the great vegetarian debate

[Bhusuku]

I will state that, based on my understanding of Dzogchen teachings, those Buddhist scholastics who argued that plants were not alive, equivalent with rocks and crystals, were wrong in their understanding.

"Buddhist scholastics"? Didn't the Buddha himself taught this? And if Dzogchen contradicts the sutra/tantra teachings even on such basic buddhist doctrines, what is actually the use of studying sutra teachings at all for someone who's mainly interested in Dzogchen? I mean, isn't it actually a waste of time studying Abhidharma, if later on you realize that the Dzogchen teachings have a complete different POV on many Abhidharma subjects? The same applies for studying Madhyamaka: why waste many years to gain an in depth understanding of the two truths if later on you realize that there's only one truth in Dzogchen?

[Mr. G]

I don't see how any of these quotes posits a stance against meat eating. Seems a bit of a stretch. These passages could also be applied to the death of insects and applied to farming.

C'mon Mr. G, don't be silly, extraordinarily few of the animal carcasses sold for consumption die by natural means. That means somebody has to be encouraged (normally via financial incentives) to kill them. Through the purchasing of the flesh, a portion of the money of which is paid for the flesh goes to the slaughterer, thus the slaughterer receives approval for their task. But I am sure you are well aware of this.

I do not encourage anyone to participate in animal or insect slaughter, nor am I a butcher or do farming on a mass scale. The killing of animals and of insects via farming for food is reality. In Dzogchen, we work with these conditions.

[Malcolm]

I will state that, based on my understanding of Dzogchen teachings, those Buddhist scholastics who argued that plants were not alive, equivalent with rocks and crystals, were wrong in their understanding.

"Buddhist scholastics"? Didn't the Buddha himself taught this?

No, he did not teach this. Read the Schmithausen monograph.

[PadmaVonSamba]

I did not equate the two. I merely pointed out that I no longer believe that anything imbued with prāṇa can possibly be non-sentient. Plants possess prāṇa, therefore, they are alive, therefore, after some fashion, I must accept that they too are sentient. Not only to plants possess prāṇa, but they also possess ojas, mdangs, they also possess the seven phase digestive process that we humans and all animals do. They take food, they break it down, is it conducted by fluid within plant membranes where it builds their flesh, their soft tissue, hard tissues and finally in the end they produce sap, flowers, seeds, etc.

Where do plants fit into the schema of the realms of samsaric existence? What is the mental poison that causes one to reborn as a plant? Why are there no references to birth as a plant in any of the Sutta and Sutra (and even the exceedingly few Tantra I have read) given that plants are also sentient? etc... According to that logic we should all be breatharians if we wish to be compassionate at a relative level. Seems to be a form of Jainism to the nth degree, only you do a clever intellectual backflip and use it to justify eating meat rather than avoiding eating all sentient (into which class you include plants) beings.

The mistake being made here is assuming that either plants or animals 'possess' sentience. Animals & humans, or rather, the accumulation of parts that we call animals and humans, constitute an 'environment' where mind can become 'attached' so to speak. Plants simply do not share that aspect. It is believed by many cultures , including in Thailand, that beings can be deluded, thinking that a tree is their body, just as you or I think of our bodies are "me".

So, if you are arguing "can plants be sentient beings the way that people and animals are?" you'd better determine first, by what means are people and animals actually sentient beings, since upon examination, no 'self" can be shown to reside in the body to begin with.

Be careful not to argue wrong assumptions!

Interestingly, while taking a break from this discussion, I sliced into my finger with a knife while trying to open a package of frozen chicken, and had to get some medical attention. The finger is fine. The chicken was a bit dry. talk about karma!!!
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[Thrasymachus]

@Namdrol:
Why would you bring up Namkhai Norbu as an example? No offense, but the guy is at least 40 pounds overweight. Thus I don't see how he is or can be an example or authority on dietary advice or ethics. Alot of people believe when you are old like him you naturally gain weight, but I have photos of my elderly great-grandparents from the late 1950's who ate a majority plant based traditional Greek(Mediterranean) diet, they were all svelte. Infact my grandparents, the first to be able to afford to eat a majority of animal based calories are the first to have spare tires on their waists in old age. Probably gregkavarnos can attest to how the Greek people have transformed in one or two short generations from one of the most slim and healthy European populations whose diet was studied and promoted globally by people like Ancel Keyes, to the fattest. See: Guardian: Greece tops fat league as diet of the Med decays I don't see why I should adopt dietary counsels that will lead to a worse longevity and lifestyle outcome from certain diaspora Tibetan lamas who cling to their traditional animal based diet which will give me more trouble than my ancestor's traditional diet.

Dzogchen is very Tibetan based. Looking at older posts in this thread, I found this great article Tashi Nyima posted earlier:

On Vegetarianism

In 1314, when he was twenty-two years old, the Omniscient Dolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen received full monastic ordination from the famous abbot of Cholung Monastery, Sonam Trakpa (1273–1352), and made a vow at the time to never eat meat.

Although rice and vegetables can be found in many parts of Tibet today, this was not the case in the Omniscient Dolpopa’s day. It is true that in the low-lying regions to the south and east, enough grains and vegetables were grown for most of the population to supplement their essentially meat based diet. But the cultivation of vegetables on a scale sufficient to provide what would now be regarded as an adequate vegetarian diet was impossible.

No crops can grow at altitudes of over twelve thousand feet, and much of Tibet is covered by immense grasslands suitable only for the raising of livestock: yaks, goats, and sheep. To give up eating meat was therefore a truly laudable act, accomplished by very few. It meant being satisfied with a diet consisting of little more than butter, curd, and tsampa, the traditional Tibetan flour made of roasted barley, usually eaten as lumps of dough mixed with butter and tea.

It is understandable that such a diet was beyond the capacity of the majority. Even in a country where the principles of the Mahayana were omnipresent, where no one was ignorant of the Buddha’s teachings on compassion, it was simply impossible for most people to live out such teachings on the level of their eating habits. In the case of the large monasteries, the provision for the monks of adequate supplies of vegetable food, even if they had been inclined to a meatless diet, was completely out of the question. To be a vegetarian in Tibet required powers of endurance and a determination that could only come from the deepest possible conviction.

...

Like I pointed out in my first post to this thread, Tibet was and is a marginally inhabitable land. Most of us don't have the same traditional diet or the same locality constraints as they did to necessitate us making their same dietary choices. However, it seems laudably alot of exile Tibetan lamas have been strongly advocating a vegetarian diet now that they are removed from those obstacles. This trend will probably only accelerate as their traditional diet will have less cultural power over the coming decades.

[mindyourmind]

...

If you don't realize your own true mind, it doesn't matter what goes into your belly or where it came from. You may save a herd of cattle in this lifetime, and that will be a very good thing, but that will be all you save.

What if you can do both - realize your own true mind and save a herd of cattle? Why the false dichotomy?

[Malcolm]

...

If you don't realize your own true mind, it doesn't matter what goes into your belly or where it came from. You may save a herd of cattle in this lifetime, and that will be a very good thing, but that will be all you save.

What if you can do both - realize your own true mind and save a herd of cattle? Why the false dichotomy?

If you can do both, great. But when you prevent the slaughter of 10 steers, you hasten the slaughter of ten more. So what to do? And the central question really is -- how do you benefit some steer that has already been slaughtered? Praying?

N

[mindyourmind]

If you can do both, great. But when you prevent the slaughter of 10 steers, you hasten the slaughter of ten more. So what to do?

N[/quote]

Change the world ...one practitioner at a time, one steer at a time

It is also part of the maths that if you eat one steer you hasten the slaughter of one more.
Not eating meat need not be the Plan That Saves The World, but it can help your practice in many ways.
We argue like that when we say that we will help all sentient beings, we do not give up on them because there are so many and we cannot hope to save them all.

We try, one at a time, one day at a time.

[Malcolm]

Change the world ...one practitioner at a time, one steer at a time

And the central question really is -- how do you benefit some steer that has already been slaughtered? Praying?

[mindyourmind]

Change the world ...one practitioner at a time, one steer at a time

And the central question really is -- how do you benefit some steer that has already been slaughtered? Praying?

We've done this before, in the 80-odd pages.

The "central question" remains a personal one, how a practitioner approaches the eating of meat, and how that impacts on practice. It is, in my view, defeatist to accept that an animal is already dead therefore I might as well eat it. My acceptance of that fact ties in to the meat supply and demand chain, whether we like to accept it or not.

You mentioned intent earlier on, and you asked me to be precise. Most modern legal systems accept the so-called dolus eventualis as a form of intent, in other words where I accept that a given result may be accomplished and I simply accept that possibility. That is a form of intent. Meekly accepting that an animal is dead, that the shelf is full of meat so I may as well eat it is hardly a helpful approach. Withdrawing from that process, whether it helps the big picture in an infinitesimal degree or whether it actually makes a difference to that big picture, makes a difference to that practitioner, or at least it should.

Again, we may by analogy then also argue that people are suffering, that people cause their own trouble, that suffering is endemic and pervasive so we may as well leave them to it, give up and go home.

Also, if "benefiting" that steer only comes in when the steer is dead, then why can that "benefit" not have been transferred while it was alive? What magic does the fact that an advanced practitioner is actually eating that animal now bring that another practice could not? Can we argue that way with killing people?

To me it sounds like a self-serving argument.

[Malcolm]

Meekly accepting that an animal is dead, that the shelf is full of meat so I may as well eat it is hardly a helpful approach.

Nothing meek about me. I deliberately eat meat, when I eat meat, in order to create a positive cause for that animal's eventual liberation. When all is said and done that is my motive.

I also sponsor freeing of animals, and so on.

There is no way to lessen the suffering of samsara for others, however, by such means as freeing animals and so on. The best you can do is conquer your own samsara. However, through using a method coming from one of the six liberations (sight, sound, smell, taste, hearing, touch etc.) you can benefit other sentient beings so that they too one day may receive teachings and achieve liberation. That is where I am coming from.

N

[PadmaVonSamba]

If you don't realize your own true mind, it doesn't matter what goes into your belly or where it came from. You may save a herd of cattle in this lifetime, and that will be a very good thing, but that will be all you save.

What if you can do both - realize your own true mind and save a herd of cattle? Why the false dichotomy?

Ohhh..that's even better!!

[Malcolm]

Withdrawing from that process, whether it helps the big picture in an infinitesimal degree or whether it actually makes a difference to that big picture, makes a difference to that practitioner, or at least it should.

I guess I am not communicating well enough -- refusing to eat meat is withdrawing from the process. If you eat meat with the proper method, you can help that creature whose meat you are eating meet the causes for liberation.

If you tie a protection cord on it, or sing the six syllables of Samantabhadra to it while it is alive, there is benefit. We cannot always be there in time to help the living, but we can help the deceased with the method of eating meat with compassion, awareness and presence.

So from my point of view, refusing to eat meat in such a way is withdrawing, because the consequence of not eating meat is that that animal will never make a good connection for their eventual liberation.

So our intention is the same, our method is different, my method includes yours; yours lacks a skillful means for "food" animals that have already been salughtered.

[PadmaVonSamba]

The mistake people often make, and really, this is quite natural, is in thinking that somehow (let's name it) "Mr. Steer" lives in the steer that is grazing, or has been rounded up, or has been butchered, or has been cut up for sale. So, they say "I won't eat that meat because the animal ("Mr. Steer") suffered. But we have to really examine the nature of what is going on, and 'who" actually felt the pain.

"Mr. Steer" is really no different from you or me or any other creature insofar as associating the experience of its seemingly continuous existence with the component parts of what we call its body, or its carcass, depending on where it is, either chewing cud on the meadow or dangling from a meat hook.

He suffers from the pains of the body as we all do, not because the body itself experiences pain, or because the brain experiences the severing of the nerves as pain, even though this is what occurs. The primary reason for experiencing pain, and this is the same reason why I also experienced pain today when I sliced open my finger, is because of the association of the experience of 'self' or of 'me' with the events of the body.

But we know from studying the dharma, that no self or 'me' ( "Mr. Steer" )can be found to reside anywhere inside (or outside) of the body, despite the fact that this is precisely the experience we have. We put the two (body and "me") together and experience them as inseparable. They are like two traveling companions, riding side by side through life.

But what happens when that "life" ends? It is the belief of at least some schools of Buddhism that what we could call the mind of the animal (or human) is still attached to the components of the body. Not in a conscious way as we know it, but in a very subtle way, due to a lifetime of clinging (habits are very hard to break!) You can think of it much the same way a survivor of a leg amputation experiences a 'phantom limb' although this has physiological causes.

In some instances, it is said that after death there is even attachment to objects, especially sentimental objects or items of great value that one has become "very attached to" during one's life. I have a friend who had a very elaborate, Tibetan style shrine with expensive offering bowls and such. Her teacher told her to get rid of all that stuff, and just to get cheap bowls, so that she wouldn't be attached to it when the time came to die.

So, even though "Mr. Steer" doesn't consciously think "oh, how sad, part of me is now a hamburger" there are still traces of attachment, the same very subtle attachment that we all experience as "my body". This is why you can do practices that benefit the deceased, whether it is a person in a coffin or a chicken in the fryer. Not because the "being" is there, but because from the habitual point of view, that illusory sense of "being" is still experiencing attachment to the body, in a very subtle way. Beings suffer from attachment to the body, both in life and in death.

It is very interesting, because we do not feel the same attachment to the body of someone else. And we do not feel that attachment to animals, even though we can become very attached emotionally to animals. We can feel empathy for their suffering, but every person (except perhaps for conjoined twins) only feels their own bodily suffering.

If you donate a kidney or something, or maybe donate your long hair to a charity that makes wigs for cancer survivors, you do not feel any confusion about where that part of your body is. You don't sense, "hmmmm, it feels like part of me is being combed right now, someplace far away" because consciously you still identify your sense of, your experience of "me" as being in this body. But at death, when the elements begin to separate, that is a different situation.


OINK! OINK!
What happened to the rest of my body??
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[kirtu]

So, even though "Mr. Steer" doesn't consciously think "oh, how sad, part of me is now a hamburger" there are still traces of attachment, the same very subtle attachment that we all experience as "my body". This is why you can do practices that benefit the deceased, whether it is a person in a coffin or a chicken in the fryer. Not because the "being" is there, but because from the habitual point of view, that illusory sense of "being" is still experiencing attachment to the body, in a very subtle way. Beings suffer from attachment to the body, both in life and in death.

Well in the case of one hamburger there are bits of ~100+ different Mr. Steer's suffering from attachment ....

Kirt

[PadmaVonSamba]

So, even though "Mr. Steer" doesn't consciously think "oh, how sad, part of me is now a hamburger" there are still traces of attachment, the same very subtle attachment that we all experience as "my body". This is why you can do practices that benefit the deceased, whether it is a person in a coffin or a chicken in the fryer. Not because the "being" is there, but because from the habitual point of view, that illusory sense of "being" is still experiencing attachment to the body, in a very subtle way. Beings suffer from attachment to the body, both in life and in death.

Well in the case of one hamburger there are bits of ~100+ different Mr. Steer's suffering from attachment ....

Kirt

That's why so many sutra begin, "Thus I have herd..."

[mindyourmind]

Withdrawing from that process, whether it helps the big picture in an infinitesimal degree or whether it actually makes a difference to that big picture, makes a difference to that practitioner, or at least it should.

I guess I am not communicating well enough -- refusing to eat meat is withdrawing from the process. If you eat meat with the proper method, you can help that creature whose meat you are eating meet the causes for liberation.

If you tie a protection cord on it, or sing the six syllables of Samantabhadra to it while it is alive, there is benefit. We cannot always be there in time to help the living, but we can help the deceased with the method of eating meat with compassion, awareness and presence.

So from my point of view, refusing to eat meat in such a way is withdrawing, because the consequence of not eating meat is that that animal will never make a good connection for their eventual liberation.

So our intention is the same, our method is different, my method includes yours; yours lacks a skillful means for "food" animals that have already been salughtered.

That "skillful means, if such it is, contributes to the demand side of the problem, that "skillful means" creates another cause for an animal to be slaughtered. It remains participation in the process.

[Malcolm]

That "skillful means, if such it is, contributes to the demand side of the problem, that "skillful means" creates another cause for an animal to be slaughtered. It remains participation in the process.

We should work with circumstances. As for myself, I will choose to create positive causes for the liberation of sentient beings by any means possible. You are free to refuse to do so, if that is your choice.

N

[mindyourmind]

Yes, we do have that choice.

[PadmaVonSamba]

That "skillful means, if such it is, contributes to the demand side of the problem, that "skillful means" creates another cause for an animal to be slaughtered. It remains participation in the process.

I would like to meet a Buddhist who isn't participating in the process, who doesn't have photos printed on gelatin-coated paper, doesn't wear shoes (even sneakers)...

The supply and demand argument is valid ...as a supply and demand argument.

It doesn't really figure into a dharma argument,
unless you are defining the BuddhaDharma as only limited to being some kind of moral code,
rules to live by, that sort of thing,
or, as Thrasymachus posted: "To me thinking you can actually become enlightened is hubris, it is just an ideal."
meaning that you don't really believe it to begin with.
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