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The Vegetarian Chestnut
federica
Seeker of the clear blue sky...Its better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to speak out and remove all doubt Moderator
This discussion was created from comments split from: Theravada Buddhism , Vegetarianism.
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Meat eating involves two rounds of killing sentient beings. First, insects and other small animals are killed when lands are cleared to grown the grains to feed animals. Then we kill the animals for their meat.
Vegan diet involves only one round of killing when the lands are cleared to plant the crops.
what did Buddha say about raising the dead (threads) ?
Well, not really. How do you think farmers keep insects and other things from eating their crops? How do you think fertilizer affects the rivers and lakes that it runs into?
Anyhow, it's generally not recommended to resurrect threads that are more than a few months old. As this is more than a year, you are better off finding a more recent related discussion on this topic, or starting a new one.
Well, gee, have we ever talked about this before???
I think the policy is to start a new thread
(just teasing above ^^)
Not by the OP it hasn't.
You may find it tedious, but new students around here, need showing round the place before they know where everything is.
As a Principal, you'd know that, of course.
Gee, it was a joke. Lighten up.
It's a cod eat cod world out there. Get used to it.
I'll remember that one for future use, thanks!!
Ah I knew I bought wild salmon for a reason ... soon will be time to do some karmically correct foraging ...
Yesterday I caught pictures of wild trout and carp but ate pole caught tuna (I am a lobster it is part of our Lore) out of a tin. Maybe I should go fishing like my cousins and stop this urban domesticated pond living ...
A tricky subject to talk about without meat eaters feeling judged and vegetarians sounding judgmental.
The side of this discussion that seldom arises is how folks (vegetarian or not) try to minimize their environmental footprint in other ways.
I wonder about vegetarians who's other life choices might result in huge footprints (and much suffering) compared to meat eaters who's other life choices overall might result in the lesser sized footprint.
In other words, the subject of what you eat, as a potential cause of suffering, when taken out of context with the rest of one's actions in life, seems a bit myopic.
If you eat pork you will be reborn as a pig! So there! This is what the Buddha said in the Spiny Nikaya which unfortunately has been lost in the mists of time.
I like chestnuts and each winter I buy them and roast them 'yummy', I guess this makes me a vegetarian chest"nut" ...
I'm getting less willing to judge the others, but I want to share this one:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150518121442.htm
Interesting. Those 4Ns are quite familiar from debates like this.
A common fifth excuse on Buddhist forums is that not eating meat doesn't eliminate suffering, though actually this is a straw-man because it does considerably reduce the suffering caused. A variation on this is the argument that plants experience pain too, though in fact there is no evidence that plants feel pain in the way that animals do.
The sub-text often seems to be "I feel a bit guilty about eating meat but I really enjoy it, so I'd better come up with an excuse."
I think that is mostly because diet is the one thing that has the most significant impact with regards to one's footprint by far. Water usage footprint for example. It's said that diet alone accounts for 2/3rds of a person's total water footprint. When a person becomes a vegetarian, it's said they reduce their total water use footprint by almost 50%. A person becoming vegan, it's said that they reduce their dietary carbon footprint by more than 50%. If a person wants to reduce their environmental footprints, diet is really by far the single most effective way to do that.
When it comes to things like water and carbon footprint, I can't think of any normal persons situation where that would even be possible, because diet is such a large percentage of the total footprint. To negate the offset gained by a change of diet, that's going to be extraordinarily difficult, unless you are flying around in your own private jet or something like that. I don't think it would even be possible for a vegetarian to accidentally increase their water footprint by more than 50% with other activities, even if they are being completely irresponsible with regards to water usage. It would probably be possible with some rare, unusual circumstances. But generally speaking, I think it's safe to say the most irresponsible vegan's water footprint is still going to be quite a bit lower compared to the most conscientious meat lover's water footprint.
Sorry, Alex, of course, you are new and have probably no way to know, but we have killed the issue of vegetarianism/veganism so many times, I'm surprised it even finds the energy to make yet another samsaric round in our forum again and again.
Really, @DhammaDragon --- This thread makes me want to go on a diet --- in more ways than one, tbh; I ask myself why I have to impulsively press the "Insightful", "Awesome" or "LoL" buttons -- Iow, how much is too much?! Is there a 12-step group for this?!
The worst defence is to draw the Hitler card: "Hitler was a vegetarian, too". No, he wasn't.
Buddhism is a great moral guidance - especially for a "sinner" like me. After all I'm only a tiny grain of sand, but trying to give something positive for the cultural evolution for the better future.
The other point about being a Buddhist who is a vegetarian is about trying to be attentive of my attachment and identity to being a vegetarian.
Is my expression of compassion for those eating animals less than for the animals themselves?
Is what someone eats, a large factor in whether I choose to include them as folks to hang out with or not?
Is my own vegetarianism also manifesting as suffering's cause?
It's only my choice what I eat, or whatever I do. I'm still a member of many kind of social webs. So, I have to give some positive impact in them, too. Perhaps I can even turn the other cheek to my enemies. "Compassion" and "Love"...
Feeling quite pessimistic. Compassion for the other animal species will never be a really sexy subject in the social media.