Expert: Justin Choo - 5/21/2009

Question
I am new to Buddhism and have been trying to gradually transform my life into one of mindful living.  My concern is my diet and the diets of my husband and six children.  I want to completely understand the issues of eating meat and animal products as related to Buddhist teachings.  I am trying to understand fully what is considered acceptable and what is not.  Please help...

Answer
Hi Lisa,

Welcome to the path of contentment and inner peace.

The dietician will tell you that you are what you eat. The fashion designer will tell you that you are what you wear. The Buddha told us that we are what we think, speak, and act. You see the difference?

The world is surrounded by good and bad things. It is the very nature of this world to be such. That was why the Buddha led us to SEE the real nature of this world. Once we realize this truth, we will gradually come to terms with this contradiction, the dichotomy of good and bad. The Buddha referred this as "Dukkha". It is always this Dukkha that we have to live and contend with. If you watch the National Geographic programme, you will see this Dukkha overpowering our lives. Every moment, when a life lives, another life has to be sacrificed. This is great Dukkha. But we are blind to this fact. We ignorantly think that we can live without others dying for us. I shall not go further giving examples to convince you of this truth. The real exercise to realize this truth is to free our mind of all our preconceived ideas, and to open our minds, and then to think and observe rationally whether we can really survive without any being dying for us.

Coming back to a more down to earth explanation. The idea of not eating meat is to avoid KILLING. When we eat meat we are eating DEAD meat. Of course there is some justification to say that we are encouraging others to kill when we eat meat. If anyone feels that way, then there is no commandment from the Buddha that you must eat meat. By all means eat only vegetables. One thing for sure, you will be very healthy.

Vegetarianism and killing are two very different concepts. Killing means the taking of life. Vegetarianism is to refrain from eating meat and eating only non-meat products. A lot of people misconstrue vegetarianism with "not killing". Likewise, they also accuse those who eat meat as encouraging killing, if not committing killing itself. Eating meat means eating "dead flesh". The animal is dead. If the person who eats the meat does not kill the animal, how can we accuse him of killing? The main issue here is the interpretation of what constitutes "killing".

Now we come to the analysis of what constitute "Killing". A person will be fully responsible for the killing if the following 5 conditions are fulfilled:

1. The victim of the killing must be a living being.
2. The killer must know the victim is a being.
3. The killer must have the volition to kill the victim.
4. The action of killing must be performed by the killer.
5. The victim dies as a result of this act.

So you see, eating dead meat is not killing!

Having said that, I am convinced that being a vegetarian is a very wholesome decision and living a very healthy lifestyle as well.  If you can please be a vegetarian.  If can’t then try reduce consumption of meat, especially animal meat.  But remember, eating meat per se is not killing.

If you need more info, please come back.

Take care.

Justin Choo.

[I like to invite you to visit my blog:]
http://lifeislikethat999.blogspot.com/

[And these sites by Rev. Dhammika:]
http://sdhammika.blogspot.com/
http://www.buddhismatoz.com/