Before beginning, let me make myself very clear here that, I am a Buddhist, believe in religion, eats lots of meat, doesn’t kill any animals, unless required (I kill if I feel the animal would be comfortable after dying instead of suffering; e.g. completely drenched moth making wings un-useable). I recite prayers, visit monasteries, hangs prayer flags, seeks blessings, does not consume tobacco in any forms, BUT, does not believe in “child worship”.
Eating meat “most” says in any religion is a sin, but I questioned the easily swallowed “so called fact” for many a time within myself and finally decided to bring it down to papers. Is eating meat, a real sin????...... (I am posing infinite questions here).
It may be sin if we look in the same angle as many people does (I don’t need to explain this here; basically how everybody perceive). BUT, let us try peeping in another direction, completely another direction.
ANIMALS; do they have their own religion? Do they have common ground of thoughts? Do they have universal language like humans do?..Such questions look more of foolishness, but as we drive deep, it is a mystery which should be solved. People are well aware that animals have feelings, brains and few tie the knot of love and stay together till their last breath (Far better than, “super brains”, humans).
Now, in-order to make meat available, animals should be killed. It is a sin, as we are depriving some ones’ life of their freedom to leave the world on their own. But, being a Buddhist we believe in cycle of births and re-births. We also believe that, in-order to get ourselves a good life when we are born again, we should possess so many good merits and attend many religious functions. In such cases, where does our “animals’’ stand; they can’t recite prayers to accumulate good merit, they can’t think (??) good (??) for “others” when they live “hand to mouth”. If we think even in Buddhist context, we are not trying to help animals to give them a chance to become humans when they come again to earth (if at-all there is the phenomenon of re-births).
I rationalize, eating meat is not a sin, in this angle. When we eat (say chicken), it satisfies our hunger and gives us protein, we become more healthy and we become happy. In such situation, even if we don’t thank the BIRD for sacrificing himself to be another’s meal, the BIRD would have accumulated good merit of “LUE GE JINPA” (offering body), which is the highest offering in Buddhist context, which otherwise would be nothing if died due to old age and diseases. This provides the BIRD a chance to re-born as humans. Killing the BIRD requires someone to perform the job providing earnings to butcher, another good merit accumulated, and again when-ever the BIRD get killed, we are shortening the lifespan to remain as animal and providing more probability of coming back as humans (Emancipating animals from their sufferings). Such gesture from butcher and meat eaters’ end would help the animals come out of their sufferings sooner. Thus, meat eating may not necessarily be sin looking from my perspective.
I am not stating here that, people should eat meat. I wrote what I thought and everything depends on how one believes and tackles religion. This is a controversial topic; readers could take the liberty of commenting in
whatever angle they feel. I re-iterate that, I am not trying to influence vegetarian to start going for meat again and I am neither a philosopher nor a preacher.
Eating meat “most” says in any religion is a sin, but I questioned the easily swallowed “so called fact” for many a time within myself and finally decided to bring it down to papers. Is eating meat, a real sin????...... (I am posing infinite questions here).
It may be sin if we look in the same angle as many people does (I don’t need to explain this here; basically how everybody perceive). BUT, let us try peeping in another direction, completely another direction.
ANIMALS; do they have their own religion? Do they have common ground of thoughts? Do they have universal language like humans do?..Such questions look more of foolishness, but as we drive deep, it is a mystery which should be solved. People are well aware that animals have feelings, brains and few tie the knot of love and stay together till their last breath (Far better than, “super brains”, humans).
Now, in-order to make meat available, animals should be killed. It is a sin, as we are depriving some ones’ life of their freedom to leave the world on their own. But, being a Buddhist we believe in cycle of births and re-births. We also believe that, in-order to get ourselves a good life when we are born again, we should possess so many good merits and attend many religious functions. In such cases, where does our “animals’’ stand; they can’t recite prayers to accumulate good merit, they can’t think (??) good (??) for “others” when they live “hand to mouth”. If we think even in Buddhist context, we are not trying to help animals to give them a chance to become humans when they come again to earth (if at-all there is the phenomenon of re-births).
I rationalize, eating meat is not a sin, in this angle. When we eat (say chicken), it satisfies our hunger and gives us protein, we become more healthy and we become happy. In such situation, even if we don’t thank the BIRD for sacrificing himself to be another’s meal, the BIRD would have accumulated good merit of “LUE GE JINPA” (offering body), which is the highest offering in Buddhist context, which otherwise would be nothing if died due to old age and diseases. This provides the BIRD a chance to re-born as humans. Killing the BIRD requires someone to perform the job providing earnings to butcher, another good merit accumulated, and again when-ever the BIRD get killed, we are shortening the lifespan to remain as animal and providing more probability of coming back as humans (Emancipating animals from their sufferings). Such gesture from butcher and meat eaters’ end would help the animals come out of their sufferings sooner. Thus, meat eating may not necessarily be sin looking from my perspective.
I am not stating here that, people should eat meat. I wrote what I thought and everything depends on how one believes and tackles religion. This is a controversial topic; readers could take the liberty of commenting in
whatever angle they feel. I re-iterate that, I am not trying to influence vegetarian to start going for meat again and I am neither a philosopher nor a preacher.
Comments