Can Buddhists eat meat?
Buddhism is a religion based on compassion. It teaches us to respect all life, not to commit killing, and not to eat the flesh of living beings. However, in modern society, some people misunderstand or ignore this teaching of Buddhism and think that eating meat is okay. Some people even use some convenient sayings in Buddhist scriptures to make excuses for their meat-eating behavior. These people not only violate the original intention of the Buddha, but also bring immeasurable suffering to themselves and all sentient beings.
Lay Buddhist Guoqing answered: Can Buddhists eat meat?
Question: Some people say that Buddhists can eat meat. They say, “Buddha’s precepts only say not to kill, but not to eat meat.” “You can eat the three pure types of meat.” You said in “Modern Cause and Effect” that eating meat will not only lead to retribution in the future, but will also bring many diseases to you in this life. Which statement is correct?
Meat-eating stories in “Modern Cause and Effect”
Answer: The stories in “The Record of Modern Cause and Effect” are just a few of the countless examples I have personally encountered. And for more than ten years, examples have appeared in front of me almost every day. The harm of eating meat is so great, and the pain it has caused us is indescribable.
What is the three pure meats? Why give up meat?
The so-called “three pure meats” can be eaten. This is the Buddha’s convenient explanation for those new believers in Buddhism who are unable to give up meat for a while. It is the meaning of cutting off meat in stages as described in “The Lankavatara Sutra” (translated by Bodhiliu). As this person continues to If you recite the Buddha’s name and recite the sutras and understand the truth, you will naturally quit smoking. It is like trying to persuade a person who smokes two packs of cigarettes a day to quit smoking. Just smoke until you quit smoking. Of course, there are also people who are determined to stop smoking, drinking, and eating immediately. This is the behavior of Mahayana practitioners. The Mahayana Lankavatara Sutra (translated by Shisha Nanda) says: A Bodhisattva has compassion for all living beings as if he were his own body. How can he think of eating when he sees them?
Why did Shakyamuni Buddha oppose eating meat?
With the dignity of a prince, Prince Siddhartha left his glory and wealth to practice asceticism until he attained enlightenment under the bodhi tree and became Sakyamuni Buddha. He was the only one in the world. Why did so many people later learn from him? Because what he taught The Dharma is the truth in the universe, which has been confirmed by practice over the past three thousand years. The prohibition of eating the flesh of living beings was affirmed by the World Honored One long ago, and it was definitely not advocated by Emperor Wu of Liang after arriving in China.
Buddhist teachings: Why shouldn’t you eat meat?
The “Four Pure Instructions of the Surangama Sutra” and “Entering the Surangama Sutra: Covering Eating Meat” explain clearly why we cannot eat the flesh of living beings and why the disciples of the Buddha at that time could eat the five pure kinds of meat. If anyone today says, “Buddha did not say not to eat meat,” it is probably because he does not understand Buddhist scriptures.
Four Pure Instructions”: The Buddha’s Admonitions to Ananda
For the convenience of readers, a section of the Buddha’s teachings in “Four Kinds of Purity and Clarity” is recorded as follows:
“Ananda, in all the worlds and the six realms of sentient beings, if the intention is not to kill, then there will be no continuation of their birth and death. When you practice Samadhi, you are born out of worldly toils. If you do not get rid of the killing intention, you will not be able to escape from the worldly world. Even if you have much wisdom and meditative concentration, If you continue to kill, you will surely fall into the divine way. Those in the upper grade are powerful ghosts, and those in the middle grade are flying yakshas and other ghost commanders. Those in the lower grade should be earthly rakshasas. Those ghosts and gods also have disciples, and each of them is said to have reached the supreme path. . After I pass away, in the Dharma End, there are many ghosts and gods, blazing in the world, who say that eating meat is the way to Bodhi. Ananda, I ask monks to eat the five pure meats. These meats are all transformed by my divine power and have no life root. You are a Brahmin. Steam and wet more, add sand and gravel, and the grass and vegetables will not grow. I added it with the divine power of great compassion. Because of my great compassion, I gave it the name of meat, and you can get its taste. However, after the Tathagata passed away, eating the flesh of living beings was called Shizi. You should know that this is Carnivores, even if their hearts are as open as samadhi, are great Rakshasa, and will eventually sink into the sea of suffering in life and death. They are not disciples of the Buddha. Such people kill and devour each other, and do not stop eating each other. How can such people come out of the three realms? You teach people in the world to practice samadhi and stop killing. This is called the Tathagata, the first Buddha, the World Honored One, and the second decision is to teach pure and clear things. Therefore, Ananda, if you do not stop killing and practice meditation, it is like someone plugging his own ears and shouting loudly, I beg you not to hear that this is called “desire to hide and reveal”. Pure bhikkhus and bodhisattvas walk on the Qi Road without stepping on the grass. If they pull it up with their hands, how can they be so compassionate that they take the flesh and blood of living beings and feed them. If the bhikkhus do not accept the silk of the East, Silk and silk, as well as this soil, boots and fur are velvet, cheese is delicious, such a bhikkhu is truly free from the world, repays old debts, and does not travel to the three realms. Why? Submit his identity, all for that purpose, just like a person eating the land In the midst of a hundred valleys, one foot will not leave the ground. It will surely make the body and mind, in all sentient beings, if the body, body, mind and body are not fed, I say this is the person who is truly liberated. If I say this, it is called the Buddha’s saying. If you don’t say this , that is, Bo Xun said.”
The difference between five pure meat and three pure meat
The reason why the Buddha used his divine power to manifest the “five pure meats” that originally had no life roots (compared to the three pure meats – no killing, no hearing, no killing, more self-death and dead birds) was because the weather in India was hot at that time. The ground is steamed and wet, and is mostly made of sand and stones. Grass and vegetables cannot grow, and the animals that appear have no life roots. They are pseudonymous meat, not real meat, just like the incarnation of Wukong transformed by Sun Wukong using vellus hairs in “Journey to the West” , not a physical body with a life root. In the Lotus Sutra, the transformed city appears in front of you with just one thought, and the bird in the Amitabha Sutra also appears. Therefore, in the special environment of ancient times, the Buddha was still alive and the Sangha appeared. In the natural environment where it was impossible to abstain from meat, the Buddha had no choice but to use his divine power to manifest animals without life roots. After the Buddha’s nirvana*1, Buddhism spread all over the world. There are no animals that can manifest the Buddha’s power. Why do we still have to use the excuse of alchemy when the Buddha was alive and what the people gave us to eat, so that today’s Buddhist disciples can break the precepts established by the Buddha? Woolen cloth?
Brahma Net Sutra: The Importance of the Abstinence from Killing and Eating Carnivores
The Buddha told all the disciples of the Buddha in the Brahma Net Sutra: There are ten levels of Parati Musha (precepts). The first of these is the precept to kill: The Buddha said that if a Buddha commits suicide, he teaches others to kill, he kills conveniently, he praises him to kill, he rejoices when he sees it, he even curses him to kill, the cause of killing, the reason for killing, the method of killing, the karma of killing, and even all the destiny. Those who are killed are not allowed to kill them intentionally. This Bodhisattva should always have a heart of compassion and filial piety to save all sentient beings, but if he kills living beings with his own heart and pleasure, it is a Bodhisattva Parayi sin.
Regarding the meat-eating precept, the Buddha said: If a Buddha eats meat, all sentient beings will not be able to eat meat. Those who eat meat will cut off the seeds of the great compassionate Buddha nature. All sentient beings see it and abandon it. Therefore, all Bodhisattvas are not allowed to eat the flesh of all living beings. Eating meat is an infinite sin.
“Ksitigarbha Sutra”: The evil consequences of eating meat
Looking back at the Ksitigarbha Sutra, isn’t it because Guangmu’s mother “only likes to eat fish and turtles?” She eats fish and turtles and eats more of their sons, frying or boiling them, and eats them as much as she wants, counting their lives. Thousands of times.” and fall into the lower realms?
There is no need to give any more examples. The statement that “Buddha did not teach us not to eat meat” is completely false. The great masters of all ages have told us to “go deep into the scriptures and gain wisdom like the sea.” Master Yinguang, the recognized thirteenth ancestor of the Pure Land Sect, told us to “abstain from eating meat” (see “Master Yinguang’s Notes” for details).
“Surangama Sutra” and “Surangama Sutra”: How to see through the fallacy of eating meat
In today’s era, reading the “Surangama Sutra” is a top priority, and the “Four Pure Instructions” and “Fifty Kinds of Evil Demons” are even more important. We must also read the “Net Jing” several times to understand it deeply, and we will have the ability to distinguish between truth and falsehood.
As for those who preach that the Buddha and his disciples also eat meat, as stated in the Lankavatara Sutra, they will spend a long night in a place of no benefit, no saints, and no listening to the Dharma, and they will not be able to see the sage disciples of the present and future. See the Buddhas Tathagata.”
