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Eating meat and first precept
NB1100
Explorer
Hi guys,
Just a quick question. Is there bad karma from eating meat and is eating meat breaking the first precept? How about buying meat, is buying meat create bad kamma? Thanks in advance.
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Herr id a Dharma talk on eating meat.
Puttamansa Sutta: A Son's Flesh
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn12/sn12.063.than.html
The Puttamansa sutta is very interest and creepy. The Buddha givies analogies of a mother or father eating their children, cows,etc and asking the morality of it.
There are 2 other discussions about the topic that have been ongoing just this month. If you do a search at the top for "vegetarian" they'll come up. But be warned it is probably the most controversial topic on the board and discussions usually end up devolving quickly,
It's just a very individual thing that we have to visit and investigate repeatedly for ourselves for a million reasons. Even the highest Buddhist teachers don't all agree on it. That's all I'm going to say. For real. Not even coming back after this comment.
Thanks for your reply.
But most of us do not eat meat in the same way/situation as the father and mother who eats their own child. So I think the consequences may be different.
I took it as looking at the extreme and putting in perspective of any living being not just one's child. That and not all Westerners think the way "Easterners" potray us to be. Northern Westerners in America potray a bit more to the sterotype of us than Southerners. I live in between both extremes but I wasnt raised a northerner so the stereotypes bother me greatly.
In the West, a lot of less rural people eat meat but they take care of their animals better than up north. Less fast and artificial food. More emphasis on family and community. Im sure The Buddha had similar sentiments about what type of meat one eats if he said anything about lay practitioners being allowed to eat meat as opposed to monks and nuns. Also, Western/Christian America are highly interested in "book spirituality." I dont know many Buddhist practitioners I chant with care much about whats literally in the book in relation to correct practice. America doesnt have a long history like other Western countries. Im not sure about parts of Europe compared to the states.
The sutta I posted is extreme but many people eastern and western people here eat meat. Its highly cultural and differs in where a person lives locally, family, etc not what side of the world they are on.
Why is it contraversial?
@NB1100 said:
I guess that the comparison with eating one’s own children is to suggest that perspective to us. The idea is that we don’t normally consider these acts—eating an animal and eating one’s children—to be equivalent, but isn’t that an arbitrary distinction that we are making? Animals are all someone’s children, after all.
I fall on the “bad karma” side of the argument personally. I don’t think it’s right view to distinguish between “valid” suffering in humans and “invalid” suffering in animals.
I believe so but it's a hot button topic.
Perhaps not for the buyer but butchering is an example of wrong livelihood so it probably creates bad karma for the butcher at least.
I'm wondering if they are going to have 'laboratory' grown meat soon. Meat without a central nervous system to suffer. Like a plant does not have a central nervous system.
Because some Buddhists think eating meat is irresponsible and murder. Others believe it is permissible. The Camps are at polar opposites, and it leads to quite heated discussions.
Mostly, ones I have to close.
Not sure about your first or third question (Re: is there bad karma from eating and buying meat) but I would say that it is not breaking the first precept unless you took the life of the animal yourself.
Agree 100%
Because there's always one or two who like to tell meat eaters how awful they are.... Just do a search on threads here.
@NB1100, my view of the first precept is narrow. It’s a commitment to abstain from taking life. But the scope of life expands with the depth of thought about it. When you factor eating into the first precept, it becomes impossible for humans. Presently, we can’t survive apart from the death of other living organisms. We could draw a line between sentient and presumably non-sentient life, but I think that is arbitrary and possibly erroneous. Plants, for example, might not be self-aware, like humans, but I suspect that they are sentient, that they feel, that they sense their body, its location, its temperature, its exposure to sunlight, its nourishment, etc. Not surprisingly, MN 27 goes so far as to say of a renunciate that one “abstains from injuring seeds and plants.” From the practical perspective of a modern, lay person, this all starts to get a little ridiculous. So, I think it’s important to narrow the precept back down and to put it into its proper context.
The same sutta describes it for a renunciate as “abandoning the destruction of life, he abstains from the destruction of life; with rod and weapon laid aside, conscientious, merciful, he dwells compassionate to all living beings.” Other suttas give the same description for lay people. I don’t think it’s about eating or even about killing or the protection of other beings. It’s a training rule for shaping one’s own conscience with mercy and compassion. Regardless of what level one commits, the cultivation of compassion is its function. That begins with a commitment to abstain from taking life. I would say if one can commit unwaveringly to not intentionally killing house flies, then one could take the precept. The one who takes and upholds the precept benefits and so do any house flies encountering that one. It’s a good start and better than nothing. If one feels bad about buying meat or even eating it and can abstain from it, then that too is a good start. Either way moves toward the purpose of cultivating of compassion. That's always good karma.
I agree with everybody - this is a controversy-free post.