Celebrate Serfs Day with E. Candler

thepeop

"Do as I say.
Not what I do."

Has the D L ever told people not to eat meat?

"I don't have a problem with a low level monk eating meat, but a monk that has reached the status of buddha should not eat meat.  "

HeavenSent- are you a Tbtn Buddhist?  What qualifications do you have to make that statement?

[ Last edited by thepeop at 2009-4-2 06:47 PM ]

expatter

Mr Candler has now changed from "My favourite Witness", to "My Friend"

I submit that he is a journalist author to me and that is where my relationship ends.

How very politic you managed with all that text to completely ignore a simple question.


I am not questioning a religious leader just asking for clarification of what they preach.
Surely, this religion is not so frail that it cannot tolerate one small question.

Forget Candler. I am personally interested in the answer.  Yes or No will do. Or even A, B, or C.  Thanks.


STATEMENT: Buddhists believe that all life is sacred and that you should not kill any living creature.

QUESTION: If you are a Buddhist and you know or are aware of the above statement.

Is it correct and within the beliefs of Buddhism to:

A)        Kill a living creature and eat it?

B)   Get someone else to kill a living creature and then eat it?

C)    You should not kill anything.

expatter

Thanks.

I suppose the feeling is that when we see a rule and believe that it is part of a set of beliefs we are surprised when it becomes elastic.

In our modern life we see meat as a product in a plastic pack in a supermarket and  maybe do not necessarily think about how it got there.

When we realize that 1,760,000 pigs a day are utilized in the food chain in just China alone, it is maybe something we don't want to think about too much.  Boy, oh boy, imagine the answer for chickens.  But like most people I enjoy meat and therefore it just becomes a statistic.  

Was it Stalin who said, " Kill one person it is murder. Kill a million it is a statistic".

Actually, when I was younger I read quite a lot about Buddhism and I was very impressed with its ideals and teachings. I even experienced an out of body event. I had a kind of peacefulness with the idea of Buddhism.  Unfortunately, later in my life subsequent readings and events showed me that the original ideas and theology are subject to the perversions of man and therefore politic.

Even the book 'Journey to the West' does not show the monk as a hero and purist but rather just a bigoted feeble and sometimes stupid man who achieves Nirvana.

When I read about Tbet and see that the reincarnation is taken from a peasant family and moulded by a Regent and that all the related people at the top are reincarnations of famous people it is just too much to take.  It seems that anybody can be stated as a Buddha just simply for political purposes. (Stephen Segal)  Coincidentally, all of the DL's family are famous reincarnations and all the leaders of the exiled government.  Then you read about the number of murders and poisonings within the Buddhist elite and you have a joke scenario going back hundreds of years.  Even the different sects of Buddhism cannot find the path to enlightenment between them.

Such a as shame as the original concepts like all faiths are truly inspiring.  

Then man turns this into political power and you have an empty hollow shell.

A political tool.

satsu_jin

It is a long story and there is no definite answer to it. In Buddha's earliest teachings, the Tripitaka, he did not forbid his disciples to eat meat.

Quote:

if meat were put into a monk's alms bowl, the monk was supposed to eat it. Monks were to gratefully receive and consume all food they were given, including meat.

As usual, there is no rule without exception.

Quote:


If monks knew or suspected that an animal had been slaughtered specifically to feed monks, they were to refuse to take the meat. On the other hand, leftover meat from an animal slaughtered to feed a lay family was acceptable.

The Buddha did exclude some kind of meat. It was strictly forbidden to eat horse, elephant, dog, snake, tiger,  leopard and bear meat. To eat any other kind of meat was permissible. In today's Theravada Buddhism, which includes Chinese, T b., Vietnamese, Korean and Japanese Buddhism, vegetarianism is encouraged but to eat meat is not prohibited. Mahayana Buddhism (Thailand, Cambodia, Myanmar and Sri Lanka) does emphasize vegetarianism but again, it is no strict rule. Even in Thailand we can find many Buddhists, incl. monks, who eat meat. Mahayana Buddhism does of course have some sects that follow the Lankavatara sutra, this means they are strict vegs.

Let's also not forget if a vegetarian does not eat meat he does use numerous other products that lead to animals being killed (soap, leather, serum, silk etc.) Why abstain from one while using the others? Even Southern India's Hindus (in Kerala for instance) do eat fish. I know only of one r3ligi0n that strictly prohibits killing of animals and this is Jainism.

HeavenSent

Originally posted by thepeop at 2009-4-2 18:46
HeavenSent- are you a Tbtn Buddhist?  What qualifications do you have to make that statement?

Wow....this is a hard question....let me think........
A. Maybe because I have a brain and am able to make an intelligent statement...
B. Maybe it's common sense...
C. Read expat's post for the answer...
D. all of the above.
Now an even harder question is....What qualifies you to question my opinion?

emucentral

Originally posted by HeavenSent at 2009-4-3 14:59
A. Maybe because I have a brain and am able to make an intelligent statement.....

Sorry, I haven't seen any evidence of that!

emucentral

Originally posted by seneca at 2009-3-30 21:54
We all have anecdotal insights in the religiosity of Chinese people; ancestor worship, burning of Hell's Money and paper objects of the deceased's desired objects etc. For a more personal revelation - consider your Eureka! experience in discovering the 8th of August last year that had you choose your present handle!

Game set and match, Seneca.

Now will Northwest/Augusten888 continue to criticise other people's religion while maintaining his own long standing superstitions ?

What hypocrisy!