Should Buddhists
be vegetarians ?
by
Dr. D.P. Atukorale
All
Buddhists are expected to observe the five precepts. Out of these, when
we observe the first precept, we promise not to take the life of any living
being and not to harm any such being. It is quite clear that we cannot
consume fleshwithout someone else killing the animals for us. If we do
not consume meat or meat products, there will be no killing of animals.
The first precept is an injunction against destroying life and hurting
others.
The
Buddha also tells us not to hurt others according to the first precept.
According to passage number 131 of Dhammapada, “He who, for the sake
of happiness hurts others who also want happiness, shall not hereafter
find happiness”. Therefore according to Buddhism not killing and not
hurting living beings are very important.
Passage
no. 225 of Dhammapada says, “The wise who hurt no living beings and who
keep their bodies under self-control, may go to immortal “Nirvana”
where once gone they sorrow no more”.
Again
Dhammapada passage no. 405 says, “A man is not a great man because he
is a warrior and kills others, but because he hurts not any living beings
he in truth is called a great man”.
Dhammapada
passages 129 and 130 say, “All beings fear before danger; life is dear
to all. When a man considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill”.
According
to Buddhism all animals such as fish, mammals and birds are sentient creatures
and should not be killed or hurt. According to Buddhism, Buddhists should
not be hunters, fishermen, trappers, slaughterhouse workers, vivisectors
etc.
What
about eating meat ?
Some
people argue that, as long as people don’t kill animals themselves, it
is all right to eat meat. But passages nos. 129 and 130 of Dhammapada specify
that we should not kill or cause to kill. When somebody buys meat and meat
products he or she must necessarily cause someone to kill these animals.
By
accepting meat served to us by someone else, we are causing others to kill.
Dhammapada passage no. 7 says, “He who lives only for pleasures and whose
soul is not in harmony, who considers not the food he eats, is idle and
has not the power of virtue, such a man is moved by “Mara”, is moved
by selfish temptation even as a weak tree is shaken by the wind”.
The
main reason is mercy. Mercy is an important way of learning to be a better
person. Being without mercy is incompatible with being a Buddhist.
Having a merciful and a compassionate heart will show up in all aspects
of one’s life.
Think
of the intense pain you would get when a bee or a wasp or a centipede attacks
you. A person who has ever seen how a crab is cooked in boiling water and
its desperate and doomed efforts to crawl and jump out betray the unbearable
pain it experiences, will never eat crabs. Finally the crab gives up the
life in sorrow as it turns bright red. What a painful end !
Why
should buddhists be vegetarians ?
A
person who has ever seen the excruciating pain suffered by a cow when the
slaughterer cuts a part of the neck, bleeds the animal and skins the animal
long before it dies will never have the heart to eat beef. Not eating the
flesh of these animals is an expression of mercy.
For
meat-eaters, every banquet, every wedding and every birthday party and
every wedding anniversary means death of thousands of animals.
Preventing
the suffering of living creatures by not using their flesh to satisfy our
taste buds and hunger is the minimum expression of compassion we as Buddhists
can offer.
To
shoot, knife, strangle, drown crush, poison, burn or electo. or otherwise
intentionally to take life of a living being, purposefully to cause pain
on a human being or an animal is to defile the first precept.
Another
way to defile the first precept is to cause another to kill, torture or
harm any living creature. Therefore to put flesh of an animal into one’s
belly is another way to cause another to kill.
If
fowls, cows and fish are not eaten, they would not be killed. Therefore
meat eaters are responsible for the violence and destruction of animals.
Buddhism
also teaches us that there is not a single being that has not been our
father, our mother, husband, wife, sister, brother, son or daughter, in
the ladder of cause and effect through countless rebirths. In other words
the creature that is the cow today might have been our mother during the
last birth.
The
chicken you are going to eat for your dinner to-night might have been your
brother or sister during your last birth. Therefore rights of nonhumans
should not be ignored or trampled upon. How can a bhikkhu seeking liberation
from suffering, persistently eat the flesh of animals, knowing the excruciating
pain and terror caused to them at the time of their slaughter ?
Did
the Buddha sanction meat eating ?
The
laymen and Bhikkhus who eat meat quote the Jeewaka sutra in which the Buddha
is said to have been addressed by one Jeewaka. Buddha is quoted as saying.
“I
forbid the eating of meat in 3 cases. If there is evidence either of your
eyes, or of your ears or if there are grounds of suspicion. In three cases,
I allow it, if there is no evidence of your eyes or of your ears and if
there is no ground of suspicion”.
Are
not domestic animals such as cows, goats, pigs and hens slaughtered for
those who eat their flesh? If no one eats their flesh, obviously they would
not be killed.
Can
anyone imagine a Bhikku saying to his “dayakaya” who had offered him
meat, “Sir, it is kind of you to donate this meat to me. But as I have
reason to believe that the animal from which it came was killed just for
me, I cannot accept it”?
Jeewaka
sutra also implies that the Buddha approved of butchering and the horrors
of the slaughterhouse. Yet slaughtering is one of the trades forbidden
to the Buddhists and with good reason.
To
say that on the one hand that the Buddha condemned the blood trades of
slaughtering, hunting, fishing and trapping and on the other hand allowed
Buddhists and Bhikkhus to eat flesh of slaughtered animals when the animals
have not been killed specifically for them is an absurd contradiction.
Whoelse
but the meat eaters are responsible for the blood trades of butchering,
hunting and fishing? After all the slaughterers and the meat packing houses
that sustain them are only responding to the demands of the flesh eaters.
“I
am only doing your dirty work” was the reply of a slaughterer to a gentleman
who was objecting to the brutality of slaughtering harmless dumb animals”.
Every
individual who eats flesh whether the animal is expressly killed for him
or not, is supporting the trade of slaughtering and contributing to the
violent death of harmless dumb animals.
Was
the Buddha so obtuse that, He failed to understand this, He who has been
described as the “Perfect One”, in whom, all mental, spiritual and
psychic faculties have come to perfection and whose consciousness encompasses
the infinity of the Universe?
Was
the Buddha so imperceptive as not to see that only by abstaining from flesh
eating can one effectively end both killing of defenceless and dumb animals
and the infliction of terror and suffering upon them.
The
Buddha, we are told forbade His monks to eat flesh of such animals as dogs,
elephants, bears and lions. Why should the Buddha sanction the eating of
one kind of flesh and condemn another? Does a pig or a cow whose meat is
supposed to be approved for eating, suffer any less pain, when it is slaughtered
than a dog or a bear?
All
Buddhists who are familiar with numerous accounts of the Buddha’s extra-ordinary
compassion and reverence for living beings, for example, His insistence
that, His bhikkhus carry filters to strain water they drink, lest the death
of micro organisms in the water could occur, could never believe that He
would be indifferent to the suffering and death of domestic animals caused
by their slaughter for food.
As
all Buddhists are aware, bhikkus have a separate code of conduct called
the “Vinaya”. Surely the Buddha could have demanded of His monks what
He could not have demanded of His lay followers.
Bhikkhus
by virtue of their training and their strength of character, are different
from the lay people and are better able to resist the pleasures of senses
to which ordinary people succumb. That is why, they renounce sexual pleasure
and also not eat solids beyond 12 noon. Why is taking solids after 12 noon
a more serious offence than eating animal flesh? Did the Buddha really
say the things the compilers of the Pali Sutras would have us believe,
He said on the subject of meat eating?
Mahayana
version of meat eating
Let
us now consider the Sanskrit version as regards meat eating. I quote from
“Lankavatara” sutra which devotes one whole chapter on the evils of
meat eating.
“For
the sake of love, of purity, the Bodhisatva should refrain from eating
flesh which is born of semen, blood etc. For the fear of causing terror
of living beings let the Bodhisatva who is disciplining himself to attain
compassion refrain from eating flesh”.
“It
is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was
not killed by himself, when he did not order others to kill, and when it
is not specially meant for him”.
“Again
there may be people in the future who being under the influence of taste
for meat, will string together in various ways sophistic arguments to defend
meat eating”.
But
meat eating in any form, in any manner, and in any place is unconditionally
and once and for all, is prohibited. I will not permit”.Surangama Sutra
says “The reason for practising “dhyana” and seeking to attain “Samadhi”
is to escape from suffering of life.
But
in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it
upon others. Unless you can control your minds, that even the thought of
brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent you will never be able to escape
from bondage of world’s life”.
“After
my parinirvana in the last kalpa, different kinds of ghosts will be encountered
everywhere, deceiving people, and teaching that they can eat meat and still
attain enlightenment. How can a bhikku who hopes to become a deliverer
of others himself, be living on the flesh of other sentient beings”?
The
“Mahaparinirvana” Sutra (Sanskrit version) states: “The eating of
meat extinguishes the seeds of compassion”.
Even
before the Buddha’s time various religions in India condemned flesh eating
as not conducive to spiritual progress. If elder bhikkhus of Mahayana were
satisfied with Theravada version of flesh eating, they would have remained
silent. The fact that they spoke out so vehemently against flesh eating,
shows how deeply disturbed the elder bhikkhus who wrote the Sanskrit version
of Buddha’s teachings were.
The
Encyclopedia of Buddhism points out that, in China and Japan, flesh eating
was looked upon as an evil and was ostracized and any kind of meat was
not used in temples and monasteries. Meat eating was taboo in Japan until
the middle of the 19th century.
People
avoided giving alms to flesh eating bhikkhus.
Dr.
Kosheliya Wali in her book, “Conception of Ahimsa In Indian Thought”
says, “meat can never be obtained without injuring creatures and injury
to sentient beings and is detrimental to heavenly bliss and therefore one
should shun meat eating”.
“One
should consider the disgusting origin of flesh and the cruelty of slaughtering
sentient beings and entirely abstain from flesh eating”.”He who permits
the slaughter of animals, he who cuts up, kills, buys, sells, serves it
up and eats, every one is a slayer of animals”.
“He
who seeks to increase his own flesh with the flesh of others and worshipping
the gods is the greatest of all sinners”.
“Meat
cannot be obtained from straw or stone. It can be obtained only by slaughtering
creatures. Hence meat is not to be taken”.
A Chinese
monk once said “You form a company with whatever type of meat you eat.
You form a corporation with whatever type of animals you eat. For example
if you eat a lot of pork you will become tied up into a company of pigs,
same applies to cows, chicken, sheep, fish and so forth”.
A British
vegetarian named Dr. Walch once said “To prevent human, bloodshed one
must start at the dinner table”. If a person wants to take joy in Buddhism
and enter into mercy and knowledge of the Buddha he must begin at the dinner
table.
In
Sri Lanka, a wedding party takes hundreds if not thousands of animal lives.
A birthday party or a wedding anniversary takes hundreds of animal lives.
Before the death, living creatures experience, not joy, but anger and hatred
and resentment. It is just by not killing with body that you observe the
first precept. If in your thinking you allow the killing to go or, you
also break the first precept. We must be determined not to condone killing
even in our minds. According to Buddism mind is the base of all actions.
Did
Buddha die from eating meat?
Buddhist
monks who eat meat under certain circumstances, justify their flesh eating,
saying that, Buddha himself ate a piece, of pork at one of his followers
houses rather than hurt the feelings of his “dayakaya”. Some Bhikkhus
who eat flesh, say that, they eat whatever is put before them without any
aversion.
But
most of the Buddhist scholars contend that it was not a piece of meat that
caused the Buddha’s death and all Mahayana scriptures unequivocally condone
meat eating as mentioned earlier.
According
to Mrs. Rhys David what Chunda offered to the Buddha is some mushrooms.
Rhys David says that the term “sukara maddara” has at least 4 meanings.
(a)
Food eaten by pigs.
(b)
“Pigs delight”
(c)
Soft parts of the pig and
(d)
Food trampled by the pigs.
Chunda
being a follower of the Buddha, surely, he would not have offered a piece
of pork, well knowing that flesh was not a part of the Buddha’s diet.
Very likely Chunda did not eat meat himself as many Indians did not eat
meat during the Buddha’s time.
Why
then would he have offered meat to the “World Honoured One”, a person
so sensitive to suffering of all living beings, that he would not drink
milk from a cow during the first 10 days after its calf is born.
Any
Bhikkhu who has been offered meals at the home of a Buddhist knows that,
the “dayakaya” usually asks the Bhikkhu or his attendant or other “dayakayas”
known to the monk, what kind of food, the Bhikkhus normally eats, so that
the “dayakaya” can avoid serving food that does not agree with him
physically or spiritually. During the Buddha’s days the would be donors
of meals to the Buddha often consulted Ven. Ananda, the Buddha’s attendant.
Bhikkhus
who do not like any item of diet offered to them have a pleasant way of
rejecting such food, without uttering a single word.
As
far as I know the majority of bhikkus in Sri Lanka eat meat and meat products.
Some bhikkhus sometimes mention to the dayakaya, items of diet such as
chicken which they eat when the dayakaya meets them to book a date for
“dana”. Quite a number of Buddhist monks especially those living in
temples such as “Sasuna” and hermitages do not consume any form of
meat, fish or eggs, because that kind of food rouses passion and is not
conducive to their spritiual uplift.
It
is noteworthy that more and more dayakayas give vegetarian diet for almsgivings
and the number of vegetarian bhikkhus has been increasing during the past
few years.
Bhikkhus
can play a great role in reducing the slaughter of animals and the terror
and suffering associated with slaughter by requesting their followers not
to serve flesh when they meet the Bhikkhus to invite them for an almsgiving
as there are lots of Buddhists who follow the good examples set by Bhikkus.
The
majority of Buddhists have a higher respect for vegetarian Bhikkhus than
for monks who eat flesh. Bhukkhus who preach “Dhamma” can in no way
accept flesh for food without getting into a conflict with “Ahimsa”.
Buddhism
is a religion to be practised. If the body of Bhikkus makes a proper drive
for vegetarianism it would save a lot of animals from slaughter and cruelty
and terror that accompanies slaughter.
The
body of Bhikkhus should lead the way and lay Buddhists, at least a good
proportion of them would follow.
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