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Tibetan Buddhism vegetarian ?
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This is what I was getting at when in the other thread I was talking about "looking deeply into your computing device". It's not just about whether you choose to use leather shoes, anything that you buy that involves complex materials like metals or modern manufacturing processes has its effect on the environment and plant, animal and human life.
So getting somebody else to do it for you is OK in your view?
We cannot avoid doing harm, the question is what efforts we make to minimise the harm we do. This applies to all aspects of our behaviour of course.
Doesn't kindness extends to animals too?
My point was not abut my feelings but the feelings of the animals. I don't think the organisms I cook have feelings. I think the animals we exploit do.
There is a deep difference to me between organism and being. A being has sentience, it feels and experiences and does not want to suffer. I think this is especially true of mammals, but it is also true of birds and fish etc.
I think that if I encourage a man to harm another being, I am part of that harm.
So I think that when I buy milk or eat flesh then I am encouraging others to harm other beings. I am part pf that harm.
All along in this and the thread that was censored I was asking about my and our practice and specifically how can Dharma and animal cruelty be compatible.
I have not judged or questioned anyone. That is for us each to do ourselves, as the Damapadda says.
Oh yes. 100% Agree. But for me, personally, living in the west in 2016 there is no excuse to cause suffering.
I am not worried about everyone else. I am worried about the billions of sentient beings right now suffering in atrocious, cruel ways so we can have flesh and fromage.
Oh know! I have been involved in such discussions with many buddhists over the years, from many countries and cultures. But there is a ground swell isn't there? Veganism is starting to thrive. The horror videos are persuading. The movement is spreading.
And so recently I have been thinking just how can it be that this cruelty can be condoned by a teaching that has as a key drive the cessation of suffering.
There are many many as well you know. But this is a simple choice I can make to not support cruelty. If there was no Dharma, these practices would still be cruel.
It isn't impossible to eliminate this ongoing industrialised exploitation and slaughter of sentient beings. World wide and in our shopping baskets.
All it takes is for everyone to refuse to support this cruelty. A cruelty which is only there so we can have those momentary moments of deliciousness in our mouths.
@thickpaper, I notice you studiously avoid responding to my posts. Is this a conscious indifference, animosity or disdain on your part, or that you have no response to my points? If you do not wish to 'engage with me' on my responses... why not?
All it takes eh?
Why are we being force fed vegan whinging? Are we allowed to cook them and serve with a nice Chianti? [too cruel?]
As a reknowned tongue chewer, I always insist that omnivores and my cannibal kin [lobsters are cannibals] are always ready to turn vegans into non sentient solent green. Delicious!
Yes be kind to animals and carnivores, watch cowspiracy, save the world if that is your plan etc ...
http://www.cowspiracy.com
... must remember to buy some delicious meat moments ... I do this in memory of you ...
Hi federica.
I have read all of your responses.
In the past we have had run-ins and I just don't want to engage in negative discssions with you.
If you can keep it to dharma rather than me or my personality then I would gladly discuss things with you:)
Thanks
You're having run-ins with virtually every other member too. They haven't kept it to Dharma' either...it doesn't make sense.
Maybe you think that, just because I'm a moderator, I'm going to be unfair on you and victimise you 'because I can'...? I don't operate that way, if that is your reasoning. It might not be, I could be wrong. So many of us are, and frequently too....
It might be that in part. I was just reading out messages from July 2011 so yes, I guess I have some residual concern about that.
But as said, I don't want t engage in anyone who makes it personal and jibes. You can see in this thread I haven't replied to those who have been like that.
I have so little time, I do not want to spend it in dukka discussions here or anywhere:)
Happy to turn the page!:)
Yes, I see your reasoning.... but sometimes, we have to dip our toes in the distasteful, because otherwise we cannot say we have confronted ALL of our demons. People ARE dukkha. "Hell is other people" as Jean-Paul Sartre accurately said...
And while we all wish to escape dukkha, we are all on the same road, arms linked. Sometimes the very things you wish to avoid, are aspects of the path you have chosen...
And do you not realise that your views and opinions, may be that very discomfort to others? It is not only about escaping dukkha. It's HOW you 'escape' it. because if you propel views to others which do not accord with them, your View is also questionable, under scrutiny....
Thank's for your response:)
Kindly fed, could you show me one place in the last years where my views or opinions may be this? Or even in this thread? Or the thread you censored?
Perhaps the discomfort people may feel comes from the inner knowing that though it may be tasty, it is cruel dukka? That is not caused by me.
I do not think that I have not propelled any views. I have stated my opinion and asked, clearly, the questions about Dharma and animal cruelty.
And I want my view to be questioned!:)
I am no authority on anything, nor do I wish to be.
You could take it even a step further. Consider the kammic results of a life spent in the business of killing living beings vs being unemployed with no money. If you want to go all the way, you could say that by putting these people out of a job, you are actually helping them reduce their own suffering. The suffering that occurs as a result of the business of killing living beings far outweighs the suffering of being out of a job. Simply being out of a job won't cause you to be reborn in hell! Even no livelihood has a better kammic result than a killing livelihood.
When it is boiled down to the nitty grittys of Buddhism, one must ask oneself
When it comes to sentient beings ....What does "Do No Harm" or "Do The Least Harm" mean to me? (living in the West with options available also needs to be taken into account )
Then go with what makes one feel comfortable, and if ones choice does not make one feel comfortable...The problem and the solution lies with them and them alone...
With topics like this Dukkha is inevitable...Anger, frustration, tends to boil over... "I'm right & You're wrong!" etc etc ... Nobody wins except "Dukkha"
It's fundamental in our "family" culture here, and in Buddhism in general, that the Buddhist teachings are not Commandments. We are not told how to live our lives, and we are not told to inspect others and correct their nonBuddhist behaviors. Rather, we each find in the teachings suggestions for things we might try to reduce our own individual suffering. Buddhism isn't telling you to save the world, or even just save the cows and chickens. It isn't telling you to save anything. It is only offering you a set of astonishingly wise teachings that you can use internally.
Our NB family is a wacky diverse collection of herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, and apparently at least one cannibal. We're all on a Buddhist journey of some type, we all have very different experiences, and we enjoy sharing those experiences with each other. In the context of this forum's collective personality, your phrasing is interpreted as "My view is the only one that could possibly be right." That may not be how you feel but it is how you sound. Reread the replies to you and this will become clear. Those aren't personal jibes, they are cues. The reason I mention it is not to say that you aren't right, nor to agree that you are, but to explain that it doesn't matter to us. We're not very interested in who is right, we're interested in hearing a wide variety of ideas. And the reason we're interested is not to persuade others about our view; exactly the opposite. It is to understand and contemplate their view because we might individually learn something that helps us on our path. And you might too.
For my part, I must point out that during this specific discussion I have not felt either anger or frustration. In fact I believe, by and large that in spite of obviously varying opinions, everyone has kept their cool, been polite and has been quite civil. Which I think is, in no small part, a point in everyone's favour....
Steve, I get all that and relate to it. I am antidogma, even buddhist dogma, and very much a beliver we all need to be our own lights.
It still befuddles me how animal cruelty can be compatible with dharma practice.
I love meat. I love cheese. But I practice/learn/follow dharma. What should I do?
that answer can't come from me.
Much discussion over many years on these pages. But no answers.
Inquire within. That's the only possible hiding place for the answer. And for many many more questions.
Enjoy. Journey happily.
Not what I said at all. I'm saying there is a difference between doing the harm yourself, and seeing that someone did harm here, not immediately for my benefit, and now there is a dead chicken.
From a point of view of the Buddha's teachings, that is precisely the distinction he is making when instructing his monks whether to accept meat to eat or not.
I'm not disputing at all that the least harm when you look deeply into our effects on the world is by living a minimalist, fully vegan lifestyle, merely that such a thing is not called for by the dharma as far as I have seen except by a huge extension of what is actually said.
If you wish to be fully compliant with your particular conscience, I'd say buy a couple of cows, give them a good and happy life, use their milk for cheese while they live, and when they die a natural death eat the meat.
But if the chicken is for your consumption then you are getting somebody else to do the harm on your behalf, so there is surely a responsibility involved.
If you mean the 3-fold rule, the underlying principle is that of minimising harm. This principle also underlies the precepts, and of course harmlessness is an aspect of Right Intention. In a Mahayana context there is an emphasis on compassion, and presumably that includes compassion for animals.
Absolutly. That would be great.
Why is it a huge extension?
If cows are beings and beings should not, in accordance with ALL versions of dharma, be willfully harmed then...well... it seems beyond obvious to me.
Not everyone living in the west even has access to the same things as everyone else. Whether due to finances or availability. There are some pretty icky consequences of large-scale farming as well. Earthbound Farms, for example, is one of the biggest organic suppliers. However, their mass farms cause plenty of environmental harm, including a LOT of water use, and destruction of plenty of habitat that in turn results in the killing of sentient beings. That's what I mean when I said we can only do our best to decrease harm in the best way we can. Someone who is out hunting and fishing for their food (and I know many people who do this) is probably actually causing less harm than a vegetarian living on Earthbound Farms packaged organic produce. Everything they sell is packaged in plastic, it has to be trucked all over the country, they are overusing water and taking up large sections of habitat.
It is quite easy to see that someone who lives in a big city, drives a car, works for a large corporation, buys packaged organic food at Whole Foods and lives in a 4000 sq foot home might be causing more overall harm than others who might eat meat but are more conscious of other things in their life. The thing is, we all do what we can. We can't do any more than that. It is simply a fact of life that our existence causes the death of innumerable other beings every single day. How often do you use plastic? Where do you get your furniture? Do you look into the farming and corporate practices of all the healthy vegetarian food you eat? Like quinoa and other such things that are all the rage but have had enormous consequences for those who farm it and their home countries? Or is it just easier to put a blanket blame on meat eaters without looking at everything in your life that you can change? Unless you run your own organic farm and 100% sustain yourself in a 100% natural home and life, then you have little room to tell others they are doing it wrong. We are all doing it wrong. But we can only work with what we have and what we know.
I know a few people who live lives about as self-sustaining as you can get. But they still have to cut wood for heat or invest in plastic solar panels. Cutting trees destroys habitat even when you are very careful to replant. They all eat meat because when you provide for yourself in a winter climate, there is little other choice. But their overall footprint is far less compared to most of the rest of us.
When I walk into the supermarket, that particular chicken is already dead. So how am I getting someone else to do the harm? Just hypothetically of course, I don't buy meat from the supermarket (or butcher), and don't usually eat it
I was referring to this:
It seems clear and direct, and not requiring re-interpretation according to an underlying principle. You can of course personally choose to extend your practice of harmlessness to the second-hand killing of all animals by everyone everywhere, but I haven't seen that supported in the sutra's anywhere.
@Kerome I would look at is as if you are financially supporting not only the butcher who cut the meat so you could buy it, but the farms behind the scenes as well. The animal is already dead, and someone is going to buy it (or it'll be wasted when it passes expiration) but as with most things in our world, we vote with our money more than anything and everything we purchase with our money is a vote for the support of the people and practices behind the scenes. It might not make a difference in the overall, grand scheme of things. The chicken would have died anyhow whether you or the next person bought it. But when you buy it you directly contribute to the next chicken dying to replace it on the store shelf. Anything you purchase creates a demand to replace that item and the entire system works on that supply and demand. When you purchase it, you are demanding they replace it with another. Therefore you are complicit in increasing the demand for dead animals.
It's one of the reasons I find the purchase and release of live seafood to be a little disturbing. Yes, it is compassionate and heartfelt to see lobsters destined for the table be released into the wild. But all it tells the bookkeepers is they just sold a whole lot of lobsters and they better order more, fast.
My opinion:
You are encouraging the cruel system. You are directly supporting it.
If I buy you a chicken as a present and you eat it, again, you are condoning the suffering.
But that is a suttra, it is open to be questioned and doubted. It all is. There is just the underlying principles of the three marks and all they entail.
If you work from the top down then sure you can say things like HHDL occasionaly eats meat or this scripture says its OK.
I think we are encouraged to move from the bottom up. The underlaying principles being compassion, ahimsa etc.
If somebody is buying meat regularly then they are adding to the demand for meat, that leads to more animals being killed. If somebody orders a turkey for Christmas or Thanksgiving, that means another turkey killed. And so on.
The 3-fold rule applied to monks being donated food by villagers back in the Buddha's time. The question is how such a rule might apply to lay-Buddhists in the modern world, so the underlying principle is important. As I explained, the principle of non-harm is also conveyed by the precepts and by the path factor of Right Intention. The dots are easily joined here, it really isn't rocket science.
The bottom line (in my opinion) is that fundamentally, we do things because we decide to do them.
We eat meat, because that's what we decide to do.
We don't eat meat, because that's what we decide to do.
It's a bit of a harsh thing to say, "if you're not prepared to look an animal in the eye, before you slit its throat, you shouldn't expect some unseen hand to do it for you either", because it's not just you he's doing it for. He's paid to do it and is making a living.
The premise therefore, of connecting the actions of a paid meat-worker, to the violation of the 3 rules, is a bit tenuous, and excessively burdensome. In my opinion. We cannot be expected to take on the sins of others as a mass-guilt trip.
I personally know someone in Italy who took a job in an abattoir, could stand it for no more than a week, and came out a dedicated vegetarian. But not all abattoir workers, are.
Eat meat, or don't eat meat. Have your reasons, But you wrestle with your own conscience, make your decisions, and sleep well at night.
@federica Indeed.
@thickpaper You are making an assumption that someone who eats meat cannot possibly care about animals, when you say you bring up the topic because you care about other beings. That's simply not true. It might not make sense to you, but it is quite possible to do both. I think people should know the truth about where their foods-all of them-come from. Then they can make the decision that is right for them based on many different factors. But that doesn't mean their arriving at a different decision than you makes them people who don't care for animals.
Yes, but all the sutra's talk about not directly harming animals or human beings. Extending these according to some general principle is dangerous, because you may be twisting things beyond their original intention. For example, do you take responsibility for not stopping a lion from killing a gazelle, knowing that you may afterwards use the gazelle's horns or fur when the lion is done with the carcass? The line has to be drawn somewhere, and by extending your general principle such a long way you run the risk of imposing an unnecessary burden on yourself.
I don't see it like that. What I see is, in the Buddha's time the rule for monks extended so far. Therefore the rule for lay people should be less extreme, less restrictive. I agree it isn't rocket science, and one should beware of joining the wrong dots in the wrong direction
I eat meat (though less than I used to and of far better quality and living conditions, wild game when possible). I accept the consequences of this. There are many reasons I do, some of which I have more control of than others. Even if I wanted to be vegetarian and was able to do so within my family, I could not afford to do so because of where I live and the lack of availability and cost of particular things in the winter months. I garden in the summer and preserve that food as much as possible and we expand our garden every year. I accept where I am, where I came from and no doubt there will be more changes to come.
That said, I have a hard time believing Buddha might stop by one day and say it was perfectly fine to buy packaged meat at the store with no care for where it came from simply because I was not the one to kill it. We fish year round. I can buy the same fish from the store at a cost of $12 a pound. It is farmed in Canada and shipped here, despite it's widespread availability in our easily accessible lakes. I accept I take on consequences for the resulting death of the bait and the fish that we eat. But my responsibility would not be less if I bought the same fish at the store. There are consequences to both. It is a matter of which we find more palatable and in part how much we understand about what it takes to get farmed animals to the store. Nevermind the plastic and styrofoam that they are usually packaged in and the harm those cause to other animals when they end up in the oceans.
Anyhow, yes I eat meat. But I don't think Buddha would be ok with the current environment of farming animals and let us off the hook for buying it versus killing it ourselves. I think he would say the current system of mass farming of all types of pretty horrendous in the damage it causes in all ways. Does it place a burden on us to think in that way? Sure. But I think it should.
I'm not making a judgment on whether anyone else should eat meat or not, I'm merely trying to be clear on what the sutra's actually say. I don't think you can walk in - as @thickpaper did - and say "how can you be a Buddhist and be anything other than a strict vegan". That's almost trolling.
I don't think his viewpoint is supported by the Buddhist sutra quotes he has supplied, there are clear directions in the Pali Cannon which counter his views, and being aware when and how to apply principles is part of being skilful.
I think the real responsibility for the suffering in this case is with the butcher. As a buyer you have much diminished responsibility, and as @karasti is making clear you can reduce that further by buying wisely (free range, grass fed, organic), and by reducing the amount you eat.
>
I think this is basically correct. The rest looks like rationalisation and self-justification.
I think some measure of harm is unavoidable, if you look deeply at how the world works. You can try to minimalise it, but that's all. Not accepting that is failing to face reality, and living in a delusory dream world.
And actually dairy farms here are nearly all quite humane. Not very much harm being done there at all.
I think you are rationalising and indulging in self-justification. You have studiously ignored the fact that non-harm is the basis for the precepts, and an aspect of Right Intention. You have studiously ignored the fact that compassion is an important aspect of Mahayana, and that it also applies to animals.
I have been involved in many of these debates, and your arguments are shallow and unconvincing.
Well, I think we don't know where the limits of karmic effects of something like harm to animals are, or what one in practical terms should or should not do. I think if we fall for a simplistic approach of reducing all teachings to principles, we risk missing essential things in what the ancients tried to pass on. We are not enlightened, we should let ourselves be guided, and not think that just because we grasp at some principles that we truly understand the limits of their effects.
I think the sutra gives very clear guidance, as is the obvious fact that the restriction for lay people should be the same or less than that for monks. I don't think that's a shallow argument, it seems simple and unambiguous.
You are of course entitled to your opinion, and I'm not going to indulge in virtual mud-slinging. But your knowledge of me and how I follow the dharma is quite limited, and the fact that you like to make judgments on such small evidence says a lot.
Children... it's been reasonably friendly up to now. Can we keep it civil please? As I said earlier. The Dhamma is the Dhamma. How we CHOOSE to implement and follow the teachings is individual choice, and it befalls to none of us to hold others up to scrutiny and criticism. Play nice, ok? Accept that others see through different lenses...
I didn't not say that. Please don't misrepresent me. I asked how can animal cruelty and dharma be compatible.
If you are saying eating meat and dairy isn't animal cruelty then that is a whole other issue that can easily be resolved by the countless horrific videos of factory farming.
So I am assuming you are not ignorant of these atrocities.
Then the point remains, and it is a simple one, that can be expressed in many ways:
How is the first precept compatible with animal cruelty?
You have avoided answering that question.
Again, please don't misrepresent me in future!:) Thanks!
keep it sweet.
?
You did say you thought that eating dairy led to animal cruelty? It depends on how humane and pleasant your dairy farms are, surely. In our dairy farms animals are not mistreated and are left out in grass fields for long periods of time, as far as I know.
It's almost a direct quote from the other thread that got closed. But that's OK, no worries.
Please don't take this the wrong way, I do not and have never advocated animal cruelty, but the first precept is quite specific, it is usually given as:
"I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking life"
It says you, yourself, personally, are going to abstain from taking life, animal or human. But even there, there are limits... what about tiny insects or bacteria you are crushing under your feet with every step? And it says nothing about causing others to take life. That is all left as a grey area.
@Kerome, the point is, intention. Kamma means VOLITIONAL Action. Accidental taking of life may carry kammic consequences, but Volitional action - that over which we have total control - is what the first precept is referring to.
@thickpaper but you are still assuming that all meat/animal product eating is a result of factory farming, which is not true. But even in the case where people do buy that meat, sometimes they simply cannot afford to do anything else. It's not as if people doing so are thinking "Hah, those darn cows, I'm so glad they were killed for me to savor their flesh!" Most people are just trying to do right by their families and do the best they can. Contrary to what a lot of people think, it's not always so affordable. I am having a vegetarian lunch. This is what it cost:
Bottle of tahini: $12.00
Lemon: .50
Quinoa: 7.00
Yam: 1.00
Cauliflower: 2.50
Beets: 3.00
Greens: 4.00
Chickpeas: 1.00
Total: $31.00
this is one meal, for me. The quinoa and tahini of course will last several meals but I am the only one that eats this food, so it is a lot of money to feed one person in a family of 5. This cost is prohibitive for a lot of people considering it's one meal. If we ate this way for every meal, and there are 5 of us do you see how it becomes a problem? Compared to a pound of ground beef and a taco kit that'll feed the whole family for $7 (less in a bigger city of course).
Incidentally, I never buy tinned chickpeas. Just one tinned chickpea is equivalent in cost to around 19 dried ones....
@federica I, too, prefer dried (I have a pressure cooker so cooking them is no big deal) but our local store was out of them. For this particular dish, I only needed 4oz so it wasn't too bad to get just the one can. I mostly try to avoid canned foods as a general rule, they are usually full of sodium and other junk. When I do soups or something, I always use dry. We used the rest to make cinnamon roasted chickpeas, they are a good snack for our diabetic kid. I'm not a big bean/legume person. The texture bothers me, but chickpeas I enjoy.
Absolutly.
Educate yourself. I imagine, if they are farms interested in surviving commercially... I am not going to go into the details.
I don't see any grey area whatsoever. There is intending to cause suffering and not intending to.
totally equate with the chickpea/bean textured. I roast butternut squash - skin and all - then liquidise, add vegetable stock to required thickness, then add cooked chickpeas - the equivalent of a canful - half of them loosely pulped. it's so good....
We really should go back to a recipe thread!
@Dalia2016 if eating animal flesh presents a conflict of interest then explore the conflict....It would seem that for some Buddhists it presents no conflict at all, whilst for others it does...
I'm reminded of this
"Great faith and great doubt are the two ends of the spiritual walking stick.We grip one end with the grasp given to us by our Great Determination. We poke into the underbrush in the dark on our spiritual journey. This act is real spiritual practice -- gripping the Faith end and poking ahead with the Doubt end of the stick. If we have no Faith, we have no Doubt. If we have no Determination, we never pick up the stick in the first place."
~Sensei Sevan Ross,~
@thickpaper (not to speak for him but in case it is somehow missed) @Kerome does not live in the US. I believe he said he is in the Netherlands? If so, here is a report about dairy farms there (if I am mistaken, my apologies). They are not much better, and the little that they are is mostly because of how small of a space they are working within. Many Dutch farmers have moved to the US because land is much more available and is more affordable which doesn't limit the size of the herd they can keep (and thus their profits).
Truly the dairy industry is just gross. Not that the entire factory farm industry is any better, of course. But at least there are other options, for us anyhow. For milk there is not. Raw milk is illegal in my state and organic milk here is $14 a gallon. We get it on occasion but not regularly. The cows are overworked and maltreated all to provide a subpar nutritional quality milk. Sad all around. I make my own yogurt with organic milk but dairy products aren't a big part of our regular meals, thankfully. We drink water, and tea with our meals and my mom thinks it's an abomination
The dairy lobby is powerful indeed.
Edit: Forgot the link, sorry! It was the result of a brief search so I cannot vouch for the source.
http://www.eyesonanimals.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Giving-Milk-a-Good-Shake.pdf