the great vegetarian debate

[mindyourmind]

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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Of course we all participate, inevitably so. The degree to which we participate, that is where we can make some meaningful decisions.

[muni]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW_lIQSpVAY 1-5

Paramita Generosity. By Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo.

Release any grasping to object of generosity,
Release grasping to oneself and so expected gratitude,
Release grasping to the act.

Paramitas or Transcent Perfections = Free from the three concepts: subject who acts, object of the action, action itself = beyond samsaric extistence.

[gregkavarnos]

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".

And, ultimately, this is what it all boils down to: utilising Buddhist theories of emptiness, ultimate reality and Dzogchen in order to justify attachment to sensory gratification. Using Dharma as yet another tool for serving the sense of self.

I think I'm about finished with this thread (again), but being a sucker for punishment you never know when I may come back for more!

[treehuggingoctopus]

I no longer believe that plants are insentient because I beleive the distinction between sentient and insentient is a false distinction. At least, it is a false distinction from a Dzogchen perspective. From the Dzogchen point of view, everything is made of five elements, all sentient beings, even consciousness, even the buddhas. Plants are every bit alive as animals. As Garab Dorje says "The color of rtsal is green". But because it is convenient and because they are ignorant of the principles of the basis, ideological vegetarians make a false distinction between sentient and non-sentient. There is, according to Dzogchen teachings, no true distinction to be made between the sentient and the non-sentient.

Wow, that is another little shock for me here - I'd been convinced for quite a few years that according to Dzogchen plants are very much insentient, and loads of old time practitioners would confirm what now turns out to be my misconception. Thanks for bringing up Garab Dorje and correcting it at last

Would you be so kind as to elaborate a bit more, though? What's the position of plants in samsara? Are there any available texts that deal with the matter?

[PadmaVonSamba]

Of course we all participate, inevitably so. The degree to which we participate, that is where we can make some meaningful decisions.

There are a million ways to be a good person, to be a better person, to be kinder to others and to the planet and so on.
If Buddhism encourages this, that's fine.
The point is not to hold onto any idea that you are being a good person, or that you are accomplishing anything whatsoever by being a good person (even if you are), or to put yourself in a position where you end up disparaging the actions of others in comparison with your own actions (of body, speech and mind).

So, if something, say....um...ohhh... not eating meat leads one to do this, and leads you to thinking "What I am doing is good, what they are doing is bad, they should be good like me" then you really need to examine that, examine "who is the person that holds this attitude" and so on. Otherwise, while thinking you are being a good buddhist by not eating meat, and not hurting animals, in fact you are simply abandoning the path of dharma in favor of vegetarianism.
It is not the fault of meat eaters if this happens. If you can be a vegetarian without clinging to it, then that is best.

It's great to be a vegetarian, but don't think you are doing anybody any favors.

"Don't let what goes into your stomach go to your head!"
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[Malcolm]

I no longer believe that plants are insentient because I beleive the distinction between sentient and insentient is a false distinction. At least, it is a false distinction from a Dzogchen perspective. From the Dzogchen point of view, everything is made of five elements, all sentient beings, even consciousness, even the buddhas. Plants are every bit alive as animals. As Garab Dorje says "The color of rtsal is green". But because it is convenient and because they are ignorant of the principles of the basis, ideological vegetarians make a false distinction between sentient and non-sentient. There is, according to Dzogchen teachings, no true distinction to be made between the sentient and the non-sentient.

Wow, that is another little shock for me here - I'd been convinced for quite a few years that according to Dzogchen plants are very much insentient, and loads of old time practitioners would confirm what now turns out to be my misconception. Thanks for bringing up Garab Dorje and correcting it at last

Would you be so kind as to elaborate a bit more, though? What's the position of plants in samsara? Are there any available texts that deal with the matter?

According to our karmic vision plants are non-sentient. But according to Padmasambhava in the Khandro Nyinthig:

After first being created by the energy (rtsal) of wisdom, in the middle, as it was not recognized that the body of the refined part of the assembled elements actually is the five wisdoms, since this was not realized through intellectual views, the non-sentient and sentient both appear, but don’t believe it... As such, the sign of non-duality is [the body] disappearing into wisdom without any effluents because the critical point of the non-duality or sameness of the non-sentient and the sentient was understood according to the Guru’s intimate instructions.

[treehuggingoctopus]

According to our karmic vision plants are non-sentient. But according to Padmasambhava in the Khandro Nyinthig:

After first being created by the energy (rtsal) of wisdom, in the middle, as it was not recognized that the body of the refined part of the assembled elements actually is the five wisdoms, since this was not realized through intellectual views, the non-sentient and sentient both appear, but don’t believe it... As such, the sign of non-duality is [the body] disappearing into wisdom without any effluents because the critical point of the non-duality or sameness of the non-sentient and the sentient was understood according to the Guru’s intimate instructions.

Thanks a lot.

[Thrasymachus]

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.

There are several very public examples of teachers/lamas in recent times performing sexual abuse, smuggling antiquities and endangered animals, declaring celebrities as Tulkus in exchange for money. I am sure they had lots of great justifications and performed many mental hand stands to justify such unsavory behavior. Probably alot of the offenders cited their realization, their striving for enlightenment, probably they mediated far more than me. But that does not make them ethical or compassionate. Making excuses that the ends negates the means is a great excuse to get away with bad karma.

There are reasons to eat meat like: taste, convenience, tradition, living in a sub-optimal environment for human agriculture. However you cannot really build a case based on ethics and compassion, and a good evidence of this is the extreme mental contortions that practitioners have developed to justify their meat eating to combat such ideals which are even contained in dharma. Two of the most popular:

1.) You cannot do the impossible, so don't do the possible.
Basically this argument maintains that since even eating plant foods involves killing insects and micro-organisms, that the meat abstainers are no different or better. But trying to do the impossible always results in failure. Does this mean we should not do what is possible in terms of saving lives? Does that sound a very compassionate or enlightened argument? It sounds like a very bad excuse to bring down the bar of ethics and compassion to satisfy the attachment of those with certain taste preferences.

2.) I create opportunities to liberate the dead animal by giving it the chance to come into the august mouth of a practitioner.
This sounds very woo woo and out there to me, and I am amazed it can even be accepted by anyone. Wouldn't it be more merciful to just cut hair from a still live animal and for the practitioner to meditate on the hair's taste? Or if the flesh is necessary why not notch out a piece of the ear of a livestock that thus needn't be killed and chew on that? Perhaps you could get a voodoo practitioner from Haiti in on this as well with their black magic. I guess though all that does not satisfy the attachment to taste patterns for carnistic dharma practitioners who feel the need for ethical apologia. This time instead of merely trying to create fake guilt against vegetarians for not doing what is impossible, this argument tries to create guilt for not seeing the impossible to see chances for liberation of bardo animals corresponding to dead flesh chunks in someone's mouth. Obviously vegetarians are not enlightened enough to see the afterlife.

If you want to eat meat, do it, but trying to do mental gymnastics to justify it ethically is very unenlightened. Just let it be what it is.

It's great to be a vegetarian, but don't think you are doing anybody any favors.

Personally as a vegan I know I am doing a very small favor to livestock animals by being on the vanguard of the animal liberation movement with my dietary choice, not to mention the health and environmental benefits. Every year over 10 billion totally enslaved animals are slaughtered so Americans can be one of the fattest populations around the globe. Since you seem to love a reductionist dharma approach, I am sure in the past many countless dharma practitioners justified human slavery, serfdom also, and their justifications did not stop their practice either. I know animals deserve more than to be considered as property, as mere industrial inputs whose end purpose is a shrink wrapped flesh display in some supermarket so a few can enrich themselves and many can engorge themselves. When you fight for the most voiceless in the social hierarchy -- livestock -- you also fight for everyone else by pushing the bottom of the pyramid upwards. That really benefits all sentient beings, especially humans. If humanity had that type of compassion, the human created social order would cease being dominated by warlike and greedy impulses instead of altruism.

[Andrew108]

According to our karmic vision plants are non-sentient. But according to Padmasambhava in the Khandro Nyinthig:

After first being created by the energy (rtsal) of wisdom, in the middle, as it was not recognized that the body of the refined part of the assembled elements actually is the five wisdoms, since this was not realized through intellectual views, the non-sentient and sentient both appear, but don’t believe it... As such, the sign of non-duality is [the body] disappearing into wisdom without any effluents because the critical point of the non-duality or sameness of the non-sentient and the sentient was understood according to the Guru’s intimate instructions.

Thanks a lot.

This is part of the all inclusive view of Dzogchen where there really isn't 'reality' - just wisdom. So it's not saying plants are sentient and it's not saying that they are not. It's not making claims about sentience as such or that there is a reality that can be established as anything other than wisdom.

[PadmaVonSamba]

"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.

This says to me that you do not actually believe in the possibility of liberation from samsara,
and that is the purpose of The Buddha's teaching of the dharma.
That's why I said that you are abandoning Dharma in favor of vegetarianism.
Maybe it would be more accurate to say that you are pitting one against the other.

It's great that you are a vegan. But who cares?
I didn't out and kill a million people today. That's more than a thousand cows.

It's great to be a vegetarian, but don't think you are doing anybody any favors.

Personally as a vegan I know I am doing a very small favor to livestock animals

I am sure you are. the point is, don't think you are.
Don't set yourself up as some kind of a big hero.

Buddhism isn't concerned with what is on the menu.
Buddhism isn't concerned with what is in the stomach,
but what is in the mind.

I am a vegan too.
It's my body that eats meat.

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[tobes]

Personally as a vegan I know I am doing a very small favor to livestock animals by being on the vanguard of the animal liberation movement with my dietary choice, not to mention the health and environmental benefits. Every year over 10 billion totally enslaved animals are slaughtered so Americans can be one of the fattest populations around the globe.

How about this argument Thrasymachus: If no one ate meat, those 10 billion animals would not ever be born. If you care for their sentience, isn't it better that they exist rather than they never exist?

Five years in a paddock, as a sentient creature, is surely more valuable than non-existence.

The cause of those 5 years of sentient life? People eating meat!

You want an argument about causality, here it is. Advocating global veganism is not simply advocating the cessation of killing: it is also advocating the cessation of breeding, birth, life and the existence of however many animals are desired by humans for food.

[Malcolm]

Personally as a vegan I know I am doing a very small favor to livestock animals by being on the vanguard of the animal liberation movement with my dietary choice, not to mention the health and environmental benefits. Every year over 10 billion totally enslaved animals are slaughtered so Americans can be one of the fattest populations around the globe.

How about this argument Thrasymachus: If no one ate meat, those 10 billion animals would not ever be born. If you care for their sentience, isn't it better that they exist rather than they never exist?

Five years in a paddock, as a sentient creature, is surely more valuable than non-existence.

The cause of those 5 years of sentient life? People eating meat!

You want an argument about causality, here it is. Advocating global veganism is not simply advocating the cessation of killing: it is also advocating the cessation of breeding, birth, life and the existence of however many animals are desired by humans for food.

No, he wants us all to keep them as pets. Oh right, I forgot, keeping pets is chattle slavery too. I guess we just cut all these cows, chickens and pigs loose and let them fend for themselves.

[mindyourmind]

Personally as a vegan I know I am doing a very small favor to livestock animals by being on the vanguard of the animal liberation movement with my dietary choice, not to mention the health and environmental benefits. Every year over 10 billion totally enslaved animals are slaughtered so Americans can be one of the fattest populations around the globe.

How about this argument Thrasymachus: If no one ate meat, those 10 billion animals would not ever be born. If you care for their sentience, isn't it better that they exist rather than they never exist?

Five years in a paddock, as a sentient creature, is surely more valuable than non-existence.

The cause of those 5 years of sentient life? People eating meat!

You want an argument about causality, here it is. Advocating global veganism is not simply advocating the cessation of killing: it is also advocating the cessation of breeding, birth, life and the existence of however many animals are desired by humans for food.

That's a question I often asked myself, and I have come to a different conclusion. We are speculating wildly here, but I think that non-existence, specifically as in never-having-existed, may very well be a better deal than to have existed, with life's little pleasures and the suffering that comes with the territory, only to be killed and end up as someone's steak.

We now make us eating meat sound like something that animals should be grateful for

[Malcolm]

According to our karmic vision plants are non-sentient. But according to Padmasambhava in the Khandro Nyinthig:

After first being created by the energy (rtsal) of wisdom, in the middle, as it was not recognized that the body of the refined part of the assembled elements actually is the five wisdoms, since this was not realized through intellectual views, the non-sentient and sentient both appear, but don’t believe it... As such, the sign of non-duality is [the body] disappearing into wisdom without any effluents because the critical point of the non-duality or sameness of the non-sentient and the sentient was understood according to the Guru’s intimate instructions.

Thanks a lot.

This is part of the all inclusive view of Dzogchen where there really isn't 'reality' - just wisdom. So it's not saying plants are sentient and it's not saying that they are not. It's not making claims about sentience as such or that there is a reality that can be established as anything other than wisdom.

It is making the claim that disctinction between the sentient and the non-sentient is false. You can work out the rest.

N

[Dave The Seeker]

Just to clarify, 5 years is the life of a dairy cow. So thats your hamburger.
The life of the other cuts of meat, feed lot cattle, is 18 months. Anything over 30 months old is only used for hamburger as the meat is too tough for a "prime" cut.

Kindest wishes, Dave

[Andrew108]

It is making the claim that disctinction between the sentient and the non-sentient is false. You can work out the rest.

N

Sorry for being pedantic but the statement is not making a distinction as to what is false - otherwise that would be a position held in regard to the relative. And as you know in Dzogchen there are no positions held in terms of conventional and ultimate truth.

[gad rgyangs]

Personally as a vegan I know I am doing a very small favor to livestock animals by being on the vanguard of the animal liberation movement with my dietary choice, not to mention the health and environmental benefits. Every year over 10 billion totally enslaved animals are slaughtered so Americans can be one of the fattest populations around the globe.

How about this argument Thrasymachus: If no one ate meat, those 10 billion animals would not ever be born. If you care for their sentience, isn't it better that they exist rather than they never exist?

Five years in a paddock, as a sentient creature, is surely more valuable than non-existence.

The cause of those 5 years of sentient life? People eating meat!

You want an argument about causality, here it is. Advocating global veganism is not simply advocating the cessation of killing: it is also advocating the cessation of breeding, birth, life and the existence of however many animals are desired by humans for food.

in whose philosophy is this planet the only place one can be born?

[Malcolm]

It is making the claim that disctinction between the sentient and the non-sentient is false. You can work out the rest.

N

Sorry for being pedantic but the statement is not making a distinction as to what is false - otherwise that would be a position held in regard to the relative. And as you know in Dzogchen there are no positions held in terms of conventional and ultimate truth.

There are statements made with regard to what a product of ignorance and a product of knowledge.

N

[PadmaVonSamba]

I get along nicely with cows.

[PadmaVonSamba]

since we are on the topic of eating beef...