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 Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 2:26 am
I know that some Buddhists are vegetarian and some are not, but for those who refuse to eat animals (on the grounds that doing so violates the animal's right to life)...
Are plants not considered living beings?
I know that, as humans, we need to eat something, but if plants are living things too, why eat only them and not animals?
As always, I don't mean to be confrontational with my questions. I just want to better understand this belief system.
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Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:38 am
Yeah, this is one I questioned too, and the only thing I can find is mostly Mahayana, to be honest - Theravada has allowances for the consumption of meat, even by monks (if someone gives you meat at alms, you consume it, because it's food and we all need food to survive), but Mahayana places a stronger emphasis on metta and really runs with that ball.
It hits a bit of a roadblock in plants being living, but there's a running belief that claims the Buddha denounced meat consumption (at least, in Mahayana stuff anyway, Theravadan Pali canon actually has instances of him eating it to prove the point that if someone gives you food, you eat it; Tibetan schools argue that practice of tantric things means not eating meat is obsolete) on the grounds that eating meat spreads fear through sentient beings. Plants, given their lack of such sentience, aren't considered as bad to eat, though all scripture agrees that in order for a being to survive, it must eat other living things/cause harm to them. So it's about the minimization of damage to sentient things more than not causing harm at all.
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