the great vegetarian debate

Exploring Theravāda's connections to other paths - what can we learn from other traditions, religions and philosophies?
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Ceisiwr
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ceisiwr »

This might be due to the translation issue, but I think to buy meat is still to engage "in the business of meat," just like to sell it.
Maybe, maybe not

I could go to the supermarket and buy meat that would just end up in the bin regardless
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
beeblebrox
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by beeblebrox »

Think about it. It would have been easy to say "Dont eat meat", just like the jains ... but he didnt
He did say that the business of meat wasn't something that one should engage in... (at least, according to Ven. Thanissaro's translation) I interpret that to mean both buying and selling.
"Taking life, beating, wounding, binding, stealing, lying, deceiving, worthless knowledge, adultery; this is stench. Not the eating of meat." Amagandha Sutta
If someone was offered meat to eat, why fault him for eating it?
No I am saying that the majority of humans eat meat, that most of the meat in the supermarket will be thrown out regardless of it I buy it or not
If it's going to be thrown out, why not get those for free?

:anjali:
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Ceisiwr
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ceisiwr »

He did say that the business of meat wasn't something that one should engage in... (at least, according to Ven. Thanissaro's translation) I interpret that to mean both buying and selling.

At a small scale market, such as they were in his time, this would be true. However the massive global food market is a different kettle of fish and requires different reasoning.
"Taking life, beating, wounding, binding, stealing, lying, deceiving, worthless knowledge, adultery; this is stench. Not the eating of meat." Amagandha Sutta


If someone was offered meat to eat, why fault him for eating it?
I agree



If it's going to be thrown out, why not get those for free?

They wont give it for free for health and safety reasons, here in the UK anyway. I used to work for KFC when I was in high school and at the end of the shift there were buckets and buckets of chicken being thrown out, which we could take home if we wanted. They stopped this though because people were suing afterwards if they get ill etc


However this raises an important point. In the time that I took the chicken home and ate it (and so was not eating a vegetarian diet) was this against Buddhist morality?

I would say no as if fulfils the requirements in the above sutta post, and so shows how someone can not be a vegetarian and yet be a moral Buddhist and validates my argument.

Now a strict vegetarian would not have taken it home just because they are a vegetarian, which (depending on their reasons for being vegetarian) can be more egotistical.
:soap:
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
beeblebrox
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by beeblebrox »

clw_uk wrote:
He did say that the business of meat wasn't something that one should engage in... (at least, according to Ven. Thanissaro's translation) I interpret that to mean both buying and selling.
At a small scale market, such as they were in his time, this would be true. However the massive global food market is a different kettle of fish and requires different reasoning.
Hi Clw_UK,

This probably won't resolve the argument, but did the Buddha use the same reasoning when he said that the samsara didn't have any discernible beginning (nor end, I think), but still taught liberation from it?

:anjali:
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Ceisiwr
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ceisiwr »

beeblebrox wrote:
clw_uk wrote:
He did say that the business of meat wasn't something that one should engage in... (at least, according to Ven. Thanissaro's translation) I interpret that to mean both buying and selling.
At a small scale market, such as they were in his time, this would be true. However the massive global food market is a different kettle of fish and requires different reasoning.
Hi Clw_UK,

This probably won't resolve the argument, but did the Buddha use the same reasoning when he said that the samsara didn't have any discernible beginning (nor end, I think), but still taught liberation from it?

:anjali:


Whats that got to do with anything?
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
beeblebrox
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by beeblebrox »

clw_uk wrote: Whats that got to do with anything?
Hi Clw_UK,

Indeed... that was why I said it probably won't resolve the argument.

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Ceisiwr
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ceisiwr »

beeblebrox wrote:
clw_uk wrote: Whats that got to do with anything?
Hi Clw_UK,

Indeed... that was why I said it probably won't resolve the argument.

:anjali:

Well its still open if it resolves the argument or not. I asked what your statement has to do with anything i.e. please clarify it, then we can see if it resolves the argument or not. :reading:
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
beeblebrox
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by beeblebrox »

clw_uk wrote: Well its still open if it resolves the argument or not. I asked what your statement has to do with anything i.e. please clarify it, then we can see if it resolves the argument or not. :reading:
The samsara has no beginning nor end, yet the Buddha still taught liberation from it. Even when the Buddha stopped contributing to the samsara, it still goes on.

Do you think that this kind of reasoning can be seen as valid when we try to apply it to the market, where the killing is occurring to make the meat available? Especially if this killing still will always go on, regardless of whether we buy the meat or not?

Or maybe even more relevant... this argument about eating vs. not eating meat still will always go on. Do you think we need to be a part of it? Is it obligatory?

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Ceisiwr
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Ceisiwr »

The samsara has no beginning nor end, yet the Buddha still taught liberation from it. Even when the Buddha stopped contributing to the samsara, it still goes on.
Samsara is the spinning of the mind. Its a mistake to compare it with market forces.
Do you think that this kind of reasoning will be valid when we apply it to the market, where the killing is occurring to make the meat available? Especially when this killing still always will go on, regardless of whether we buy the meat or not?

As I said, in a small market it would have an effect. In a global market it doesnt.
Or maybe even more relevant... the argument about eating vs. not eating meat still will always go on. Do you think we need to be a part of it? Is it obligatory?
No of course not, but I would be interested to hear a response to you from my above post relating to my experience at KFC?
“Knowing that this body is just like foam,
understanding it has the nature of a mirage,
cutting off Māra’s flower-tipped arrows,
one should go beyond the King of Death’s sight.”
beeblebrox
Posts: 939
Joined: Thu Dec 31, 2009 10:41 pm

Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by beeblebrox »

clw_uk wrote:
The samsara has no beginning nor end, yet the Buddha still taught liberation from it. Even when the Buddha stopped contributing to the samsara, it still goes on.
Samsara is the spinning of the mind. Its a mistake to compare it with market forces.
What are these "market forces"? Is that something like the "celestial forces" which make everything run?
Do you think that this kind of reasoning will be valid when we apply it to the market, where the killing is occurring to make the meat available? Especially when this killing still always will go on, regardless of whether we buy the meat or not?
As I said, in a small market it would have an effect. In a global market it doesnt.
I wonder if the Buddha or an arahant had any effect on the samsara?

What are "small market" and "global market" anyway? Is that like the difference in between the human world and the celestial heaven?
Or maybe even more relevant... the argument about eating vs. not eating meat still will always go on. Do you think we need to be a part of it? Is it obligatory?
No of course not, but I would be interested to hear a response to you from my above post relating to my experience at KFC?
It's your experience at the KFC. Nothing came to my mind to say anything about it... I didn't think there had to be. :)

:anjali:
beeblebrox
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by beeblebrox »

I want to clarify that while I think these concepts of "buyer" and "seller," market forces, small and global markets still can be useful to discuss things... we should also take care that we're not carried away with these, as if they were something real. We should take care that they (the concepts) don't end up determining our own behaviors... especially in those situations where it's clearly unbeneficial.

I think this was one of the gists of the Buddha's teachings, more or less... the brahmins and ascetics got carried away with their different systems of viewing their own worlds. Over the time they allowed these systems to determine their own behaviors... to their detriments, and despite all the different kinds of dukkha that they ended up creating for themselves, and others.

:anjali:
Spiny Norman
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Spiny Norman »

clw_uk wrote: But yet he ate meat and never enforced it...
But wasn't the purpose of the 3-fold rule to reduce suffering and harm to other living beings? Isn't this an extension of metta?
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by Spiny Norman »

Jhana4 wrote: "Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.

Customers make a business possible.
And if we buy meat from a butcher we're saying that there's no way we would get involved in butchery, but we're quite happy for somebody else to do it when it suits us? :shrug:
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cooran
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by cooran »

Hello all,

Not sure if this article by Ajahn Brahmavamso has been posted before:

Vinaya: what the Buddha said about eating meat
http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books6/Ajahn ... g_meat.htm

With metta,
Chris
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---Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe---
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dagon
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Re: the great vegetarian debate

Post by dagon »

Jhana4 wrote:
clw_uk wrote:
Interesting that the Buddha classed meat production with such fine endeavors as arms dealing, the slave traide, the drug trade and making poison.

Yet he ate meat and didn't enforce a rule for vegetarianism. In fact the only time he is asked to do so, he refuses.


The demand for meat won't go away, and a lot of meat will end up in the bin, so there is no harm in buying it
The Buddha allegedly ate meat. There are disputes whether or not MN 55 and a similar passage in the commentaries have been translated correctly.
In the two version of the suttas I have found the part where the Buddha states he will eat meat is in parenthesis. I need to research what the parenthesis mean and I am following up on the source of the claim of the translation error. According to the monk who told me this MN 55 should have been translated as "I will eat almsfood if I can't tell if there is meat in it".

As to your second point I think your reasoning is at fault. Current cultural culinary tastes are not laws of physics, they can change. The second part of your second point seems to be saying we have to keep eating meet because if large amounts of people stopped all at once some meat would be wasted by being thrown away ( probably can be used for fertilizer ). That would mean you would have to keep perpetuating an unethical act to keep the results of previous unethical acts from being wasteful.

As far as ethics go, forget about Buddhism and forget about the suffering to livestock animals, many of whom are as intelligent as dogs or young human children. Meat production contributes more to the greenhouse effect of global climate change than the transportation industry. Do you have kids? Do you want them, their friends or your grandchildren to live in the future resulting from global climate change?

If you are interested in the future you should read this essay by an environmental journalist who states flatly he could care less about vegetarianism, but he gave up meat because he is aware of how it is contributing to global climate change and he doesn't want that future for him or his children:

http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles ... arbon-diet
Methane is created in anaerobic environments and is naturally produced and emitted from wetlands and other natural situations. Mother Nature, however, is not the predominate generator of methane. Humans are. The decomposition of waste, the burning of biomass, the extraction of fossil fuels, the digestion of livestock, and rice cultivation combine to emit more than twice the methane emitted by natural processes.

It is this last source that Mr. Xu is focusing his research on. Most rice is grown in flooded rice paddies, mainly because the floodwater has no adverse effects on the rice plants but controls most weeds and pest insects. The flood water creates an anaerobic environment just right for methane production. Rice cultivation accounts for 17 percent of the anthropogenically produced methane.
http://www.princeton.edu/engineering/eq ... ture4.html

So if we were to be consistent in our arguments then we should also stop producing and eating rice?

metta
paul
Last edited by dagon on Thu Sep 05, 2013 1:31 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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