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Buddhist Perspective on Vegetarianism

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A BUDDHIST VIEW OF VEGETARIANISM
                                       
by Lin Ching Shywan

Source: Vegetarian Cooking -- Chinese Style, 1995

     I have been a strict vegetarian for more than four years
now. When I first gave up meat, quite a few of my friends and
relatives expressed concern; most people seem to have the idea
that vegetarian food lacks adequate nutrients. And being
vegetarian can be a more than minor inconvenience with the
amounts of meat and fish that people now eat. Chinese have a
traditional notion that foods that are "warming" in nature,
like meat, are important for building up physical strength; so
in the minds of some of the older generation, one could not
possibly get all the nutrition one needed form the "cool" bean
greens, white radishes, and so forth that vegetarians favor.
In their book, the only things that strengthen the body are
foods like tiger phallus, snake blood, stewed chicken and crab
in wine.
   
     Before taking the big step, I didn't give nutrition,
convenience, or building up physical strength a second
thought, since my reason for becoming vegetarian had nothing
to do with any of these. I became vegetarian because of my
belief in Buddhism.

     Why do Buddhists advocate vegetarianism? The main reason
is "mercy", and because we "cannot bear to eat the flesh of
living creatures." And our belief in karma tells us that we
must eventually suffer the consequences of our evil actions. A
Buddhist sutra says: "The bodhisattva fears the original
action; the myriad of living creatures fear the consequences."
This means that the bodhisattva knows the seriousness of the
consequences and does not do evil things; neither does he
think about the causes of bad consequences. Finally, I also
believe that a vegetarian diet better enables one to keep a
pure body and mind and this purity is an important foundation
of self-cultivation. My conversion to vegetarianism was based
on these three considerations.
   
     "Mercy" is an important way of learning to be a better
person. Being without mercy is simply incompatible with being
a Buddhist. Having a merciful and compassionate heart will
show up in all aspects of one's life; but the simplest and
most direct way is to follow a vegetarian diet. Think of the
intense pain of accidentally stepping on a nail is. So how can
one have the heart to eat the flesh of creatures who have
suffered the pain of being slaughtered, skinned, dismembered,
and cooked? Being unable to bring ourselves to eat the flesh
of these poor creatures is an expression of mercy.

     The pain of creatures on the road to our table is not some
fanciful concoction; it is excruciatingly real. Let us cite
the cooked live shrimp and crab that are so popular today as
an example. Meeting their end by being cooked in water is like
being sent to a boiling hell. Their desperate but doomed
efforts to crawl or jump out betray the unbearable pain they
experience. Finally they give their life in sorrow as they
turn bright red. What a painful end!
   
     Frogs are put through even more suffering than shrimp and
crabs. From the first made in their bodies to the time they
are swallowed they go through the equivalent of eight
different hells: 1. decapitation; 2. skinning; 3. removing the
legs; 4. slitting of the belly; 5. frying or boiling; 6. salt,
sugar and seasoning; 7. chewing; and 8. digestion and
excretion. Anyone who put himself in take place of a frog
would be unable to ever stomach another one.

     Amount the different kinds of suffering the human race can
experience, the most intense is certainly that of war.
Documentaries of the Nanking massacre and the Nazi holocaust
leave few people unmoved and dry-eyed-and most indignant. But
humans can go for years or decades without war; animals face
suffering and death every day. For meat eaters, every banquet
means the death of hundreds and thousands of animals. Is this
any different from human war?

     Preventing is suffering of living creatures by not using
their flesh to satisfy our taste buds and hunger is the
minimal expression of compassion we can offer. We choose not
to kill out of kindness, and not to eat out of compassion.

     I felt deeply moved upon reading two stories on the theme
of mercy; they will be etched forever in my memory. One is
recorded in the book "Record of Protecting Life":

     When a scholar named Chou Yu was cooking some eel to eat,
he noticed the one of the eels bending in its body such that
its head and tail were still in the boiling point liquid, but
its body arched upward above the soup. It did not fall
completely in until finally dying. Chou Yu found the
occurrence a strange one, pulled out the eel, and cut it open.
He found thousands of eggs inside. The eel had arched its
belly out of the hot soup to protect its offspring. He cried
at the sight, sighed with emotion, and swore never to eat eel.
   
     This story tells us that the myriad living creatures are
not without feeling and intelligence.

Another story in recorded in Buddhist sutra.

     A king of heaven was stalemated in a war with a demon, and
neither side emerged as winner. As the king of heaven was
leading his soldiers back, he saw the nest of a golden-winged
bird in a tree by the roadside. "If the soldiers and chariots
pass by here, the eggs in the nest will certainly fall to the
ground and be scattered," he thought to himself. So he led his
thousand chariots back the same road by which they came. When
the demon saw the king of heaven returning, he fled in terror.

     The sutra's conclusion was that "if you use mercy to seek
salvation, the lord of heaven will see it." This story tells
us that mercy may not seem like much at first glance, but it
is in fact extremely powerful. The Buddhist sutras frequently
mention "the power of mercy," from this we know that mercy is
indeed a potent force. If a Buddhist wants to learn to use
this strength of mercy, he must be like the king of heaven in
this story, and be ready to change the route of a thousand
chariots rather than let a nest full of bird eggs fall to the
ground.

     The Surangama Sutra tells us that "if we eat the flesh of
living creatures, we are destroying the seeds of compassion."
That is, if we do not eat the flesh of living creatures, we
are cultivating and irrigating the seeds of compassion," and
to "cultivate a compassionate heart," I chose to become a
vegetarian; and this is my main reason for doing so.

     In Buddhist teaching, volume upon volume has been written
regarding cause and consequence, but the basic concept is a
simple one. "Good is rewarded with good; evil is rewarded with
evil; and the rewarding of good and evil is only a matter of
time." Viewed from this concept, we will have to pay for every
piece of flesh we eat with a piece of flesh, and with a life
for every creature's life that we take. Viewed over the long
term, eating meat is an extremely frightening prospect. Before
their death, living creatures experience not joy, and not
fear, but anger; not complaint, but hatred and resentment. And
who receives the "reward" for taking these lives?

     It would be difficult to try to prove the existence of
this concept of cause and consequence, and it may even sound a
bit farfetched. However, in terms of this life, the negative
consequences of eating meat include arterial sclerosis, heart
disease, high blood pressure, encephalemia, stroke, gall
stones, cirrhosis of the liver and cancer. In all these
diseases, a link has been established to animal fat and
cholesterol. So the consequences of eating meat are in fact
immediate and in clear view. But even if you could still make
it from day to day eating meat, the other advantages of being
vegetarian-promotion of good health and being free from worry
about future negative consequences-to me fully justify the
decision to be vegetarian, and constitute my second main
reason for doing so.

     My third reason is to "purify body and mind." This one
might seem to escape logical explanation. An American
vegetarian physician summed it up well when he said that "It's
good not having to worry about he conditions under which your
food died." This statement points out that animals are not
always healthy themselves, and before death, they secrete
toxic substances. When we eat the flesh of animals, we also
ingest disease-carrying microorganisms and toxins.

     According to the Encyclopedia Brittanica, our bodies
contain uric acid and other toxic waste products which turn up
in our blood and body tissues. Compared to the 65% impure
moisture content of beef, protein obtained from nuts, beans
and legumes is markedly purer. Vegetarian food is indeed much
cleaner than meat, and it also retains its freshness better
than meat. Vegetarian food is in every case cleaner and purer
than meat with comparable nutritious value. We know that meat
spoils easily, and fish and shrimp begin to become putrid
after being left out for just half an hour. Meat and meat
products begin to decay after one hour. Vegetables, on the
other hand, can usually e kept for three to five days.
Although beans become rancid relatively quickly, the
deterioration is very easy to detect and recognize.

     One problem with vegetable foods today is contamination by
pesticides; but even so, they are still much cleaner than
meat. A person who habitually eats pure food keeps his body
and mind in a pure state; this follows of course, and is
beyond argument.

     Another question that vegetarians are frequently asked is,
"Why can't you eat scallions, chives, onions, and garlic?"
This again relates back to purity. The Surangama Sutra says:
"All living creatures seek the 'three kinds of wisdom,' and
should refrain from eating the 'five pungent.' These five
pungent foods create lust when eaten cooked, and rage when
eaten raw." It goes on to say that "Even if someone can recite
twelve sutras from memory, the gods of the ten heavens will
all disdain him if he eats pungent foods in this world,
because of his strong odor and uncleanliness, and will give
distance themselves far from him." This means that pungent
foods arouse lust, and give one an explosive temper and one's
body a bad odor. These foods are unclean, and if a person's
body and mind are not clean, how can he succeed at purifying
himself through Buddhism? This is why yet another sutra says:
"That which has blood and flesh will be rejected by the gods
and not eaten by the saints; all in heaven distance themselves
far from one who eats meat; his breath is always foul...meat
is not a good thing, meat is not pure, it is born in evil and
spoils in merit and virtue; it is rejected by all the gods and
saints!"

     In recent years, I have spent much time thinking about
what I eat; in fact I don't have many great insights on
vegetarianism. However, the three reasons I just stated are
sufficient to make me feel confident about my choice. Issues
like whether a vegetarian diet is more nutritious, whether
there is great merit in following a vegetarian diet, whether
it can promote world peace, and so forth, are all secondary.

     What I strongly believe is that if a person wants to take
joy in the Buddhist way and enter into the mercy and knowledge
of the Buddha, he must begin at the dining table. There is a
British promoter of vegetarianism named Dr. Walsh who once
said that "To prevent human bloodshed one must start at the
dinner table." Turning back to Taiwan today, one banquet takes
a thousand lives; clothing oneself requires minks and silk
spun by worms; shoes are made from alligator skin and leather;
and lust and luxury are carried to extremes. To begin one's
enlightenment of mercy and cause of consequence at the dinner
table in this kind of an environment is perhaps more than a
little difficult. The prospects for long-term peace and
prosperity here are indeed cause for concern.

     Posted on the Net by Gricha Zurita and Donald Graft.

     In Hawaii, we have started perhaps America's only
government-sponsored campaign to include more plant-based
foods in our diet.
     The taxpayer-funded nutritional education program targets
kids and parents alike in our public school system.
     What is more, the Physicians Committee for Responsible
Medicine, Washington, D.C., has concluded that not only is an
animal-based diet unnecessary, but is actually harmful.
     In Bharat (also known as India), large-scale efforts are
being undertaken to educate both medical practitioners and the
general population about the benefits of a vegetarian
lifestyle.
     The benefits of the healthy, plant-based food culture
contrast sharply the terrorism the animal-eating habit wages
on our body, others and the environment.  That is a future we
can all live with.

 Jai Maharaj <jai@mantra.com>                  *-=Om Shanti=-*
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