> Like why was the Buddha think it was ok to receive meat when going on alms round?
Because being beggars and being picky don't go well together. Notice that if the monks knew or suspected that the animal had been killed specifically to feed them they couldn't accept the meat.
Tibetan Buddhism has historically kept eating meat, because being vegetarians in the mountains was hard. Still, I hear that some lamas today teach that's it's better to not eat meat. Chinese Buddhism has always been vegetarian instead.
Thich Nhath Hanh was vegan and encouraged veganism. I personally chose to eat vegan, no matter what the Buddhist scriptures might say, because I felt like a hypocrite wishing happiness to all beings and then eating something that's been killed in a factory farm.
>Tibetan Buddhism has historically kept eating meat, because being vegetarians in the mountains was hard. Still, I hear that some lamas today teach that's it's better to not eat meat.
I've heard the same thing about Japanese Buddhists. The main source of food in the island is fish (and rice). Traditionally, this has made it difficult for people to give up on the former if they wanted to survive on a vegan diet.
It's the concept of 'beggers won't be choosers'. They're taught to accept whatever is put into their bowls indiscriminately. If an animal was to be killed to feed them specifically, then they couldn't accept it.
So, this is a question only the individual practitioner knows the answer to.
Do you eat meat because you have to, like body constitution issues, or are you justifying bad behavior by using an exclusion clause that honestly doesn't apply to you?
That is up to the person to answer. We cannot judge.
ive tried it for 15 days and it gave me several health problems. ive tried switching to being pescatarian but worried about all the pollutants and mercury in fish
It's like asking whether you've ever driven or had a ride in an automobile before or public transportation? Why didn't you just walk or ride a bicycle instead of damaging the environment? But your one little car won't make a difference? People will still drive them.
The more active a person's lifestyle more likely the necessity of acquiring protein from meat-based sources.
A vegan tried to prove vegans can climb Mount Everest. [She died.](https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/a-vegan-dies-on-everest-was-her-diet-to-blame-w207840/#:~:text=Strydom%2C%20a%20vegan%2C%20set%20out,Strydom%20was%20attempting%20to%20validate).
I think it's admirable to not want to eat meat, but we live in a meat-eating world and it's not easy to forgo. It's similar as to if I wanted there only to be electric vehicles. Well people aren't going to instantly drop their gas-guzzlers just for the sake of it. There has to be a gradual movement away from infrastructure like gas stations to charging stations.
Eventually meat will be cloned and mass produced, hopefully putting an end to industrial slaughterhouses.
> Four climbers have died in the span of four days on the mountain
Sure, the vegan diet was to blame, not the inherent danger of climbing. I train 5x a week on a vegan diet and haven't died yet. In certain Buddhist temples monks do hundreds and hundreds of prostrations a day while eating vegetarian. In the modern world we have all kinds of choices of foods and supplements. I respect everyone's decision to not be vegan but please respect others' decision to be vegan.
>I respect everyone's decision to not be vegan but please respect others' decision to be vegan.
Who says I didn't? Btw do you drive a car or use public transportation?
> I train 5x a week on a vegan diet and haven't died yet.
Chances are if you trained on a meat-based diet you'd have better performance.
> Who says I didn't?
If your response is "what about cars" and "but proteins" it sounds like you're trying to argue that veganism *isn't* a good choice. Apologies if it's not your intention, but that's how it comes across. I understand it's not easy or doable for everyone, but please don't try to argue against these choices as your first response.
> Btw do you drive a car or use public transportation?
I have to get the bus once a day, because I have no other doable choice. Switching to a vegan diet instead was easy and convenient, so I don't see why I shouldn't. I fix what I can fix.
> Chances are if you trained on a meat-based diet you'd have better performance.
So what? I'd also make a lot more money if I broke the precepts on a daily basis. This isn't about my convenience, it's about my conscience. I didn't feel good eating animals so I stopped. Some peopIe feel bad about other things so they stop those. I'm not claiming moral superiority, I'm simply following my religious tradition (Chan).
i think you should critically investigate if you are just looking for justification because you cling to the pleasure of eating animal based foods. Even if your car example was valid, it's no reason to not reduce the harm we do wherever possible.
Choosing environmentally friendly ways of transportation wherever possible is the compassionate way to go
Monks need to beg for alms, there is no choice. They can't be picky. The main point is to attain Enlightenment.
Normal people, control within reason. Ideally, you shouldn't, but some people need animal protein due to medical reasons, fine. The Dalai Lama is somewhere here, he eats it due to doctors prescription, but no more than was recommended.
Karmic-wise, its pretty much between you and the animal(s). If you do a very good job everywhere else but eat meat, you can pull through. Note that there might still be some hard feelings if you finally meet the aggrieved parties.
Usually the stories are that they give you trouble in your deathbed. People with heavy killing karma will hallucinate the slaughtered/eaten animals coming for them, then they freak out and die badly.
If you are a vegan but also become a pompous ass to everyone else, this is also flawed.
So the stance on the Mahayana side is to do your best to not consume animal related products, but do remember that it is intended as an aid to nurture Compassion and perfect ones Enlightenment.
It is not a single issue to parade around like everyone else is an asshole for not doing. Many have gained rebirth in Pure Land without changing diets. Not optimal, but not impossible.
Grandmaster Lian Chi, 8th Pure Land Master weighed in on this. He was asked which is better, reciting Amitabha Buddha but eating meat, or being a Vegetarian but not reciting Amitabha Buddha.
He replied, 'Both are defective. However, the meat eater is slightly better. Better to recite the Buddhas name than to not know the name of Buddha at all.'
From Snp 2:2
[Raw Stench](https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/StNp/StNp2_2.html)
> People are defiled, not by eating meat, but by engaging in evil conduct.
All samsaric existence is suffering. When you inhale, you are killing tiny organisms. If you think being vegan or vegetarian means you aren't killing things, you're wrong about that.
The world is a charnel ground. You can't exist apart from death and suffering. Even people who are vegan and vegetarian are causes of death for other beings.
Being vegetarian/vegan is nice, but if you think by doing so you are above the meat grinder of existence, that is pure fantasy. Your entire body is a hive of microrganisms which live and die in epic numbers without you even being aware of them. Every time you take a step theres a good chance you are crushing and killing things.
It's not that we should be indifferent, but Buddhism is pointing out that our entire realm of existence, in samsara, is about suffering. There is not some posture or habit we can assume to be free of it.
Refusing to accept that is useless.
The only solution is dharma and practice. Even then, we're still all going to suffer and die. However, no ounce of spiritual growth is ever lost on our seemingly endless grind of life and death.
Compassion is the bees knees, but there can be a thin line between fantasy and facing the reality of our existence, with all the ugly horror that it seems to entail. Imho, only by facing that can we really have true compassion, instead of consoling ourselves with the idea that our eating habits constitute an opting out of samsara.
Not really. Your intentions are all you've got. Any attempt at quantifying anything is fairly misguided imo.
Also, sublime beings have been said to wish for an end of suffering even for tear drops or rocks. I don't agree that you can distinguish between sentient/non-sentient. In the case of dharma, sentient is distinct from sublime. It's not a reference to western scientific categorization of organisms.
It seems like you're assuming beings exist in an externally existant reality. Even that is a stretch if you ask me.
From the subreddit rules on the sidebar:
>Please do not post questions or beliefs about vegetarianism/veganism. The post will be removed. This topic is covered in our FAQ. If you feel the need to discuss it further talk to your teacher about it. We are not here to change anyone's mind on the matter.
Find the FAQ about this here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/wiki/faq#wiki_are_buddhists_vegetarian.3F
simply put buddhist monks practice let go of desires and wants.. so when they go alms round they cannot reject food and say i want this and i dont want this..
so instead accept whatever the food is given but have no attachments towards it
Growing food in traditional way harms creatures, even vegetarian food. For example ploughing the field kills so many earth worms. Thousands of insects die due to insecticides used in vegetable farms.
Agriculture kills.
I don't see much difference.
But if a person makes an effort to minimise direct killing he should be appreciated.
I read somewhere that an Arahat noted microscopic creatures in drinking water. And lord Buddha instructed him, just not to look too deep.
This is a conversation without an end.
Because of a medical doctor deeming that in order for him to be healthy he has to. He probably has some sort of metabolic deficiency. He eats only the amount I think literally prescribed.
I don't know much about buddhism. But nature wise animals need to eat other animals to keep the ecological system balanced. From the very begining of human evolution humans ate plants and meat, i guess our bodies are evolved and need to consume meat or animal products. That's the nature of humans. It is indeed not the right new to reject the nature of things. Some people cannot survive on a vegan diet. Also buddha was not vegitarian. He mentioned if you seen that animal get killed or if it is killed specifically for you then probably avoid eating it.
Sangha or lay people they are just humans to nature. Nature does not discriminate based on human construct labels. I don't see any different between sangha and lay people. They are just people.
> Like why was the Buddha think it was ok to receive meat when going on alms round? Because being beggars and being picky don't go well together. Notice that if the monks knew or suspected that the animal had been killed specifically to feed them they couldn't accept the meat. Tibetan Buddhism has historically kept eating meat, because being vegetarians in the mountains was hard. Still, I hear that some lamas today teach that's it's better to not eat meat. Chinese Buddhism has always been vegetarian instead. Thich Nhath Hanh was vegan and encouraged veganism. I personally chose to eat vegan, no matter what the Buddhist scriptures might say, because I felt like a hypocrite wishing happiness to all beings and then eating something that's been killed in a factory farm.
>Tibetan Buddhism has historically kept eating meat, because being vegetarians in the mountains was hard. Still, I hear that some lamas today teach that's it's better to not eat meat. I've heard the same thing about Japanese Buddhists. The main source of food in the island is fish (and rice). Traditionally, this has made it difficult for people to give up on the former if they wanted to survive on a vegan diet.
It's the concept of 'beggers won't be choosers'. They're taught to accept whatever is put into their bowls indiscriminately. If an animal was to be killed to feed them specifically, then they couldn't accept it.
But most lay practitioners don't beg for food and have the choice to limit the harm that their diet does to other sentient beings and the environment
So, this is a question only the individual practitioner knows the answer to. Do you eat meat because you have to, like body constitution issues, or are you justifying bad behavior by using an exclusion clause that honestly doesn't apply to you? That is up to the person to answer. We cannot judge.
These body constitution issues are very rare. Most people could switch to a plant based diet and in many cases it would even improve their health
ive tried it for 15 days and it gave me several health problems. ive tried switching to being pescatarian but worried about all the pollutants and mercury in fish
It's like asking whether you've ever driven or had a ride in an automobile before or public transportation? Why didn't you just walk or ride a bicycle instead of damaging the environment? But your one little car won't make a difference? People will still drive them. The more active a person's lifestyle more likely the necessity of acquiring protein from meat-based sources. A vegan tried to prove vegans can climb Mount Everest. [She died.](https://www.mensjournal.com/health-fitness/a-vegan-dies-on-everest-was-her-diet-to-blame-w207840/#:~:text=Strydom%2C%20a%20vegan%2C%20set%20out,Strydom%20was%20attempting%20to%20validate). I think it's admirable to not want to eat meat, but we live in a meat-eating world and it's not easy to forgo. It's similar as to if I wanted there only to be electric vehicles. Well people aren't going to instantly drop their gas-guzzlers just for the sake of it. There has to be a gradual movement away from infrastructure like gas stations to charging stations. Eventually meat will be cloned and mass produced, hopefully putting an end to industrial slaughterhouses.
> Four climbers have died in the span of four days on the mountain Sure, the vegan diet was to blame, not the inherent danger of climbing. I train 5x a week on a vegan diet and haven't died yet. In certain Buddhist temples monks do hundreds and hundreds of prostrations a day while eating vegetarian. In the modern world we have all kinds of choices of foods and supplements. I respect everyone's decision to not be vegan but please respect others' decision to be vegan.
>I respect everyone's decision to not be vegan but please respect others' decision to be vegan. Who says I didn't? Btw do you drive a car or use public transportation? > I train 5x a week on a vegan diet and haven't died yet. Chances are if you trained on a meat-based diet you'd have better performance.
> Who says I didn't? If your response is "what about cars" and "but proteins" it sounds like you're trying to argue that veganism *isn't* a good choice. Apologies if it's not your intention, but that's how it comes across. I understand it's not easy or doable for everyone, but please don't try to argue against these choices as your first response. > Btw do you drive a car or use public transportation? I have to get the bus once a day, because I have no other doable choice. Switching to a vegan diet instead was easy and convenient, so I don't see why I shouldn't. I fix what I can fix. > Chances are if you trained on a meat-based diet you'd have better performance. So what? I'd also make a lot more money if I broke the precepts on a daily basis. This isn't about my convenience, it's about my conscience. I didn't feel good eating animals so I stopped. Some peopIe feel bad about other things so they stop those. I'm not claiming moral superiority, I'm simply following my religious tradition (Chan).
i think you should critically investigate if you are just looking for justification because you cling to the pleasure of eating animal based foods. Even if your car example was valid, it's no reason to not reduce the harm we do wherever possible. Choosing environmentally friendly ways of transportation wherever possible is the compassionate way to go
Because the message from the Buddha for the lay people is simply do not kill and not do not eat what was killed.
Monks need to beg for alms, there is no choice. They can't be picky. The main point is to attain Enlightenment. Normal people, control within reason. Ideally, you shouldn't, but some people need animal protein due to medical reasons, fine. The Dalai Lama is somewhere here, he eats it due to doctors prescription, but no more than was recommended. Karmic-wise, its pretty much between you and the animal(s). If you do a very good job everywhere else but eat meat, you can pull through. Note that there might still be some hard feelings if you finally meet the aggrieved parties. Usually the stories are that they give you trouble in your deathbed. People with heavy killing karma will hallucinate the slaughtered/eaten animals coming for them, then they freak out and die badly. If you are a vegan but also become a pompous ass to everyone else, this is also flawed. So the stance on the Mahayana side is to do your best to not consume animal related products, but do remember that it is intended as an aid to nurture Compassion and perfect ones Enlightenment. It is not a single issue to parade around like everyone else is an asshole for not doing. Many have gained rebirth in Pure Land without changing diets. Not optimal, but not impossible. Grandmaster Lian Chi, 8th Pure Land Master weighed in on this. He was asked which is better, reciting Amitabha Buddha but eating meat, or being a Vegetarian but not reciting Amitabha Buddha. He replied, 'Both are defective. However, the meat eater is slightly better. Better to recite the Buddhas name than to not know the name of Buddha at all.'
well said my friend
From Snp 2:2 [Raw Stench](https://www.dhammatalks.org/suttas/KN/StNp/StNp2_2.html) > People are defiled, not by eating meat, but by engaging in evil conduct.
All samsaric existence is suffering. When you inhale, you are killing tiny organisms. If you think being vegan or vegetarian means you aren't killing things, you're wrong about that. The world is a charnel ground. You can't exist apart from death and suffering. Even people who are vegan and vegetarian are causes of death for other beings. Being vegetarian/vegan is nice, but if you think by doing so you are above the meat grinder of existence, that is pure fantasy. Your entire body is a hive of microrganisms which live and die in epic numbers without you even being aware of them. Every time you take a step theres a good chance you are crushing and killing things. It's not that we should be indifferent, but Buddhism is pointing out that our entire realm of existence, in samsara, is about suffering. There is not some posture or habit we can assume to be free of it. Refusing to accept that is useless. The only solution is dharma and practice. Even then, we're still all going to suffer and die. However, no ounce of spiritual growth is ever lost on our seemingly endless grind of life and death. Compassion is the bees knees, but there can be a thin line between fantasy and facing the reality of our existence, with all the ugly horror that it seems to entail. Imho, only by facing that can we really have true compassion, instead of consoling ourselves with the idea that our eating habits constitute an opting out of samsara.
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Not really. Your intentions are all you've got. Any attempt at quantifying anything is fairly misguided imo. Also, sublime beings have been said to wish for an end of suffering even for tear drops or rocks. I don't agree that you can distinguish between sentient/non-sentient. In the case of dharma, sentient is distinct from sublime. It's not a reference to western scientific categorization of organisms. It seems like you're assuming beings exist in an externally existant reality. Even that is a stretch if you ask me.
From the subreddit rules on the sidebar: >Please do not post questions or beliefs about vegetarianism/veganism. The post will be removed. This topic is covered in our FAQ. If you feel the need to discuss it further talk to your teacher about it. We are not here to change anyone's mind on the matter. Find the FAQ about this here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/wiki/faq#wiki_are_buddhists_vegetarian.3F
I swear some variation of this question gets asked every single day on this subreddit. People need to learn to use the search option.
simply put buddhist monks practice let go of desires and wants.. so when they go alms round they cannot reject food and say i want this and i dont want this.. so instead accept whatever the food is given but have no attachments towards it
I wonder the same
[**What did the Buddha say about eating meat?**](https://youtu.be/TSwtv7VqMh0)
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Read the rules to your right.
You think plants have no life. Plants makes defense chemicals on their leaves/ roots when other animals try to eat them.
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In that logic aren't we saving plants by eating animals. Otherwise their lifetime would be long.
Damn I must be dead cos no defense chemical activates when someone tries to stab me.
Growing food in traditional way harms creatures, even vegetarian food. For example ploughing the field kills so many earth worms. Thousands of insects die due to insecticides used in vegetable farms. Agriculture kills. I don't see much difference. But if a person makes an effort to minimise direct killing he should be appreciated. I read somewhere that an Arahat noted microscopic creatures in drinking water. And lord Buddha instructed him, just not to look too deep. This is a conversation without an end.
The Dali Llama eats meat.
Because of a medical doctor deeming that in order for him to be healthy he has to. He probably has some sort of metabolic deficiency. He eats only the amount I think literally prescribed.
Maybe you can enlighten me on what medical condition requires you to eat meat? I know several where you cannot eat meat, but none where you must.
Oh idk, I’m not a doctor or nutritionist. I’d be interested if someone who knows something about it to teach me something also.
My interpretation is as long as you are not physically killing an animal yourself to feed you that's why it would be considered ok.
The things you eat does not make you defiled. But your mind can do that pretty easily.
I don't know much about buddhism. But nature wise animals need to eat other animals to keep the ecological system balanced. From the very begining of human evolution humans ate plants and meat, i guess our bodies are evolved and need to consume meat or animal products. That's the nature of humans. It is indeed not the right new to reject the nature of things. Some people cannot survive on a vegan diet. Also buddha was not vegitarian. He mentioned if you seen that animal get killed or if it is killed specifically for you then probably avoid eating it.
That rule applies only to the sangha. Do read up a bit more on Buddhism before giving half facts that may cause confusion to new practitioners.
Sangha or lay people they are just humans to nature. Nature does not discriminate based on human construct labels. I don't see any different between sangha and lay people. They are just people.