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| (Dan Piraro/bizarrocomics.com) |
"San Dee" (Pfc. Sandoval) has let go of eating meat for Lent. So like Ananda's friend Doggone, who tried to muscle his way to meditation, Wisdom Quarterly asks, How's this special Buddhist-Catholic Lent going? Let's find out.
WQ: Why abstain from meat for Lent?
SD: A little research reveals that the whole reason for Lent was to give up flesh eating. [Carnival is a Latin derived term that means "remove meat."]
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| "Forget Lent. Eat it! Devour any bloody flesh you desire." |
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| Looks like he's dead. Let's eat him! - You crazy? |
What makes a human human? Biologically it's our culture and DNA, but rebirth is NOT random. That, according to the Buddha, happens by past and present deeds (actions = karma).
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| Butchering is hard, but it's good eating, huh? |
It's the most basic thing. Every being wants to live, wishes not to die, so how can one honestly go around killing -- or more often causing butchers to kill by paying them for the slaughtered flesh they produce in a bloody pool of salmonella and feces from the entrails? That's be pure hypocrisy. I was tired of being a hypocrite. Karma is a better way.
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| Not only would I not kill, I wouldn't ask anyone to kill for me |
People say the Buddha didn't order anyone to do this or that. He didn't force anyone to be a vegetarian. He did, however, talk about kindness, compassion, happiness-n-the-happiness of others, and treating everyone in an unbiased way as the supreme (brahma) abodes (viharas) or ways of abiding in the world.
More than that, he laid down monastic rules for Buddhist monks and nuns in his order (Sangha) saying meat should never be eaten under four circumstances:
- When one has seen
- heard
- or suspects that an animal had been killed for one;
- or when it is a particular kind of animal [human, bear, tiger, etc.]
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| Give the whole world your metta. |
It shows that even when not killing oneself, to induce, suggest, pay, or seem to promote the killing of animals should never be done. It is bad karma, a violation of monastic rules, and a complete contradiction to the entire spirit of nonharming (ahimsa).
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| Buddha's Heart (S. Snyder) |
But people make excuses, crave flesh, and rationalize themselves into terrible karma and terrible health and die with all the deaths they caused on their heads. Deeds (karma, actions) will bear their results (vipaka and phala). It doesn't seem to do it fast enough to stop anybody, but it is a regularity of the universe, an impersonal "law."
But isn't difficult to remove meat?
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| Whoever doesn't love cows doesn't know them. |
But there's every flavor. There are faux burgers for the textures and savoriness we're used to. It's all available 100% plant-based. Why would anybody kill or encourage others to kill -- at least for blooming Lent. C'mon, it's not like becoming a hermit in an ashram for life or in a Himalayan cave for death.
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| Thank you for letting me live and for this flower. |
WQ: Wiki has a lot to say about Buddhist vegetarianism in Mahayana, the dominant school. That's next to look at more closely. It's enough that it's clear in Theravada, even though it's not a rule for laypersons.
Doggone is jealous of you, SD, that you are able to stick to it, and we're all proud and happy to see the positive changes and your improved health.
The flesh trade is so bad it's prohibited
Wisdom Quarterly translation, Vanijja Sutta ("Business Discourse")
"They are business [buying, selling, trading, commerce] in: 1) weapons, 2) living beings [such as human trafficking], 3) MEATS, 4) intoxicants, and 5) poisons. These are the five kinds of business a lay follower refrains from engaging in" (AN 5.177).
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