November Project: Question #22
This question comes from Mits on Facebook.
I have a question for the November Project, Takuin. After enlightement should you still eat meat?
Thanks for the great question, Mits.
Forget about before or after enlightenment for now. Let’s look at it in a slightly different way.
There are several reasons why people decide to stop eating meat. Some think it is more healthy, more peaceful, or whatever it might be.
Is it more healthy? Not necessarily true. More peaceful? Absolutely not true. But this is more of a focus on what a person can get from not eating meat, and it is not out of compassion for animals.
Whether or not you eat meat will be decided by one major factor, and that is your relationship with animals. You can give other reasons, and some of them may be very wise. But ultimately, it will be your relationship to other living things that tips the scales.
How do you see this, Mits? If I may ask, do you eat meat, or is this something you have struggled with at all?
{ 9 comments }
Hey Takuin:)
I do eat meat but sometimes I struggle and by this I mean that thoughts of giving up meat has been prominiet in my thoughts for a very long time (A Few Years). My thoughts are urging me to quit eating meat but as of yet I struggle to make the change. By relationship to living things do you mean All Is One and We Are All One? That is one good reason to quit eating meat.
Thanks, Mits.
Not really…if that were true, we wouldn’t have to ask the question in the first place.
We have to be careful with those kind of phrases. It is very easy to hear All Is One and understand it quickly, in a superficial way. But just because we might agree with it, does not make it true.
After all, if indeed All Is One, our understanding and agreement is not necessary.
To look at it slightly differently, keeping All Is One in mind, you could eat meat, or not eat meat, and it would not make a difference. After all, if All Is One, then what would be the difference?
But as we explore ourselves from moment to moment, it is probably best for us to leave these phrases behind as we dig deeper. They’ll only get in the way.
I am not saying you are doing this, by the way…just exploring.
Having the same struggles as you, Mits, I have given up meat entirely (and at various levels) on several occasions. My thoughts always go back to: if I can’t raise an animal from birth, know it, love it, have a relationship with it, appreciate it, and STILL, after all that, be able to look it in the eyes and kill it with my own hands, then I shouldn’t be eating meat.
I still believe this is the way it should be for myself to be at peace with eating animals, but I’ve not been able to get there. Modern convenience makes it too easy for me to not have to go through the hardship of getting to know who an animal is as another living creature, then take it’s life for my own pleasure, nourishment, health, strength, etc.
Even while I was completely Vegan for a full month, I had the same level of struggle in wondering if I should or shouldn’t be eating meat.
I’m not sure if this struggle will ever be resolved within me, but I wanted to share my perspective with you. Not eating meat doesn’t necessarily mean you won’t still struggle with it or that you will struggle any less with it.
~ Naomi
My thinking behind this is that another living animal has the same value weather I validate it’s existance and purpose or not. In other words, take a chicken. I decide to take the chicken after it hatches and raise it as a pet, getting to know it, its personality, quirks, etc., and pretty much love it as a child as most people do with their pets. In a parallel dimension (not saying parallel dimensions exist, just using it as an example), I could take the same chicken and ship it off to a processing plant after it hatches to get sold to Tyson and end up as someone’s dinner. Does this mean the chicken has less value just because I didn’t validate it’s purpose and existance by getting to know it? Does its life have any less value because it became dinner instead of a pet?
Thanks, Naomi.
You have the ability to see around corners in a very interesting way. That is what is needed in the explorations we may hope to undertake within ourselves.
A couple of notes about health and vegetarianism.
If you go vego especially vegan it is worth watching how much soy (especially processed soy products) you eat. It can affect the thyroid – especially the ones with seaweed as well. If you have trouble with weight gain or temperature regulation then have a look at how much soy you are eating.
Red meat can be important for women – plant iron sometimes just doesn’t work.
Thanks, Evan…
And that is a great point many people overlook. Hopefully, if one is serious about what they put into their mouths, they’ll also be serious about researching possible deficiencies or difficulties that may arise.
I think it could be my meditation practise as I think purification is going on at some level where I am urged to give up meat. Maybe I should and see where it goes
Always a good idea, Mits.
I am very interested in finding out whatever you might discover, and I am sure everyone here feels the same. So please keep us in the loop.
I don’t know if you feel this way, but many times there is pressure to stop eating meat due to the path you follow. Some practitioners might move to make you feel guilty over your food choices. You may have already come up against this sort of nonsense, but please don’t let it distract you too much.
I remember a story about Shunryu Suzuki, the popular Zen Master that passed away some forty years ago. A follower of his once asked, “You eat meat, but the Buddha was a vegetarian.” And Suzuki replied, “Yes, he was very great.”
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