Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
It sounds like your intention is to satisfy a dietary preference, without much concern about how the meat gets on your plate.
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Was the Buddha a vegetarian?
- Thread starter MountainPine
- Start date
It sounds like your intention is to satisfy a dietary preference, without much concern about how the meat gets on your plate.
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
People come up with all manner of excuses. Basically some people just like meat and don't want to give it up, even when alternatives are readily available. They buy meat neatly packaged and don't care that somebody else had to kill and butcher the animal on their behalf. They know that by buying meat regularly they are adding to the demand for meat, and causing more animals to be killed, but they don't care, they just want their meat.
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Kelly of the Phoenix
Well-Known Member
This is why I think a better standard would be to eat meat only of animals who have died naturally (though not due to illness or poison, for obvious reasons).
You've never become seriously ill due to contaminated salads? And remember, plants absorb all those toxins we pollute too.
Yes, "scavenging" seems to be the most ethical choice. We cannot stop the meat already in the stores from being there, but we can make policies to reduce the need for actively killing to get it.
I love me some BBQ beef. Sadly, I lost the ability to digest beef proteins, so it's either poultry or seafood for me, though I admit some of my vegan brother's seitan and stuff is really good too.
It's even more of a fad then, though, because it's not done for biologically necessary reasons, just your ethical whim. It's a whim I can respect, but it's only based on how you feel about it, not about biological realities. I concur that animal abuse needs to be stopped (or at least driven to obscurity). I would consider the people, like me, who have to limit consumption due to medical reasons not going for a fad at all, because there are BIOLOGICAL REALITIES involved. If I could eat BBQ beef without vomiting violently again, I'd do it in a heartbeat because I like it. Still, I can't, so ....
If websites are in question, then we need scholarly journals. Have some?
Have you established a need in herbivores on a scale like humans? Just because parrots in the Southern hemisphere can eat toxic stuff because they eat clay to deal with it doesn't mean we should eat toxic plants and then eat dirt.
buddhist
Well-Known Member
My intention is to eat to survive.
Do you travel in automobiles or other motorized vehicles, without much concern for the numerous insects which gets killed?
Namaste,
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/vegetarians-are-more-intelligent-says-study-7082629.html
To compare the standards of life of Ancient India to today is not as applicable. The Buddha did stress more vegetarian diet, but allowed people who were usally not allowed to give alms not to give food/meat for helping the monks/holymen survive and increasing merit, the Buddha did stress only to accept meat if it had not been killed for them, buying meat is accepting meat killed specifically for them, if meat was all they had they accepted, there was a stress that monks preferred a vegetarian diet. Siddharta barred nobody from practicing the way of Dharma, it was not exclusive, but vegetarian diet was considered better.
More importantly to Buddhism is making enlightened choices, I cant see how supporting the meat trade by giving them fuel (money) because that is their only aim is an enlightened choice. Did the ancients have such lush supermarkets and options for diet. Many lived either in ignorance or abject poverty, so had very choice with diet.
If one is Vegetarian we can look at old ancient systems like ayurveda that show how to do diet exactly, Vegetarianism is not a new fad, its been part of human history just as much as eating meat but the percentage was less.
Vegetarian diet is part of ones spirituality, it aids meditation, makes one feel calm, more at peace, opens up deeper levels of compassion, spiritual practice sadhana will increase healthy flow of prana, so that will feed the brain and the body just as much as food.
If you have choice in this day and age, then by careful study the of eating of meat is not needed.
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/vegetarians-are-more-intelligent-says-study-7082629.html
To compare the standards of life of Ancient India to today is not as applicable. The Buddha did stress more vegetarian diet, but allowed people who were usally not allowed to give alms not to give food/meat for helping the monks/holymen survive and increasing merit, the Buddha did stress only to accept meat if it had not been killed for them, buying meat is accepting meat killed specifically for them, if meat was all they had they accepted, there was a stress that monks preferred a vegetarian diet. Siddharta barred nobody from practicing the way of Dharma, it was not exclusive, but vegetarian diet was considered better.
More importantly to Buddhism is making enlightened choices, I cant see how supporting the meat trade by giving them fuel (money) because that is their only aim is an enlightened choice. Did the ancients have such lush supermarkets and options for diet. Many lived either in ignorance or abject poverty, so had very choice with diet.
If one is Vegetarian we can look at old ancient systems like ayurveda that show how to do diet exactly, Vegetarianism is not a new fad, its been part of human history just as much as eating meat but the percentage was less.
Vegetarian diet is part of ones spirituality, it aids meditation, makes one feel calm, more at peace, opens up deeper levels of compassion, spiritual practice sadhana will increase healthy flow of prana, so that will feed the brain and the body just as much as food.
If you have choice in this day and age, then by careful study the of eating of meat is not needed.
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Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
There are plenty of dietary alternatives to meat, and millions of people "survive" on a vegetarian diet. Your insect argument is a worthless straw-man.
Have you never heard of Right Intention? Your posts reek of self-justification.
buddhist
Well-Known Member
I find my traveling example right on point. If the "letter of the law" is followed, then it shows the hypocrisy of many who, though they avoid eating meat, they likely wouldn't blink an eye at causing of the deaths of thousands of insects as a result of traveling in motor vehicles.
There are plenty of alternatives to traveling in motor vehicles, right? Like, walking ... with a broom, to brush away all insects along your path.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
But you do kill animals for your lust, why when you don't have to ??.
buddhist
Well-Known Member
I don't kill animals with intent.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
No, but tell that to the animal, if they could talk.
buddhist
Well-Known Member
Do you travel in motor vehicles, with intent to kill insects?
Namaste
Driving a car, breathing, self cannibalism that the Body is subject to is unavoidable, eating meat if one has choice is avoidable. My body is eating its own flesh right now, that is neither moral or immoral, killing animals for profit I would consider immoral, especially the meat industry that is causing human and world environmental, health problems.
I fail to see the connection between the Buddha accepting meat from so called untouchables and modern day supermarket meat. I think that is an unfair comparison.
If one is Buddhist he thinks kindness, in North Thailand they eat frogs, they have very little choice, the land is harsh, hard to grow food, the monks accepts frogs because that all they can offer sometimes. The same monks in general when living outside of Thailand in western nice comfortable places with choice mainly are vegetarian.
It depends on your environment and what choices you have. Obviously not killing animals and causing them pain is more connected to an enlightened mind ?
Driving a car, breathing, self cannibalism that the Body is subject to is unavoidable, eating meat if one has choice is avoidable. My body is eating its own flesh right now, that is neither moral or immoral, killing animals for profit I would consider immoral, especially the meat industry that is causing human and world environmental, health problems.
I fail to see the connection between the Buddha accepting meat from so called untouchables and modern day supermarket meat. I think that is an unfair comparison.
If one is Buddhist he thinks kindness, in North Thailand they eat frogs, they have very little choice, the land is harsh, hard to grow food, the monks accepts frogs because that all they can offer sometimes. The same monks in general when living outside of Thailand in western nice comfortable places with choice mainly are vegetarian.
It depends on your environment and what choices you have. Obviously not killing animals and causing them pain is more connected to an enlightened mind ?
buddhist
Well-Known Member
Wait - why is driving a car "unavoidable"? Are you claiming that there no other options - like walking, with a broom?
psychoslice
Veteran Member
No, now your being way too picky, if we can help animals then bloody help them, don't make excuses for your delicious appetite.
Namaste
Yes driving a car in this day is unavoidable, that doesn't mean everyone has a car and drives, but there are cars that will be driven everyday and that is unavoidable.
I can see why you logic of eating meat has not yet reached the full capacity to understand the subject.
Yes driving a car in this day is unavoidable, that doesn't mean everyone has a car and drives, but there are cars that will be driven everyday and that is unavoidable.
I can see why you logic of eating meat has not yet reached the full capacity to understand the subject.
buddhist
Well-Known Member
Will you stop traveling in motor vehicles, to help the thousands of insects you might kill traveling along one trip (vs. the far fewer animals I might consume in my whole lifetime).
buddhist
Well-Known Member
No, driving a car is not unavoidable. You make a choice to drive, and kill hundreds or thousands in a trip, right?
Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
psychoslice
Veteran Member
Your just making up excuses for your murdering of animals, don't bull **** to me.
buddhist
Well-Known Member
What is your excuse then, for the thousands you kill with your motor vehicle?
Rick O'Shez
Irishman bouncing off walls
Your intent is to satisfy your craving for meat, with apparently little concern for how the meat ends up on your plate.
You're an "early Buddhist", so don't you practice Right Intention, which includes the intention of harmlessness? You expect other to do the killing and butchering, which is wrong livelihood in "early Buddhism", don't you feel like a hypocrite?