Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
to meat or not to meat....
Ok, lets dicuss vegetarianism. The first grave precept says Affirm life, do not kill. if we choose to continue to dwell on this plane we must kill in order to sustain ourselves. here lies the rub. even if you are a vegetarian you are taking life to sustain your self the pesticides used on the plants killed the bugs, the land cleared to plant the food took homes and likely lives from small animals etc. If you still eat meat then we can stop right there. don't get me wrong I'm not advocating either way I just want to hear what you have to say. I'm going to post a couple of threads from enlightened beings that shed light to both sides.
Cheri Hubers take which is very heart wrenching. I sat at a seshin with her and she is an amazing practitioner
one less act... (this is a link, a long read. at least read the last paragraph or two if nothing else. these hit home the hardest)
next is Masao Abe an really amazing comparative religions philosopher and Buddhist by choice It is about compassion he said
"It is the law of the Buddha," he said, "not to destroy life. If so, one cannot eat. The notion that it is justifiable to kill plants but not animals is an illusion of (warning big word ahead!) anthropocentrism"*
*n : an inclination to evaluate reality exclusively in terms of human values*
"but if we do not eat, we destroy ourselves, still violating the Buddhist law. Thus the significance of the gassho, the pressing together of the palms,before partaking of a meal.One destroys life so as not to destroy life, but one does so only at the ultimate heartfelt limit." (from the text of Masao Abe a Zen Life of Dialogue)
so there you are some seriously tough thinking to do. I myself fall closer to Cheri Hubers side from an anger standpoint. realizing that by taking small steps in our own eating habits we could really make a huge change in all of this. thank you for your consideration of this topic
^gassho^
Cheri Hubers take which is very heart wrenching. I sat at a seshin with her and she is an amazing practitioner
one less act... (this is a link, a long read. at least read the last paragraph or two if nothing else. these hit home the hardest)
next is Masao Abe an really amazing comparative religions philosopher and Buddhist by choice It is about compassion he said
"It is the law of the Buddha," he said, "not to destroy life. If so, one cannot eat. The notion that it is justifiable to kill plants but not animals is an illusion of (warning big word ahead!) anthropocentrism"*
*n : an inclination to evaluate reality exclusively in terms of human values*
"but if we do not eat, we destroy ourselves, still violating the Buddhist law. Thus the significance of the gassho, the pressing together of the palms,before partaking of a meal.One destroys life so as not to destroy life, but one does so only at the ultimate heartfelt limit." (from the text of Masao Abe a Zen Life of Dialogue)
so there you are some seriously tough thinking to do. I myself fall closer to Cheri Hubers side from an anger standpoint. realizing that by taking small steps in our own eating habits we could really make a huge change in all of this. thank you for your consideration of this topic
^gassho^
0
Comments
The argument I've heard against abstaining from meat is the basic food chain scheme--the spiders eat the ants and the mice eat the spiders, et cetera. I think that there are good points in both sides of the argument.
But you're right, if we don't eat, we destoy ourselves. I personally am one for moderation. I like steak and chicken breast; I think there are valuable vitamins and minerals there that, yes you can get them in a pill, but you can't grill a vitamin supplement. But I also like green beans and salads and carrots. If I have meat in a meal, I try to have one or two vegetables and some fresh bread. The middle path, I suppose.
After skimming through this article, I will reconsider my eating habits--though I just can't part myself with a steak on the grill. (Funny that I gave up Christianity a lot easier!)
Thank you for posting a link to such a good article, I appreciate it.
Jules
I fall on the carnivore side of the spectrum here. Nothing is truly destroyed. The fish and cows become part of me (along with lots and lots of broccoli and green tea plants).
save massive amounts of water – 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of water for every pound of beef you avoid,
avoid polluting our streams and rivers better than any other single recycling effort you do,
avoid the destruction of topsoil,
avoid the destruction of tropical forest,
avoid the production of carbon dioxide. (Your average car produces 3 kg/day of CO2. To clear rainforest to produce beef for one hamburger produces 75 kg of CO2. Eating one pound of hamburger does the same damage as driving your car for more than three weeks);
reduce the amount of methane gas produced. (I imagine the next bumper sticker: stop farts, don’t eat beef);
reduce the destruction of wildlife habitat, and
help to save endangered species.
That’s a pretty good day’s work, for just what you don’t put in your mouth. "
"How Our Food Choices can Help Save the Environment", by Steve Boyan, PhD
http://www.earthsave.org/environment/foodchoices.htm
........Who's Jeffry Dahmer?
Seeing as Christianity is based around stories written by man, I can understand where you're going with that.
Jules
" processing " of the animals for your eating pleasure. I found the article at
http://www.torturedbytyson.com Take a look.. I dare ya
"From December 2004 through February 2005, a PETA undercover investigator worked on the slaughter line of a Tyson Foods chicken processing plant in Heflin, Alabama. Using a hidden camera, he documented the treatment of the more than 100,000 chickens killed every day in the plant.
What the investigator saw was truly horrifying. Birds were frequently mutilated by throat-cutting machines that didn't work properly; one bird had her skin torn entirely off her chest. Workers were instructed to rip the heads off birds who had missed the throat-cutting machines, and our investigator was told not to stop the line for missed birds. Plant employees were seen throwing dying birds around just for fun.
PETA's investigator also witnessed numerous birds who were scalded alive in the feather-removal tank while they were still conscious and able to feel pain. Plant managers told him that it was acceptable for 40 animals per shift to be scalded alive, and no one was reprimanded when far more than 40 birds suffered this fate during any given shift.
PETA's investigator repeatedly expressed concern to plant supervisors about the treatment of the chickens, but his complaints were ignored. Watch the video and see for yourself the agony of these animals' last moments.
Animal-welfare experts agree that this sort of treatment is unacceptable. Dr. Temple Grandin of Colorado State University wrote, "This is a total FAILURE on animal welfare," and Dr. Mohan Raj of the University of Bristol wrote that "due to the lack of appropriate legislation to protect the welfare of birds at slaughter people seem to get away with [these] cruel and unethical practices." Indeed, chickens are not afforded any protection under any federal animal welfare legislation. The Humane Methods of Slaughter Act leaves chickens and turkeys out entirely. Read statements from these and other animal welfare experts.
As hard as it is to stomach, this sort of treatment is entirely too common in modern chicken slaughterhouses. Previous undercover investigations have turned up injured and dying birds left unattended during workers' lunch breaks and workers who ripped animals limb from limb, threw live chickens against walls, and stomped up and down on them on the ground.
Sadly, all these abuses were entirely preventable. In 2003, PETA first contacted Tyson about a new chicken slaughter technology known as controlled-atmosphere killing (CAK), a process that replaces oxygen in the air with an inert gas such as nitrogen—which already makes up 78 percent of the air we breathe—masking the lack of oxygen and putting the birds to sleep quickly and painlessly. CAK would have eliminated all the cruelty that took place in all these investigations, from mutilation by the cutting machine to live scalding, because the birds would have been killed much earlier in the slaughter process and would not have been handled by the workers until they were dead. "
FOR Photos and more info.. go to:
http://www.torturedbytyson.com
You can help. Please ask Tyson to adopt CAK immediately:
John Tyson, Chair and CEO
Tyson Foods, Inc.
2210 W. Oaklawn Dr.
Springdale, AR 72762-6999
479-290-4000
479-290-4061 (fax)
Personally, I’ve never really enjoyed meat to begin with so I’ve been vegetarian almost my entire life. However, last year I was turned onto the Vegan lifestyle by a friend. Since doing so, I have notice tremendous difference in the way I look and feel. Being vegan, means refraining from eating meat and dairy, and because I’m also a bit of a health nut, I try to avoid most processed foods as well. Everyone is constantly asking me "so what do you eat then?" You'd be surprised to learn of the many alternatives out there nowadays (especially living in NYC). More and more people are being turned onto the lifestyle for it’s many health benefits, therefore more food companies are catering to the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle. My diet is mostly fruits, vegetables, soy products, nuts and grains. Which may not seem like much in terms of adequate nutrition, but I've honestly never felt healthier in my life. And today you can find calcium, protein and other vital nutrients packed into everything.
Thank you for treating this as the serious topic it is
^gassho^ :bowdown:
It sounds like you have a very difficult situation to deal with daily. My daughter has food sensitiviteis also .. in fact she lost her hearing in one ear because I got her diagnosed at a Naturopathic Doc for the allergies too late and she had inner ear damage from the repeated otitis ( the regular MD's sid she would outgrow the infections and it was normal). Well.. thank God the infections disappeard after eliminating the foods and also using a regimine of nutritional and herbal suppliments. She can now eat some of the foods she couldnt before and the others ( like wheat and gluten) she can have if she rotates them ,, eat them one day and not again for another 3 or so days. Being that I am vegan it was even more challenging to get protein for her but not impossible ( she was also allergic to soy).
If you can eat grains, legumes, rice, beans- including soy, ,, eggs and dairy...you can illiminate meat from your diet. Its a fact that most americans consume an excess of protein in their diet.. which can lead to all kinds of health probems if they are getting it from animal sources.
Also.. last but not least .. ( if you arent already doing this,, ) thank the animal that you are eating for its life and perhaps pray it gets a rebirth as a human next time
Im happy to help you with any of these ideas,, just let me know
The morality issue is a big one from the standpoint of the suffering of animals, the poisoning of the earth and squandering of natural resources. We sanitize ourselves from the situation by letting someone else do the dirty work, and we have no idea the brutality involved in the action. Ask your self would you or could you kill a chicken for dinner tonight? How about slaughter a cow? The fact that we are unaware is a great hindrance to the way. Our path is awareness. We can see that this creates greed (we eat way to much!) suffering (starvation in other countries as well as the actual suffering of the animals). So awareness of all of our actions: that hamburger meat was a cow. Living and breathing and feeling.
Now we have the last Point. All of our actions, which we allow other people to perform for us on a regular basis, can find the way to bad karmic action or cause Dukkha. Who picked the green beans I eat? How were they treated? I don’t know do I? So awareness of every step I take and all of the things in which I partake must be viewed as closely to the vine as possible.
In closing can we take responsibility for our choices? Can we make informed clear and non-judgmental choices about how we wish to leave our tracks on this planet? I can only take this step for myself you can only take this step for you. May you find your inherent perfection in this and every step.
^gassho^
We all have reasons why we do the things we do. I believe if you try to live right and do good by others than you are living the right path. To eat meat or not is anindividual choice and being that Buddhism is not strict like Christianity I think there is room in Buddhism for all our beliefs as long as we do not do it for selfish reasons.
Am I way off?
HHDL, being an enthusiast, went all the way and became a vegan. The result was that they began to fall ill: jaundice.
We live in countries where meat eating is actually unnecessary for health. In Tibet, butchers were considered to be outcasts - necessary but untouchable. How do we view our slaughterers? We ask them to kill and prepare meat for us. Where does the karmic debt lie?
If we look objectively at the process of raising cattle for food and the resources it takes to support the animals until they are ready to kill and package, it takes far more to raise a pound nutrition in the form of meat than it does for the same nutrition in the form of vegetable matter. Protein is protein, regardless where it comes from.
Over 20 people can be fed nutritious diets from the same amount of land and other inputs if they ate grain-based foods instead of the more complicated “convert to meat” step. Most grain goes to feed beef cattle! There are a lot of people in the world who would benefit from the additional grain freed up by giving up a few million pounds of meat as food.
Most people I know eat meat because they like the taste and truly believe they will die tomorrow if they don’t have it with every meal; not from an intellectual choice after weighing net inputs and outputs. Making that taste-based choice may not have anything to do with the moral question of eating animals; it is just something they have always done. We do it this way because we have always done it this way, but that does not mean that it is the best choice given our current population levels and shrinking agricultural resources.
Even if everyone suddenly awoke as confirmed vegetarians (wouldn’t that be nice!), we still have a resource allocation problem: no matter whether we eat soybeans or McBurgers, both are largely the product of petroleum in the form of fertilizers, and diesel fuel. We need to make as few demands on our available resources as we have to in the process of eating anything at all. If we could choose between 20 veggie burgers or 20 meat burgers, we could also feed 20 times more people by choosing the veggie burgers.
On a fundamental level, it does indeed matter to the world what we eat.
Our diet, like each of our actions, has effects far beyond the immediate.
Perhaps more people will give up read meat now that its effect in the aetiology of bowel cancer is understood. But I fear that may mean more chickens tortured in battery cages and more fish farmed unhealthily.
The hope lies in the 'organic' death of meat eating, for all the many reasons that are bringing it about.
That would be horrible for me being that I am allergic to fruits and vegetables. Try to look at if from my point of view. What if the world woke up and could only eat meat?
Of course, the wish would also include elimination of food allergies!
If we could only eat meat, we all would shortly be eating each other since it takes a lot longer to birth and raise a cow or chicken than it does to eat one. It would be a long time between meals for all us Homo Saps.
Since we're wishing, let's opt for the sustainable path.
If you are going ot wish why not just wish we didn't have to eat at all? Why kill veggies? That is life, too. When I was trying to eat vegetables when I was younger before they knew about the allergy I thought the taste and smell of them was horrible. Of course the swelling and irritation followed.
Thinking with the taste buds does not engender sustainable solutions.
"Hey how many fingers would you like?" Gives a whole new meaning to that.
So, we kill 14,500,000 deer and package the meat. The population if the US is about 300 million (not counting illegal immigrants, of course). That is one deer for every 20.7 people, or 7.73 pounds per person. Of course, that has to last for 200 days. (Since baby deer don't weigh 200 pounds, it’s going to be a lot tougher when the next crop comes in.)
So, for the next 200 days, we get to eat a half an ounce of deer each day; about 16 calories. Since some of us would get hungry on that diet, being about 1,800 calories short for the day, of course we would do the cows and chickens and all the other critters and would probably have to get really creative before the next 200 days were up.
I suspect that there would be no meat of any kind left at the end of the first 200 days. QED.
Munch on a peanut and think about it.
You remind me:
* Be careful what you wish for..........
* No absolute solution can be right for everyone
A man goes into the Zen butcher's.
"Give me the best piece of your finest meat," he asked the butcher.
"All our meat is excellent," replied the butcher.
^gassho^
Humor is a mirror to our inner selves. If facts are humorous, i didn't mean offence. And I agree that the discussion is deadly serious because it does result in taking life and we should make that decision with open minds and not our taste buds. I don't ask anyone to change; only to question the permanence of their decision.
In my humble opinion, of course.
How do you know a carrot is not more enlightened? I keep hearing Enlightenment is emptyness. I think a carrot fits that description. Maybe a carrot doesn't run away becasue it would rather give it's life for ours to help us stay alive? Maybe it is sentient and we just don't notice?
To quote our Monk-to be: Warning! Objects in mirror are not as enlightened as they appear.
when we breathe in, were eating lots of dust mites and bacteria and all sorts of stuff...is that negative karma? probably not.... plants are just as alive as anything... they struggle and adapt and consume and breed, just like people... the difference being some life consumes energy from the sun and chemicals like sugar and water....while some life consumes energy from.. other life...
i think if humans are consuming to sustain their diet its okay, like the fish and the bears and the eagles... but when were capturing and breeding animals for the sole purpose of killing and eating, thats pretty bad karma...
when were forcing animals to endure grotesque conditions like chicken farms
(ps did you know the deformed and underweight chicks are ground up and fed to their siblings?
they used to do with cows untill the mad cow disease scare....did you know they use a red hot knife to cut the beaks off of chickens so they dont peck and eat eachother?)
dairy farms are no better...
can u imagine if humans were bred in captivity, had their teeth and nails removed by a red hot knife so we didnt scratch and eat eachother, we were fed childeren that were ground up into paste if they were too small or deformed, were kept in cages so small we could hardly move, were fed untill we were so fat we could hardly walk... then theyd come and kill us, cut us into steaks and serve us to their people with a side of mashed potatoes.....
if money is the root of all evil, what is the root of all money?
I don't know, and not knowing bothers me deeply. I don't see how both YES and NO can be correct answers. If only one is correct for one of us, then why does it not apply to all of us? This is the philosophical question I want to explore.
One night they started talking about food - bad idea. She explained to him how animals are slaughtered. He remarked that it was better than he imagined. He thought they just started taking out the different meat cuts with the cow alive and mooing in order to maintain freshness. Next thing I know he's telling her how at least the animals are dead when we eat them, we just rip the poor veggies from the soil and put them on our plates. He was trying to be funny, but it upset her so much I thought for a moment that she just might consider not eating at all. It's really amazing I have any vegetarian friends at all with my hubby around.
Whilst we acknowledge (as do Christians) that all beings strive for Awakening, the 'life' of vegetables or of the hills, is different in kind from human or animal life.
In Buddhism, we speak of the Realms, into which one may be reborn (either after death or day-by-day). It is only in the human realm that we can attain Enlightenment for reasons which are obvious if we reflect on the nature of the realms.
It is certainly true that the Great Ones have, in the stories, sent forth animal incarnations. This was always for specific purposes.
In the matter-obsessed West, we make a clear distinction between life and 'persistent vegetative state' when the brain has been irreversibly compromised.
The important thing must, surely, be not what we eat but that we should do so
* without clinging or aversion, and
* mindfully.
The World-Honoured Buddha Shakyamuni, as a monk, ate whatever he was offered, refusing nothing however disgusting. In fact, that is exactly what lead to his physical death.
[/QUOTE]
I was just thinking of this tonight. I was thinking of the way people go into comas and never come out. I was thinking that maybe when they go into a coma they reach enlightenment and decide it's better to stay were they are. :banghead:
And they just love describing the ritual of smearing warm blood from a freshly killed deer all over their son's naked body in a ritual of passage. Hello testosterone, goodbye compassion.
"I ain't gonna give up my meat" is about the most serious thought they can express on the subject. They do not want to discuss; they want to respond with hurtful statements that challenge the non-meat eater's intelligence. That is virtually always from men; never from a woman.
Every vegetarian has been subjected to those mean-spirited comments at some point.
Why can there be no meaningful dialogue on the subject? Why do the initial responses seem to border on anger? Can it be that there are no genuine arguments for the other viewpoint?
I had no idea people did this so much. Sorry you have to go through that. But remember, those people are lost. They are a step up from animals. That ritual with the blood sounds illegal as much as it is digusting. I would never do anything like that t my kids. I actually love them and don't want to scar them for life.