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Do you have to be a vegetarian to be buddhist?
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I just want to admit that the day that I wrote all that, I was seeking help because my life has taken a down turn. I came onto this website seeking help and have found a lot of helpful advise. But I have to admit that I posted here because I was drinking martinis and in the mood to post away on discussion boards. I re-read my post now, and I do stand by everything I said. Yet I can't imagine what my motivation was for posting it except to voice my own (personal) frustrations with some Western Buddhists that I've met. This is a personal conflict that I'm having- sort of an East-West identity crisis. I apologize as I've just been reminded to practice the 8 fold path and right speech is part of that, and there is nothing good that could come from jumping into a debate like this in a forum like this. As one of the members has already stated, it's sort of a dead horse.
So that's my honest reason for joining then exiting this discussion. Please excuse me.
Or I can be vegan and be totally unaware of the suffering and death caused to nourish my body, and eat with abandon, causing harm to my own body and more suffering to others by getting all "militia" about being vegan.
Your choice.
Or you can do neither. It's not as black and white as that. As I said earlier I choose not to eat meat (aside from a little bit of fish here and there) due to my failing health. I still eat dairy, sometimes a few eggs.
Vegetarian =/= Vegan.
Whats changed?
1) The methods employed by large meat producers cause a lot of suffering to animals.
2) The methods employed by large scale farmers in pest control causes a lot of suffering to insects, rodents, and birds.
So it would be a compassionate gesture to buy only meat produced from free range animals; and vegetables and grains produced by farmers employing organic methods. In the city where I live, such products are sold by only one food outlet and they are very expensive. The only people who shop there are the rich and famous and their reason is 'health' not compassion.
There are no easy answers - this is samsara. Just be mindful in everything you do, say and think - including our diets.
I understand. But I still disagree. Perhaps it's easier for me to equate the meat in the supermarket with the animal because I've watched pig slaughter first hand, I don't know.
Maybe I can ask you to point out where you see the transition between intention to take life and non-intention in the following, because at the moment I can't see it from your POV.
1. You keep chickens and kill one to have a chicken supper.
2. Your neighbour keeps a few chickens and you ask him to kill one for your chicken supper and pay him to compensate the loss.
3. Your neighbour keeps lots of chickens and supplies the local neighbourhood with meat when they ask him for it, while still killing fresh he also keeps some frozen for emergency requests. You ask him for a chicken but don't know whether it will be fresh or frozen.
4. Buying chicken from a local farm shop.
5. Buying chicken from a supermarket.
You have a very black and white view of things. What makes you think vegetarians/vegans don't eat with gratefulness or are unaware of the creatures that may die during farming?
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I personally have had a heated debate with a vegan lady in my temple while having lunch. In the temple, no less. Sure, she had the compassion towards the pigs, cows, chickens, ducks, and so on. You know, the animals raised for meat. But she was totally clueless of the fact that being vegan, sentient beings are caused to suffer as well, and many of them lose their lives in order to get the veges she ate on to her plate.
I remember reading somewhere that each and every sentient being is a life, no more significant, no more less significant. You kill a cow for beef, you kill a life. You plough the fields for wheat, you kill hundreds of lives at once. Where is the compassion in those beings under the ground that are killed for the sake of growing vegetables?
The way I see it, both 1 and 2 constitute the kamma of killing and would be considered blameworthy, 3 is debatable (although I'd lean more towards being blameworthy) and both 4 and 5 don't constitute the kamma of killing and are blameless, assuming the chicken is already dead.
In Pali, the word kamma itself means 'action,' and in AN 6.63, the Buddha in defines it as, "Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect." So the kamma of killing requires the intention to deprive something of life and the actual taking of life based on your volitional actions of body and speech. This is supported by the monastic rules laid down in Vinaya dealing with killing.
In the first two cases, you either kill the chicken yourself or knowingly ask someone to kill it for you, so both the intent to deprive the chicken of life and and the actual taking of life via your actions or your words are present. In the last two, you simply buy chicken that's already been killed and is sitting on a store shelf. You've neither killed the chicken nor asked someone else to do it for you, so neither the intent to deprive the chicken of life nor the actually taking of life via your actions or your words are present. In the third case, I think it mainly depends on the circumstances.
If you ask knowing that it's a possibility a chicken may be killed for you, and one is, then it's most definitely blameworthy and constitutes the kamma of killing. If, however, you ask and are unaware that a live chicken may be killed for you (assuming they're all frozen, for example), then I don't think it constitutes the kamma of killing on your part if a chicken is killed because the intent is not there even though the actual taking of life is still present. The same principle applies to accidental deaths. (The example used in the Vinaya is that of sweeping a path and accidentally kills ants in the process, which states there's no offense because it's not deliberate.)
It's fine if you disagree, but just be aware that you're not so much disagreeing with me as you are with the Suttas. I'm not saying your wrong from a purely ethical standpoint (I actually agree with you there), I just don't think there's much scriptural support for the view that buying meat = killing.
Good advice, sukhita.
If what the Buddha had to say about kamma is true, I don't think there's anyway to know precisely how these things will be experienced (AN 4.77), especially considering the complexity of this/that conditionality. Our experience of the present is conditioned by a multitude of factors, including the results of both past and present actions. For all we know, the results of our past unskillful action may count next to nothing compared to all the skillful actions and mental states we've cultivated throughout our lives.
Well, Buddhism does teach that actions have consequences. But generally speaking, the precepts are designed to protect ourselves and others from the results of our unskillful actions, as well as to lay the foundation for a successful meditation practice. That's why the path is often broken down into three sections, virtue, concentration and discernment, i.e., virtue acts as an internal support for meditation; and meditation leads to a quiet, stable mind that's conducive to developing insight into various topics.
I wonder if it's not so much a case of agreeing/disagreeing with the Suttas so much as it is with certain interpretations of them?
The Sutta you quote/link to above teaches that karma is intention, and that what one thinks (intellect) is as important as what one does or says, right?
This reminds me of when Jesus taught that a man who coverts a neighbour's wife is already an adulterer in his heart, and that a man who is angry with his brother is already a murderer in his heart. Perhaps the teachings are different, so correct me if I'm wrong.
The way I see it there is not really a difference in intention between any of the 5 scenarios I suggested. In reality;
The desire is the same = to acquire a dead chicken for dinner.
The method is the same = a chicken is slaughtered.
The result is the same = we get chicken meat for dinner.
The only thing that separates the 5, in my opinion, is the distance in time and space between ourselves and the moment of slaughter.
My own reasoning is that, just because my hands don't physically have blood on them doesn't absolve me of the desire to consume the flesh of an animal. Or, to add to what Jesus said, a man who desires meat is already a killer in his heart.
I'm not saying that I think people who eat meat are evil. I just think, on a personal level, that the line being drawn between buying a frozen chicken and breaking the neck of one oneself, is an arbitrary line of convenience more than it is a reasoned and ethical one.
It's possible. There are certainly other interpretations that differ from my (such as yours), and the best I can do to defend mine is to appeal to authority by saying that this is the interpretation held by the 'classical' Theravada Tradition in which the entire Tipitaka and its commentaries are considered authoritative, appeal to the majority by saying that this is the interpretation held by the majority of Buddhist who utilize the Suttas or try to make a better argument for my case.
I don't think it's arbitrary at all. Not only has the purchaser not killed a living being in the last two scenarios, they've put no effort into trying to kill one, either. Effort is another important factor, if we take what the Vinaya says into consideration. This is also true regarding the fact that a breach of the precept against killing occurs when one intends to, puts forth effort to, and actually does, kill a sentient being.
Also, your view rests on the assumption that the person buying the chicken has the intention to kill it or to have it be killed, and completely rejects any alternative. For example, does the person really have the intention to kill when what they're buying is already dead? Will the thought of killing an already dead carcass even cross their mind? And what about someone who wasn't even thinking about buying chicken, but then sees it and thinks, "This will make a great soup for my sick child"?
I simply don't see every case being as cut and dry as you make it, as if every person buying a chicken, regardless of the circumstances, is essentially killing that chicken. For one thing, it makes the purchaser guilty after the fact, and is equivalent to guilt by association: chickens are killed by producers to sell at the store; people buy chicken at the store; therefore, people who buy chicken at the store kill chickens.
As I said before, I don't necessarily disagree with you from an ethical standpoint that it's better not to contribute to the meat industry, because more demand ultimately does lead to more aniamls being killed. That said, when it comes to kamma and the kamma of killing, I don't think your case is as strong because the teachings deal specifically with the intentions and efforts of individuals, not abstract market forces. If it did, then I'm fairly certain the Buddha would've included a precept requiring vegetarianism.
After yeas later I grew to that animals do feel pain even with brains less complex than ours.
Yes, that's also one of the things that drew me towards eating less meat/vegetarianism.
We can take these discussions round and round and round and not come to a conclusion.
While it is true that vegetarianism may well be be a better more compassionate way as an ex farm worker on both organic and non organic farms I can testify to the wholesale killing of sentient beings,both intentionally and accidently.
With metta
I don't feel there is anything abstract or assumptive in my viewpoint, although I accept that people envisage things in different ways.
For me, I can't divorce the act of killing from my intention to eat meat.
In my mind, if I buy a frozen chicken it is no different to buying a live chicken and taking it home to kill, the end result is the same, one dead chicken in my oven.
Clearly we'll just be going round in circles if we continue, so I'm happy to accept that we have our differences with regard to intention and its consequences. But I'm glad we agree on the ethical aspects.
For me, it violates my interpretation of the first precept.
I'm not vegetarian though, I'm someone who doesn't buy meat. If some generous host offers me food with meat in, I'll eat it with thanks. I personally believe that is why the Buddha didn't create an injunction against the eating of meat, because to do so would mean engendering ingratitude and stubbornness in his monks.
Sorry but those are facts.
With metta
Hi Nanadhaja,
I admit that I have never visited any organic farms and free-range ranches... I'm going by what other "pro-organic/free rannge" people are saying. I thank you for sharing your personal experience.
With kind regards
I don't know what you mean here.
The way I feel about it is, I can't eat meat without an animal having died to make that possible. My intention, my desire, to eat meat results in my purchasing dead animal flesh.
From my perspective, it is beside the point that the animal may have been killed hundreds of miles away and been frozen for several days or weeks, the fact remains that my desire cannot be fulfilled without the death of an animal occurring - i.e. I can't have a chicken dinner without a chicken being killed.
This might seem counter-intuitive as, well, the animal is already dead, it's the same as eating roadkill. But for me that is a justification for indulging in the end product of sentient animal suffering. That's my personal reasoning behind not buying meat.
I'm not a "meat is murder" person, I won't criticise others for choosing to eat meat (although I admit I do prefer people to buy free range if they do). Equally, I don't think my reasoning is flawed from an ethical, nor a Buddhist perspective, although I accept that people will disagree with that.
Even if you got 1000 people to stop buying meat, it would either get exported or be sold at a clearance price.
So are you saying that vegetarianism is pointless because people will want to eat meat anyway?
Even as a staunch vegetarian (well, not to the point where I want everyone to be veg, that's unrealistic), I think the point is to reduce suffering of others (species, people) utilizing as much of your social influence as possible. For most, their influence only really extends to their family, friends, and the most influence is over themselves. So choosing to be a vegetarian is the best one can do if one's social influence is not very strong.
Don't get me wrong, I do think vegetarianism is a good thing, so good on you.
Fair enough. I can accept that too.
Ah okay sorry if I seemed a bit frank. I'm just used to having to deal w/ debates utilizing answers such as the one I made to you
For sure... it's not about what we eat (meat or veg), it's about abstaining from killing sentient beings. Irrespective of whether we are vegetarians or not, killing takes place (by someone else) in the production of our food. In the case of meat, sentient beings are killed and sold as meat. In the case of vegetables, sentient beings which compete for these vegetables are killed and the vegetables are sold. Being a vegetarian/vegan or not is a personal choice... each of us have our own take on the matter.
A thought occurred to me today... if we don't want to create too much of a demand on meat production, maybe we should buy only those cuts for which there is a low demand. Like, instead of buying usual cuts of a chicken, just stick to buying the "walkie-talkies"... tastes delicious curried... and the farmer does not have to kill any more chicken for this.
Being vegan causes harm to your body? Interesting....not according to the American Dietic Association. Meat does not have magic powers, you can get all the nutrients you need on a plant based diet without all the cholesterol and saturated fat. In the end, you can be perfectly healthy on a vegan diet or an omnivorous diet. <O:p</O:p
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Tibetans (including HHDL) and Mongols eat meat, and they're Buddhists. It's difficult for Tibetans to be vegetarians because few greens grow at Tibet's altitude. (Though the nomads somehow manage to survive on tsampa flour for long periods. But they eat dairy products in the summer.) Granted, those who live in India and Nepal could radically change their diet and become vegetarians, if they wanted to make the effort. But there's another problem; their bodies have evolved over hundreds and thousands of years to metabolize meat efficiently. Some Tibetans (HHDL being a prime example) fall ill if they don't eat meat regularly. HHDL tried going vegetarian, got sick, and his doctor made him go back on meat. So now he eats vegetarian once a week, as a compromise. It's the best he can do.
In the mid 1960s the Dalai Lama was in Kerala, Southern India, where a high proportion of the local population have always been vegetarian. Their tradition, as with other parts of India, is of lacto-vegetarianism, using a modest amount of milk products (but not eggs). Whilst there the Dalai Lama had decided to become vegetarian but at this time lived on a bizarre diet consisting entirely of milk and nuts. If this is true, and it seems to be well documented, it would have been an extremely high fat and very unhealthy diet by any standards. After 18 months he became very ill and his doctors, unsurprisingly, blamed it on the lack of meat rather than advising a better balanced vegetarian diet. He was persuaded to return to meat-eating and has done so ever since.
Wouldn't the evolutionary argument go the same way for all humans, as we are by nature omnivorous?
I don't believe that there is a subset of the human species that is "evolved to eat more meat" than others.
This has been studied by doctors, especially diabetes specialists. I've worked in tribal diabetes clinics in the US. The plains tribes, those former buffalo hunters, start experiencing blood sugar disturbances if they go off of meat-based diets. The SW tribes in Arizona and NM have adapted to a diet mainly of beans, squash and corn. (This, over thousands of years.) If diabetics in those tribes are put on a high-protein (meat, mainly) diet, their blood sugar goes very haywire. On traditional feast days, one client told me, when the food is very traditional, her sugars normalize immediately. Lots of diabetes studies have been published on the Pima Indians of Arizona. Same thing; their blood sugar stabilizes when they eat traditional food: corn, beans. As a European, (Euro-American, that is), I need a solid protein-based diet to keep my blood sugar stable: meat, fish, dairy, tofu. I had to give up a vegetarian diet.
Interesting. However, I think there is more to it than meat protein/not meat protein because it fails to take into account the effect that obesity has and the effects of a high-fat diet has on insulin response. It seems the 95% of the american Pimas that get diabetes are also overweight. This is what I have read so far. What do you think?
The impact of diet on diabetes was made crystal clear in a recent study of Pima Indians in Arizona and Mexico. As Native Americans, these people had a statistically higher risk of diabetes than most other ethnic groups. Yet researchers discovered that the Mexican Pima Indians, who lived without so-called modern conveniences and ate a traditional, low-fat diet, had a much lower rate of the disease (6.5 percent) than the Arizona Pima Indians, who enjoyed modern conveniences, ate fatty, processed foods and had an alarming 38.2 percent diabetes rate. In other words, says Bernstein, "Having the gene is not the whole story. It's putting on those extra pounds that trigger it." ~Gerald Bernstein, M.D., director of the Diabetes Management Program at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and past president of the American Diabetes Association.
I think conventional medicine still doesn't know for sure what causes weight gain and weight loss: protein, vs. fats, vs. complex carbs, etc. There's still disagreement, the protein diet is still controversial. (Obviously, it's due to excess calories, but there's a hormonal component (insulin, glucagon) as well. It seems like a complex interaction of various factors.) I do know people (Euro-Americans) who switched to a vegetarian diet, and although they were eating a lot of calories, they lost weight without even wanting to. This seems to work better for guys than women, though. At least in my observation. Women do fine on a veggie diet, but they don't lose weight as a side effect, not unless they limit calories. Not that I know of, anyway.
I know a diabetes specialist who visited the Pimas, and she said they had a project to introduce high-fiber flour into the diet, from ground mesquite bark or some such, and were experimenting with returning to a traditional diet. They said in the old days, people did get more protein, because the hunting was good. I think there's no question that junk food is the problem. Do you know of any research re: the effect of fats, oils, on insulin?
I don't think we're on topic anymore, but this has been interesting. Do you have any more to add?
Anyway, (back to OP's topic) Inner Asia and the Himalayas are full of entire nations/nationalities of Buddhists who eat meat. Buddhists have been eating meat since Buddhism came to Inner Asia over 1500 years ago. (Dunhuang, Khotan, those oasis civilizations.) Vegetarianism is a much more efficient use of the planet's resources, but that's a whole other conversation. (Want to start a thread?)
what are you killing?
.... maybe "ignorance"
Its the opposite actually. HHDL eats meat once a week.
I don't have anything more to add as far as diabetes goes no. I just pulled that stuff from a quick google search.
Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo
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She is a nun.
Another great site with a lot of Tibetan masters who advocate vegetarianism is this one:
http://www.shabkar.org/
In plain English--if you truly understand the pain of the animal and the wrongs of the meat-production industry then you're wrong. If you have no clue but would care to know, then although your prior sins are a pity, it's forgettable in the ultimate scheme of kamma, however, if you don't know but also don't care to, then you may be almost as bad as the first example--knowing but not caring.
From my understanding of Buddhism, all westernised societies who feel compelled to consume far larger quantities of meat than necessary are suspect to much evil. If, however, you like myself have found yourself trapped in a large capitalistic society of flesh eating addiction, then you can't exactly run away from it so eat only what's necessary to be healthy, if you have the capacity, you should be expected to healthily (in other words slowly) pursue vegetarianism. I imagine if the Buddha had a 9 to 5er and was walking around in Krogers or Frys or the like in the small organic section he probably wouldn't ponder to himself, "well, a half gallon of soy milk is the same price as a gallon of Kroger brand milk, so a gallon of soy milk milk is twice the price! Oh boy, I mean I could use that extra two dollars and fifty cents on.. on.. all sorts of things, I mean I only make minimum wage you know!" He'd be living in a shit flat with nothing but two half gallons of soy milk in his little junk 'fridge.
My two cents, go vegan if you can. Avoid all the indirect blood on your hands that you can.
...
PS--ever seen how extreme Jains are? Use this to adhere to the middle way.
(Kidding. Come on.)
There is no one to condone, no one to judge, that you should not eat meat. Life feeds upon life and has always done so; this is natural and is not intrinsically "wrong". The enlightened ones will not kill, and this is the way and perfected cultivation of non-violence and compassion for all life that is resultant of the practice and awakening, but we remember that right and wrong are not Buddhist concepts, and the alternatively used skillful/wholesome and unskillful/unwholesome are as applied to karmic consequence or benefit in the mind's habitual tendencies and/or harmonious ways of acting in accord with the peaceful view of non-violence/harm to other life forms. These are both what we cultivate through practice and the resultant restraint of action that is natural to the awakened mind.
We just need to be careful about using judgment words like "condonable", and making also the only instances of meat-eating allowable to be survival situations. There are no judges of men, or gods on high, that have commanded such as an intrinsic right/wrong of nature.
Many Buddhists eat meat, whether the same or perhaps in some moderation depends upon the individual, and it's an easy way to find yourself on one side of a fence that doesn't exist; meaning where there is no clear answer, a divide is created as one answer is suggested/stated as the way and individuals/schools of differing view then become the opposition. Trust me NewBuddhist has been there before!
Namaste