Why did Buddha eat meat?

[alexstedman]

Dear all

I hope some of you can help me on this.

How come Buddha preached not to kill any sentient being, yet He ate meat? I thought to myself, maybe by letting others kill the animal it was ok. But this would give the 'killer' bad karma and hence hinder their progress to nirvana (?) As Buddha was so compassionate, I doubt that He would allow such a person to do this, just so He could have some food.

I ask this not as a doubting Thomas, but as an enquiring Buddhist. I am sure this is due to my lack of knowledge.

Warm regards to all

Alex

[Ovidius]

Very good question Alex!

[Ovidius]

More questions related...

What is the difference between animal and plant in Buddhism? Why is killing and eating an animal forbidden but killing and eating a plant allowed?

Sifu Li Hongzhi of Falun Dafa thinks (Zhuan Falun, p. 160) that yes, eating a plant is killing too and plants have emotions:

Now maybe some people will say, “You’re getting more and more far out—you called killing animals killing, and now you’re saying killing plants is killing, too.” But that’s the truth. In Buddhism they talk about the cycle of rebirth, and about how you could turn into a plant when you reincarnate. That’s what’s said in Buddhism, at least. We don’t put it that way, but I will tell you that trees are alive too, and they’re not just alive, they have sophisticated thinking. I’ll give you an example. There’s someone in the United States who specializes in electronics research, and he teaches people how to use polygraphs. One day he was struck by a sudden inspiration and connected the two electrodes of a polygraph to a dragon plant. Then he watered its roots. After doing that he discovered that the needle of the polygraph quickly drew a type of curve, the same type of curve, it turns out, that’s generated by a human brain when it has an impulse stimulus. He was stunned, how could plants have emotions! He almost wanted to go out and shout in the streets, “Plants have emotions!” With the inspiration he got from all this, he soon opened up this field of research and did lots and lots of experiments.

There was one time when he put two plants together and asked one of his students to stomp one plant to death in front of the other one. Then he moved the other plant into a room, hooked it up to a polygraph, and asked five of his students to come in one at a time. When the first four students came in there wasn’t any response. But when the fifth student came in, the one who had stomped on the other plant, before he even got close, the needle right away started to quickly draw the kind of curves you see when a person is scared. He was amazed! It tells us something big: we’ve always thought that human beings are higher creatures, that they have sensory abilities, that they’re able to tell things apart, and that they can analyze things because they have a brain—so how come plants can tell things apart? Wouldn’t that mean they’ve got sensory organs? Before, if somebody said that plants had sensory organs, the ability to think, and emotions, or could
recognize people, folks would have said he was full of blind belief. And it’s not just limited to this, in some ways it seems like plants surpass us people today.
One day he hooked a plant up to a polygraph and thought to himself, “What
experiment should I do? I’ll burn off its leaves and see what reaction it has.” With just that thought—before he even did it—the needle quickly drew the type of curve you see only when somebody is crying for help and his life’s in danger. That supersensory ability, which has been called telepathy, is a human being’s innate ability, it’s an instinct. But today’s human race is degenerating. So you have to cultivate them from scratch, return to your original, true self, and return to your original nature—that’s the only way you can have them. Yet plants have them, they know what you’re thinking.

[alexstedman]

!!!!!!!!

Ovidius, that is simply incredible.
I would like to read more about this, it seems like a really interesting (and truly crazy) subject!
I must confess I really enjoy eating meat. I doubt I will ever be a vegetarian, but I have also questioned myself as to whether I could kill an animal to eat it. I dont think I could.
I guess now, with your previous post, vegetarians will feel a little silly (that's not a slight on vegetarians, btw)

Thanks for your reply. Now it has me thinking a lot more!
Alex

[Ovidius]

Weird intelligence

Your're welcome Alex, I'm happy that it brought up thoughts I have a biologist friend and when I mentioned the above polygraph studies with plants, she gave me a scientific document about maze-solving by an amoeboid organism, which is a very simple organism without any nervous system, that still has the remarkable ability to find the minimum-length solution between two points in a labyrinth. The whole document can be found from here: http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPa...7470a0_fs.html

[shaolin_mike]

Ovidius that was so interesting!
where do you find this stuff??

[Antonius]

The Buddha and his disciples were predominantly vegetarian. They did eat meat occasionally (except for some forbidden meats, like human meat), but only when the animal was not killed specifically for them. The Buddha allowed his monks to eat meat, but he forbade them from knowingly eating meat that was killed specifically for them.

I would agree that plants are sentient. However, we have no choice when it comes to eating plants. Humans can live without eating meat, but we cannot live without eating plants.

[Ovidius]

Beef continuously in mind

Mike:

where do you find this stuff??

Accidentally stumble in Internet, hear from friends, from books, lectures etc. No specific algorithm

Anthony:

Humans can live without eating meat, but we cannot live without eating plants.

Interesting thought. Coud there be a person who eats only meat and no veggies, at least I haven't heard from such person. We cannot live with inorganic stuff, we have to eat something organic that has born, lived and died either by my hand, by someone elses hand (or paw or jaw...) or by itself naturally. My biologist friend, who is primary a vegetarian, thinks a bit like the Buddhists Anthony referred: she would eat naturally died meat or edible waste meat that is put to garbage can. That's one way to draw the line.

This dying thing with plants is a bit different than animals. From plants one can cut of parts and the whole plant doesn't die -- it suffers (reacts somehow) but the plant still exists alive. Also from the cutted parts it is sometimes possible to grow new plants, that are genetically the same as the mother ones. This difference could be used in favour of why eating plants is better than animals. What do we regard as their death? Plants do not have heart that stops nor brains that can quit working. Obviously there is still a barrier between death and being alive.

About the reason why meat is denied or not preferred in some religious cultures, it seems to be interwined also to the (denial of) sexuality of human being. I have a book by Pieter Willem van der Horst called Cheremon: Egyptian Priest and Stoic Philosopher. Chaeremons exact date of birth and death is not known, but he was a teacher of young emperor Nero, probably before Seneca got the job. Chaeremons own writings are gone, but Jerome, Adversus Iovinianum II writes about his life:

They [the ancient priests of Egypt] always abstained from meat and wine because of the weakness of the senses and the dizziness in the head which they experienced after a little (of this) food, but especially because of the strong sexual desires that are the results of these kinds of food and drink. - - "What should I say", he said, "about the birds, for they (sc. the priests) abstain from egg, too, as if it is meat, and from milk. They said that the former (sc. and egg) was liquid meat, and the latter (sc. milk) blood with a changed colour.

What do you think, does meat eating have anything to do with sexual desires and has this topic being discussed in Buddhist literature?

[Antonius]

What do you think, does meat eating have anything to do with sexual desires and has this topic being discussed in Buddhist literature?

I can't remember anything about sexual desires in relation to meat being discussed in Buddhist literature, but that doesn't mean it's not there. For the most part, the Buddha said that it is preferable for monks to be vegetarian because:

• The First Precept forbids killing.
• Compassion is the hallmark of a Bodhisattva.

For example, in the Lankavatra Sutra, the Buddha talks about the transmigration of souls. He points out that every living being has, at one time or another, been your mother or your father. So killing an animal is like killing your mother, i.e. very bad.

But I think by "living beings," the Buddha is usually referring to animals, not plants.

Coud there be a person who eats only meat and no veggies, at least I haven't heard from such person.

No. Humans cannot live on meat alone.

The Buddha was exceedingly practical. He allowed meat in certain circumstances because it was necessary. For example, there were places in India where no vegetables would grow, so it was necessary to eat some meat, especially during winter.

Since the monks were dependent on alms for their food, they could not turn always turn away meat. They had to be flexible. Nevertheless, the Buddha was quite clear about vegetarianism being preferable, whenever possible.

[shaolin_mike]

I just thought of something I could add to this discussion:
I saw this documentary on Discovery channel about human evolution a while back and they actually had a theory that humans started becoming more intelligent when they switched from a vegetarian diet to a mixed diet of veg and meat. They said the previous diet wasnt enough to produce the complex brains that we have or something of the sort and mentioned a parallel between when humans started hunting and how radically their intelligence grew.

I don'r remember much more of what was said but maybe Ovidius can look into it and stumble upon another very interesting article!
mike

[Ovidius]

Mike:

I haven't read about about this theory you mentioned, but I am quite sure that if one does not take any vitamin pills, it is not very healthy to only eat plants or meat. Some thoughts: the hunting as a daily practice developes intelligence -- veggies do not fight back as much -- and also it developes social skills, because some animals were too big and dangerous to kill by one man. Those who hunted better got more food, reputation in community and female love and eventually more children with similar succesfull traits.

Anthony:

About the surviving with all-meat-diet, a sudden flash came into my mind that Eskimos or Inuits must have lived by it...

[Antonius]

The Eskimos ate raw meat and fat, and they did it out of necessity. So yes, you can live on meat alone -- if you eat it raw.

[Marcus]

I remember years ago having a very interesting conversation with a man from Bangladesh. His theory was that hundreds of thousands of years ago, humans living in many western areas only had access to predominately meat diets as there wasn't enough good weather to grow decent fruit and veg. Where as, those in the middle east/east because of the climate had access to fruit and veg and therefore had little incentive to eat animals.

This could all be wrong, it's just an opinion I was offered. My understanding of why the Buddha ate meat was that if on the Alms round it was offered then it was okay, though he never actively set out to eat meat.

I saw this documentary on Discovery channel about human evolution a while back and they actually had a theory that humans started becoming more intelligent when they switched from a vegetarian diet to a mixed diet of veg and meat. They said the previous diet wasnt enough to produce the complex brains that we have or something of the sort and mentioned a parallel between when humans started hunting and how radically their intelligence grew

Hey, I read a book once that suggested the hypothosis that hallucinagenic mushrooms were the catalyst for human "evolution" I.E, why do we see in colour? We don't need to for survival, and mother nature rarely does things just for the sake of it. For anyone interested I would recommend reading Terence McKennas "Food of the Gods"


Ovidus:

veggies do not fight back as much

Don't bet on it

Yes, I am a staunch veggie, but the bottom line, bringing this thread into the present day, is that much of the mass produced meat consumed today is not doing your health and vitality many favours. To witness what the animal experiences to become "food" (I have done) seems to me that you are eating the terror and fear of another living being. If it is warrented, though I hope you will forgive me if I do not have the time, I will dig out my "propaganda" and present it here. To avoid this blowing up into a big nothing, I am content to say: No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.


Sincere regards to one and all

Marcus




Namo Amitabha Buddha Namo Amitabha Buddha Namo Amitabha Buddha

[alexstedman]

Ladies and Gentlemen (well, it's only been guys so far. there goes that intro)
Thanks you all very much for clearing up that little carnivorous point of mine. All the posts have been most helpful.
I do find it quite interesting as to how, in so few posts, you all managed to get from Buddha to eskimos and threw evolution in on the way. nicely done!

Now, on the subject of how we all became pretty smart creatures by eating others, there was a program on about a year ago with a famous brain surgeon guy (Winston something-or-other). He proposed that the brain grew because we started eating the bone-marrow of animals as well!
So my new, all inclusive get-me-through-uni-with-honours diet is meat and bone marrow. With a few vegetables thrown in for good measure

And on Sifu Marcus' note of processed food, read 'Fast food nation'. You will never touch a Big Mac again

Thanks to all, and warm regards

Alex

[Antonius]

No matter how thin you slice it, there are always two sides.

Yep. And here's the other side.

From a Chinese medical perspective, vegetarianism can often be a problem. Many vegetarians are Blood Deficient. In Chinese medical theory, Blood has many functions -- more than in Western medicine. Being Blood Deficient can cause a variety of other problems.

Eating meat is one of the best ways to nourish Blood. If you don't eat meat (including mammal meat), then it's hard (but not impossible) to get the necessary nourishment and "energies" from just plants. I find it interesting that most (I'd say around 75%) of the vegetarians I've met over the years (not Marcus) are actually quite unhealthy. They are weak, lack vitality, and have no "jing." It's been amusing to watch several of my vegetarian classmates being told by their teachers that they should probably eat some meat in order to nourish their Blood.

Part of the problem with any diet is that our food is deficient -- and that includes both plants and animals. A cup of spinach in my country has about 1/80th (yep, you read that right) the nutrients of a cup from just 50 years ago -- and those are only the nutrients we can measure! Animals are raised in concentration camps and pumped full of hormones. The choices aren't good.

On a side note, I think qigong is a great nutritional supplement. Taking in pure cosmic energy makes up for many of the problems with our food. I probably eat too much "dirty" meat, and the vegetables in this country are lacking vitality, but at least the energy I "breathe" is pure!