Dharma and Veganism

thickpaper

Ola,

How can someone be a Buddhist and consume animal products?

It strikes me that the two are incompatible.

I know lots of Buddhists eat other beings and cause their suffering, like I have many times.

I am not interested in posts to long websites, but I would love to know the thoughts of those of us who practice dharma and at the same time cause suffering with out choices.

Much respect.

Jeroen

This thread is about much the same thing...

http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/24333/tibetan-buddhism-vegetarian

But essentially what it comes down to is that the Buddha's advice to his monks was that "when given food, accept meat if the animal was not specifically killed for you; if it was, then you should refuse it."

And that was for monks. The advice for lay people is generally less strict. So say you adhere to the monk's rule. In modern times it is a question of interpretation, do you consider that the meat in supermarkets was from animals killed specifically for you?

The animals were killed in a butchery; they were killed to be eaten, for sure, but so were nearly all the animals in the Buddha's time. The Buddha's test is more strict, if the animal was knowingly and specifically killed for you.

So you can see quite a few Buddhists do eat meat, and use animal products. Now if they were to were to walk past a farm, and the farmer were to offer them to slaughter a cow to make them new shoes from the leather, they would refuse.

thickpaper

Hi Kerome

Thank's for the thoughts.

My point was not so much what is the doctrine and dogma of the various Buddhisms regarding meat eating. Nor how differences have been contrived between lay and sanga over the years.

It was a more fundamental point about cultivating suffering being completely at odds with Dharma.

"One should not kill or cause another to kill."

Eating meat does this in all directions. If I eat meat that was not killed for me "directly" I am still cultivating suffering in all causal directions. How could I not be?

namaste:)

federica

Look. The choice is yours, as it is for any other person. These questions are for you to answer and deal with, as they are for anyone. Different people come up with different answers. However, in our long and varied experience, sitting in judgement of others, and asking questions which basically come down to "I do this and this, how could you not?" ends in argument and discord.

This is actively discouraged.
if you choose to not eat meat, for your own reasons - be they Buddhists or otherwise (a lot of non-Buddhists are also vegetarian, a lot of Buddhists, aren't) that's your choice. Everyone else's actions, are theirs.

By the way: I'm vegetarian.