Vegetarianism and Dhamma

General Theravada topics
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There are regular odd ideas that pop up around this topic.
I saw this on another forum.

Thanissaro

“Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections”

"…the [first] precept is phrased in such a way that eating meat does not go against the precept, but you still have the kamma of eating the flesh of the animal that had to die for that.

This is one of the reasons why monks have a reflection every day on the food they eat, which is that they’re incurring a debt and only through the practice can they get beyond that debt. You take the time to reflect on the fact that simply having a body requires that you place a burden on many other beings, which gives you a good motivation for trying to find a happiness that doesn’t need to feed. One of Ajaan Lee’s reflections is that when you’re about to die, the spirits of all the animals whose bodies you ate are going to come thronging around, asking for some merit. If you don’t have any merit to give them, they’ll take you with them. But if you have lots of merit to dedicate to them, they’ll be happy to take your merit instead."

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@RobertK Is this really taught by Ajahn Thanissaro?

When I visited his monastery in 1999, the available food was that of a strong meat eater diet… It was very difficult to get vegetarian food. His disciple named Ajahn Jessie managed to stay a vegetarian, but he was not getting healthy meals. We joked about the four pork groups instead of the “four food groups”.

I wonder if Ajahn Thanissaro has changed and is now a vegetarian?
There are no such events written in pāḷi mula texts or even commentary or tika that I have ever heard of which mention such strange events as mentioned by Ajahn Thanissaro or Ajahn Lee.

Being a vegetarian is a good idea though. One can remove the habitual kamma for being a meat eater, just in case one is born as an animal. If so, perhaps, the odds of being a hunting animal are less, but not guaranteed. Nothing is guaranteed in samasara until the first stage enlightenment.

One can also be a vegetarian for compassionate reasons or health reasons. One can reflect that these raised animals were once your mothers or brothers in samsara… You can reflect that you don’t want to support wrong livelihood and refuse to buy meat. However, monks are off of the system in which consumerism dictates the killing of animals for meat. As lay consumers, it gets tricky with modern methods of killing. Normally, before refrigeration (which was not that long ago), meat was slaughtered locally. The consumer was a few more degrees closer to the killing. It is difficult to say now with modern times and methods.

I wrote this a while back. It would be good to post your thoughts on it.

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Yes, from his book…

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I just love how those who are against the Pali commentaries end up writing their own or promoting other personal commentaries.

Ajahn Lee’s meditation method is very close to the Indian chakra meditation. I learned that method in the 90’s by a controversial teacher using ah hum om with the heart throat and crown chakras with the breath. That is in ven Thanissaro’s meditation book. All that said, it think I remember reading it listed in one of the abhidhamma commentaries (as a footnote) as well. Dhatukatha? Or puggalapññatti? Pts.

Never the less, back to the animals coming near death… It is quite common in NDE to experience a very long life review where you feel the emotions of all of those you interacted with from the other beings’ points of view.

Perhaps this happens as part of the pre- maranajavana stage where the previous kammas come up and one gets taken as the next life patisandhi. I don’t believe it is death though.

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What would be the result, if such a monk wrote a popular Vinaya book for monks?

Even the less knowledgeable Sammaditthi-monks are not allowed to comment on Vinaya.

Vinaya is the sphere of the Omniscient Ones.

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I don’t understand what you are saying. It is perfectly fine to write a manual for monks for the existing vinaya rules. This is very common. Because of this, your comment is strange to read and I don’t understand what you are saying.

I don’t understand who or what you are speaking about. We have a modern discourse interface that has a nice quoting method so we know what you are talking about with long threads.

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How interesting, I wonder if this is just a reflection he makes when eating meat, similar to how monks are to reflect that they are eating all almsfood as debtors until they are arahants, even tho that is not true in a literal kammic sense. Or if Ajahn Lee legitimately believed/saw this occurence.

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I always think that eating meat is just like consuming dead animal corpse.

The animals don’t die because of the eater, specifically. Even you don’t consume it, it is dead already.

Eating meat is permissible by the Blessed One, with the conditions as mentioned in Jivaka Sutta.

Upon fulfilling the conditions, eating meat will not partake of the demeritorious kamma of killing the animals.

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The problem is that by eating meat one is contributing to normalising this practice - and thus contributing to causes for animals to be killed in the future… Often one might also be neglecting the opportunity to skilfully ask for a vegan meal…

And if one buys meat/milk/eggs it’s even worse, because the money one pays partly goes to the animal exploitation industry where it funds the abuse and killing of animals in the future…

Compared to the Buddha’s time, we now have factory farming, which is often much more cruel, can be scaled up to kill many more animals in response to consumer demand, and is now causing severe environmental problems… We likely also have many more vegan options, especially in urban areas, and a better understanding of nutrition, so in many places we have a very practical option to be vegan.

I’m not suggesting being vegan should be an absolute requirement in all places. But if one has the option it certainly seems like a good idea to try to be vegan and practise Right Intention as much as one can…

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welcome to the forum Metta2all

https://suttacentral.net/an8.12/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=sidebyside&reference=none&notes=sidenotes&highlight=false&script=latin

Then the Buddha taught Sīha step by step, with
a talk on giving, ethical conduct, and heaven. He explained the drawbacks of sensual pleasures, so sordid and corrupt, and the benefit of renunciation.
And when the Buddha knew that Sīha’s mind was ready, pliable, rid of hindrances, elated, and confident he explained the special teaching of the Buddhas:
suffering, its origin, its cessation, and the path.
Just as a clean cloth rid of stains would properly absorb dye,
in that very seat the stainless, immaculate vision of the Dhamma arose in General Sīha:
“Everything that has a beginning has an end.”

Then Sīha saw, attained, understood, and fathomed the Dhamma. He went beyond doubt, got rid of indecision, and became self-assured and independent of others regarding the Teacher’s instructions. He said to the Buddha,
“Sir, may the Buddha together with the mendicant Saṅgha please accept tomorrow’s meal from me.”
The Buddha consented with silence.
Then, knowing that the Buddha had consented, Sīha got up from his seat, bowed, and respectfully circled the Buddha, keeping him on his right, before leaving.

Then Sīha addressed a certain man,
“Mister, please find out if there is any meat ready for sale.”
And when the night had passed General Sīha had delicious fresh and cooked foods prepared in his own home. Then he had the Buddha informed of the time, saying,
“Sir, it’s time. The meal is ready.”

Then the Buddha robed up in the morning and, taking his bowl and robe, went to Sīha’s home, where he sat on the seat spread out, together with the Saṅgha of mendicants.
Now at that time many Jain ascetics in Vesālī went from street to street and from square to square, calling out with raised arms:
“Today General Sīha has slaughtered a fat calf for the ascetic Gotama’s meal.
The ascetic Gotama knowingly eats meat prepared specially for him: this is a deed he caused.”

Then a certain person went up to Sīha and whispered in his ear,
“Please sir, you should know this.
Many Jain ascetics in Vesālī are going from street to street and square to square, calling out with raised arms:
‘Today General Sīha has slaughtered a fat calf for the ascetic Gotama’s meal.
The ascetic Gotama knowingly eats meat prepared specially for him: this is a deed he caused.’”

“Enough, sir. For a long time those venerables have wanted to discredit the Buddha, his teaching, and his Saṅgha.
They’ll never stop misrepresenting the Buddha with their incorrect, hollow, false, untruthful claims.
We would never deliberately take the life of a living creature, not even for life’s sake.”

Then Sīha served and satisfied the mendicant Saṅgha headed by the Buddha with his own hands with delicious fresh and cooked foods.
When the Buddha had eaten and washed his hand and bowl, Sīha sat down to one side.
Then the Buddha educated, encouraged, fired up, and inspired him with a Dhamma talk, after which he got up from his seat and left.

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A new policy of mine as a result of writing this document is that if I am invited by a donor to ask beforehand for anything I need before they buy something for me to eat, then I will tell that donor that I would prefer to eat vegetarian. If I am not given an invitation to say what type of food I need/prefer, then I would just be silent and eat what was given to me. For the case for going on alms round, I would likely eat whatever was put inside my bowl by any type of donor as long as it was not suspected that the meat was killed for me.

From your blog

Here’s my policy, I tell the monastery I am staying in that I am vegan, and particularly the staff, or the people in charge of receiving invitation for house dana. When people go and invite us out (very rare nowadays), they would know that there’s a vegan monk amongst the group. Then they will either go to a full vegetarian or vegan place or make sure that there’s enough vegan food for me, or a restaurant with vegan selection.

It does make a difference over time to our monastery buffet, our hired cook has Mahāyāna background and prefers to cook vegetarian, and basically his vegetarian is vegan, just sometimes has eggs. Chinese don’t tend to use milk, other than hidden inside cakes and chocolate.

My abbot here also decided that the retreat food would be vegetarian, but people who spontaneously come and offer food can bring meat if they wish to.

Alms round, is easy, we come back, it becomes buffet and still I get to choose vegan food. But if ever I go alone, I would just go in front of vegan shops or put a sticker on my bowl: I am vegan.

The sticker is not against the rules right?

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The Buddha ate meat - including his last meal of succulent pork, offered by Cunda Kammāraputta. And Cunda made great merit by this.

Now it may happen that some people may make Cunda regret having given me the meal that made me sick. Ananda, if this should happen, you should tell Cunda that you have heard directly from the Buddha that it was a gain for him. Tell him that two offerings to the Buddha are of equal gain; the offering of food just before his supreme enlightenment and the offering of food just before he passes away. This is the final birth of the Buddha."

Devadatta was a vegetarian (or claimed to be ) though .

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The fact that you asked that question is the answer.

Sticker is not allowed without an invitation to ask what type of food you want. Because of that, it is best you don’t have a sticker and only tell people who have invited you.

However, there is no rule against refusing food on alms round if you feel comfortable doing so. I don’t. I eat meat usually when it drops in my bowl.

As for “dumping the alms food” and eating nicely cooked monastery buffet food. I personally don’t like that practice. It promotes ceremonial and ritualistic “rice-only” alms and ruins the alms potential for those who want to really live off of alms. I think you are not learning anything yourself about the ascetic practice of going for alms. I think you should make a determination to eat only alms for a vassa and see how that goes.

Requiring the whole monastery to go to vegetarian restaurant is a little over the top. When I was a vegetarian as a lay person in the 90’s, I had to drive very far for a veg restaurant. I normally just ordered what they had that was or seemed vegetarian. Now, vegetarianism is a little more popular.
I think you should eat some meat every once in a while and realize it won’t kill you. Not making a habit of it… but just every once in a while. I find myself to be a flex-veg. I think that is most appropriate.

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It’s not that I request (there’s one time with my family I did), but other times they just go choose the restaurant themselves.

In malaysia, alms food comes in plastic packaging. So there’s a lot of sorting to do after we bring a lot of alms food back and putting them into the buffet style, whereby I can choose the vegan option.

I have been flexitarian before when I was lay, oh well, so far I can still be vegan (mostly) in my monk’s life without any major issue. I am ideologically vegan for environment, compassion for animals, and lastly health. So I don’t see a need to force myself to eat meat.

Sometimes for alms food, where they pack the meat together with the noodles, I just separate the meat and eat the noodles. And feed the fish/dog/cat with the meat later. No issue really.

I so far have been going on alms rounds with other monks, so I don’t do the food rejection, as I know I can share it later. But for inside monastery, I do reject it when people go around with meat offering it to our bowls when we are eating.

I am asking around, one Vinaya teacher in Na Uyana (Ven. Ariyadassana) said no issue, as I think he didn’t see it as request, but more like I am saying my “identity”.

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Thank you RobertK for the welcome and your consideration!

I know of this passage but think it’s deeply problematic to be using ancient texts in order to justify harmful modern practices, especially when they go against core principles that are repeated many times in the Suttas such as harmlessness and compassion… Perhaps the meat bought by General Siha had actually come from animal sacrifices, and thus the animals would have been killed regardless of whether he bought their meat? However what we have today is a capitalistic factory farming system that abuses and kills animals due to consumer demand, and is able to readily scale up to kill as many animals as people are willing to buy…

We also don’t have records of everything the Buddha said about eating meat… but eg the prohibition against meat killed for a monastic is there. It seems to be about causality? So if a monastic is given leftovers from the previous day’s dinner, or unexpectedly wanders into a village for alms, then clearly the meat hasn’t been killed for them. However today when for example monastics come to a pre-planned meal offered by a relatively wealthy group then any meat would have almost certainly been bought fresh specifically for the occassion, and if one considers the causal chain of this, then it seems like the animal has in fact been killed for them, especially if one wants to take a “strict interpretation” of the rule… And money paid to the meat industry is used to fund and possibly expand their operations.

Also it’s not being suggested that veganism be made a baseline precept for all time. There have been times and places where it probably wasn’t possible to survive without animal products… And Devadatta was not motivated by helping animals - he was actually an animal abuser and thus the opposite of a vegan…

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If it is leftover, or already bought, then there is no ideological issue for it.

The rest of your comments seem fair enough.
As for the sign. I think if you went back to ven ariyadassana and asked him, “Although this is maybe allowable, is it ‘not good’ to do?”
I think if you asked him in this way he would agree.
Sometimes in vinaya, we have “allowable but not good to do.”

Perhaps in an emergency survival situation, there would not be an issue to judge. It is purely a preference issue though. If it were health related there would be no doubt or absolutely no issues. It would be a gilana allowance and for survival. All that said, I’m mostly a veg and prefer vegetarian food. I have been a veg as a lay person for a total of ten years before ordaining. Of course most of Pa-auk Mawlamyine (when I was there) and Na-uyana is vegetarian.

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As monks we have to be very careful about those who “order food”. We have to know how it was obtained. We also need to be careful about smaller animals, like small fish, lobster, frogs, or even termites (in Laos and NE Thailand), etc. That is why the rule says that if we suspect, we should not eat.

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There’s still the self consistency issue. Let’s say people get to know that I can eat meat if I got offered one instead of giving the meat to other monks or animals, then they would have the perception that this is not a strict vegan monk, he’s ok with anything. So the next time they prepare food, they wouldn’t mind adding minced meat into every dish, since I am strictly speaking not vegan. This in turn indirectly increases demand for meat.

Thus, what I can do now is to be consistent to help remove this possibility of indirect letting meat demand increase.

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http://www.aimwell.org/amagandha.html
Āmagandha Suttaṃ

(Sn.42)

The Stench

  • "The Buddha Kassapa
    :Taking life, beating, wounding, binding, stealing, lying, deceiving, worthless knowledge, adultery; this is stench. Not the eating of meat.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • Anger, pride, obstinacy, antagonism, deceit, envy, boasting, excessive egoism, association with the immoral; this is stench. Not the eating of meat.
  • 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.
  • Those persons 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.
  • 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.
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I am quite familiar with the Theravada’s position on vegetarianism and the various suttas on it. My reasoning is not due to religion. Theravada Buddhists are also one of the hardest to promote veganism to due to these kind of attitude to present such suttas.

As humans living in this era of global warming, we all have a moral duty to go vegan to help reduce global warming. Every strategy counts, not just getting solar panels, not just getting electric cars.

Moral duty here is not nibbāna specific morality, but worldly morality for the sake of humans and animals on the planet. I used to say parents who have kids should all the more know why it’s important to go vegan, but given the heat waves now, the benefits and bad effects is visible for the lifetime of the parents themselves.

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