that corner all on her own.... :P
That's possibly the most pretentious comment I've read on here in a long time...
If they're always 'trying' to do this, then they will carry on. Because they think, in the end, they can, actually.
You worry about yourself, leave others to their own devices without shaming and blaming, ok?
And what new skill would you teach the farmer in order to replace the stipend he loses through the world suddenly becoming vegetarian overnight? How would you compensate him? Re-train him? In what skill? Think it through. What would you do to cause no disruption at all to this man's continued existence, and that of hs family and employees? Let me know what you come up with as a working plan.
(and yes, I'm a Grammar nerd. So sue me....)
Homer shows real compassion for his sentient being friend Pinchie.... AKA @lobster
@DhammaDragon said:
But what about how my choices make other being suffer?
At the cost of how it feels to the animals? That doesn't seem Sukka.
We are meant to change on the path. From suffering towards sweetness.
It doesn't matter what choices you make. Someone, something, somewhere along the line, will suffer. No matter how Noble, Wise and Compassionate your intentions, "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction". However you swing it, it will swing back in other ways....
Do the good you can, with the tools you have and the best intention you can muster. You cannot cover all the bases. You just can't.
Yes but it's a bit like going to the toilet. Everyone must do it for themselves. Sometimes the going's hard, sometimes the outcome is easy. But whatever happens, you make waves, and it all ends up the same way. Worm food.
When an activity begins to cause unnecessary harm to others, that is when it stops being a personal choice and becomes an action worthy of criticism.
Even when someone knows better, that does not mean they can always do better. Sometimes there is room for improvement. Sometimes they have reached a point that they cannot improve further, at least not yet. Even where it comes to harm, there are degrees of it, and not all of us are capable of mitigating every degree of every type of suffering immediately. Someone criticizing doesn't change that.
Right now is the precise moment at which you could profit from use of a mirror.
Indeed. In Buddhism there is an emphasis on compassion and harmlessness, but some seem to forget this when it comes to dietary choices.
But most of us are in a position to make skillful choices, minimising the harm we cause. Choosing to buy something different at the supermarket is really not that difficult.
I don't see why, it is just somebody saying what they feel.
That doesn't seem to be the situation here. It is more like some people enjoy meat and resent ethical questions being raised about it.
As a hypocrite, I find a little meditation and being droningly compassionate to cows is much easier than engaged Buddhism ...
http://www.buddhanetz.org/texte/brown.htm
And now back to droning, dharma cash cows and easy answers ...
In all honesty, I love the taste of meat.
I could eat meat every day.
But it is the ethical reasons that have turned me basically vegetarian.
The compromise I found between taste and ethics is that: I eat vegetarian/vegan every day, with occasional exceptions -such as a trip to Argentina where meat is delicious- when I indulge in meat more often.
My point still is: I can make my own decisions about meat, but I can't shove them nor point the finger on others about theirs.
That is what makes these threads so pointless.
@SpinyNorman I am aware of that. It just seems to be that those (@thickpaper, @smarino) advocating doing no harm (very good!) forget that we cannot do actions that will carry universal and all encompassing good. All we can do is to try our best to do the immediate good we can. But that is for the person themselves to decide and to live with. Benevolently bullying just gets people's backs up. How is that "Doing no Harm", and Right Speech? There are ways and ways. Actions speak louder than words, walk the talk. If you do, others may follow. But start preaching sanctimoniously, with the implied 'should', and that's when the juice goes sour....
Dear friends, ox lovers, vegans, meat munchers, non-buddhists, evil fishermen, usual suspects,
As mentioned. We have a mind. We have choices. Wisdom is knowing the counter productive effect of militant vegans.
When I was at the Hari Krishna (Hindu Buddhists) temple recently, I was very impressed with how well they treated their cows.
Apart from the plowing ox powered part ... which seems a little anachronistic. They also use the ox for transport.
http://www.bhaktivedantamanor.co.uk/home/?page_id=4073
I think that cannot be karma. The choice I make casts the world. It is the fundamental distinction between action and accident. Accidentally killing the bug is karmically different from intentionally killing the bug.
No, but I can very easily cover the base that says: "I will not encourage the suffering of other beings by my choices." And that is one of the biggest bases I can cover.
I think it is that simple.
Lots of 'I' in there. Which implies that YOU make YOUR choices. As others must make theirs.
I think we're done here, because this discussion is getting distinctly cyclical.
Thanks to all who contributed, whatever they contributed. Repetition heralds closure.