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Go Back   Spiritual Forums > Religions & Faiths > Buddhism

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  #1  
Old 20-08-2011, 07:00 AM
de.spin
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Buddhism and vegetarianism

I would love to understand more about the official position of Buddhism about vegetarianism. And I would love to understand what happens in reality in Buddhist countries.

In other words: did Buddha, according to the official Buddhist religion, teach about vegetarianism?

If so, why so many Buddhists are not vegetarians?
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  #2  
Old 20-08-2011, 04:22 PM
Loukgob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by de.spin
I would love to understand more about the official position of Buddhism about vegetarianism. And I would love to understand what happens in reality in Buddhist countries.

In other words: did Buddha, according to the official Buddhist religion, teach about vegetarianism?

If so, why so many Buddhists are not vegetarians?

I can only answer for Thailand, Lao and Cambodia
I've seen fliers put out by a monk in Nong Khai inspiring people to do the right thing and eat vegetarian diet, and there are a few places where monks mainly eat vegetarian food.
Then again, most of them excuse themselves by saying "as long as you don't kill the animal yourself, you can as well eat it". And I've seen many monks eating when they should not to, handling money, walking with their new blackberry in one hand and a cigarette in the other. At the moment there's even the problem of ladyboy monks tiing their robes as a a Japanese Kimono and acting all girlie (while a monk should be as asexual as possible to be considered a monk, specially in those Theravada countries).

The monasteries on those areas might hate me for this, but if you ever seen the movie Zen (made 2009, link here www imdb com/title/tt1156470/ ), then I would say the Thais in many cases are like the Japanese before the introduction of Zen by Dogen Zenji.

They seem to whitewash as much as they can of their behavior.
Secondly, while there are authentic Monks in Thailand truly striving for enlightenment many of the others seem to not really care for it, it's just a way of living.
And to speak of the believers. I've spent alot of time in South east Asia and so many times I've met people praying, I've asked them about their prayers and they answer me by saying they are praying for good luck and wealth, praying to Buddha.

It seems Muhammad once was kind of right, and that those huge beautiful Statues of Buddha has become the main object for prayers, something outside of the person praying. And so Buddha becomes like a God in many people's eyes. Which was what Muhammad wanted to prevent (with limited success since many now go crazy as soon as a small picture is drawn of him which I dont think he would personally mind, everything has limits...)

Many even sit and read the sutras in sanskrit (like heart sutra) not having a clue what it means, wouldn't it be so much better to translate it into Thai? Or whichever language spoken in the country of issue? A Mantra doesn't become more powerful in Sanskrit than in English, as long as you can get the whole understanding of the mantra translated and understood. And not let people blindly read lines that can not mean anything unless you truly understand and realize it with your wisdom and compassion?

As you can see I'm quite pessimistic against the Theravada practice in the SEA countries. I've nothing really against Theravada, but it feels to me that they've lost the true purpose of Buddhism.

And even some Buddhism like Vajrayana, which can seem overly magical with all the Deities, prayer wheels, flags and tantric practices, actually makes more sense to me. First of there's the very good explanation to the Deities, to quote someone, "In Buddhist practice the “deities” represent our own inner potential. We are all potentially Tara. We can all become Tara."
Just like Buddha means awaken and Buddhahood nothing more then becoming awakened.

Dharma Sangha has finished his 6 years of meditation, He's from Nepal and a great inspiration to me, not because of his miraculous Meditation without food and water for many years that Discovery made a documentary about (Buddha Boy www youtube com/watch?v=v29clGMWU84 ) and they try to debunk him without really succeeding.
But no matter you believe that or not what's more interesting is his teachings now after. And the purity of what he has to say is very simple, yet so hard to grasp for the Egotistic mind.
However, he, who practiced for so long and to many is nothing else than a new Buddha, he clearly states his wish for all religious practitioner to stop sacrifice animals, as well as not harming other sentient beings. This I see as a kind of statement for vegetarianism.

Personally I believe there's nothing wrong eating meat, as long as you are aware of that you are eating dead food. Living food is to me ofcourse the best when it comes to energy, vitality and spirituality and I try to stay on the diet explained in the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman.

I am not a Buddhist, yet I follow many of the practices of Vajrayana and Zen Buddhism. And I believe it's a very very good thing that in the past 40 years or so BUddhism has come to integrate with the West world so much, (specially Vajrayana since they don't have a country of their own anymore..) And I think that when we meet halfway there'll in a few years devolop a new form of Buddhism that may carry the original message untouched, and still easily translated into any language.
But that's future and now I feel I blablabla too much.
Just my 2 cents in Siam (and a bit more :P )
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  #3  
Old 21-08-2011, 11:48 AM
Samana Samana is offline
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The Buddha taught not to kill and not to eat meat from an animal which had been killed for you. He didn't mention 'vegetarianism' in the Pali suttas.

Monks however, had to eat whatever was put into their begging bowls as food offerings from lay people - and this included meat or fish.

This practice is continued to this day with monks in Theravada countries.
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  #4  
Old 21-08-2011, 01:10 PM
de.spin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samana
The Buddha taught not to kill and not to eat meat from an animal which had been killed for you. He didn't mention 'vegetarianism' in the Pali suttas.

Monks however, had to eat whatever was put into their begging bowls as food offerings from lay people - and this included meat or fish.

This practice is continued to this day with monks in Theravada countries.

Hi Samana. Can I ask you, what is your feeling about that?

I mean, Buddha taught not to kill and not to eat meat from an animal which had been killed for you. Obviously if you accept meat from offerings, then that animal had been killed exactly for you. Accepting that offering, you accept that animals can be killed for food.

And what if the offering contains human meat? Children's meat?

Don't you see a hypocrisy in this? A trick? Buddha said not to eat meat but didn't talk about vegetarianism...what do you think?
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  #5  
Old 21-08-2011, 01:12 PM
Loukgob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samana
The Buddha taught not to kill and not to eat meat from an animal which had been killed for you. He didn't mention 'vegetarianism' in the Pali suttas.

Monks however, had to eat whatever was put into their begging bowls as food offerings from lay people - and this included meat or fish.

This practice is continued to this day with monks in Theravada countries.

That may be so, but we all too often speak of the "Buddha", in which case we mean Siddhartha Gautama, and forget that there have been countless Buddhas before and after him. That it is something we all can a achieve.

So I think we are lucky seeing an age where less time is wasted on reading sutras in languages not understood by the readers, and walking more in a direction of Zen or Dzogchen Buddhism, which to me seem far more authentic than anything I've come across in SEA. That being said I once again don't want to put any disrespect towards Theravada Practitioners, but from my own experience a big part, perhaps the biggest part, the part of understanding that you can become Buddha, seems to have gone lost over there

I have family in Thailand and I'm very aware of the way of worship they have. And what you just mentioned is the part that is how it should be. But there is a huge group of more or less corrupt monks who has taken this far out to other levels where they use it as argument to live or do however they like.

That's why I'm glad to see fresh winds like Dharma Sangha.
And other ordinary people in ordinary clothes, who trully know how to pass on the teachings without reading scrolls they don't know the meaning of. (by not knowing I mean that they do understand it, just haven't realized what they are teaching/preaching yet. And without a deeper Realization within your heart of Wisdom and Compassion I find it hard to believe someone can be an authentic teacher, unless he is truly only passing on teachings from a master of his who had reached this enlightenment, and being able to do so without putting in himself)

Secondly it's so hard to speak about enlightenment, cause it means so many different things depending on where you are and in which country, culture, teaching.
For some there are many stages of enlightenment, different stages of awakening. perhaps it's stages of awakening the Chi/Kundalini/Prana?
For others it means the actual walk over from our clouded reality to pure Nirvana.
Therefore I try to speak of it as little as possible.

(Third I think it's silly I have to write 25 posts before I can edit my profile or add avatars )
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  #6  
Old 22-08-2011, 05:09 PM
Samana Samana is offline
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Quote:
Hi Samana. Can I ask you, what is your feeling about that?

Hi Loukgob,

I was a vegetarian before I became a Buddhist - and I prefer not to take an extremist view about what others choose to eat. It's up to them what they purchase from the supermarket.

You might like to look at some resources on the subject:

"Are Buddhists vegetarian":

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bullitt/bfaq.html#veggie

and a Buddhist vegetarian website:

http://www.shabkar.org/


with kind wishes,

Samana
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  #7  
Old 22-08-2011, 09:30 PM
de.spin
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Samana
Hi Loukgob,

I was a vegetarian before I became a Buddhist - and I prefer not to take an extremist view about what others choose to eat. It's up to them what they purchase from the supermarket.

You might like to look at some resources on the subject:

"Are Buddhists vegetarian":

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bullitt/bfaq.html#veggie

and a Buddhist vegetarian website:

http://www.shabkar.org/


with kind wishes,

Samana

Thank you for your political answer.

I am proud to be an "extremist", as concerned to love and compassion.

Regards.
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  #8  
Old 24-08-2011, 01:47 AM
Cal
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Quote:
I would love to understand more about the official position of Buddhism about vegetarianism. And I would love to understand what happens in reality in Buddhist countries.

I was wondering the same thing De.spin. I've only been a vegetarian about 6 months now. The few people that I know at work that are Buddhists are not vegetarians.
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  #9  
Old 18-09-2011, 08:04 AM
breath
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Buddha didn't want to be followed religiously. This is a very important reality, because the following of something religiously, even the following of the truth religiously kills it. Because the truth is bendy and changable like a cloud, it maintains a certain form, and you can even recognize it on different days - but there are huge changes happening within an around it, to shape, tempoerature, thickness.

The position the buddha mind has on eating meat is karma. understand karma, understand eating meat.

karma is anything you can say 'doing' about, because all things we do become a part of cycles which will naturally try to make them worse, go downhill, or become better at being bad. So one day we ignore the right of an animal, this is a doing - because we choose to 'do' it. Karma is the understanding that by doing that ignoring you ignore a part of yourself, ignore the rights of a part of yourself.

I think you should meditate, educate yourself. Watch the worst (peta), watch the best (how it's supposed to be done) then meditate completely on metta.

Try not to approach buddhism like you would approach the teachings of jesus, and instead focus entirely inward and listen to a teaching when your question is answered by it.
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  #10  
Old 18-09-2011, 10:03 PM
DebbyM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by de.spin
Hi Samana. Can I ask you, what is your feeling about that?

I mean, Buddha taught not to kill and not to eat meat from an animal which had been killed for you. Obviously if you accept meat from offerings, then that animal had been killed exactly for you. Accepting that offering, you accept that animals can be killed for food.

And what if the offering contains human meat? Children's meat?

Don't you see a hypocrisy in this? A trick? Buddha said not to eat meat but didn't talk about vegetarianism...what do you think?

I think that if someone says that the Buddha said not to eat meat, but didn't use the word vegetarianism and so you (who are a Buddhist, hypothetical scenerio) use that to justify eating an omnivorous diet, then you are playing with words to your advantage and to get around a teaching that you should follow (if you are a Buddhist). Besides an ancient teacher could not have used a modern day word.

As for the Buddha saying don't eat meat, but if it is put into your begging bowl to just pretend that it is not there and eat, I think his meaning was more that to refuse it would have been disrespectful to the possibly poor giver who had nothing else, but gave what he did have to convey his respect to the monk.
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