The Dhamma , Veganism and Vegetarianism

Discussion
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We can measure Instagram likes, but by doing so, we are not really measuring mettā, which is a quality to be lived. And I can guarantee that if we were to continuously ask our spiritual companions for hourly metrics on our progress towards the immeasurables, we would surely tempt them into resentment. “Venerable, what’s my metta score now?”

Measurement is something we apply to the limited, the impermanent. Even success and attainments are measurements.

For the following to be true we have to let go of success and failure, focusing on mettā, karuṇā, muditā and upekkhā as immeasurables:

To never be content with skillful qualities, and to never stop trying. --DN33

One cannot attain, measure or capture the immeasurables. But we can live and abide in them by simply choosing them to be immeasurable.

:pray:

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Sorry for the misunderstanding. I’m just speaking from a conventional point of view. I thought it was clear from the context…

Can one not tell when one is acting compassionately or when one is not acting compassionately? Can one not tell if another is either acting compassionately or not acting compassionately? Should one not be mindful of the difference between compassionate acts and uncompassionate acts?

Personally I love to see more, many more, loads more compassionate acts in my world, and at the same time I love to see less, much less, many times less uncompassionate acts in my world. But yes, you’re right - It’s just a preference.

If I am hungry I go to the shop and buy some food. I promise to bring back something for the cat too. No one needs to die this time… Except maybe the squeaky toy :wink:

Yes. That’s right. The ‘world’ (in my confusing quote) is limited and impermanent and it is the equivalent to suffering, e.g. AN4.45

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For monastics, eat what is given with gratitude. For lay followers, consider all the teachings and make a choice as best we can in keeping with our understanding of love and compassion, and of what sustains our body in a healthy way. And whatever food does come our way, eat it with gratitude. We need not and will not in this lifetime be agreeing on what is the best choice (meat eating or vegetarian) in this regard. Let each person make their own decision based on their caring for all beings and contemplation of the guidelines of a virtuous life as given in the teachings of the Buddha. After study and contemplation, we follow our inner light. May all beings be well and happy.

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One purpose of the scriptures is to help us see the reality as it is and respond in a compassionate way. This video is in harmony with that, since it helps us to make an informed compassionate decision regarding eating meat, a personal choice beyond rules:

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Agriculture focused on yield tends to deplete topsoil, which is a practicing leading inevitably to starvation. The alternatives include:

  • Permaculture focuses on long-term sustainability, prioritizing regeneration over yield. Permaculture, by its very nature, requires broad community support. Simply put, permaculture is more expensive for consumers. Short-term, tactical farming practices are “cheaper” because they deplete non-renewable resources such as topsoil. Permaculture requires a partnership with animals. It requires a partnership because plants thrive on animal manure.
  • Hydroponics relies on inorganic nutrients such as water, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium, etc. It’s even more expensive than permaculture, but can provide food locally throughout the entire year. Sourcing hydroponic ingredients is challenging. For example, potassium is obtained via mining and chemical extraction with substantial waste.

Although I’m a vegetarian, I think that focusing on veganism or vegetarianism alone tends to the dogmatic. Instead, I would hope that each of us can think about the best way to feed us all compassionately according to the Dhamma.

AN10.27:10.4: What one thing? ‘All sentient beings are sustained by food.’ Becoming completely disillusioned, dispassionate, and freed regarding this one thing, seeing its limits and fully comprehending its meaning, a mendicant makes an end of suffering in this very life.

Live sustainably or suffer.

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My arguments against being vege.

  1. personal - a single unit abandonment of meat on an industry-wide scale is less than (I use a number you can still imagine) one over a billion. That is, defacto it changes nothing. Eventually they return to the samsara system anyway, where they will be eaten or die of other violent causes.
  2. the hypothetical cessation of meat eating by the human species for x years on the scale of billions of years of suffering on this planet, is an even smaller impact than the previous comparison. Just imagine these animals eating each other - alive, since the beginning of life on planet Earth, How many more planets like Earth with their animals eating each other. It’s a mystery. Likewise how many cycles of the universe and the formation of planets like Earth. What if our species becomes extinct. Does anyone think that evolution will care about our whims and give away veganism in the genes to animals as a default idea? I doubt it.
  3. if we limit humanity and succeed in taking culture back to the pre-industrial era and there are again wild forests, clearings, swamps and the like where wild animals live, they will inflict suffering on themselves as they have for billions of years. Only that in the wild, not in cages.
    4 In that case, is it okay to hurt others because suffering is inevitable? Not at all, it is not recommended to harm others - because with the desire to harm often comes a personal feeling of suffering - in the form of feelings of anger, scars on the psyche even in professional soldiers, and most importantly we want to have a law over us that protects us, people are able to take revenge for their wrongs. But when someone else harms animals directly, we have clean hands, even when we buy meat from a company that previously hired a paid killer. I haven’t seen grandmothers buying from under the butcher’s shop have trauma or anger in themselves towards these cuts of meat.
  4. Currently, there is no evidence that plants are capable of feeling negative emotions from being killed. However, it cannot be ruled out. However, they are living creatures, they are very complex and have many intelligent functions. Nowadays, it is known that when one wants to reduce suffering one directs one’s concerns to those beings that one knows are warm. But after some time it may turn out that we were wrong. And there is some kind of emotional harm to plants, and I wonder if vegans will then commit collective suicide, or eat the fruit that falls from the tree. Hypothetically!
  5. Personal health care. There are no such good sources of Omega 3 - epa and dha - as fatty fish.
    There are no such good sources - of iron - as liver.
    There are no such good sources - of vitamin b12 - as dairy.
    I point out that these listed ingredients are very important to keep a healthy mind. And in the highest quality they come from animal products.
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Sutta: AN 5.177: Vaṇijjā Sutta: Wrong Livliehood

“Monks, a lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five?

  1. Business in weapons
  2. business in human beings
  3. business in meat
  4. business in intoxicants
  5. business in poison.

“These are the five types of business that a lay follower should not engage in.”

You can’t have a business without customers.

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  1. Don’t look down upon a drop of unwholesome, drop by drop the pot fills. Don’t look down upon a meal of meat, meal by meal, greenhouse gasses accumulate and is already killing many unfortunate ones. What if back when CFC was banned, individual people complained, my fridge will not cause a problem for the ozone layer, nope, still going to support CFC producers. How many more skin cancers will happen and maybe even the whole world cannot go outdoors due to too much ultraviolet light.

  2. Cosmically speaking, earth will one day be destroyed, the sun will die, the entropy of the universe will go out. What people suggest to do in the face of this seems to suggest more on their own ethical standpoint. Reduce the suffering caused by one’s own species towards other animal species seems like a moral thing to advocate for. Even if nature causes them suffering, at least it will not come from us. Also, a lot of the main point of veganism for environment is for humanity’s sake.

  3. Buying meat from supermarket still is indirectly paying the butchers. Just because it’s one or few steps removed, is it really clean when it’s hypocrisy to expect others to do the dirty work? The argument that psychopaths need some job to kill legally, doesn’t hold. There can be moral psychopaths. As well as providing them the opportunity to kill is to purposely allow them to accumulate bad Kamma. How can anyone support killing like that? Remember the sutta didn’t just say don’t kill. Also do not support killing. SuttaCentral

Imagine if there’s a new company whose purpose is to capture all the stray dogs and cats, kill them and sell their meat. Would anyone who doesn’t support their business model buy such meat? Don’t reply with it’s illegal, there are countries where it’s legal to eat dog and cat meat. Why is there such a strong emotional different between dogs, cats vs pigs, chicken, goat, cows, fish etc?

  1. Animals kills more plants to support the same amount of humans as meat. If one truly care for plants, veganism is minimizing those sufferings.

  2. Broccoli got iron, Vegemite (yeast) got B12. The 7 Best Plant Sources of Omega-3 Fatty Acids so many plant based omega source.

Is it worth it to support evils when there’s enough to survive when there’s no need to cause evils?

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1 Dear Bhante. Really, whether he personally gives up buying zoonotic products won’t change much. Before 1945, there was a chance for the world for a painter to make vegetarianism mandatory in Europe. Even that, wouldn’t help much from a space perspective.
2 Dear Bhante. Nature is us, we are nature. Defacto it doesn’t matter who does it. One chance to not personally participate in killing is to liberate oneself from samsara. And only those who come out of samsara will stop suffering. Please don’t try to induce guilt, because that creates meditation obstacles in sensitive minds. I don’t have a problem with this myself. If you want you can even call me a fascist, a Nazi, an animal murderer, I can handle that. Please think of others.
3 Ven. As Buddha ate meat he shifted the responsibility to the butcher and to the person who gives him meat as food of choice. Saints as they eat meat continue to be pure - so he repeated. I think this is an example for us.
Edit: My eating process also begins at the market, as I am exposed to a huge sensory selection and have to choose what is most healthy. At the mere sight of food, my saliva is already dripping and my digestive juices are coming up. When they put food in front of the Buddha I think he didn’t choose specifically in terms of ethics, but in terms of health.
4 I agree. However, my question was not about that. Because a carnivore will eat plants anyway. A vegan would have a problem if it turned out that there is emotional harm to plants.
5. I don’t want to get into a dietary discussion, because it misses the point. But I assure you that the sources I presented are of much better quality. I do not deny that it is possible to try with plants to obtain these ingredients, but it is much more difficult and less effective.

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  1. The world’s livestock production of greenhouse gasses is at super high levels, some estimate it at 18%, some say 51%.

It’s significant. And global warming is not going to be reversed if we don’t address this as a collective whole. To say one person, or even one nation doesn’t matter when we need everyone on board is a defeatist attitude, inherently dooming the world to catastrophic climate change, destroying civilization, possibly even the human race, as the novel Harbingers by Bhante Sujato described.

  1. Guilt? Is it the massager who produces the guilt or is it the action? If one truly believes that there’s nothing wrong in what one does, what does it matter if someone else says this or that? Good to examine it closely. I would say that people who can stand to watch slaughter house videos, may really not have any guilt issues of eating meat.

If there’s some kind of aversion reaction, one should know what’s wrong with it and really examine if one’s diet is really kind.

On the path to enlightenment wise, sure, no need to worry about eating meat alone. Yet, I am not just talking about that. Morality can be bigger than just worrying about personal kamma on eating meat. Morality is also considering the consequences of one’s actions. Eating meat for most lay people is when one demands meat. That is one orders or pays for the meat. Demand drives future killing in the economic chain. Current killing is to meet future demand. So demand in the present and the future both are linked to killing. Consequences is not just towards animals which are killed, but also the suitable climate for human civilisation (and including Buddhism) to survive, to thrive, to be sustainable. And also towards one’s own health. It’s a sense of civic duty for humanity at this point in time living on earth with the climate change problem and having a choice of diet to go vegan, or at least eat less meat on the way to veganism. It’s beyond being a Buddhist at the world stage. Even if one does admit that being on the path is the ultimate beyond, being on the path, one has to eat, and choose what to eat. There’s a kinder choice and there’s a choice with more cruelty and bad consequences behind it.

  1. Buddha didn’t produce demand did he? Most lay people does. Basically with all the other teachings pointing to support veganism/vegetarianism,

the ethical meat option becomes: when the animal dies of natural causes or accident (road kill, old age, disease), or lab grown meat (which I am not very sure if the slab of meat grown from stem cells can be considered a sentient being). However, even being a monk, I managed to be vegan. So really, for people who has the money to vote for the choice of food, there’s more responsibility to vote wisely. With power (of money and choice) comes responsibility.

  1. Why would a vegan have problems? As mentioned, veganism minimizes the amount of plant killed. I am not sure if you know the huge amount of savings we will have if everyone goes vegan:

The Oxford research confirms that 80 percent of the planet’s total farmland is used to rear livestock. Beef production, in particular, uses 36 times more land — and generates six times more greenhouse gas emissions — than the production of peas. If everyone chose to go vegan, global farmland use could be reduced by 75 percent, freeing up land mass the size of Australia, China, the EU, and the U.S. – combined.

  1. What’s the best? Let’s analyse it in a few ways.

Chemically, merely the chemical compound, the molecules should be the same regardless of the source, so what’s the best?

Maybe there’s some addition of toxins from eating meat,

Ok, let’s perhaps say that it’s true that meat has higher quality, but then consider two companies selling clothes or phones or some other product. Company A has better quality items, but uses sweat shop, gives their workers the minimal amount of money, have the minimal worker cares, people mentally break down working for Company A, they source their material in an unsustainable way, like buying palm oil from Indonesia who practises burning of old plantation to plant new crops, polluting the air massively causing problems for Malaysia and Singapore, as well as for Indonesia. Company B has the same product, perhaps not so good quality, but ethically sourced from environmentally friendly palm oil, pays their workers well, have good mental healthcare etc, even provides meditation/ mindfulness break for their workers.

Or bitcoin with it’s super massive calculation to verify a transection, causing more greenhouse gas pollution from energy usage, vs another cryptocurrency not as famous, but not using so much electricity to power their operation.

Certainly, what’s the best cannot be just looked at in terms of product, but also on the cost behind the product.

Also, health benefits of going vegan should one chooses food based on health (and not greed for taste, salivating is greed for taste).

https://nursesprime.com/benefits-of-plant-based-detox/

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  1. what is wrong with the attitude that samsara is fated to suffer? To me it’s like - hey dude - don’t worry about the world go to the hut to meditate. :slight_smile:
  2. one can impose guilt on someone even from a thing that is not unethical. For example, the Catholic church relies on the concept of sin to induce guilt in people in order to then offer absolution, even for minor transgressions and (naughty thoughts) This is very aggressive behavior towards a person who has the potential for awakening as opposed to animals who do not have that potential in this rebirth. I prefer the teachings of letting go and forgiveness over the teachings of torment - preferably without the intermediary of a priest. :slight_smile:
    3 The Buddha generated demand with his life. As long as he was alive he must have had needs - demand. That’s why someone fed him, because he needed that to live. He could have refused to eat meat if it was a problem. However, as a person who looked from the perspective of the cosmos and Samsara - he saw no point in being a vegetarian.
  3. “if we limit humanity and succeed in taking culture back to the pre-industrial era and there are again wild forests, clearings, swamps and the like where wild animals live, they will inflict suffering on themselves as they have for billions of years. Only that in the wild, not in cages.”
    5 Thank you for your articles. We are talking about specific ingredients. Eating meat - nothing really says yet whether it’s healthy or not, because you can eat meat in hundreds of different ways. In the same way, you can eat plants in different configurations and different doses.
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Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad that you have so many arguments for eating meat. Good for you. I only wanted to comment on that (to my eye, callous) view of slaughterhouse workers as would-be psychopaths.

As far as I know, in the Western world, and perhaps in much of the world, slaughterhouse workers are mostly impoverished immigrants subjected to varying degrees of exploitation, who often end up with mental problems as a result of a job that no one above on the social ladder wants to take. A job which, according to the suttas, leads to non-prosperity in this life and, potentially, to thousands of years in hell. Only to provide us with products we keep on demanding, and which we’d never dare to procure ourselves.

In the 19th century, James George Scott took notice of the tension between the strong anti-fishing ideology of the Burmese and their fish-loving ways (The Burman, vol. I, 1896, p. 283). Perhaps he was wrong to depict them as hypocrites, as fish might have been a nutritional necessity in that time and place. But one thing is clear: they ate their food knowing where it came from and how it was obtained. I suspect the same can’t be said of most people in the world today.

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Well, Christians also have their unfalsified concepts of hell to scare and manipulate gullible people. Who knows potentially Buddhists will end up there for not believing in Yahweh or some other invented idol we don’t even know about - why not? As if life isn’t cruel enough.

Just as you don’t save butchers, you don’t save animals from predators - you don’t save predators from disease, old age and death either. The only person you can save is yourself. Trying to stop the craving for khandas and in that trying to change the world - which is again an attachment that like the human species for a select and insignificant moment will stop the killing of animals. In my opinion, more monkishness and less politicking is useful.

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Indeed, so when are you ordaining?

One should also investigate if such a reply is motivated by greed for taste of meat.

Too often this is the standard response by Theravada Buddhists towards vegan promotion. One doesn’t see this reply appear in other social justice issues.

Like end war, donate to charity to end poverty, turn off the lights, aircons to save electricity to reduce global warming, etc. End slavery, end racism, end gender inequality, end LGBT+ discrimination etc.

Are the lay people too complacent on the issues of the world that monks have to remind them that this is their job?

As a monk, I will be critiqued if I keep on speaking after such a comeback of we should be more monkish. So fine, this is a good comeback. Just see if it’s motivated by aversion in particular to giving up the taste and convenience of meat eating.

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To be honest, I would prefer liver to taste like hummus, then I would reach for it with more taste pleasure, and so I have to force myself a little, but for the sake of the best source of iron and other ingredients that I consider valuable - I think it’s worth it. Especially since liver is the cheapest of meats. And you don’t have to pay too much. In our country you can sometimes buy for a kilogram of chicken liver - 1-2 EU- in our currency is PLN 6-10.

Looking for a monastery.

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Really, if you’re sincere about nutrition as your only reason to eat meat, then do look into how vegans are able to not only survive, but also become body builders.

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  1. plant source of iron needs a minimum of twice as much because it is non-heme.
  2. iron-containing plants usually have phytic acid, which makes absorption even more difficult. So again, the amount of plant product required to provide sufficient iron is increased.
  3. plants contain tannins, which also hinder iron absorption. So again, the amount of plant product requirement is increased to provide sufficient. iron.
  4. Vegans and vegetarians and people who eat little red meat are more likely to have a problem with this ingredient - this is seen in blood tests. However, this can also translate into more emotional problems. Although here I would be very cautious, because there are too many mood variables. Although I can’t rule out the role of iron deficiency.

In the UK Biobank, people with low or no red meat intake generally had lower hemoglobin concentrations and were slightly more likely to be anemic. The lower white blood cell counts observed in low and non-meat eaters, and differences in mean platelet counts and volume between diet groups, warrant further investigation.

Combining 9 effect sizes in this meta-analysis illustrated that adherence to a vegetarian diet was associated with a 53% greater risk of depression compared with that of omnivores

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In the US agriculture makes up only 11% of greenhouse gases with animals being responsible for only 3% of that 11%.

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With respect: whether or not one believes in Christian or Jewish theology, you may wish to consider that speaking in this way is disrespectful and convinces no one of your viewpoint.

What we say and write and how we express ourselves are windows into our mental states.
Disparagement, judging others from a self-standpoint – whatever one’s personal opinions about meat-eating or any topic may be – can be hurtful to others and certainly to ourselves.

We don’t have to agree with the practices and beliefs of other religious traditions, but we also don’t have to drag their beliefs and the names of their deities into our personal arguments, as per the quote above.
Is that what a heart filled with metta and wisdom does?

We’re all practicing and we’re not arahants. But we can try our best. :slightly_smiling_face: And the “heart” knows when it’s agitated and engaged in unskillful expressions – if we listen.

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This seems like a very interesting topic that can easily get into pointless discussion, so I’m going to try to summarize my points in a logical and dry way.

We can divide Buddhist veganism into two different positions:

1 Not being vegan is wrong;
2 Being vegan is more compassionate than not being so.

(Because of lack of time, I won’t discuss the argument for the environment)

Even though I do believe that they come from the good intention of making the world a better place, I believe both positions are incorrect, each because of different reasons. In order to refute them, I’m going to assume the following:

1 Wrong means kammically unwholesome
2 It’s possible to be morally perfect (an Ararat, for example, can’t do bad kamma)
3 Buddhist morality aims at overcoming unwholesomeness completely, not decreasing it to the least possible amount

Moving to the objections to the first position: if not being vegan is wrong, then that implies that the Buddha was creating bad kamma, which is a contradiction. Of course, I don’t want to create a straw man fallacy here: I’m aware most Buddhists who hold this view would reply saying that it wasn’t possible to be vegan at that time.

However, what does it mean to say that it wasn’t possible? That one would die if they were vegan? This would presume that a kammically bad action isn’t bad if it’s for the sake of one’s life. This isn’t supported by the EBTs at all: bad kamma is bad kamma independently of the consequences. No buts. Therefore, if not being vegan were wrong because you’re throwing your bad kamma over somebody else’s back, so would it have been for the Buddha.

Furthermore, there are those who would say, “but, in the past, getting meat didn’t involve such a horrible industry as we see today.” Indeed! Animals today suffer deeply in the meat industry, and this is an undeniable fact. However, this is still not a good objection. As stated in assumption 3, Buddhist morality isn’t about decreasing kammically unwholesome actions, but eliminating them. If, as most vegans argue, we hold moral responsibility for the whole chain before our acquisition, then so would the Buddha since he would get meat from lay disciples, who would either need to kill or buy from somebody who killed the animal.

The Buddha would be against killing and would advise disciples to follow the five precepts. However, he would still eat meat. Meat industry was way less gross, but killing was still what is has always been: unwholesome. Given that the Buddha was morally perfect, being a meat eater can’t be seen as bad kamma.

To those who feel like defending non-killing and buying meat is hypocrisy, I wanna say that there’s a HUGE difference between killing or telling somebody to kill and buying meat. In fact, the intention to kill is unwholesome, and telling somebody else to do that is also unwholesome. When you decide to kill, the animal dies, but when you decide not to, the animal survives. You’re directly influencing whether or not there will be one life more in this world. However, when you decide to buy meat, it’s dead meat, but when you decide not to buy it… well… it’s still dead. We aren’t paying the industry to kill, rather we’re paying the industry to let us take the meat that they have ALREADY killed. Kammically, this changes everything. This also explains why it’s wrong to eat where you know that the animal will be killed for you, but not when the animal is already dead.

In other words, the meat industry kills by statistics. It’s not killing FOR you; it’s killing based on the amount of people they expect to buy their meat. Once they kill, it’s already dead, and there isn’t anything you can do to avoid it. Giving money to the industry will only guarantee that, when you take the meat out of the supermarket, you’re buying it instead of stealing it.

This position of veganism is based on the false assumption that if an action is necessary for you to have X, then you have reponsability for this action. This is incorrect. As an example, we don’t create bad kamma by living in a country that kills criminals. Even though we may enjoy the safety and pay our taxes, we still don’t have bad kamma for that. We’re pretty much paying somebody to do the dirt job that we, followers of the five precepts, aren’t willing to do.

The thing is that the Buddhism is NOT intended to lay down the foundations of a society. Doing bad kamma is bad for you, so don’t do it, but if somebody else did it, then making use of it will change neither their destination nor yours. If a soldier dies in war to protect your country, they still created bad kamma, and you will still enjoy the safety, but there won’t be any bad kamma for you.

Now moving to the second position, I want to stress that the current situation IS bad. Period. It’s indeed horrible. There’s no way we could downplay that and call ourselves Buddhists. Compassion should be directed towards all beings, like humans, dogs, cats, cows, pigs, and… insects too.

IMHO, the main reason why this view is wrong is because it completely ignores the ants, beetles, and even small animals like moles that need to die in crops. Killing either cattle or insects is killing, and I’m not sure crops kill less insects than the meat industry kills animals, nor am I sure that small animals suffer less.

There’s also another reason why I think it isn’t necessarily more compassionate to be vegan: it completely forgets that we actually don’t have that much power of influence in the end of the day. If one decides to stop eating meat, that doesn’t change how many animals will die tomorrow. One’s decision is so small compared to the giant industry, that they don’t bother decreasing the amount of cattle they’re gonna kill. “But if everybody thinks like this, then we will never change the world” yeah, our action indeed won’t change the world. The sad fact is that this activist mindset is too naive. In other words, this view could be expressed succinctly as, “I alone am weak, but we together are strong.” I’d like to rephrase my objection similarly as well: I alone am weak, and I together am insignificant. That is, if enough many people join veganism to the point that some animal will be saved, trust me, your choice of not becoming vegan wouldn’t have changed anything either since the result will be determined by what the millions of people decided, not what you did. Stark statement, I know, but it’s still true (notice this argument applies to pretty much any type of activism).

On the other hand, there IS a way that we can save millions of animals: we can attain awakening. One out of samsara, one less to eat, so plenty of deaths will be unnecessary :dizzy:

Btw, I’m not saying that vegans aren’t being compassionate. I do believe you guys. Also, as a fun fact, I don’t have any problem with vegan food. IMO, vegan food usually tastes better than meat :+1: