If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

haha
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by haha »

Aryjna wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:02 pm
I cannot delete it :D but my point is that no one here said that you should be killing animals to eat meat. It is more a case of not rejecting meat, when it is available, because rejecting it does nothing for the animal, while eating it is helpful. Anyway, it was probably a good idea to not to start this debate on this thread once again after all.
Thank you for your remark. After that, I will always think several times before posting anything.

In that context of killing, it is not for consumption. I used those points to show how the narrative was shifted without showing correlation. The power of mantra, heavenly rebirth, karmic connection, etc. by consuming the meat are just the shift. As the point is offensive, I will not talk further.

It is one of the absurd argument saying that by eating few livestock monthly (i.e. even for the sake of ganacakra) as if one is benefiting large number. It is better to check animalclock. It is better to know how many animals are killed in the snap of the figure. If one knows, then it could be really nice narrative to promote own meat eating habit in elegant fashion. However, it is just a skillful means. By eating, one is going to benefit the number that in counted in the hand. Without eating, one can do benefit and connect with innumerable. To connect (or to make very strong connection), one needs to touch by tongue and stomach is not very convincing, either. An example: If one has proficiency in alternative healing art, it is not necessary to touch other. Touching is just for beginners, or depends on some cases. However, the point is already made; it is a skillful means for those interested in meat consumption.
Even in the Vajrayana, meat is forbidden until one attains the ultimate view of pure perception.
From Compassionate Action
From another perspective, stopping consumption of meat by few people does not change the nature of the samsara. Meat would be beneficial to some other people. Probably meat is minimizing the risk of food shortage crisis that I do not know.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Budai »

A long time ago, more than fifteen years ago, one of the first things I read on Wikipedia about the Buddha is that Buddha said that it was okay for Himself to eat whatever He wanted, within His mind, because everything in this world was simply a psychic manifestation of His mind. So He could change it into something else. This seems like a basic and even not fully developed theory or saying, but it stuck with me. I know there are anecdotes of Him dying from His last meal, but I think for the Buddha His Parinirvana was voluntary, as even scholars don't have a certain idea of this, and the Sutras seem to confirm that the Buddha was for quite a time set on acheving Mahapanirvana, and there is information of Him praising His attendants and giving them praise for His last meal. This was referring to an anecdote about His last meal. I know it's disputed whether His last meal was vegetarian or not, especially between Mahayana and Theravada circles, but there is a general idea of how powerful the Buddha's mind was with regards to influencing what He ate.

Of course, the suffering involved in the accumulation of meat products usually gets sensible people to stop eating such, so is the remark "meat must not pass one's lips." We must be careful how we eat, what our contribution to the wellbeing of the Planet and other sentient beings' is. I am very glad the Karmapa is advocating vegetarianism. The less harmful lifestyle down to being "harmless" is the Buddha Way. That is honesty. The Buddha has no work except to bring Buddhism to others, so there is the idea that His passing was His own laying down of His life to acheive The Deathless, and not a product of what He ate. Om.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Aryjna »

haha wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:13 am Thank you for your remark. After that, I will always think several times before posting anything.

In that context of killing, it is not for consumption. I used those points to show how the narrative was shifted without showing correlation. The power of mantra, heavenly rebirth, karmic connection, etc. by consuming the meat are just the shift. As the point is offensive, I will not talk further.

It is one of the absurd argument saying that by eating few livestock monthly (i.e. even for the sake of ganacakra) as if one is benefiting large number. It is better to check animalclock. It is better to know how many animals are killed in the snap of the figure. If one knows, then it could be really nice narrative to promote own meat eating habit in elegant fashion. However, it is just a skillful means. By eating, one is going to benefit the number that in counted in the hand. Without eating, one can do benefit and connect with innumerable. To connect (or to make very strong connection), one needs to touch by tongue and stomach is not very convincing, either. An example: If one has proficiency in alternative healing art, it is not necessary to touch other. Touching is just for beginners, or depends on some cases. However, the point is already made; it is a skillful means for those interested in meat consumption.
Even in the Vajrayana, meat is forbidden until one attains the ultimate view of pure perception.
From Compassionate Action
From another perspective, stopping consumption of meat by few people does not change the nature of the samsara. Meat would be beneficial to some other people. Probably meat is minimizing the risk of food shortage crisis that I do not know.
You can post whatever you want, of course. It's not possible to be in perfect harmony on the internet or anywhere else anyway.

There are many relevant arguments already, such as that many beings are killed during the production of any kind of food, and that one can draw the line somewhere else other than meat, after looking into the amount of damage caused during the production of each individual food product, but this kind of threads tend to go in circles.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Giovanni »

Könchok Chödrak wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 6:15 am A long time ago, more than fifteen years ago, one of the first things I read on Wikipedia about the Buddha is that Buddha said that it was okay for Himself to eat whatever He wanted, within His mind, because everything in this world was simply a psychic manifestation of His mind. So He could change it into something else. This seems like a basic and even not fully developed theory or saying, but it stuck with me. I know there are anecdotes of Him dying from His last meal, but I think for the Buddha His Parinirvana was voluntary, as even scholars don't have a certain idea of this, and the Sutras seem to confirm that the Buddha was for quite a time set on acheving Mahapanirvana, and there is information of Him praising His attendants and giving them praise for His last meal. This was referring to an anecdote about His last meal. I know it's disputed whether His last meal was vegetarian or not, especially between Mahayana and Theravada circles, but there is a general idea of how powerful the Buddha's mind was with regards to influencing what He ate.

Of course, the suffering involved in the accumulation of meat products usually gets sensible people to stop eating such, so is the remark "meat must not pass one's lips." We must be careful how we eat, what our contribution to the wellbeing of the Planet and other sentient beings' is. I am very glad the Karmapa is advocating vegetarianism. The less harmful lifestyle down to being "harmless" is the Buddha Way. That is honesty. The Buddha has no work except to bring Buddhism to others, so there is the idea that His passing was His own laying down of His life to acheive The Deathless, and not a product of what He ate. Om.

The Buddha did not use mundane siddhis, and discouraged their use. He taught that they bind us further to samsara. So he ate what he was given not because he transformed by siddhis, but because he saw clearly the interdependence of things and that it was all workable when equanimity is constant. Things as they are. No clinging, no rejection.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Queequeg »

tobes wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 11:16 pm
Queequeg wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:46 pm
tobes wrote: Sun Mar 21, 2021 11:36 pm I also want to grant, that if one abstains from eating meat on the genuine basis of equanimity, kindness and great compassion to all beings, then this is incredibly noble.

But, it is also incredibly rare.

Moreover, the nobility is in the mindstream one abides in; the action/non-action is merely a little expression of this.
my five year old daughter doesn't want to eat meat because she just thinks its mean. if equanimity, kindness and great compassion are all that different from that, then I think something has gone wrong.

At this point in life, it just seems people overthink things. maybe I've devolved into a simpleton. maybe I need to learn the great thaumatological secrets.

frankly, your way seems too complicated.
Yes, to be honest I think there is a very big difference between the sentiments of a five year old and the actual realisations of mahakaruna. There is nothing is secretive about this, it is actually a matter of humility to recognise that having bodhicitta properly take stock in our mindstream is an incredible accomplishment. And it is rare. And it is all to easy to conflate this with mere virtuous sentiments and wishful thinking.
Nonsense. Mahakaruna is unaquired. It is coextensive with all beings and expresses as our selfless impulses - the love and concern of a parent for a child, the pull of empathy. That's not to say its untainted and undeveloped. Its not a difference of kind but difference of cultivation. Bodhicitta, too, is unacquired. If it was not there to begin with, it could not be manifest.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Queequeg »

haha wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:13 am To connect (or to make very strong connection), one needs to touch by tongue and stomach is not very convincing, either.
This raises another question -

Does the corpse have a lingering connection to the deceased? This practice of benefiting requires a connection.

As I understand, once the sensitive qualities have ceased, a corpse is just a pile of stuff. The being is not there. Its just rupa. How does interacting with the corpse accrue to the being's benefit? If there is a lingering connection, then we would have to say that the corpse is still alive in some sense.

If I'm asking black box stuff just let me know.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by GrapeLover »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:01 pm
haha wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:13 am To connect (or to make very strong connection), one needs to touch by tongue and stomach is not very convincing, either.
This raises another question -

Does the corpse have a lingering connection to the deceased? This practice of benefiting requires a connection.

As I understand, once the sensitive qualities have ceased, a corpse is just a pile of stuff. The being is not there. Its just rupa. How does interacting with the corpse accrue to the being's benefit? If there is a lingering connection, then we would have to say that the corpse is still alive in some sense.

If I'm asking black box stuff just let me know.
I think it canonically must to some degree, as there are sutric practices to benefit the deceased that involve using their bones or “body relics” (cf Ushnisha Vijaya and Akshobhya Dharani sutras).
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Budai »

Giovanni wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:47 am
Könchok Chödrak wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 6:15 am A long time ago, more than fifteen years ago, one of the first things I read on Wikipedia about the Buddha is that Buddha said that it was okay for Himself to eat whatever He wanted, within His mind, because everything in this world was simply a psychic manifestation of His mind. So He could change it into something else. This seems like a basic and even not fully developed theory or saying, but it stuck with me. I know there are anecdotes of Him dying from His last meal, but I think for the Buddha His Parinirvana was voluntary, as even scholars don't have a certain idea of this, and the Sutras seem to confirm that the Buddha was for quite a time set on acheving Mahapanirvana, and there is information of Him praising His attendants and giving them praise for His last meal. This was referring to an anecdote about His last meal. I know it's disputed whether His last meal was vegetarian or not, especially between Mahayana and Theravada circles, but there is a general idea of how powerful the Buddha's mind was with regards to influencing what He ate.

Of course, the suffering involved in the accumulation of meat products usually gets sensible people to stop eating such, so is the remark "meat must not pass one's lips." We must be careful how we eat, what our contribution to the wellbeing of the Planet and other sentient beings' is. I am very glad the Karmapa is advocating vegetarianism. The less harmful lifestyle down to being "harmless" is the Buddha Way. That is honesty. The Buddha has no work except to bring Buddhism to others, so there is the idea that His passing was His own laying down of His life to acheive The Deathless, and not a product of what He ate. Om.

The Buddha did not use mundane siddhis, and discouraged their use. He taught that they bind us further to samsara. So he ate what he was given not because he transformed by siddhis, but because he saw clearly the interdependence of things and that it was all workable when equanimity is constant. Things as they are. No clinging, no rejection.
It's difficult to practice Buddhism without rejecting unfavorable karmic situations. Just because everything is interconnected doesn't mean Samsara isn't suffering. Samsara is great suffering, and we must do all we can to get out of it. How does one create a good society? With the Dharma, and in such, there is much work to be done. To not cling one must let go of the unfavorable, and of lust. Burning coals will harm the body, so it's important not to pick them up. Similarly, the negativity of eating meat can be read about in the Lankavatara Sutra: here.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:01 pm
Does the corpse have a lingering connection to the deceased? This practice of benefiting requires a connection.
The connection is made if the practitioner has the ability rest in rig pa. Otherwise, for the sentient being in question, there is no benefit.

Meat, wool, leather, hooves, bones, etc., don’t suffer. So as long as there is no participation through killing, witnessing, etc., i.e., the meat is pure in three ways, there is no fault in eating it and so no misdeed. The humanitarian, economic and climate issues are of a different order, and are not necessarily reflected in individual choices.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Queequeg »

GrapeLover wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:23 pm
Queequeg wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:01 pm
haha wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 5:13 am To connect (or to make very strong connection), one needs to touch by tongue and stomach is not very convincing, either.
This raises another question -

Does the corpse have a lingering connection to the deceased? This practice of benefiting requires a connection.

As I understand, once the sensitive qualities have ceased, a corpse is just a pile of stuff. The being is not there. Its just rupa. How does interacting with the corpse accrue to the being's benefit? If there is a lingering connection, then we would have to say that the corpse is still alive in some sense.

If I'm asking black box stuff just let me know.
I think it canonically must to some degree, as there are sutric practices to benefit the deceased that involve using their bones or “body relics” (cf Ushnisha Vijaya and Akshobhya Dharani sutras).
I'd be interested in fleshing this out... (sorry for the pun).

My sense is the relics are charismatic foci but the actual merit is generated in the mind. In the Agama Parinirvana Sutra, the srarira, along with the four significant places in the Buddha's life - Lumbini, Gaya, Deer Park and Kusinagara - are described as sort of prompts to remind beings of the Buddha, which thought brings inspiration and encouragement. I don't think it says the objects or places themselves have any supernnatural qualities beyond that.

LIkewise, perhaps its the experience of consuming the meat that prompts one to direct meritorious and compassionate thoughts to the deceased being? But I don't know.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Queequeg »

Malcolm wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:33 pm
Queequeg wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:01 pm
Does the corpse have a lingering connection to the deceased? This practice of benefiting requires a connection.
The connection is made if the practitioner has the ability rest in rig pa. Otherwise, for the sentient being in question, there is no benefit.

Meat, wool, leather, hooves, bones, etc., don’t suffer. So as long as there is no participation through killing, witnessing, etc., i.e., the meat is pure in three ways, there is no fault in eating it and so no misdeed. The humanitarian, economic and climate issues are of a different order, and are not necessarily reflected in individual choices.
Thank you, Malcolm. That is the clearest explanation so far and one that doesn't readily raise questions for me. Well, questions about how to rest in rig pa, but that's a whole different thread.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Budai »

I sense the emotions of animals before they died within the smell of cooked meat all of the time, sometimes even knowing they'll be cooked in the past and how they respond to various people eating them, and also how they feel relieved that their life of suffering is over. Of course it's all imprints of past consciousness, not a continuation of a kind of Life-Force during their life. Maybe it's more body-wise. I don't eat meat personally but I have been around a lot of people who cook it so I'm used to the smell. You know the saying "his blood cries out from the Earth". It's kind of like that.

I'm surprised others have not mentioned this. Anyone else have a similar experience?
Last edited by Budai on Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Könchok Thrinley »

Thank you Malcolm, that is quite illuminating on the issue. :twothumbsup:
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by haha »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 2:01 pm
just a different way of analysis:
Does the corpse have a lingering connection to the deceased?
Yes. At least, for some time.

After the departure of the mind-stream, a corpse is just the crop. Let’s supposed, one is really advance in loving-kindness and compassion meditation. That meditation is permeated in his physical body and mind. That is even permeated in his surroundings. If that person eats the meat out of kindness and compassion for that particular being, the remaining prana in the meat helps him to connect with that being directly. It is by merging their prana with our body and it is the connection made from our side. Those who are familiar with deity yoga, they will do with deity yoga principles. You know that the vajrayana works with the principle of prana.

For the case of connection:
Temporary benefit: that being may get to higher rebirth. Benefit in future: that being would come as disciple in the future when we attain Buddhahood or higher bhumis due to that karmic connection we made by eating the meat. Or, we may have some positive connection with that being.
If there is a lingering connection, then we would have to say that the corpse is still alive in some sense.
No. Prana is not sentient thing; it is just a bridge and has information. Dananjaya prana is not ejected from the body/corpse; through that one makes the connection. There are other modalities of connection, too.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by tobes »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:39 pm
tobes wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 11:16 pm
Queequeg wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:46 pm

my five year old daughter doesn't want to eat meat because she just thinks its mean. if equanimity, kindness and great compassion are all that different from that, then I think something has gone wrong.

At this point in life, it just seems people overthink things. maybe I've devolved into a simpleton. maybe I need to learn the great thaumatological secrets.

frankly, your way seems too complicated.
Yes, to be honest I think there is a very big difference between the sentiments of a five year old and the actual realisations of mahakaruna. There is nothing is secretive about this, it is actually a matter of humility to recognise that having bodhicitta properly take stock in our mindstream is an incredible accomplishment. And it is rare. And it is all to easy to conflate this with mere virtuous sentiments and wishful thinking.
Nonsense. Mahakaruna is unaquired. It is coextensive with all beings and expresses as our selfless impulses - the love and concern of a parent for a child, the pull of empathy. That's not to say its untainted and undeveloped. Its not a difference of kind but difference of cultivation. Bodhicitta, too, is unacquired. If it was not there to begin with, it could not be manifest.
It's hardly nonsense to say that the love and concern of a parent for a child is not bodhicitta - it is, by definition, partial, karmic, attached and for all these reasons, as you say, tainted. Bodhicitta is when you love the spider next to your kid as much as your kid, and intend and act only to liberate them both.

The question of it being acquired or unacquired is distinct. I agree that we can speak of it in terms of buddha-nature etc, and that yes, traces of this might be manifest in a 5 year old or in a parent or in a good-willed vegetarian.

But to conflate such a trace with the real thing is a very big conflation, and I think this is what happens a lot on these minds of questions; it is misinterpreting good sentiments, attachment and partiality-bias as mahakaruna; and it is often a moral assertion or claim of having or expressing mahakaruna through dietery choice alongside the assertion that those who choose otherwise lack mahakaruna.

Whenever I see such assertions, one thing is almost always apparent: mahakaruna is absent.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Johnny Dangerous »

A child not wanting to not eat meat (I remember me converting my family to vegetarianism temporarily as a tot too, btw) is almost a textbook example of mundane compassion. The kind "not conjoined with the path" , that yields mundane good results, etc..as described in Pali Canon stuff, IIRC.

It's certainly better than not having it, and could certainly be argued to be evidence of a natural tendency towards compassion, but it isn't Mahakaruna, pretty much by definition...unless the kid is some Bodhisattva or advanced practitioner.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Cinnabar »

I have never understood the “debate” behind vegetarianism...

It seems the skillful means is to give meat eaters a way to bring that habit onto the path.
And to give non-meat eaters a way to bring that habit onto the path.

Beyond that educating people to make more compassionate food choices— regardless of their food preference.
And to catch people so the don’t make the mistaken view that diet liberates one. Or not.
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by muni »

Beyond that educating people to make more compassionate food choices— regardless of their food preference.
:good:
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Queequeg »

tobes wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:00 pm
Johnny Dangerous wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 11:17 pm
Difference in quality, not kind.

We'll agree to disagree.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
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Re: If You Eat Meat You Are Not a Kagyupa - Karmapas and strict vegetarianism

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Tue Mar 23, 2021 1:39 pm
tobes wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 11:16 pm
Queequeg wrote: Mon Mar 22, 2021 4:46 pm

my five year old daughter doesn't want to eat meat because she just thinks its mean. if equanimity, kindness and great compassion are all that different from that, then I think something has gone wrong.

At this point in life, it just seems people overthink things. maybe I've devolved into a simpleton. maybe I need to learn the great thaumatological secrets.

frankly, your way seems too complicated.
Yes, to be honest I think there is a very big difference between the sentiments of a five year old and the actual realisations of mahakaruna. There is nothing is secretive about this, it is actually a matter of humility to recognise that having bodhicitta properly take stock in our mindstream is an incredible accomplishment. And it is rare. And it is all to easy to conflate this with mere virtuous sentiments and wishful thinking.
Nonsense. Mahakaruna is unaquired. It is coextensive with all beings and expresses as our selfless impulses - the love and concern of a parent for a child, the pull of empathy. That's not to say its untainted and undeveloped. Its not a difference of kind but difference of cultivation. Bodhicitta, too, is unacquired. If it was not there to begin with, it could not be manifest.
Mahakaruna is free of all references, but it begins with the development of regular old karuna. You are essentializing something that is not an essence and has no essence.

Bodhicitta is born out of compassion, it’s not an intrinsic quality of sentient beings.
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