the great vegetarian debate

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
BudSas
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by BudSas »

I don't vote because to me, it's a non-issue! :smile:

I consider myself as a sensible eater, I eat sensibly to keep my body healthy enough to practice the Dhamma, and the diet varies according to my own daily activities. Normally, I east mostly vegetables, fruits, and a bit of meat (read & white meats, seafood). However, for periods of intensive meditation retreat without heavy physical workloads, I eat less, and mostly on a vegetarian diet.

My main priority when eating is related to how to eat mindfully, one bit at a time, chewing slowly and carefully, noting the sensation at the tongue, the reaction of the mind to different taste, etc. To me, that's more important than to argue on the issue whether one should be a vegetarian or not.

BDS
Clueless Git
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by Clueless Git »

'Lo all :)

I'm not Theravedan, nor strictly any other tradition in particular, so I haven't voted.

I am vegan and was already vegan before becoming interested in buddhism.

I suffer a peculiar mental disorder that prevents me from seeing meat without simultaneoulsy seeing the cycle of suffering it causes and gives me a strong desire for all sentient beings to be free of it.

My initial attraction to buddhism, was by my interpretation, that being able to see dependant arisings of suffering and wishing all sentient beings to be free of them is not a peculiar mental disorder.
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Dugu
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by Dugu »

I am trying to become Vegetarian. I have decided to cut down my meat consumption so that my body and habit can slowly adapt to a full vegetarian way of life. And if I do become a vegetarian, I won't try and impose my preference on anyone who offer me food. I would just eat what they give, except meat that was specifically killed for me.
PeterB
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by PeterB »

Clueless Git wrote:'Lo all :)

I'm not Theravedan, nor strictly any other tradition in particular, so I haven't voted.

I am vegan and was already vegan before becoming interested in buddhism.

I suffer a peculiar mental disorder that prevents me from seeing meat without simultaneoulsy seeing the cycle of suffering it causes and gives me a strong desire for all sentient beings to be free of it.

My initial attraction to buddhism, was by my interpretation, that being able to see dependant arisings of suffering and wishing all sentient beings to be free of them is not a peculiar mental disorder.
That wish is not evidence of a mental disorder. However that wish like all phenomena arises dependantly. Suffering is prior to the killing of animals for meat and that would be the case even if everyone on the planet ate a vegetarian or vegan diet. The first link in the chain of suffering is Ignorance, ignorance not simply of the effects of dukkha , but existentially. It arises with our arising, with our consciousness of our selves and our identity , whether that identity is that of burger eater or vegan. To wish the good of all creatures is commendable, to wish them free from suffering is evidence of compassion. There is something though which in terms of Buddhism is primary, and that is available to all what ever diet they choose. That is the Jhanas and/or Insight.
kannada
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by kannada »

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want
He makes me down to lie
Through pastures green He leadeth me the silent waters by.
With bright knives He releaseth my soul.
He maketh me to hang on hooks in high places.
He converteth me to lamb cutlets,
For lo, He hath great power, and great hunger.
When cometh the day we lowly ones,
Through quiet reflection, and great dedication
Master the art of karate,
Lo, we shall rise up,
And then we'll make the bugger's eyes water.

Bleating and babbling I fell on his neck with a scream.
Wave upon wave of demented avengers
March cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream.


http://www.pink-floyd-lyrics.com/html/s ... yrics.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Just a view - nothing more...
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A Medic
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by A Medic »

Potato wrote:I voted before I saw the disclaimer. :(

I have been vegetarian for five years.

Same here I voted before I read the disclaimer. :oops: I voted the thinking about it. I've been going back and forth for years between being a vegetarian and not being one. I do personally think it its the best thing to do.
Northernbuck
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by Northernbuck »

I am considering becoming a full vegetarian. Currently I avoid beef, but for health reasons. I do eat chicken and fish right now. I have to do some more research and then decide. Even though it has been a couple of months, I do consider myself a Theravada Buddhist.
But if this neutral feeling that has arisen is conditioned by the body which is impermanent, compounded and dependently arisen, how could such a neutral feeling be permanent? - SN 36.7
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Annapurna
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by Annapurna »

I ignored only Theravadins may vote. What am I? :tongue:

I eat very little meat. I've had times where I went without for a year.

I often notice I'm healthier when I don't eat meat.

The suffering of animals has made me cry oftentimes.

One of the worst experiences was to look into the eyes of a cow that was chained too shortly , so she couldn't lie down her head, and was lying in her shit on naked cement.

I asked the farmer: Shouldn't there be more straw underneath her? And isn't the chain too short?" and he apologized, saying, usually, yes, or that she is able to lie down.

So, what can I do. Call the cops? I considered it.

I haven't bought veal since then and that should be over 10 years now. .

In any case, I can still see how she looked into my eyes,and held my gaze, for a long time. THAT look I will never forget.

Also the sadness she felt. I did have a feeling she was asking me to do something. I sadly caressed her face.

Perhaps I failed. :weep:
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DNS
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by DNS »

Annabel wrote: In any case, I can still see how she looked into my eyes,and held my gaze, for a long time. THAT look I will never forget.
Also the sadness she felt. I did have a feeling she was asking me to do something. I sadly caressed her face.
Perhaps I failed. :weep:
I had a similar experience in Ethiopia one time. We stopped by the side of the road to purchase some coffee beans and there close-by was a man holding a goat with a small rope around its neck. He was trying to sell the goat. In Ethiopia, to eat meat, you must buy the whole animal, take him home and kill him/her. For this reason, many foreign diplomats become vegetarian, at least while they are in Ethiopia. :tongue:

While the people with me purchased the coffee beans, I petted the goat. The goat immediately gravitated toward me and wanted more petting and attention. As we went back to our car, the goat struggled to come to me. The man with the goat started whipping the goat and pulling at him to stay with him. But the goat just kept coming toward me with all his might. I thought about purchasing the goat, but knew that eventually he would be found and still made into dinner one day, so just waved good-bye.
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Annapurna
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by Annapurna »

Oh... :(

I can imagine how you felt. I can also imagine how the goat felt.

Oh dear...

I once took an ill kitten in, and cared for her until it was well.

Hr gratitude was sobeautiful.

Each morning she would crawl next to my ill mother, and constantly gaze into her eyes, and seemed to smile, really. She gave her this confident, cheerful look, paw on lap, and purred away, and the old lady was delighted.

I would find the two next to each other, communicating with each other, each in her own way....

Amazing cat she was.

Her name was Jeannie, after "I dream of Jeannie".

:heart:
ChangingMan
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by ChangingMan »

Just voted in this poll. Yes, I am Veggie and have been now for 17 years (which seems like a long time when I say it like that!). I was veggie before I was buddhist, but of course they now support each other. I am Theravadin, have never really had a drawing to other traditions / lineages. My decision to turn veggie was born out of an undeveloped sense of why ethically I felt it was wrong. As time has gone by, Buddhism has helped me with a moral and ethical core to some of the things I just felt were right to do, but could not articulate, if that makes sense. I suppose I still think of being veggie as independent of Buddhism (that is, I don't abstain because of my faith). My wife is also veggie, and we have brought our two children up veggie from birth, and none of them are Buddhist, so I suppose that helps keep them separate to a degree in my mind. I can't ever see myself eating meat now.

Metta
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Laurens
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by Laurens »

I am a vegetarian. I tried for ages to give up meat in order to purify my 1st precept as it were, but I couldn't do it, I liked the taste too much. However one time I was eating a rare steak, and I noticed a blood vessel running across the steak and then I started to realise that I was actually eating a lump of flesh off a dead animal, it didn't immediately strike me as being cruel, but more of a weird thing to do - then I started to truely think about how cruel it is to kill a being just for its flesh, just to feed our desires.

I haven't eaten meat since then. I can't see why we need to really, perhaps in an environment where there is no other source of protien, but not while we have so many other means of getting a good amount of protien, without having to kill.
"If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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Monkey Mind
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Re: Poll: Are you vegetarian/vegan?

Post by Monkey Mind »

I was a vegetarian for 5 years. I was a counselor working with teenagers, and I had an opportunity to chaperon as the youth met His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama. In my efforts to educate the youth about who HHDL was, I felt an impulse to be a vegetarian for a month before meeting him, to "purify" myself. Well, the lifestyle stuck. However, as a vegetarian I gained A LOT of weight, because I was eating a lot of bread and pasta, and I always felt hungry. Eventually I talked myself back into being a meat eater. Another few years went by.

Now I am on the verge of going veggie again. I don't buy meat, but eat it if someone serves it to me. But the Goenka retreat changed something "in" me. I've stopped wearing leather or suede, and I am a lot more concerned about what I take into my body, and the whole butcher kamma thing. I will go full veggie as soon as I figure out the whole protein thing, so that I can better manage the whole carb craving thing.
"As I am, so are others;
as others are, so am I."
Having thus identified self and others,
harm no one nor have them harmed.

Sutta Nipāta 3.710
SamKR
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Beef?

Post by SamKR »

Followers of Hinduism are prohibited to eat beef (they may eat chicken or lamb etc.). But is it forbidden to eat beef in Buddhism, especially Theravada? Is there any source that talks about this issue?
Thanks.
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Cittasanto
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Re: Beef?

Post by Cittasanto »

don't think that beef is prohibited but there are rules regarding meat consumption!
BMC1 wrote:The following types of meat are unallowable: that of human beings, elephants,
horses, dogs, snakes, lions, tigers, leopards, bears, and hyenas.
Last edited by Cittasanto on Thu Dec 24, 2009 3:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them.
But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side, if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion …
...
He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them … he must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form.
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