Buddhist why vegetarian

The third fault related to meat eating is the most dreadful and also the reason why I became vegetarian. I used to eat meat. My thinking went like this: I am an ordinary person who has not even started the path of accumulation, but have received many Buddhist teachings and am fully aware that meat eaters will cycle through the six realms.

Surely, the animal realm will be unavoidable. At that point, eating meat and taking lives will invariably be the norm. Consequently, many lives may be taken in just one day resulting in continuous rebirth in the lower realms for eons to come. Now one may consider not eating meat a kind of sacrifice when in fact it constitutes not one bit of sacrifice at all. If the aim is to strengthen the body, many things will suffice other than eating meat; the palate too can be easily taken care of. What I thought then was not that I did not like to, but dared not, eat meat.

Hopefully, everyone would give some serious thought to this reasoning. It would be best if one can be vegetarian for life. If it is too difficult to do now, try for as long as you can, say, one, two, three years or longer. If that is also not possible, one can set aside a certain time to be vegetarian, such as during the following four months of the Tibetan calendar:. If this is still not doable, just make the 10th, 15th, 29th and 30th of each month the days to be vegetarian.

May the merit of this promise help me refrain from eating any meat in all future lives. But from a long-term perspective, the problem of meat eating is much more serious than others as it concerns matters of grave consequence, i. Being vegetarian in most parts of the world is really quite easy as vegetables and other nutritious foods are in abundance. Today, even non-Buddhists are promoting vegetarianism.

At the time when I was still eating meat, I would stop whenever I went to the Han Chinese regions because of the easy access to, and abundance of, vegetables there. I found no reason to eat meat at all. If there is concern for insufficient nutrition, dietary supplements are always available. Therefore, I hope everyone will make an effort to be vegetarian whenever possible. Buddhist practice is something that should be undertaken step by step.

As ordinary people, we cannot hope to reach a certain stage in our practice, say, accomplishing the path of accumulation, in an instant or an hour. So, the right thing to do is to proceed step by step so that liberation may eventually be attained. Above are some of the reasons stated in the Lankavatara Sutra. How does the Nirvana Sutra deal with this subject? As the Buddha was entering nirvana, he laid down another precept.

But from now on, eating meat of any kind should be banned for practitioners of all schools. Notwithstanding, exception is allowed. At this point, meat is no longer deemed ordinary food. Clearly, Mahayana does not allow meat eating. Not only the three kinds of clean flesh but also all other kinds of meat are forbidden, including those from animals that have been killed for human consumption and those which died of natural causes. This is the view of the Nirvana Sutra.

During that time, some people who had the chance and the capacity to learn Buddhism came for the teaching. Asking them not to eat any meat right away, which they were unable to comply with, would have created obstacles to their practice. Afterwards, through gradual guidance, they were led to quit meat altogether.

In Vajrayana, especially stated in the stanzas of the Kalachakra Tantra, it is very wrong to eat meat. Karma of many people sharing the meat of one animal is grave enough. Karma of one person consuming many small animals is much, much worse. For example, processed meats like sausage, hot dogs, luncheon meat, etc. Eating these kinds of meat would produce tremendous negative karma, tantamount to the one committed by eating many lives. Suppose there is a strong poison that can easily kill any ordinary people who take it.

However, a practitioner, through nothing but the power of practice, not only survives the poison but also sustains no residual effect. But for us ordinary people, it does make a difference and thus we are advised against taking meat and alcohol. In Vajrayana, the proper way for ordinary people to accept the sacramental substances of samaya is through visualization practice, not to actually eat meat or drink alcohol.

What then should we do about the meat and alcohol offered in the ganachakra? If we refuse totally, we will break the vows associated with the 14 Root Downfalls of Vajrayana. This way, it neither means eating meat in the conventional sense nor rejecting the sacramental substance of samaya from the perspective of Vajrayana. As for alcohol, we can just dab a little with the ring finger on the lips.

Acting this way will prevent us from breaking the samaya of Vajrayana or the vows of bodhisattva and pratimoksha; all three will be kept intact. If too much alcohol is poured into your palm of course, tell them beforehand not to pour so much , just dab a little on your lips with a finger and dispose of the rest. Never allow yourself to freely chew down on chunks of meat or gulp down alcohol.

Furthermore, it is stated very clearly in the Great Perfection that the meat to be offered for the ganachakra cannot be from animals that were killed and sold in the market for human consumption as those are considered unclean.

Instead, one should use the meat of animals that have died of natural causes like disease, fire, earthquake, lightning strike, etc. Only these kinds of meat are deemed clean and suitable for the ganachakra. According to the Mahayana teachings, the distinction between clean and unclean meat is this: the meat of animals killed for human consumption is unclean; those from animals died of natural causes are clean.

This is the view commonly held by both exoteric and esoteric Buddhism. And we should always be mindful of the proper way to prepare for the ganachakra by using only clean meat.

Vajrayana also holds that the butcher and the person buying the meat are equally guilty of killing lives. It is the same logic as paying the workers to repair a stupa whereby in our minds we would gather all the merit since the money is from us.

Likewise, the animals are not killed by us personally but the butchers. Nevertheless, it is primarily due to our need to consume meat that drives the butchers to kill. In other words, we pay the butchers to kill. Normally, the relationship between the butchers and the animals is not one of hate. The animals have never hurt these people nor broken any law. Money is no doubt the ultimate motive, and it comes from us. We can be said to be the instigators of the killing. If there is merit to be had in paying workers to repair a stupa, by the same token there are faults in paying others to kill.

The situation has now gone from bad to worse thanks to the highly developed transportation system which has enabled many slaughterhouses to export all kinds of meat every day. For example, fish caught at sea can be transported by plane to almost any destination right away. Nowadays, some of the slaughterhouses do not just cater to one village, one city or one country, but to all meat eaters all over the world. In other words, they kill for the sake of meat eaters worldwide.

It is no longer like the old days when the only buyers of a village slaughterhouse were the village people. In our world today, innumerable lives are killed every day for meat eaters. Who are the meat eaters? We should know that some of us belong to that group.

This means slaughterhouses in many countries are presently killing tens of thousands of animals for our sake. It is a terrifying spectacle indeed, as is said in the scriptures as well.

On the surface, it seems that eating meat should not cause much concern. But that is not the case after careful consideration. It in fact hurts oneself as well as other beings. With this in mind, we must resolve to do right for all concerned. Although Vajrayana requires its practitioners to accept five meats and five nectars as part of the practice, beginners must stay away from them and use instead visualization or some herbal medicine as substitutes. What does demonic obstacle mean?

On hearing this term, many people instantly picture a human or non-human being with eyes, ears, multiple heads and hands. These are actually just petty demons. The king of demons that would obstruct our practice is nothing other than the habit of eating meat.

Such is the view of Vajrayana. So who says that eating meat is permissible within Vajrayana? The length of time to be vegetarian is a personal decision, but the longer the better. The Theravadists believe that since Buddha himself ate meat, that it is allowable to eat meat as well. For them, they follow the teachings in Nipata Sutta, where it says that immorality and evil stems from impure thoughts, feelings and spirit and not from consuming meat.

Buddha has also mentioned to avoid only certain types of meat. Thus it means some meat are allowable. Many people choose the vegetarian or even vegan lifestyle in order to be healthier or even be a better person. They believe that if we start with ourselves, then we can spread the life of non-violence. Many vegetarian people think that that eating meat causes pain and suffering and thus should be avoided at all costs.

They also say that it is a healthier choice since some meat cause cancer. On the other hand, meat eaters or omnivores argue that eating meat is a healthy choice.

They believe that meat provides us with better protein than what vegetables or plants do. They also argue that other animals eat other animals; much like a lion eats a zebra. This basically supports their claim to eating meat. For the Theravadists, they will eat meat, as long as they were not the one who directly killed the animal.

They believe that harvesting plants also causes pain and thus is no different from buying butchered meat. Vegetarianism has many benefits. Aside from non-violence being a vegetarian can help you in a lot of ways. Many people who are trying to lose weight and keep the pounds off resort to being vegetarians. If there was a person who was a very strict vegetarian but who was selfish, dishonest and mean, and another person who was not a vegetarian but who was thoughtful to others, honest, generous and kind, which of these two would be the better Buddhist?

The person who was honest and kind. Because such a person obviously has a good heart. One who eats meat can have a pure heart just as one who does not eat meat can have an impure heart. In the Buddha's teachings, the important thing is the quality of your heart, not the contents of your diet. Many Buddhists take great care never to eat meat but they are not concerned about being selfish, dishonest, cruel or jealous.

They change their diet which is easy to do, while neglecting to change their hearts which is a difficult thing to do.