Moonpointer : Buddhist Vegan Fellowship

By Venerable Master Hsuan Hua

In the world today, there are too many who take life and too few people who save lives. Everyone knows only how to kill. Every one has neglected to liberate life. When you kill someone, he will want to kill you back. This mutual revenge leads to the cycle of rebirth in the world of the five turbidities. When will this cycle of mutual vengeance ever come to an end? The ancients have said,

For hundreds of thousands of years, the stew in the pot
Has boiled up a resentment very hard to level.
If you want to know why there are calamities and wars in the world,
Just listen to the sounds from a slaughterhouse at midnight.

We should base our lives on the words of Confucius: “When I see those who are alive, I do not wish to see them die. When I hear their sounds, I cannot bear to eat their flesh. Therefore a gentle man does not go near the kitchen.” For hundreds of thousands of years until now, there’s been a pot of stew. You‘ve eaten from the pot of stew and so have I. This stew is a meat broth. It contains a resentment which is deeper than the sea, which is very hard to level. It’s not easy to subdue these feelings of enmity. Do you want to know why there are wars, floods, fires, and epidemics in the world? What is the reason for the suffering. killing, and blood shed brought on by wars? Why do people seek each other out to take revenge? Because there has been too much killing. If you don’t understand, just go near the slaughterhouse and listen to the sounds that come from there at midnight?the pigs calling out, the lambs crying, the cows wailing …They are all there pleading, “Please spare our lives, Mister! Please spare our lives, Elder! Please spare our lives, Buddha!” But we pretend we don’t see or hear them crying out, and we go ahead and kill them without a second thought. As soon as we kill them, the one thought of ha tred that those cows, sheep, and pigs give rise to will lead them to seek revenge in the future. This leads to disasters such as world wars and all kinds of accidental deaths. These all result from the taking of life.

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By the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua

For hundreds of thousands of years, the stew in the pot
Has boiled up a resentment very hard to level.
If you want to know why there are calamities and wars in the world,
Just listen to the sounds from a slaughter-house at midnight.

This poem is directed toward those who eat meat and drink bouillon made from mutton, or beef, or pork. Or maybe it’s cat broth or dog soup, or rat soup. Or maybe it’s made from ants or mosquitoes. At any rate, the reason for the ingredients of these different kinds of broth is that for a very long time, people have assumed that they have the right to take the lives of other living creatures in order to enhance their own.

In order to bolster their own physical strength and at the same time to enjoy the flavors of flesh, they deprive other creatures of their lives. That’s why people eat meat. But the resentment – the anxiety and hatred – contained in that broth is as deep as the sea. That is because life after life we mutually kill and eat, eat and kill – we eat each other’s flesh. You eat my meat, and then I will turn around and eat your flesh. We slaughter and devour each other in this way. and that is why the enmity is as deep as the sea, and the “resentment is very hard to level.”

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The Tao is near but people seek afar.
Things are easy, but people seek what’s difficult.

People who study the Buddhadharma shouldn’t hurt for bargains. That is what worldly people do they’re always looking for the easy way out. But people who study the Buddhadharma should act in exactly the opposite way. Don’t always be looking for a bargain. The more you try to get off easy, the bigger will be the loss you take. What kind of big loss will you take? You will make mistakes in cause and effect and thereby fall into the hells.

Just now, someone asked me, “Is it good to eat meat or not good to eat meat?” I said, “There is good in eating meat and there is not good in eating meat.” What’s the good about eating meat? Well, “It’s delicious and nutritious, too,” you think. And why is meat?eating not good? The worst thing about it that’s not good is that after you digest it, it smells worse than any other type of food, It makes your body stink.

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