Filed under: Masters' Teachings
In this regard, we find accounts of how Acharya Asanga spent twelve years in meditation to have a vision of Buddha Maitreya. He exerted so much throughout those years but still he could not have a vision. He lost heart and came out of his meditation cave. He was walking towards town when all of a sudden, he came across a female dog totally infected by maggots on the lower part of her body. She was being eaten away by thousands and thousands of maggots. Asanga felt so much compassion towards the maggots and towards the female dog. He was wondering how to relieve both the maggots and the female dog. The maggots themselves are so delicate that to pick them up with the hand will kill them instantly.
Filed under: Masters' Teachings
From His Holiness 17th Karmapa, Orgyen Trinley Dorje
By Vin Harris
Bodhgaya – Full moon day 3rd January 2007 was the last day of the 24th Kagyu Monlam. In the shade of the Bodhi Tree, seat of Enlightenment of One Thousand Buddhas, Orgyen Trinley Dorje the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa gave this teaching on the benefits of not eating meat. Over 6,000 people were present. The teaching was heard by Lineage Holders, Rinpoches, Lamas, Ordained Sangha and lay practitioners who had travelled from many countries including Tibet, Nepal, India, Taiwan, Korea, Burma, USA, Canada, Russia and all parts of Europe.
Filed under: Masters' Teachings
Transcribed excerpt from Venerable Tenzin Palmo’s Talk “Karma & Rebirth”, held at Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery on 5th June 2005 :
“And ‘killing’. You know? I mean, I do think, yes, in Singapore, we have to think about this. That you can say, ‘Alright, I don’t kill anything. I, you know, I don’t kill. I live in a town. I don’t need to kill anything.’ But, even by taking meat, we are colluding in allowing animals to be killed. And I think that as Buddhists, people on the spiritual path, we should think about this. Because if there is no demand, then there will be no cause to kill the animals.
Filed under: Buddhist Quotes
Hatred might not come from the person who buy, cook or eat the meat, but the animals that got killed might unknowingly generate hatred and fear.
To cease hatred and fear, we have to cease killing.
– yizhen
Filed under: Writings
A Section From : The Red Thread – Buddhist Approaches to Sexuality
The Buddhist notion of desire is not limited to sexual desire; it encompasses all sensual desires. Desire is usually described with ten similes: it is said to be like a dry meat bone, a piece of meat for which many birds are fighting, a torch made of straw carried against the wind, a pit full of burning coal, a dream of a beautiful landscape, borrowed things, a tree laden with fruit on which it is dangerous to climb, a slaughterhouse, the point of a sword, a snake’s head.
Filed under: General
I had a discussion with a friend about how the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path link with vegetarianism, and I came across “The Complete Book of Buddha’s Lists” (Explained by David N. Snyder, Ph.D.) , in which there’s a question (and answer) which struck me to be very similiar to my understanding of the Eightfold path…
Filed under: Sutras/Suttas
(135) A Shorter Classification of Actions
Young man, a certain woman or man destroys living things, is fierce with bloody hands, engaged in destroying living things without compassion. On account of that action, accomplishment and undertaking, after death he decreases, is born in hell. After death, if he does not decrease and is not born in hell, and if born with humans, wherever he is born, has short life. Young man the behaviour of destroying living things, being fierce with bloody hands, engaging in destroying living things without compassion, is conducive to be born with short life.
Filed under: Writings
By http://www.quietmountain.org/dharmacenters/buddhadendo/vege.htm
Vegetarianism is itself a rather minor topic within Buddhism, yet it generates controversy beyond its importance. In examining the single subject of vegetarianism we need to bring in other seemingly unrelated subjects: how is Buddhism adapted to new languages and cultures? What or who is a monk? How did the Mahayana and Vajrayana scriptures expand on the Pali records? What is the teaching on killing? Researching these questions is not an exercise in selecting passages from the sutras to justify a preconception. Rather it is an exercise in understanding the intention and reasoning of Shakyamuni Buddha.
Filed under: Masters' Teachings
