 |
20 February, 2009 – Lam Shenphen Zangpo answers basic questions that every Bhutanese man, woman, and child on the street wants to know.
The recent lifting of the ban of meat sales during auspicious months raises questions about vegetarianism. Some people claim that Buddhists should not eat meat. Yet, even our lams take meat. What actually is Buddhism’s position on meat eating?
When discussing meat consumption, it is important to consider the debate in context. Buddhism is not a moral, but wisdom based path. When the Buddha rose from his seat of kusha grass under the bodhi tree, he did not intend to establish a religion called Buddhism, but instead point the way for all beings to awake to their rich, innate heritage of basic goodness.
When we consider any Buddhist practice, we should bear this in mind. Rules of conduct are subordinate to this ultimate goal.
In this context, let’s consider what Buddhism actually teaches about meat-eating. At the time of the Buddha, monks begged for alms. While begging provides sustenance for the monks, it also offers a means for the laity to gain merit and establish a karmic link with the Buddha and his teachings.
The monks, for their part, share whatever food has been prepared by a household for its own consumption, and they do not consider whether it contains meat or fish. Instead, the focus is on providing the household with an opportunity to gain merit.
However, the Buddha did establish certain criteria. As everything is interdependent, it is impossible to achieve full liberation from suffering if our efforts adversely effect others. It is like the heart trying to gain strength at the expense of the kidneys. Therefore, non-harming became a pillar of early Buddhist practice. In this spirit, monks were prohibited from accepting any flesh that they had heard, seen or suspected came from an animal killed specifically to feed them.
Although only monastics were bound by these conditions, the rules provided a guideline for the lay community. Therefore, meat-eating is the norm in countries where teachings of the present-day Theravada school predominate, such a Thailand.
As Buddhism evolved, the basic tenets of non-harming were expanded, and passive abstention was replaced by dynamic preservation. In this context, meat-eating was totally banned in the Mahayana school of Buddhism, and compassion formed the basis of its practice.
In addition, as this school developed later, the monks generally lived in established monasteries, and so offerings were delivered rather than collected on alms rounds. In such circumstances, any meat presented to the monks would inevitably have come from an animal that had been killed specifically for their consumption. Even under Theravada restrictions, this would be unacceptable.
The Vajrayana is philosophically part of Mahayana, and so compassion is its guiding force. Yet, meat is taken by Buddhists here and even used in religious ceremonies. As the question asks, why is this?
While the practices of all Buddhist traditions aim to transform the mind, those of the Vajrayana offer especially swift and precise ways to do so. One such method is to maintain a pure vision of ourselves and phenomena. Through visualizing the ordinary as sacred, the Vajrayana student severs the root of worldly prejudices. While this view is a fabrication, and is acknowledged as such, it serves as an effective means to bring us closer to the nature of reality – namely, that everything is intrinsically pure. In this context, meat is not considered an impure substance.
However, if one chooses to take flesh, then one should also be prepared to eat foul and disgusting food. Cultivating pure vision is designed to correct our view. It is not a pretext for maintaining worldly prejudices.
Using meat in rituals is part of this overall philosophy, although it also has some cultural basis. At the time of the rise of the Vajrayana, religious beliefs had developed strong worldly biases. As a result, nominally impure substances such as meat and wine were introduced into ceremonies as a means to challenge these beliefs and establish the correct view.
So, where do modern day students of the Dharma stand? Rather than stating categorically that one should or should not be vegetarian, we might instead look at the motivation for our decision.
The development of compassion obviously leads to a feeling of empathy with other beings, and so it is natural to want to protect them from harm. Becoming a vegetarian is one way to channel such an aspiration. Furthermore, as Buddhists, we should be aware of the consequences of our actions. We recognize that meat-eaters are not killers, but at the same time we acknowledge that they perpetuate an industry of cruelty and slaughter. Likewise, if a country has a high meat consumption, many lives are being taken on a daily basis, and we are definitely not exempt from the common karma. It is perhaps wise to consider these points.
I’ll end with a quote from Chatral Rinpoche, “…when you take meat you have to take a being’s life.” In the final analysis, it’s as simple as that.
Source: kuenselonline