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.
It is sometimes difficult to see our own object solidity when we ourselves project it. I do value the ethical position of vegetarianism. I also don't feel driven to knock any louder.
I've been a vegetarian for most of my life - since before I was a buddhist even. I didn't want to eat meat from childhood because I always saw animals as my friends and therefore didn't want to eat them.
What others do is entirely up to them - but please always be kind to animals and be mindful of how meat birds and animals are treated. I used to live on a farm where there were meat animals and the way they were treated was heartbreaking.
Some people here seem to be making the argument that all life is created equal...human, cow, insect, plant. This just simply is not the case. We all have different experiences of pain. A human has a very high ability to suffer, both physically (nervous system) and mentally. (Mental suffering far exceeds physical pain in it's severity.) A cow also has a nervous system, but I think we can agree that it's capacity for mental anguish is far surpassed by humans. An insect would experience suffering to a lesser degree than a cow. And a plant simply does not suffer. It does not have a nervous system, it does not have a brain...it cannot suffer. I don't quite understand how people can equate all of these different organisms.
I am a pseudo-vegetarian. I rarely eat meat (I will eat it if it would otherwise be thrown out). Also, I don't intentionally kill insects. If I find a spider (yes they give me the shivers) I trap it and release it without harming it. If a fly or mosquito is bothering me I try to shoo it away (but sometimes slap it out of habit/annoyance.)
I find it hard to believe that some of you feel equally bad about killing an insect or plant as you would about killing a human or a higher animal. (considering that you are still alive, I bet you eat plants, at least.) The argument that all life can suffer equally is just wrong.
People keep talking about "attacks on other peoples character." That is simply getting away from the substance of the argument. I have many (most of my) friends who are NOT vegetarian. I don't hold it against them. I don't try to convince them to be a vegetarian (if they ask me my reasons I will tell them.) Do not allow this conversation do dissolve into a bunch of insults/taking offense.
Just be aware if you are rationalizing your meat eating in an attempt to make yourself feel better or if you actually think that there is no difference between eating meat and not eating meat. I will not think less of you if you eat meat, that is your own choice. For my own reasons, I have decided not to eat meat. I believe it to be unethical. I understand that that implicitly implies that I disagree with your decision to eat meat, but don't start complaining that vegetarians are insulting you.
Please express to me the ethical qualities of meat eating
If meat is placed into the monk's alms bowl and he tosses it into the garbage out of some notion of vegan ethical superiority, that would be a much worse thing to do than bowing to the person for their gift and eating the food. This is what the Buddha taught.
I am not suggesting that you believe otherwise...just answering the question as posed in a direct fashion, using an example.
If meat is placed into the monk's alms bowl and he tosses it into the garbage out of some notion of vegan ethical superiority, that would be a much worse thing to do than bowing to the person for their gift and eating the food. This is what the Buddha taught.
I am not suggesting that you believe otherwise...just answering the question as posed in a direct fashion, using an example.
I feel that this is not a direct ethical quality of eating meat, but an ethical act of food acceptance and compassion to the other person by receiving it and appreciating it as food, yet not connected to the fact that it is meat. It could be anything given as a gift to the monk, yet that thing doesn't necessarily acquire the property of being ethical, but acknowledge that subjectively it may. That's why I like the fact that some traditions monks will eat anything given to them, yet other monasic communities will simply say 'no' to meat.
Anyway, I feel this has gone waaayyyy off-topic, so again, my advice to the OP is to do whatever his/her heart desires :cool:
If meat is placed into the monk's alms bowl and he tosses it into the garbage out of some notion of vegan ethical superiority, that would be a much worse thing to do than bowing to the person for their gift and eating the food. This is what the Buddha taught.
I am not suggesting that you believe otherwise...just answering the question as posed in a direct fashion, using an example.
This is because a monks source of food was that which was offered on the alms round and so he graciously accepted that which was given.
This doesn't apply to lay practitioners. I also know of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and centres where the only food on the premises is vegetarian.
I feel that this is not a direct ethical quality of eating meat, but an ethical act of food acceptance and compassion to the other person by receiving it and appreciating it as food, yet not connected to the fact that it is meat. It could be anything given as a gift to the monk, yet that thing doesn't necessarily acquire the property of being ethical, but acknowledge that subjectively it may.
and objectively it acquires your subjective view of it being unethical?
Eating it can't possibly be out ofcompassion for the animal too?
This is because a monks source of food was that which was offered on the alms round and so he graciously accepted that which was given.
This doesn't apply to lay practitioners. I also know of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and centres where the only food on the premises is vegetarian.
.
Yes I know this. The poster did not qualify his question as such (What are the ethical qualities of eating meat IF you are/are not a monk. As mentioned, I am not suggesting s/he or any one else adheres to a specific belief. The answer was as (intentionally) as hypothetical as the question was.
Although I am vegetarian by practice, I am not such out of dogma, and see no ethical problems with eating meat. Kamma is created by the mind. This is the way of the first precept. Otherwise, we would be creating kamma every time we accidentally step on a bug.
and objectively it acquires your subjective view of it being unethical?
Eating it can't possibly be out ofcompassion for the animal too?
Of course it can be out of compassion too. But so can being compassionate about lying, or loving someone next to you who you choke to death, or hacking at trees in the rainforest for your compassion of the act. Within a mindset of total relativism, anything goes, and the relativist mindset can stretch to include or not include vegetarianism.
Comments
Good luck,
Matt
What others do is entirely up to them - but please always be kind to animals and be mindful of how meat birds and animals are treated. I used to live on a farm where there were meat animals and the way they were treated was heartbreaking.
.
I am a pseudo-vegetarian. I rarely eat meat (I will eat it if it would otherwise be thrown out). Also, I don't intentionally kill insects. If I find a spider (yes they give me the shivers) I trap it and release it without harming it. If a fly or mosquito is bothering me I try to shoo it away (but sometimes slap it out of habit/annoyance.)
I find it hard to believe that some of you feel equally bad about killing an insect or plant as you would about killing a human or a higher animal. (considering that you are still alive, I bet you eat plants, at least.) The argument that all life can suffer equally is just wrong.
People keep talking about "attacks on other peoples character." That is simply getting away from the substance of the argument. I have many (most of my) friends who are NOT vegetarian. I don't hold it against them. I don't try to convince them to be a vegetarian (if they ask me my reasons I will tell them.) Do not allow this conversation do dissolve into a bunch of insults/taking offense.
Just be aware if you are rationalizing your meat eating in an attempt to make yourself feel better or if you actually think that there is no difference between eating meat and not eating meat. I will not think less of you if you eat meat, that is your own choice. For my own reasons, I have decided not to eat meat. I believe it to be unethical. I understand that that implicitly implies that I disagree with your decision to eat meat, but don't start complaining that vegetarians are insulting you.
If meat is placed into the monk's alms bowl and he tosses it into the garbage out of some notion of vegan ethical superiority, that would be a much worse thing to do than bowing to the person for their gift and eating the food. This is what the Buddha taught.
I am not suggesting that you believe otherwise...just answering the question as posed in a direct fashion, using an example.
I feel that this is not a direct ethical quality of eating meat, but an ethical act of food acceptance and compassion to the other person by receiving it and appreciating it as food, yet not connected to the fact that it is meat. It could be anything given as a gift to the monk, yet that thing doesn't necessarily acquire the property of being ethical, but acknowledge that subjectively it may. That's why I like the fact that some traditions monks will eat anything given to them, yet other monasic communities will simply say 'no' to meat.
Anyway, I feel this has gone waaayyyy off-topic, so again, my advice to the OP is to do whatever his/her heart desires :cool:
This is because a monks source of food was that which was offered on the alms round and so he graciously accepted that which was given.
This doesn't apply to lay practitioners. I also know of Tibetan Buddhist monasteries and centres where the only food on the premises is vegetarian.
.
and objectively it acquires your subjective view of it being unethical?
Eating it can't possibly be out ofcompassion for the animal too?
Yes I know this. The poster did not qualify his question as such (What are the ethical qualities of eating meat IF you are/are not a monk. As mentioned, I am not suggesting s/he or any one else adheres to a specific belief. The answer was as (intentionally) as hypothetical as the question was.
Although I am vegetarian by practice, I am not such out of dogma, and see no ethical problems with eating meat. Kamma is created by the mind. This is the way of the first precept. Otherwise, we would be creating kamma every time we accidentally step on a bug.
Of course it can be out of compassion too. But so can being compassionate about lying, or loving someone next to you who you choke to death, or hacking at trees in the rainforest for your compassion of the act. Within a mindset of total relativism, anything goes, and the relativist mindset can stretch to include or not include vegetarianism.