Vegetarianism Veganism & Buddhism
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- Опубліковано 3 бер 2020
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You being 56 is either the best advert for zazen I've seen or a damning indictment of my own 37yo face. HBD fella.
I read when asked, "Why he was a vegetarian?" Alan Watts replied, "Because carrots don't scream as load."
Whoa!
So we should have more compassion for those who scream the loudest?
Besides Alan was not a vegetarian. He was more concerned with appreciating what, how, and with whom he ate. He wrote a great essay "Murder in the Kitchen." Worth reading if you can find it.
Thanks for this David. You made me want to go back and re-read Watts' essay "Murder in the Kitchen." It appears in a small collection of Watts' essays called "Does It Matter? Essays on Man's Relation to Materiality." The whole book, as well as this particular essay, is excellent. Watts had a real knack for expressing difficult philosophical ideas in clear, everyday language that most anyone can understand. The quote you posted appears in this essay, but it was not said by Alan Watts. He was quoting something R.H. Blyth had said to him. Watts said this was basically Blyth "being easy on his own feelings." Anyway, the essay and book are both great and a bit of a departure from Watts' more well known subject matter.
Jamie Caster thanks for clarifying. I don’t remember where I read it.
@Timothy Samson No. Why?
I think I am similar to you in a few ways here. I am in my third year of university now, became a vegan last year because I wanted to live a more compassionate life. I try to never reveal that I am a vegan, because especially nowadays with environmental-consciousness people always tell me how they are trying to be more vegan, when they hear I am one, but they just love ham/cheese/eggs too much etc. This answer bugs me, but I never tell them this. And as part of trying to live a compassionate life, I don't criticise others or think my morals or values are above anyone else's. Also, my girlfriend is not vegetarian/vegan, but she still would make meals with me without meat and that means a lot to me. Thanks for the video!
56?!?! you look like a late 30s dork! Happy born-day, love your stuff.
It's good genes and all the positive vibes and zazen
I thought you were 2 decades younger, until you mentioned your Birthday.
Love your videos AND your music. Even when you talk, it is so beautifully musical.
Thank you for enriching the world. 🌸🌹🌻
I would say the opposite - by making it clear you are a vegetarian or better still by being a vegan you have an opportunity to save beings from pain by your example. There are plenty of vegan options and recipes so if you let your hosts know if advance they would probably be more than happy to feed you vegan. If Thich Nhat Hanh and Matthieu Ricard can survive this way so surely can you
You're obviously living right if you're two years older than me and look 25 years younger than me.
Happy birthday, Brad.
Please please make a video explaining the Oriyoki thing.
I went to a 3 day Sesshin and we had to eat like that and it was damn confusing the amount of rules!
The problem is, the only version of oryoki I ever did was already very simplified. I've never done the really complicated version.
My first sangha was Taiwanese Chan and it's quite the opposite to Japanese Zen apparently. The monks I practiced with were very hardcore about not eating meat and they really made a point of it, especially if you were taking refuge and the precepts. Their philosophy was, you're making this commitment to practicing the dharma and that includes not only what comes out of your mouth but also what goes in.
So when I started sitting with western run Zen sanghas that was one of the major differences I noticed right away. If animal consumption was even brought up at all, it was mostly in passing and how its probably a good idea if you could do it, but you know, it's hard so go easy on yourself. If there was any discussion about it, most people were quick to roll out a litany of rationalizations.
That's interesting. I knew a Taiwanese woman in Japan who ran a little vegetarian restaurant. She was also a Buddhist and considered Japanese Buddhists to be a bunch of phonies. For multiple reasons.
I think there's a section at the end of the Lankavatara sutra that recommends vegetarianism.
Happy birthday Brad!
In the days of Carnivorous diets and hyper keto meat consumption it's refreshing to hear this
HBD BRAD!🎂🎉 I’m reading your book “The other side is nothing”. A comfortable read, easy and fun. Being a follower of Karma Kagyu tradition I have read some deep Tibetan Sutra’s. I enjoy your book. Sometimes people ask me about the meat thing too.
I just say look Buddha was a beggar for food,so I don’t think he would throw the meat back and say “sorry I’m a vegetarian.😅
"If you eat a piece of Shunryu Suzuki, then Shunryu Suzuki can sit zazen with you." What is there in the teaches from Peaches?
Could you do another video in which you offer a solid Buddhist argument for being vegetarian? Because, in our modern world where we don't have to beg for alms, even monks, I think there is a strong interpretation of the first precept that recommends not eating any dead animals.
Always enjoy your discourses. I have a hard time finding a grey ethical line with not eating meat. I have been a vegan since the early 70s - lived all over the US, and travel often throughout North America and Europe - and can not recall ever having much difficulty sticking to a vegan diet. I, like you, hate vegan jerks like the one who disrupted Biden’s speech.
I find it more difficult in some countries than in others. Certain people who host me have gotten really weird about it, like it upset them for some reason.
Vegetarian and that's enough for me, describes me too, tho I'm still careful of gelatin and lards and such, don't enjoy stomach after if I miss some...with a bow, Jikai
hope you’ve considered making the step to veganism, dairy and egg industry is completely inseparable from the meat and killing, not to mention the rape and torture and general backwardness of it all
Update: since I came back from Deer Park Monastery in Jan 2021, I started eating animal food that fall...kind of a Rumspringer. Was concerned a little with maybe not getting some bases covered nutritionaly...the horrific suffering still remains. I don't have the best source for food relying on alms basically from food banks/family. Hoping to eat mostly plant based starting the New Year in 2024...and I'll probably return to Deer Park for another exploration of the monastic path.
I bring up vegetarianism when people complain to me about health problems and so on. They stop, we change the subject. Nothing changes. It's all good.
My personal guideline is also based on group harmony: I prefer to keep a non-meat diet if left to my own devices, but on major holidays with family like Thanksgiving, I will go with what the group custom is.
You mention at about 2:40 that there is no "rule" in Buddhism that you have to be a vegetarian. If you take a look at the Mahayana canon, there are multiple sutras that do in fact make this point. (See the Mahaparinirvana Sutra, the Lankavatara, the Surangama, the Brahmajala, and the Sutra of Manjusri's Questions as examples.)
Also with regard to ascetics who lived by begging at the time of the Buddha, it's worth noting that the Jains were vegetarians and lived by begging (they had the morning round, which is why the Buddhists got the noontime rounds), so that doesn't appear to have been a problem.
I'm not sure if anything in the sutras can be considered to be a "rule." But the sutras you mentioned are quite long. Can you help me find those "rules?" I'd like to see what they actually say.
No, Buddha did not make such a point. Heck, one of Buddha's cousins even wanted him to force his disciples to become vegetarias if they wanted to become monks, to which Buddha REFUSED. You're just taking his suttas out of context god awfully..
A pilgrim was traveling during a famine. There had been no food or water for a week. Off in the distance he spotted a restaurant there in the wastes. He went in and it was crowdedwith hungry diners wolfing down their bowls of sustenance. He took a seat and the wait person asked him what he wanted, chicken or rhino shit. He asked, "Is the chicken organic?" There's the purity test. Happy 56, I'll be 77 in 2 weeks.
Funny! And happy early birthday.
I remember the days when I was hanging out with Tim McCarthy and he expressed a concern about what he was going to eat for dinner. I happened to have a chicken burger from Burger King that I wasn't going to eat anyway, so I offered it to him. Since I like my chicken burgers plain, Tim thought that it was kind of dry, but he was appreciative of it anyway.
Have you ever been to a VegFest, Brad?
Is that in LA? I think I did go one year.
you and my mom share the same birth day , not the age though. happy new year (of being alive)
Happy 56th Birthday, Brad!
Sean Champion-Taylor Wow, I always thought Brad was in his 40s.
Thanks!
Some of us vegans don't care about animals. We just really hate plants.
I used to joke to people that I wasn't a vegetarian because I love animals, it was because I hate plants.
@@HardcoreZen It's an old joke. I heard Moby tell it a long time ago on a televised interview.
Where they being jerks? If this was about human suffering, jumping up on stage to make a point wouldn't be considered being a jerk.
eeeexactly. people think vegans are jerks because they confront their greatest cognitive dissonance
The cow in my stomach sitting zazen with me??!! HAHAHA, I LOVE IT!
Happy Birthday Brad! Hope you have a great birthday!
Thanks!
Yes! Habit. It’s what we do by default. My analogy is “put a dirty can on a plate. Is that food? To me, animals aren’t food.”
I'm curious, what is your opinion about Sadhguru?
I've seen that he does videos on UA-cam but I've never watched any. So I don't have an opinion.
@@HardcoreZen Alright, well if you happen to check him out, it would certainly make for an interesting video
Search for him online, there are quite a few controversies surrounding him and his organization.
i don’t really think that carrot vs cow vs carrot distinction is all that helpful or profound, considering a) cow and human might as well be identical life forms in comparison to cow and carrot and b) that we argue for veganism mainly on the grounds of an understanding of suffering and compassion. we know what it is like to suffer, and any open-hearted human can see when a cow is being enclosed in awful conditions, forcibly inseminated, having children and mother robbed from each other, killed, etc that there is pain and fear there.
this is also why i think in the contemporary world, especially in a developed place, it is only right to be vegan, buddhist or otherwise. vegetarianism is participation in the same industry, and minding the basic precept of not taking what is not offered, we are absolutely wrong to be taking the milk designated for a baby cow and paying for slavery to continue.
It’s not a joke it’s true
Happy 56
Pretty sure shoujin mean "devotion".
In Japan, it tends to be a way of saying "vegetarian." It might literally mean devotion, but the only way I recall hearing the word being used when I lived in Japan was in reference to vegetarian food.
@@HardcoreZen Yeah, that is also the only use I have heard, too. I recall that a relatively recent edition of Kyoto Journal has a discussion on the term, but I don't remember which edition. But it was all about shoujin ryouri.
Happy Birthday! Good video. I’m a veg because I don’t need to eat meat and precept 1 is pretty clear. I was vegan for a few years until colon surgery, then wanted to get some protein from yogurt/eggs/cheese. I care about life and try not to kill moths, spiders, ladybugs, birds, cows, etc. I don’t judge but have my own way. Gassho
His teacher, Tim McCarthy was definitely NOT vegetarian. In fact, he advised me not to worry about the slab of hamburger I got from the local butcher shop. He even accepted a chicken sandwich I got from Burger King when he was worried about what he was going to have for dinner.
Great. My teacher was his teacher; Kobun Chino. He never told me not to eat meat either. I said I don’t judge. However, when attending Sesshins at his temple (Jikoji), you are not served meat. Many priests outside monasteries eat meat. Great.
@@dhtm3577 One story Tim McCarthy told me about Kobun Chino was that he was on the phone with someone and looked disturbed. Then after the phone call Kobun said to Tim "Gay people want me to talk to them. What do I say to gay people?" Tim told him that they probably want some sort of alternative to the Christian view and to not worry about it.
One of my other teachers at the time was Rev. Koshin Ogui (who was the minister at the Cleveland Buddhist temple). He was kind of interesting.
I am guessing that Brad Warner knows me because I was a student of Tim at about the same time he was (1986 to 1990 or so).
My family and I became vegetarians because of the environmental problems
Can you do Buddhism and Feminism next?
Oh, you're new here, aren't you?
Yeah for sure
You really want to get me in trouble!
It’s good for the views 😉
I've been vegan 6 years. Veganism is what vegetarianism was for many of these spiritual practitioners thousands of years ago. THey didnt have terrible factory farms and dairy practices where the mothers are impregnated over and over again, and their calfs removed.
I really appreciate how Thich Naht Hahn actually takes a pretty firm stand on this and advocates for veganism. How are we to save all beings and reduce suffering if we don't practice this moral baseline...???
Buddha was not a vegan nor a vegetarian, he ate what he was served (that included meat/pork). He didn't force vegetarianism nor veganism on his disciples (one of Buddha's cousins wanted him to force his disciples to be vegetarians if they wanted to become monks, which he refused..). Vegetarianism and veganisms are not requirements of enlightenment either (in fact it's the opposite cause they cause ego/clinging/attachment/etc.). Your eating habits is surface level and it ain't gonna stop the pain, suffering and death of other beings (it's utopic). Do you want to actually stop it? Be a vet. Work at an animal care center. Go out and clean beaches from toxic residues like plastic and oil (you can graciously protest for that as well). Adopt abandoned animals. Heck, even something as "simple" (it really isn't lol) as moving insects from your backyard to safer places before getting rid of weed prevents the pain and death of smaller life forms. Etc. ALL without attachment of course.
As more and more characteristics of sentience are found in plants, I wonder how meaningful the distinction between a carrot and a cow really is.
I know what you mean since chickens are just carrots with a nervous system.
Insert panpsychism here
Pretty obvious if you ask me
I'm starting to wonder what meaningful distinction there is between you and a carrot
@@matthewjbradley Well, could you agree that the difference is quantitative rather than qualitative? Are you aware of this research? www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-record-stressed-out-plants-emitting-ultrasonic-squeals-180973716/ Alan Watts might more accurately have said, "Because carrots don't scream in a frequency range I can hear at all." My point is that reality doesn't draw an objective line about this...we humans are left to draw a subjective one for some reason we come up with.
The idea that Joe Biden may one day have faded from collective memory- wow, yesterday was truly a happier time 😫
I didn't mean to insult the guy.
05:29 nosferatu
Thank you for this video. I'm glad you mentioned that you considered being vegan. I was a dairy ignoramus until my fifties - I knew there was milk because cows „give” milk. Then for a few years I was an eco vegetarian because cows from green pastures „give” milk, don't suffer and are killed humanely (whatever that means). To me, vegans seemed like a nice sect that went a little overboard with their views. Then I learned and saw (Earthling Ed, the movie Dominion and others) that „getting” milk (and the whole dairy industry) means one thing - raping a cow, killing her baby and taking/stealing her milk intended for that baby (and then killing the mother cow). And that the whole dairy industry is a carefully concealed one big suffering and death of sentient beings like us, who have their own social lives, friendships, memories, games... For several years my 8-year-old son, wife and I have been vegan, and it is so obvious to us that it could not be more so. Too bad I got there so late. (My) ignorance knows no bounds... If I can contribute to reducing suffering in such a simple way then the choice is simple. If someone is an (ethical) vegetarian out of ignorance, I understand - it seems ethical to him. If one is an ethical vegetarian knowing what it means for billions of beings: suffering, fear, separation, death then, as you say, such an “ethical” vegetarian is like being a semi-celibate, a celibate who sometimes has sex. Or like being a Nazi Buddhist - yes, I take life but "for good reasons", killing only Jews, and even that humanely and quickly, in gas chambers...
Good luck on the road to veganism Brad, I hope you’ve become one since recording this video... :)
As they say - we vegans are not crazy, we are just from the future....
Finally it's all about minimizing the suffering (even at a price of being a jerk)
I'm married to an organic farmer. I've heard her say that her work involves a lot of killing. She picks slugs off plants and plops them into a bucket of water to drown. She painstakingly picks aphids and stink bugs and such pests off plants and collects them in a ziplock bag where they eventually expire. The farm has cats whose job it is to kill mice, rats, rabbits and so forth who nibble on the food. There's just no escaping it. If you are alive, you depend on the death of other things.
Yeah but come on , you can do your best within reason , dehydrating a calf to death to make veal taste better is ethical light years away from pest control of vegetables on a farm
@@jambonsambo I certainly agree.
@@jambonsambo calves can get dehydrated by lack of water during transport to the abattoir, but i don't know of any "intentionality" of inducing dehydration to improve veal "quality"
It's true.
@@osip7315 It has been anecdotally relayed to me by people from farming backgrounds that it has been a common practice , at least in my country to dehydrate calves coming up to slaughter to somehow enhance the flavor of the meat. Veal calves are still made intentionally anemic by restricting their movement , nutrition and keeping them in the dark in order to keep their meat paler.
The body and the blood my friends. Not a jot of it can be denied. God eating god eating god.
Ha! A Tool fan I see..
Thanks. What about buying meat? Some people argue that buying meat in a supermarket has nothing with killing. I think this is but a kind of lame excuse.
It's hard to say. On the one hand, a single person buying or not buying meat will have no real difference on the number of animals being slaughtered. On the other hand, by buying it you are supporting that industry. Then again, I support the meat industry to some degree when I buy yogurt or cheese.
If you pay a hitman to kill someone you’re still paying for someone to die.
First!
I've been thinking about my diet in light of the first grave precept, which is formulated as "I take up the way of supporting life" where I practice. Here's where I've landed: caring for agricultural animals in a compassionate way, granting them the opportunity to experience sentience and express their natural behaviors, and giving them a death relatively free from stress and pain could actually be a life-supporting practice. I realize there are all kinds of complications when it comes to verifying that the meat you consume has been produced in this way. But I'd like to establish that in theory, it's possible and even desirable, and then work to make it an alternative for those who feel they cannot be healthy without meat. For my part, I've found a farm in another state with the best reputation out there for humane and sustainable treatment of animals, and I order all my meat products exclusively from them. I would love some feedback from Brad or other Buddhist-minded folks.
There isn't a humane way of killing and eating a non-human animal.
Agricultural animals are bred into a prison, live in a prison and are killed in a prison for your sensory desire. Supporting life and killing life is a contradiction. You don’t grant them the opportunity to experience sentience, they grant that to themselves.
You can’t justify what you do to victim because you gave something to them, it’s about what you are taking. Even the best raised, ‘humanely’ slaughtered animals in animal agriculture are killed about 20 years before their life expectancy. You ‘grant’ them 2 years of experiencing existence, you take away 20 years of experiencing existence.
it seems like you are just looking for some way to continue the practice of eating animals and animal products…
You need to do more research, buddy.
Hi Brad and thanks again for a good video. I am a buddhist practitioner and teacher, and was a vegetarian for 15 years. Then a friend of mine, who'se had a lot of stomach problems and tried everything from veganism to gluten free etc, told me that he had started to eat just meat and vegetables. He had heard this from Dr Jordan Peterson's video where he talks his and his daughters severe depression and severe arthritis that got healed due to shifting from vegetarianism to eating meat and veggies. Friend of mine told me his gut and skin problems disappeared in couple of weeks by eating meat and veggies, nothing else. When he told me about the constant hunger and tiredness he had as a vegetarian, a light bulb went on in my head because that's what I had been suffering off for years. So, I tried meat last Summer and my energy levels went up for me to feel normal again. All that tiredness and being hungry all the time, that I had for years, was gone. So, I started eating meat, a little bit on most meals. Quantity-wise I eat much less nowadays than I used to with carbs and plant based proteins, like soy.
I practice tantric buddhism where meat eating is common. However, from my zen days, I had absorbed the idea that a meditator should be a vegetarian in the same way everyone else does. It kind of just comes with the package and I've seen over the years how meat eaters are viewed or frowned among buddhist communities. Anyway, one can actually say prayers for the animals that gave their lives for one's food. Buddhist prayers, like chanting a short prayer, for the animal/s is actually very beneficial for them. Exceptionally beneficial in the vast wheel of life and samsara, in fact. With subtle perception one can actually feel how the prayers affect the past animals. I view this as a great service and return for the spirits of the animals.
Anyway, I guess my point is that vegetarianism doesn't only have health benefits and it can actually be the opposite. Thanks again.
Even though I'm a vegetarian, I do not believe that vegetarianism is natural for humans. I'm sure we evolved to eat mostly vegetables, but also a certain amount of meat. It's probably best for our health to eat some meat. I just can't bring myself to do it cuz it grosses me out too much. If I developed any health problems that were obviously and demonstrably connected to my all-vegetarian diet, I might try to choke down some meat. But I honestly dislike it a lot.
@@HardcoreZen Eating meat to me for the first few months was like the second challenge in Fear Factor... but it worked.
@@HardcoreZen in my view you are showing mental health problems from being vegetarian, you are in some really crazy space that the net and your reading audience validate somehow
another way of putting it, is you are intellectually "slumming"
as regards your "mental health" i don't have the slightest expectation you will take what i am saying "on board", but this is friendly advice and not a put down or disparagement
I know I'm a bit late coming into this conversation, but I really appreciate it! I heard a monk at a talk from the Theosophical Society say that you take on some negative karma from eating meat. I've lived with an autoimmune illness for over 30 years. I did try to be a vegetarian, I would like to be. However, my health and energy levels declined. I also heard the Dalai Lama say that he doesn't feel well on a vegetarian diet! So, I think it does have to be an individual choice, taking into consideration our own health. Wasn't that the Buddha's point, after all? He advocated The Middle Way, no extreme austerities. You have to have enough energy and health to study and to practice the Dharma. Brad, I love your books and am so happy I discovered your channel. Namaste! 🙏
Eating meat breaks the first precept...change my mind
Eating anything breaks the first precept.
Right. There is clear evidence that all food crops create deaths. But over all plant foods create far less deaths.
It doesn't. You clearly haven't read enough for you to be so bold about it.
Erm, wasn't one of Buddha's teachings "Do No Harm"???????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Guess that doesn't apply to the animals who are being murdered even more for vegetarians????
Second!
I get the impression that veganism in Buddhism is used as practice to show others they can’t actually succeed at not harming others.
Then, once they student realizes he can’t truly live up to the actual standard of being vegan, he then forgives evil doers, let’s go of grudges, and transcends the dynamic of being ‘all mighty and self righteous’
Transcends the game of ‘oh you don’t eat meat, but I don’t eat eggs, or milk or...etc’
Kinda like the idea that chasing nirvana is the reason you’re not in it. So how would you get someone to stop chasing?
By setting him up for failure.
Thoughts?
Dean McCrorie.... this a straw man. Vegans are not trying to be perfect they are trying to reduce the amount of suffering that they support with their lifestyles. Consuming plant life supports far LESS “incidental” death as opposed to the “intentional” and unintentional deaths in the animal ag industry.
@brandon637 No, it absolutely does not, animals will continue dying and suffering, no matter how much you change your eating habits to be plant-based only. Don't wanna eat meat? Fine, but that cow or chicken was still murdered, their meat sold and eaten by others to live. Wanna eat plant-based products? Fine, but hundreds of smaller creatures will still die on behalf of it for you to eat plants and live. That's what the samsara is, a never ending cycle of life feeding on life feeding on life feeding on life. Changing your diet is surface level and doesn't lessen any animal's pain, suffering or chances of death.
ALSO, what the guy said was not a straw man at all, you missed the entire point (which I explained).
You likely can't digest meat, your body has quit producing the enzymes needed to digest it. I love meat, but then I'm a botanist, and I understand plants really well. They communicate with each other, they're as "alive" as any human or cow. Lots of animals eat each other, you and I are animals.
I don't eat meat but i am against veganism. I tried to be a vegan for 7 years but it cost me my health. I developed nutritional optic neuropathy due to vitamin deficiency. I have to live with irreversible vision loss now.
and countless people are lifelong vegan and don’t develop any of those issues. i’m sorry you experienced that but i for one eat a balanced vegan diet and monitor my nutrients.
hope soon people start seeing the big picture and how carnivore diet reduces the amount of food needed for a healthy body and kills less animals with good farming practices.
@@isaacgarzams it absolutely doesn’t reduce the amount of food to feed a human because we farm wayyyy more plants to raise livestock. it’s the basic principle of a biomass pyramid.
@@isaacgarzams besides animal exploitation is cruel and unnecessary
@@harrisonbrand8985 one thing is feeding but another thing is nourishing. what use in feeding humans plants instead of processing them to protein and healthy fat in an animal which can nourish you for longer. this nourishment fact is written all over our biochemistry and anatomy.
I do like the Islamic idea of having to pray to say thankyou (and sorry) for each bit of meat.
The needless suffering of the animals is one thing. Adding in the catastrophic environmental effects of animal agriculture, I struggle to understand Buddhists who are not vegan. If you buy meat, dairy or eggs you are literally funding death and suffering.
Not just that, you’re also funding the death of the planet, if you believe the current research.
Doing something “unethical” to promote something “ethical is entirely appropriate in a Buddhist sense imo. “Acting like a jerk” as you say, in this case, is an act of compassion for all life and the future of the planet.
Unless I’m wrong, isn’t compassion supposed to be what this is all about?
There is compassion for your hosts and your meat-eating friends, then there is compassion for the future of the planet and the suffering of billions of animals. So I would argue that the compassion displayed by the activists is way beyond any level of compassion you are mustering by protecting the feelings of the meat-eaters. And they didn’t need to sit Zazen to generate that enormous compassion (unless they did, I’m obviously not sure either way).
In any case, shaming them on youtube as you do here isn’t very nice.
Also are you sure that the unwillingness to be more outspoken about food choices is not a result of a delicate ego?
Totally agree! It’s hard to imagine that a Buddhist in the rich West, with access to all the necessary food still may remain a vegetarian, let alone an omnivore… Only out of ignorance, I imagine… If not, then being a carnivorous/vegetarian Buddhist is an oxymoron…
lol no, not consuming eggs or diary products will NOT stop the pain, suffering and death of other creatures, it doesn't do crap except help you sleep at night "guiltless" (which is bullshit, they will die anyways). Get that mental gymnastic bullshit outta here, guilt tripping people for something they got no control over is certainly not buddhist..
@@yarqo8202yes. outside of alms, i think it’s inconceivable that the buddha today would promote consuming anything from modern animal agriculture. but regardless what any figure would hypothetically say, being vegan is just a huge step in living a good life with greatly reduced harm and an example for how we can better the world. if people with all the education and means in the world (looking at you, majority of western Buddhists) are not willing to have some discipline in lifestyle, i have very little hope for systemic change.
By eating them for food, we give them the chance to live in the first place. And they die much more peacefully than their wild ancestors.
Carnivores get enlightened every day!
the problem with veganism: If we were all to turn into vegans as of today...in a matter of...how long? a year? two? there would be no more chickens, pigs, cows, turkeys, etc., on the face of the earth. In the case of universal acceptance of vegetarianism it would be a little better: At least some cows and some chickens--as long as they could still produce milk and eggs--would keep up their species. I mean, ask the beef cows what they think of vegans and vegetarians. If they could talk--and they were smart--they would look askance. This thought keeps me from being too proud of the fact that I haven't eaten meat in almost forever.
How is it a problem that animals bred specifically for being slaughtered and eaten would no longer exist? This would reduce suffering in the long run
i’m always amazed by how absurd the arguments against veganism are. this is a really great example.
@@harrisonbrand8985 Is it?