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 Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 3:56 pm
a. Do you feel this is a significant discrepancy? contradiction?
b. I try to abstain from eating meat. I have no problem with this practice (regardless of the discrepancy in buddhism.) The problem is I feel like I'm doing harm my refusing hospitality (i.e. food) from friends and family. I don't want to act hypocritically but I have no idea how to handle it anymore. What kind of obligations to a host does a Buddhist have?
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Posted: Fri Mar 04, 2005 7:35 pm
They should have an obligation to you, to respect your beliefs and your religions observance.
Monks (and laypersons) are allowed meat if the animal didn't suffer when slaughtered, and wasn't specifically killed for them to eat (that applies to monks more than laypeople).
I would attempt to get an alternative to meat if at all possible, because we know that all things have a Buddha nature, and although plants are just as valid as animals, animals can suffer, and the point is to not cause any suffering. Plants have no capacity for suffering, and never object to any actions taken against them.
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Akanishi Makoto Vice Captain
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Posted: Sat Mar 05, 2005 8:43 am
Right.
I was only concerned because in the Theravada chant 'Recollection of the Sangha' the true sangha are exalted as 'worthy of gifts, worthy of hospitality.' I didn't know if I was taking personal worth to a ridiculous degree in refusing hospitality... or just misinterpreting.
A vaguely religious friend of mine restricts himself to eating fruit on the grounds nothings existence was ended, only the potential for existence. He always argued if you're going to take suffering into consideration exclusively, you leave yourself open to individuals who might argue ending existence ends suffering, therefore by eating meat you aid animals.
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Posted: Tue Mar 08, 2005 10:46 pm
There isn't a contradiction, because there isn't a "commandment" to not eat meat, and that doing so is a "sin". To have either of the quoted words, you need authority, judgment, and enforcement from a higher power.
What you have instead is a precept that, like a natural law, states that when you do such-and-such, and taking into consideration this and that, such-and-such follows from it.
If the eating of meat were strongly forbidden, then all Tibetan Buddhists would have died of starvation a long time ago.
Sorry to forward a different opinion Akanishi, but from what I understand plants are not considered "alive" by Buddhist standards. It's not suffering alone that dictates what is and what isn't a living creature but its level of volition, which allows for gaining karma.
Plants, like tissue growth in a petrie dish, don't have any volition, so technically they're not "alive".
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Posted: Thu Mar 24, 2005 5:12 am
What do you mean by "volition"?
They respond to stimuli, and move towards particular things, etc.
Anyway, though it may be a horrible way to look at it, I see it this way:
Apart from the fact that my mum's a vegetarian, and so all my home meals are vegetarian, I eat meat at Uni.
The animal was probably killed just for use as food, and I can't tell (or easilly find out) if it sufferred or not.
Everything has Buddha nature, but unless the animal is a Buddha (not in the sense of everyone having Buddha nature, but in the sense of THE Buddha) it is not likely to become enlightened unless taught about Dharma.
It would not understand those sections of our language, and hence, as an animal, it will not become enlightened in it's lifetime.
By killing it, it has a chance of being born as something that could be taught Dharma.
The chance is higher the less other animals there are being born.
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Posted: Wed May 18, 2005 9:01 pm
I heared that a great deal of monks are vegatarians but if somebody brings them meat they eat it anyways to show that they are grateful. I don't know, I have been a veagatarian for four years and I am not sure that I would eat meat.
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Posted: Thu May 19, 2005 6:35 am
I do not try to abstain from eating meat because it's a quick, efficient, and delicious way to gain the proteins that I need to survive. I know I could gain the same proteins from eating plants, and perhaps someday I will go that way - just not now.
I always said that if I ever had to go out and kill an animal to eat it, I would go vegetarian. I refuse to directly kill, and it's hypocritical that I condone indirect killing of animals. After all, they are one step away from becoming human - and of potentially becoming Buddhas/Bodhisattvas/Arhats.
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Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 7:30 am
That's how I feel, that it's hypocritical of me to eat an animal I could never bring myself to kill. So I'm trying to get myself off mammals and birds. Too bad I don't like veggies much.
It seems to me that there's kind of a personal moral alarm that goes off inside me if I eat red meat and I need to learn to pay more attention to this alarm, since it's pointing out controvery within myself.
Unfortunately I'm a greedy lazy pig and burgers are everywhere and taste good.
I aim to overcome this.
Eep.
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