Where's the meat-a-tarian option?

I would say that my eating habits have changed since the 70's when my parents used to buy a side of beef. We probably used to eat beef 5 nights a week. Now, based on more awareness of diet and attempting to diversify what I eat, I eat a broad range of meals. And even have meatless meals during the typical week.

I'm curious what motivates someone to become a Buddhist who doesn't see any problem with participating in the massive suffering caused by the animal breed-and-slaughter industry. Is it purely for one's own freedom from suffering? Not saying it it, just asking. Or maybe a feeling that it doesn't matter? The latter I would call nihilism based on desire rather than emptiness-awareness, but I could be wrong. If it is from a complete awareness of emptiness, though, why not demonstrate compassion by simply not eating animals?

Your situation is far different from the "where's the meat-a-tarian option?" mindset that I'm addressing. For omega III I use hemp seed, but that's neither here nor there. Your decision is based on a health concern rather than on a simple desire (or shamanistic intention) to eat flesh. I never tell people they should stop eating meat. It's not really my business whether someone does or not. My curiosity is about people who choose to be Buddhists but see no problem whatsoever with eating animals. It's something I simply don't understand.

I say if we are making meat-a-tarian a category then we also need the carbavore, the vegetarian who doesn't really like vegetables so all they eat is carbs.

Good point! Farmers and ranchers erecting fences throughout the middle of North America has had an enormously destructive affect on the Bison and the cultures which depended on them. I don't believe that eating bison will magically open the ranges, restoring the prairies to revert to some imagined pre-human ecology. I do believe the species deserves a chance at survival.

Eating them seems like the best option short of ripping out fences posts. That rancher would probably shoot me and then serve me up with a nice gravy to his/her video gaming, internet-porn addicted kids.

I like to think that humankind has advanced to the point where we don't need to kill something in order to maintain our lives.

The idea of eating sentient beings is appalling to me. For example, while the first noble truth says that "all life entails suffering" ; there are in addition the concepts of "karuna" and "maitri" that support alleviating the suffering of sentient beings. Along with tenets of the eightfold path that say "right action" and "right livelihood" are important to the Buddhist path. It so easy for the human animal to ignore the suffering of non-human animals. Oh and please do remember that your mother may have reincarnated as a non-human being and you may be eating her.

Do we kill vegetables ?
I mean, are they sentient beings ?
What about trees ?
Is there a "hierarchy" in the fact of taking life ?

I do not take my life nor any other life for granted. I can not, as a matter of Buddhist principle, eat living creatures any longer. I have been practicing Buddhism for almost one year and my studies in the Ngondro under "precious human life" has taught me this.

For me being a vegetarian is part of me being a Buddhist. I believe being vegetarian reduces suffering to animals, plants, the environment and myself.

For animals it is obvious, they do not suffer in factory farms and then die for my food, less over all plants are killed by being vegetarian as they are not consumed as animal feed, environmentally less water is used, less land consumed, and less pollution with a plant based diet. Vegetarianism is better for the environment (due to increasing global warming for one) which all of us, plants, humans and animals need. (Hence the UN's recent recommendation to reduce meat consumption that has been in the news).

A video on Buddhism and Vegetarianism A nice video on Buddhism and Vegetarianism" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TugeQEUrjuk

Thich Nhat Hanh's musings on this issue: http://www.plumvillage.org/HTML/news/letterfromTh...

Okay, well here's the thing. I can't vote because my category does not exist. Btw, I just blogged about this very thing. It's not so easy sometimes, dear ones. I was a vegetarian for many years, until I got brought to my knees health-wise. Went to a good Chinese doctor who is still my doctor, never mind that an ocean separates us. I travel to see him 2X year. He saved my life. My brother died at 57 of kidney failure. I was going down a similar road – though Kevin (the doc) called it "kidney yang deficiency." My prescription? Other than Chinese herbs which I take daily and perhaps for life, "EAT MEAT." Okay. Wow. Okay. An adjustment. But I do, once a week. Usually chicken, sometimes grass-fed beef. I don't think I can post my article here, but it's currently at the top of my blog, listed here.

I like your comment as well as Bob's, above. It IS a minefield, Bob! I've been there. I like that you two allow people to serve you meat, that you honor the love that goes into the preparation of any food. (We can make our practice known without rejecting another person, trying to share their food with us. We don't have to wolf down copious amounts of meat to do this – a few modest bites could do …) And I too remember being repulsed by the thought of eating meat.

We were elitist vegetarians for many years, and I say this only in retrospect. 20 years ago, we lived on Moloka'i (in Hawaii) of all places, and the locals, wary of white folks to begin with, would bring us the most amazing fish and opihi (endangered now on these islands) – and we'd politely decline. They would shoot and roast wild boar in pits in the ground and we would refuse that as well. In their minds, we were snobby mainlanders, no doubt, not to mention despicable haoles (!) who they were trying to tolerate (right or wrong). In retrospect once again, it would have been so much simpler to take a few bites in homage to the aloha they were trying to convey. The animal was already dead, and we would have honored it as well as them in doing so (of course these were not supermarket purchases). Anyhow, see my post below if you're interested in more, but thanks for a kind, respectful tone toward those who are not "there yet."

although i am a strict vegetarian, i believe that eating meat is natural. animals in the wild do; why not us? personally, i don't like the idea of killing something with a face in order to consume it, but i am not one to push that on others. that said, i am against the agri-business industry. i tell those around me that there's nothing wrong with eating meat, but you should take care to get it from a small-farm. in that way, there's a greater chance that the animals lived a good life prior to slaughter. as for those who feel all meat eaters are bad/wrong/immoral, that's a little silly. death is a part of life and what more a part of life can you hope for than to provide sustenance to others?

I became vegetarian and then vegan several years before my introduction to Buddhism. For me, it's a combination of factors–my own health, environmental concerns, animal rights concerns, and human rights concerns. It's my most visible ahimsa practice, and plenty of people ask me about it. Most are supportive and occasionally a little awed, saying "I could NEVER give up meat!" ("You could," I suggest.) While I wish more people were willing to face the cruelty of the animal agriculture industry, I try to focus on myself and gently living my convictions. My fiance is an omnivore, though at home he's mostly veggie because he eats what I cook. Both our families are omni as well, but do their best to make sure they offer me vegan food. At this point, I don't think I could eat another living creature again. It hurts my heart to think about it.

Everything we eat is/was a living being. Definitions of "sentient" are limited based upon our limited understanding of “feelings". (Are you sure that broccoli doesn't shriek with horror as we behead it from its stalk? Or is it that your ears just can't hear its screams?) We must kill other living beings to exist as long as we are in material form. How we treat those living beings while they are alive is a matter for discussion. Acceptable farming/ranching practices apply to both plant and animal flesh. Native American spirituality dealt with our connectedness with the beings that allowed our lives to continue.

Observe your actions' ripples more closely. All your actions. There are almost none that do not cause harm to someone or something along the way.

It's best just to stop the belief in this illusion

Iceman, let it be known that native north americans have all the faults, which included,at times, over-grazing and hunting species to extinction as every other people. My ancestors were just as stuck in samsara as all humans (and all beings). Any reference to a pan-Native American ethic/religion/culture is another illusion. Notwithstanding that last statement, they were also prodigious farmers.

I am vegetarian all my life. I have never ever eaten meat in my life. People around me try very hard so to say help me eating meat. I am very much ok where I am and nothing really stops me from doing it. I do not regret my decision of being vegetarian as other people see I am giving up something. People do eat meat in my culture.

I have seen some people getting very annoyed with this idea, they simply cannot see someone never tasted meat in life. Most of them have issues of not getting enough nutrients. I don't agree with them.

Being vegetarian means eating raw plants and bread. Than is the concept most of the all time meat eating people have in their mind. The first question I always get is where do you get your proteins from and so on and so forth…

Most of the meat eaters buy meat from the market and if you talk about killing the animal, ripping the skin off, bones, etc – they cannot bear this. If they will have to do it at home, they would freak out more than the effects of a horror movie. They can not see – they are eating a piece of someone once alive. Actually they don't want to. They want the baby but no pain of labor.

I can go on forever. I have faced this question all my life. I am glad it is open in this forum and have equal participation from overall community.

Amen, brother

Wild animals only overpopulate when humans have interfered with the natural balance of predators – deer populations would be controlled by wolves etc if we hadn't killed them all to keep our sheep safe

I would not think anything Shayamuni Buddha said or did is the untouchable rule to our lives, because I do not think two Buddhas (enlightened beings) will have the exact same set of rules and behave in exactly the same way. Even if it's true that Shayamuni Buddha ate animals while putting "Do not kill" as the first precept, wouldn't it be a more kind and compassionate thing not to?
If you try to listen to your heart, you will realize how all these arguments against "not eating animals" are futile excuses. Why kill or contribute to the killing, when you have the choice not to? Simple as that.

Do not think whatever the Shayamuni Buddha said is the untouchable rules to your life. Do you think two enlightened being has the exact same set of rules?
If you try to listen to your heart, you will realize how all these arguments against "not eating animals" are futile excuses. Why kill or contribute to the killing, when you have the choice not to? Simple as that.

I have been a vegetarian for 25 yrs. I am not a Buddhist, but agree with the compassion and non-violent teachings of Buddhism, so I'm puzzled by the rather laissez faire attitude of many who profess to be practicing Buddhists. For me it is a question of personal responsibility. Once I was confronted with the violence and cruelty of meat production and the mind-boggling scale — billions of individual animals per year, there didn't seem to be any other moral choice. Later I learned about the vast damage to the environment, the health benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle and the work of Frances Moore Lappe , Diet For a Small Planet in which she explained how our meat eating is so wasteful. Now the UN has come out with a report on the contribution of the meat industry to global warming. Then there is the horrendous pollution, the cruelty to the humans who have to kill and cut up the animals — mostly the poorest most vulnerable people. How can this not be morally repugnant to anyone who has a human heart let alone people who profess to practice Buddhism???

My personal view is probably a little tribal in philosophy, but all things have energy. And all food is living. I find it no more spiritual to distinguish between the life of something with a face that gave it's life so I might live than the life of a living thing I am likely to consume without killing it first (plants) which is also giving up it's life for me that I might live. Just because plants don't have a face recognizable to humans does not mean it is somehow not living or feeling. I say we are to be thankful to all living creatures who grant us their energy so we might remain on this plane of existence a little while longer. I do not see it somehow holier to be a plant eater over being an animal eater. Either way, a life was snuffed out. Giving thanks for that life is generally what is missing.

It requires a great deal of energy to remain on this plane of existence. And without enough energy to remain here, we cannot stay – we die and go back "elsewhere." Hence we must consistently consume energy. I am grateful to the living beings who hold that energetic space for me that I might continue to learn and grow here. Whether they have a face or not.