eating karma

[neimad]

i was reading cams journal and read him saying he wasn't sure about the karma of eating eggs....

 

well i just want to start a little thread about peoples opinions of eating karma.

 

for me i don't buy this whole nonsense about not eating meat because of the negative karma associated with it...... to me a plant is as alive as an animal. everything is made from the same stuff, the same universal force. to not eat an animal because you fear the karmic consequences of it's death is ridiculous to me. to not eat dead animal for health reasons, however, is totally justifiable if you feel it's better for your health.

 

matter (read here: energy, as matter is only condensed levels of energy) cannot be destroyed, it only changes form. same with consciousness.... (this leads into the whole thought about whether energy and consciousness are the same thing or not, but thats for another discussion).

all living beings consume some form of energy because that is the nature of this universe, things are in constant flux, constant motion.

plants consume sun energy and mineral energy from the soil. animals come along and consume that energy converting it into themselves. then other animals come along and eat that animal then converting that energy into a part of themselves. some is excreted, some is shed in the form of dead skin, etc. eventually that animal dies and returns the rest of itself to the soil and eventually some plant takes up those minerals and the cycle continues.

 

my opinion is that is is the intention and awareness behind your actions that determine the 'karma'. for example killing an animal for the sheer glee of it, of course that is a negative action and is going to leave a negative imprint on your being.

eating a purely vegetarian life but never being grateful for any morsel of food you eat, never taking the time to acknowledge the universe for giving you a chance to exist.... how is this person any better off than the same person doing the same thing but also eating meat? for me there is no difference.

 

plants are alive, they are permeated with life-force as much as we are. they just operate at a different frequency of time than us, much much slower and we can't relate to them in the same manner. so how is eating them any better than eating an animal?

 

back when my parents still used to eat meat they would justify negating themselves of the bad karma by saying that they didn't kill it themselves and it wasn't killed especially for them as such they weren't getting the karma.

that is ridiculous, that is not taking responsibility for your actions.

 

for me i think if you are going to eat an animal you need to be able to kill an animal. to collect your own food, and if you eat animals that means killing them yourself, is to be responsible for your own actions and in my opinion the highest level of consumption you can be in (aside from being breatharian).

 

i look forward to the day when i can be entirely responsible for the food i eat, and that includes killing the animals myself. better i do it than someone else.... then i can show the proper respect to the universe that provides me an oppurtunity to exist.

 

just some ramblings from a crazy young man.

 

[Cameron]

Max actually answered this for me quite well provately. it's not that you fear karma from doing something .It's the "good" feeling you get from causing less suffuring to sentient beings.

 

Buddhism doesn't really beleive in a personal self anyway so if your doing something or not doing something out of fear for your own future your waaaaaaay of track in Buddhist terms.

 

If your really enlightnend, it won't be an issue about eating an animal it's as if the animal is YOU and YOU are casuing YOUSELF to SUFFER.

 

I am not dogmatic about any of this as I don't experience all of life as ME(yet) but thats' kind of the direction Bodhisattvas are at(from my small understanding).

 

IMO.

 

BTW..I am not a fan of 'forcing' anything if something isn't arising spontanuosly Ime not really into it .I have as much faults and garbage as anyone but I am not doing anything out of any sense of right and wrong. In my first few days of not eating meant, I got a subtle feeling of peace inside. It is very subtle but it there. So I am doing an experiment.

 

I could easily be eating steak in a couple weeks!

[Smile]

That's ok- people have to make this decision on their own. No one can do it for us. When the experiences related to eatting meat come, it's hard not to pay attention. Karma of the plants being killed is not as bad as the slaughtered animals. If someone equates the two, they should be present at the slaughter of a cow, then at the cutting a bunch of spinach. I hope they will see the difference in the energy.

[Cameron]

I mean...you have to eat something. There is the absolute and the relative. I can't judge I have eaten meat most of my life anyway.

[neimad]

i've never been at the slaughtering of a cow, nor do i eat cow.... but one day in the future any meat i do eat will be killed by me, as will any vegetables i eat also.

 

but in all honesty i do feel the energy from the cutting of vegetables and i know they are not devoid of consciousness like my buddhist parents claim.

 

 

if you really wanted to be karmically pure there is only one answer and that is fruit, in particular as it falls off the tree naturally (or with a little shake hehe). this is a trees gift and has no growing energy within it. this is truly karmically pure food, if you consider that negative karma is caused by the stifling of growing life-force.

 

not the seed (as that is potential life), not the sprout, not the vegetable.... only fruit.

 

dunno, maybe i'll try it one day.

 

as for now i am happy with the way i am eating (not that i'm saying you were critisising me).

[hagar]

This issue has always bothered me.

 

If you want to eat just fruit falling of the tree, fine. But then you have to worry about the maggots you bite in half as you devour it.

 

TTC says: Misfortune comes from having a body. If we have no body, how can there be misfortune?

 

In living, we always generate "karma". This karma stuff is just getting out of hand!

I like eating meat. But I never forget that what I eat has been a living, breathing organism. This fall, I will go hunting with my friends. And when I do, I do it to get meat to eat. Not for fun. Actually, I like eating whale meat too. Whalemeat tastes great, and I suggest we rethink what moralism we impose on ourselves in relation to eating meat. We are genetically designed to eat meat, and actually, would have perished as a species if we didn't have access to animal protein. Sometimes science can be quite enlightening in this department. The majority of ailments that the human species have suffered through history came AFTER the first agricultural societies popped up in the middle east some 40 000 years ago. The genetic mutation to adapt to this kind of diet happens at a much slower rate than is needed for us to benifit from this transition. As a consequence, much of our common illnesses have its origin in NOT eating meat.

 

In the gospel of Thomas, Jesus says something quite profound:

 

14 Jesus said to them, "If you fast, you will bring sin upon yourselves, and if

you pray, you will be condemned, and if you give to charity, you will harm

your spirits. When you go into any region and walk about in the countryside,

when people take you in, eat what they serve you and heal the sick among

them. After all, what goes into your mouth won't defile you; what comes out

of your mouth will."

 

Food for thought

 

h

[neimad]

very nice, hagar.

 

grains are truly the biggest problem to afflict modern society....

 

 

whale is delicious! i have only had the fortune of trying it once, in thailand.... but it's good.

[SheepishLord]

I'm with you Hagar! BTW, I would like to try some whale meat--but I hearmany whales are very sick these days.

[Cameron]

I'm with you Hagar! BTW, I would like to try some whale meat--but I hearmany whales are very sick these days.

 

What kind of diet does Master Nan or Bodri do?

[sunshine]

As a consequence, much of our common illnesses have its origin in NOT eating meat.

h

 

Sorry man... while your premises might be true your conclusion isn't... NOt eating meat is not the problem as you say... as most eat meat and further eat something that is the problem, as you address...

 

further... while we are to a certain extent desgined for eating meat I want to hint at that Gorillas (which are not designed for it) still are VEEEEEEERY strong beings by just eating plants (& the bugs inside)...

 

so. If we had the access to proper plants & further to enough plants of different variety then we sure would be absolutely able to live happily on it... (although I personally assume that there are parts of the population that sure would get frail without)

 

 

Harry

[hagar]

Sorry man... while your premises might be true your conclusion isn't... NOt eating meat is not the problem as you say... as most eat meat and further eat something that is the problem, as you address...

 

further... while we are to a certain extent desgined for eating meat I want to hint at that Gorillas (which are not designed for it) still are VEEEEEEERY strong beings by just eating plants (& the bugs inside)...

 

so. If we had the access to proper plants & further to enough plants of different variety then we sure would be absolutely able to live happily on it... (although I personally assume that there are parts of the population that sure would get frail without)

 

 

Harry

 

I have pondered over this myself. But actually, our genetic makeup is rather different than that of bears, and we are not adapted to the same habitat. Our bodies needs animal/fish protein, and omega 3 to develop our brains during childhood and adolescence, and cultures that eat little grain and milk products have no trace of the common illnesses in our culture, like cancer, heart disease and inflamations.

We have the body or predators, and our teeth are designed to eat meat. Why fight nature?

 

h

[neimad]

I have pondered over this myself. But actually, our genetic makeup is rather different than that of bears, and we are not adapted to the same habitat. Our bodies needs animal/fish protein, and omega 3 to develop our brains during childhood and adolescence, and cultures that eat little grain and milk products have no trace of the common illnesses in our culture, like cancer, heart disease and inflamations.

We have the body or predators, and our teeth are designed to eat meat. Why fight nature?

 

h

 

 

i agree and also disagree.

 

i think within our mish mash of genetics right now, there are a few seperate strains of human.... which if left alone without interbreeding for several hundred thousand more years, would be unable to cross breed anymore.

 

i think some genetics does very well on high meat, no dairy, no grains.

i think some does better with high concentrations of veggies and little meat.

and i also think some does better with high concentrations of dairy.

 

grains, however, i'm not too sure about.... on the one hand they provide extremely high levels of b-vitamins, and on the other they also seem to cause all kinds of problems.

i actually think it might be the extreme genetic alterations and adulteration done to grains over the past thousand years or so that has caused most problems.

 

 

but back to the karmic consequences.... it is all just part of the same life force, as i said it's just energy changing form... thats all.

 

as far as i am concerned, karma is all in the mind...... believe you are doing something bad, and for sure you are!

believe you aren, and for sure you aren't

 

context.

[sunshine]

I have pondered over this myself. But actually, our genetic makeup is rather different than that of bears, and we are not adapted to the same habitat. Our bodies needs animal/fish protein, and omega 3 to develop our brains during childhood and adolescence, and cultures that eat little grain and milk products have no trace of the common illnesses in our culture, like cancer, heart disease and inflamations.

We have the body or predators, and our teeth are designed to eat meat. Why fight nature?

h

 

I was talking about Gorillas & not bears and regarding "fighting nature": this is not the question & it does not include the answer if we focus on the possible "karmic aspect"... many people have needs they themselves would call "natural" while others would like to send them to prison for the rest of their lives or even death sentence them...

 

I personally have my own difficulties regarding the topic of Karma & eating animals. As always there are as many different views about it as there a people speaking about it. One "teacher "says it is not the person eating the meat that is ingesting or taking up Karma, but the person killing the animal.. hmmmm... what do I know?

another says: you shall not eat animals at all!... hmmmmm... what do I know? & then there is another saying: fish is o.k., because it is yin energy and has not consicousness in so far that it can produce the LArma of consciously experiencing the kiling... hmmmm... what do I know?

 

I myself hope that my practice leads to things developing "naturally", without forcing any decisions... it sure produces Karma as well if we just stop eating meat but continously think about "needing" it...

 

but what do I know?

 

Harry

 

as far as i am concerned, karma is all in the mind...... believe you are doing something bad, and for sure you are! believe you aren, and for sure you aren't

context.

 

How about killing a person for fun or raping? I assume you will state the same? (not judging you, just curious)

[Peregrino]

I'm a semi-veg (went back to fish and seafood) mainly for reasons of health and personal preference (beef and poultry don't settle well in my innards, which could very well have to do with the horrors of factory farming methods). However, I do respect the wisdom of hunting for your own food--it definitely keeps you in tune with where your food actually comes from, and ensures direct personal responsibility for the karmic cost . . . And I think karmic costs of one kind or another are INEVITABLE no matter what diet you choose (veg, carniverous, organic, macrobiotic, etc.). This article from the New Yorker raises some good points about the evolution of organic food production into a market dominated by "Big Organic," huge companies whose production and distribution methods significantly resemble those of the Bad Old Big Agriculture system . . .

 

Even in cases of small-scale, locally transported organic produce, important ethical questions remain. As Steven Shapin, author of the New Yorker article points out, many advocates of small-scale, localized organic production don't pay much attention to "the most urgent moral problem with the organic ideal: how to feed the world's population" (emphasis mine). He goes on to say that the Bad Old Haber-Bosch process "averted disaster, and was largely responsible for a fourfold increase in the world's food supply during the twentieth century" (emphasis mine).

 

Not that I'm a defender of the Nixon administration on most points, but Earl Butz, Nixon's secretary of Agriculture, made a good point when he told advocates of small-scale organic farming, "Someone must decide which fifty million of our people will starve!" And, as Shapin writes, "According to a more recent estimate, if synthetic fertilizers suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth, about two billion people would perish."

 

It will take a lot of serious dismantling of the current world order to convert to a wholly localized, organically grown food production and distribution system, and if that dismantling occurs immediatlely and radically, the results could be catastrophic.

 

Still (here I am being militantly wishy-washy), it would be something to live in a world with enough space and resources (i.e., if everywhere else follows Europe's pattern of demographic decline, which is itself another kind of "sustainability problem") in which everyone could see "every meal as a sacrament," as Michael Pollan would put it, in which "we eat by the grace of nature, not industry, and what we're eating is never anything more or less than the body of the world."

 

So, back to hunting . . . Maybe one day I'll even reach the point where I'd still abstain from scarfing down hamburgers, but would welcome the opportunity to hunt down and prepare my own venison!

 

He he, I think that viewing the movie RAVENOUS has attuned me to the truth that "you are who you eat." (A friend of mine actually became ravenously hungry and made a big pot of beef stew after watching that movie. Vegetarian messages notwithstanding, his main thought became MEAT! MEAT! MEAT!)

 

PS

OK, cannibalism only "suits my taste" as a *metaphor*, but it's one that interestingly recurs in many of the world's myths and religious doctrines, as RAVENOUS so twistedly shows . . .

[Smile]

We have the body or predators, and our teeth are designed to eat meat. Why fight nature?

 

Don't the predators have teeth designed for ripping the flesh and swallowing without chewing? The acid in their stomach can brake apart bones; stomach acid in humans is way too weak to properly break up animal meat for digestion. Also the claws and thangs are missing.

 

 

as far as i am concerned, karma is all in the mind......

Would you like to have an experiment? Do something kind for homeless for a week. When you meditate see how it feels. Then for a week do something to hurt people but keep believing it's all for the experiment and you don't really mean it. Then meditate and see how you feel inside.

 

. . .

Peregrino, i really enjoy reading your posts.

[karen]

Would you like to have an experiment? Do something kind for homeless for a week. When you meditate see how it feels. Then for a week do something to hurt people but keep believing it's all for the experiment and you don't really mean it. Then meditate and see how you feel inside.

Peregrino, i really enjoy reading your posts.

 

Here's another take on that experiment. First do something kind, noticing the preconceived judgment that it's morally good. Then do something (moderately) hurtful, noticing the preconceived judgment that it's morally bad.

 

In both cases, you have attachment and judgment. I would suspect that in either case, after a while if you go deeply into your direct experience, the quality of both will begin to merge, and you may not be so sure which is which. That could be an interesting experiment from the point of view of looking at where the real attachments are, and how all attachment is essentially the same.

 

The more you live from your authentic self, the more the correct actions come naturally. Not those which are good or right from any belief about karma or morality, but the ones that flow naturally from the true self. Then you're honoring natural law.

 

Here's another one: Do anything, noticing the attachment to being good and the aversion to doing wrong. Go more deeply into the experience. Not the interpretive thoughts about the experience, but just watch those thoughts as they come and go and the more authentic experience is revealed more and more.

 

"It's all for the experiment" can be said at different levels, where one is coming from true experience and the other from false belief.

 

For example, I used to think, "Everything is just experience, nothing has intrinsic meaning or value." That thought came as a result of a lot of "mind-expanding" encounters, not real knowledge, and it was just another belief to hold onto to replace other beliefs, where the absence of knowledge leaves a gap. It's just the other side of the very same coin of attachment. Two opposite beliefs are fundamentally the same: Belief.

 

If someone gets beaten up, they usually don't say thanks for the interesting experience. But.. in processing the experience deeply and seeing through attachments and aversions, you really can discover the truth hidden in those words, and then it's authentic.

 

In other words, go deeply into any experience, not the interpretive thought process about experience, and you see things as they really are. Stay on the level of discussing false polarities, and you see things as they are filtered through ego-mind beliefs.

 

I think it was Anais Nin who said that we don't see things as they are, but as we are.

 

I was a strict lacto-vegetarian for 27 years up until seven years ago. I know a bit about wading knee-deep through the swamp of beliefs

 

Karen

[hagar]

[hagar]

On a quick note, I don't actually eat the grass I cut. Kind of lost track of thought there. Point was this:

 

EVERYTHING is karma. Actually, I have grown so tired of the whole emphasis on it. It's like directing your life around the quite absurd fear of accumulating life. Karma is such an empty concept, and we westerners have such a deranged understanding of it. It's like watching "My Name is Earl" and seeing how he thinks he can make his life better by making up for all the bad things he did. LITERALLY.

 

So eat your steaks and your whale meat, and enjoy it, that's very good karma.

 

On the other hand, if you meditate for 4 hours a day and think you become a better person. That's bad karma = bad living!

[Smile]

Karen, nice post and the ideas presented closely go with following the Dao path.

 

Hagar, we base our understanding on other people's and our life experiences and wisdom accumulated through spiritual training. And so our opinions reflect what we see is the truth. The good part about it is we are always changing and growing and so are our ideas and beliefs.

[minimoke]

i think within our mish mash of genetics right now, there are a few seperate strains of human.... which if left alone without interbreeding for several hundred thousand more years, would be unable to cross breed anymore.

 

This may be off the thread but highly interesting. What do you mean by seperate strains of human? Mankind is doing alot more "interbreeding" these days and not less due to the fact of the world coming closer together due to airline and vacation travel.

 

I have never thought about 2 races of "Human" developing to the point of not being able to cross breed. That will probably bring about new socio-political problems, not to mention how "organized" religion would treat 2 classes of humans.

 

hmmm....

[neimad]

you got it karen.

 

again... karma is all our own mind (read here: brain... but for another topic)

 

the attachment or preconceived idea we have about an action is what creates it's impact back on us, karma. that karma we take upon ourselves and then punish ourselves by creating a situation that reflects that lesson we want to learn... we continue to create the action until we understand the lesson and as such we have a cycle of karma.

 

 

infinite love is the only truth. to have no lessons is to be love, is for every action to be entirely appropriate to the situation. total and utter harmony..... balance, that point where there is no more ying or yang, yada yada yada... that's freedom from karma.

 

but karma is our teacher, because it shows us what we want to learn to get back to that love.

 

for a nothern european there can be no negative karma from eating whale or seal... as that is appropriate to the situation and so on for all natural style diets.

we live in a crazy conglomerate of eating habits, bombarded with information about what foods are best for us and the sheer availability of food from foreign areas is ridiculous. becoming appropriate to this situation is extremely delicate, and i think to do so is to find what we call 'good health'... the better the level of appropriatness, the better the level of health and wellbeing.

 

so i guess in that respect food does have a karma, but not in the way we think it does.... it could be my extremely bad karma to eat wheat for example!

 

 

i guess i found what i was looking for from this discussion, and i don't think i'm the only one.... thanks!

 

Would you like to have an experiment? Do something kind for homeless for a week. When you meditate see how it feels. Then for a week do something to hurt people but keep believing it's all for the experiment and you don't really mean it. Then meditate and see how you feel inside.

hurting people would very rarely be an appropriate response to a situation, and as such i will have preconceived ideas about it... if it's a lesson i have to learn then i'll elicit the karma to learn that lesson.

 

you see i'm not arguing that karma doesn't exist, i'm saying it's merely a construct of our own game plan.... and quite merely trickery of the brain(/mind). it doesn't detract from what anyone says about karma, but just gives us a context to see more clearly the way things really are, and thus strive for liberation.

 

there are no good or bad acts, there is only an idea about them... or there is an appropriate response (harmony/tao/balance/enlightenment/flow-state/etc).

we are either caught in our attachment, or we are in harmony.

 

cool.

*clunk*

hahahahahahaha.

 

 

 

This may be off the thread but highly interesting. What do you mean by seperate strains of human? Mankind is doing alot more "interbreeding" these days and not less due to the fact of the world coming closer together due to airline and vacation travel.

 

I have never thought about 2 races of "Human" developing to the point of not being able to cross breed. That will probably bring about new socio-political problems, not to mention how "organized" religion would treat 2 classes of humans.

 

hmmm....

 

 

i think i phrased that wrong.

 

i think there were several distinct genetic variations of humans evolving (or created... haven't quite decided on that one yet) and had we of remained seperated by water for several hundred thousand more years.... for sure we wouldn't be able to interbreed. just like horses and zebras...

 

we are interbreeding like crazy now, which means that all those variations are combining in weird ways to create whordes of freaks (all of us)!!!

which is why it's so hard to damn well work out which kind of food is best for you!!!!

 

haha.

[neimad]

yep... a lot of clunking going on here

 

nice, freeform.

[karen]

Great, Freeform. Some thoughts..

 

However I intuitively feel that there definately is something to karma - I just have never read/heard/seen/felt an adequate explanation. I don't think it works as cause and effect (because cause and effect requires some objective observer) - it seems to me it works in a kind of dream-logic of interwoven coincidences, but I digress.

 

Ah, but I really like that "dream-logic of interwoven coincidences."

 

My view is that ideas are useful or not. If the idea of karma is useful for you, use it, but be aware that you are the one doing the using . Even trances can be useful as tools for waking up, the way hypnotherapy uses it homeopathically (like cures like, trance cures trance).

 

I think if there was karma - it wouldn't be the actual killing, who did it, or whether you projected your anthropomorphic idea of suffering on the animal - it's the disrespect for the natural flow that acompanies it.

 

Yes. You could look at this in a broader context, and see that wherever there is suffering, there's some kind of resistance to natural law. I just tend to think of this more as phenomena than conceptually.

 

So you could be going around avoiding stepping on anything alive, uneasy about killing microbes by breathing, and you could be living a very suppressed life that way, with the suffering that follows from that. You can be creating harm in a misguided effort to practice non-violence.

 

So how does one respect the food s/he eats?

 

What is your own particular natural expression of that? Otherwise the word "respect" is just a nominalization, a generalization that doesn't have meaning until you embody it personally. It sounds like you're looking for some resource that you're not in touch with right now. My sense is that you have within you what it would mean to live in respect. A natural resource, so that it's not a matter of having to bring in this sense of respect as a sort of chore, but that you are that respect.

 

And you may already know that in a certain way but not in a deeply embodied way, not in a way that the resource has seeped into all the nooks and crannies of all the contexts in your life. But as it seeps in, it becomes just a relaxed rhythm of getting your food and eating it, no concept of respect surrounding it, but you feel congruent with it. Meaning that nothing is missing from the experience, no deeper need is getting left out of the experience or going hungry.

 

so what can we do now?

 

Exactly. The cave person isn't here now, and even you aren't who you were yesterday.

 

How can we show respect to the flow of the universe when our food culture is predominantly about breaking down the natural cycle and gaining full (human ego) control of it?

 

Maybe that question is difficult because there are some hidden assumptions there. first, i think that we've set up this false polarity between the nostalgia and purity of native ways vs. the arrogant, soul-numbing civilized ways. I was into anarchism and primitivism for a time. But I think just like a lot of things that we grapple with these days, the polarity is a false one, a seeming either/or which is really neither.

 

I also had an existential crisis in my 20's when I thought that I couldn't stomach beccoming an adult, which I thought meant dutiful assimmilation into the soul-numbing mediocrity of civilization, my only other choice being to live on the fringes, in poverty, isolation and suffering! Either the Matrix or resistance to the Matrix which amounted to a different sort of hell. Didn't occur to me that my resistance was just as driven and rigid as the way that was abhorrent to me. Well. Took me a lot of years to discover the way the choices could open up as I opened up.

 

I think that the arrogance of agribusiness isn't answered by strict avoidance of it, a more subtle form of arrogance. I sometimes eat meat from the supermarket when it's just practical. I used to need to bring a sense of the sacred into my life. Now I don't have a concept of something being more sacred than something else. I just experience the moment, and trust my experience to guide me in everything. I make a lot of mistakes, but also I don't identify things as mistakes so much anymore, just things that didn't work out according to my expectation, and I learned something.

 

 

- now I just close my eyes and all these images flash before my eyes, and I just smile... then I eat. I dont think this is quite adequate, but it definately brings the food into closer alignment to the tao, and I feel very appreciative of the animal/plant and the processes that brought it into existance.

 

If you feel it's not adequate, maybe you could say what it would feel like if it was adequate .

 

I feel that if you think of the earth as the mother-provider, you realise that it selflessly provides you with what you need, it nourishes and heals you, as long as you let it! Just cause you ask for a specific form of nourishment doesn't (imo) mean you're doing something less good.

 

Yup. I used to (try to) eat what Aajonus told me to, and it was with a lot of rigidity and fear. If I eat some store-bought sliced turkey because my sister is buying it for me and it's what's best for her, given the totality of the situation, I'm grateful. Maybe the critical mind can't reconcile it, but the resourceful, creative mind can.

 

A ritual could be useful, but rather than have it be weighed down by heavy concepts, it can be a light, open and playful approach, just an opportunity to explore something.

 

Karen

Edited May 29, 2006 by karen

[karen]

An article I like on the ethics of eating meat.

 

Not because I agree with the ideas, of course

[Smile]

Here is a quote from this article:

 

Of course there is pain and fear when the cow is taken to the slaughter (and when the robin pulls up the worm, and when the wolves down the caribou, and when the hand uproots the weed), and that makes me sad. There is much to be sad about in life, but underneath the sadness is a joy that is dependent not on avoiding pain and maximizing pleasure, but on living rightly and well.

 

This "living rightly and well" is being stated throughout the article like there is no alternative to meat to have a healthy lifestyle. There are.

 

I have no problem with anyone eatting meat. To me personally, I stopped it because it's not helpfull to my spiritual practices. You may argue I attached with my mind the negative aspect of being "no helpfull". If it was all about me, it could probably be the case.

 

No matter how cool you are and non-attached to any sensations and your mind is totally pure when it comes to eatting meat, the act of killing the cow is present. The pain of death and fear is in the meat. The energy generated in the process of cow's death is there. You simply can't go around this no matter how saintly and enlightened your mind is. You put this inside yourself- you will have to deal with the energies ralated to the act.