Vegetarianism and Buddhism

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America's Sexiest Vegetarian
Real men and women eat tofu, spinach, veggies, and colorful desserts. So sorry Jessica Simpson, not all real women eat meat...or men for that matter. Here is our list of the hottest vegetarians on Earth, at least according to PETA. Apparently tofu also does a body good! Grey food advocates can only stop and wonder.

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PHOTOS: Alec Baldwin, Gwenyth Paltrow, Robert Redford, Petra Nemcova, Samuel L. Jackson, Brigitte Bardot

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Avalokitateshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion (Desert Lotus Zen)

Buddhist View on Vegetarianism
(The Extended Circle by Jon Wynne-Tyson)

It is not true that meat is proper food and permissible when the animal was not killed by oneself, when one did not order others to kill it, when it was not specially meant for one. Again, there may be some people in the future who...being under the influence of the taste for meat will string together in various ways sophistic arguments to defend meat eating. But...meat eating in any form, in any manncr, and in any place is unconditionally and once for all prohibited....Meat eating I have not permitted to anyone, I do not permit, I will not permit (Lankavatara Sutra).

The reason for practicing dhyana [jhana or concentration of mind and seeking to attain samadhi (equilibrium; tranquility; heightened and expanded awareness) is to escape from the suffering of life. But in seeking to escape from suffering ourselves, why should we inflict it upon others? Unless you can so control your minds that even the thought of brutal unkindness and killing is abhorrent, you will never be able to escape from the bondage of the world's life...After my Parinirvana [final nirvana] in the last aeon [the time between the start of a world cycle and its extinction] different kinds of ghosts will be encountered everywhere deceiving people and teaching them that they can eat meat and still attain enlightenment....How can a one who hopes to become a deliverer of others, oneself be living on the flesh of other sentient beings? (Surangama Sutra)

The eating of meat extinguishes the seed of great compassion (Mahaparinirvana).

I [King Asoka] have enforced the law against killing certain animals and many others, but the greatest progress of righteousness among men comes from the exhortation in favor of non-injury to life and abstention from killing living-beings (King Asoka's Edicts).

Hurt not others with that which pains yourself (Udanavarga)

By whosoever no evil is done in deed, word, or thought, that person I call a brahmin who is guarded in these three (Dhammapada).

The Buddha has mercy even on the smallest thing (Vinaya, Cullavagga Khandhaka).

To serve the creatures is to serve the Buddha (Indian proverb).

All beings seek happiness, so let your compassion extend itself to all (Mahavamsa).

The Noble Eightfold Path or Middle Way -- right views, right resolve, right speech, right action, right living, right effort, right attention, right meditation...which lead to the extinction of suffering and Nirvana (Buddha's first sermon, Vinaya, Mahavagga).

The Goddess of Mercy has a thousand hands -- and needs them all (Japanese proverb).

One who, seeking one's own happiness, punishes or kills beings who also long for happiness will not find happiness after death (Dhammapada).

Let one not destroy or cause to be destroyed any life at all, nor sanction the acts of those who do so. Let one refrain from hurting any creature, both those that are strong and those that tremble in the world (Sutta Nipata).

Because one has pity on every living creature is one called "holy" (Dhammapada).

Full of love for all things in the world, practicing virtue, in order to benefit others, this person alone is happy (Dhammapada).

One act of pure love in saving life is greater than spending the whole of one's time in religious offerings to the gods (Dhammapada).

Some comments from readers
1. Many sources say the Buddha died from eating bad mushrooms, not pork. It is understood that the Buddha taught his disciples against killing animals, but since they were to live on alms, to accept meat given to them so long as the animal had not been killed specifically for their benefit. However, people who offered food to the Buddha would have certainly known his preference for vegetarian meals, so may have prepared fitting food.

2. While there have been arguments that he ate meat when it was given as an alm, there are just as many arguments to the contrary (See To Cherish all Life by Roshi P. Kapleau). It is against the basic tenants of Buddhism to eat meat, and only those who whish to justify meat eating will argue differently.

3. The Buddha was most certainly a vegetarian. There are many sutras [discourses] composed after his death containing almost any imaginable sort of distortion or misrepresentation of the original teachings, so the fact that some sutra somewhere (or even many) claim that he ate meat is in itself meaningless. The only important criterion is what those sutras which are indisputably authentic say. These, without exception, very strongly advocate, even mandate, vegetarianism. I am a medical student at the Albert Einstein Collge of Medicine in NYC, and was a history major concentrating on Asian history, at Cornell U. I have lived in Japan for two and a half years, and my wife is Japanese and Buddhist. (She eats meat, just as many Christians do not forgive their enemies, etc. The practice of the nominal followers of the founder of a religion is no guide to the lives or even teachings of that founder).

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