retrofuturist wrote: ↑Sun Aug 19, 2018 7:08 am
Greetings,
TRobinson465 wrote: ↑Sat Aug 18, 2018 5:28 pm
As long as the meat comes from an animal that is already dead its fine in Theravada Buddhism. You cant order like a live fish or lobster that will die after you order it.
That may be true for monastics... can you cite anything that says this is also true for lay people?
Metta,
Paul.
I dont know of anything in the Pali canon that specifically says lay people can or cannot eat/buy meat. As you know it is explicitly stated for monastics.
In the Āmagandha Sutta, the Buddha recalls a story from the previous Buddha, Kassapa Buddha, which seems to imply that eating meat does not count as one of the five precepts for laypeople or as an "unskillful" action per se.
Taking life, beating, wounding, binding, stealing, lying, deceiving,
worthless knowledge, adultery; this is stench. Not the eating of meat.
5. In this world those individuals who are unrestrained in sensual pleasures, who are greedy
for sweet things, who are associated with impure actions, who are of nihilistic views,
[which are] crooked and difficult to follow, this is stench. Not the eating of meat.
6. In this world those who are rude, arrogant, backbiting, treacherous, unkind, excessively
egoistic, miserly, and do not give anything to anybody; this is stench. Not the eating of
meat.
7. Anger, pride, obstinacy, antagonism, deceit, envy, boasting, excessive egoism, association
with the immoral; this is stench. Not the eating of meat.
8. Those who are of bad morals, refuse to pay their debts, slanderous, deceitful in their
dealings, pretentious, those who in this world, being the vilest of men, commit such
wrong things; this is stench. Not the eating of meat.
9. Those person who, in this world, are uncontrolled towards living beings, who are bent
on injuring others, having taken their belongings; immoral, cruel, harsh, disrespectful;
this is stench. Not the eating of meat.
10. Those who attack these living beings either out of greed or of hostility and are always
bent upon evil, go to darkness after death, and fall headlong into woeful states; this is
stench. Not the eating of meat.
11. Abstaining from fish and meat, nakedness, shaving of the head, matted hair, smearing
with ashes, wearing rough deerskins, attending the sacrificial fire; none of the various
penances in the world performed for unhealthy ends, neither incantations, oblations,
sacrifices nor seasonal observances, purify a person who has not overcome his doubts.
http://www.aimwell.org/Amagandha%20Sutta.pdf