**On the matter of Vegetarianism** I am aware the Theravada canon states that Buddha allowed monks to consume meat on the basis that they did not see, hear, know or suspect have been slaughtered for them. However Mahayana Sutras state that the Buddha forbade eating meat for example in the lankavatara and Surangama sutras. Which position would be more authentic, and how do we know whether the Buddha taught Vegetarianism or not?

Buddha said to his disciples (monks), meat can be eaten if they are not seen, heard or suspected to have been killed on purpose for a monk. Eating meat is different from killing animal, it's clear. Lay people on the other side do not obtain meat like monks do, lay people buy meat. The money then goes to meat seller and abattoir. Is this the same as "Causing another to kill"?

I have been thinking to simplify my diet. The reasons are two-fold, first off, one, that I don't have to think about food, which automatically avoids getting entangled in cravings and aversions towards taste. The second being that it will be healthier for me and probably also cheaper. So I was thinking of some possible recipes for meal prepping which are both Healthy and easy to prep. I would like to eat that on a regular basis, and hopefully be done with this ever-present hassle of being concerned about food and focus on meditation/study instead. Needless to say, taste doesn't matter much but not extremely bland would be preferred. As of now I jsut came up with these options : 1) Brown rice+ frozen vegetables+nuts 2) sweet potatoes and rice-beans. 3) Tofu- vegetables-beans ( I am a noob when it comes to cooking ). So I was wondering if you guys have any great ideas on easy meal prepping or on eating/food in general for lay buddhists.

I have never seen a Buddhist food offering at an altar. Can someone explain how it's done?

If you are mindful you don't eat for taste - so chances are you over eat are smaller. There are a few monks I know and I truly believe are advanced practitioners (meaning I won't be surprised if they are arahants) who are overweight. And this really clashes with the concept of eating mindfully - can someone help reconcile the fact they are overweight and being advanced practitioners ? Edit : just to be clear there are overweight people who eat little and have self control and healthy but have bad metabolism which makes them fat ... and skinny people who are gluttons and eat a lot of fat foods and are still skinny .... I'm just giving the most extreme example which are of monks who are extremely mindful and don't need to give 0 consideration to enjoyment from the food and are aware of their bodies.

I am not sure this post is appropriate. Pindacāra, the practice of collecting alms-food, is observed by Theravada Buddhist monks who have gone forth from ‘home-life’ to ‘homelessness’. A Buddhist monk is known in Pāli Language as a ‘bhikkhu’ – meaning ‘one who lives on alms’. In Buddhist countries such as Thailand and Myanmar, it is a daily ritual for monks to go on Pindacāra, where they walk through a village from one household to another, allowing devotees to make food offerings. Q) Why it mentions all are welcome except Muslim? I understand some non halal food served in between of the activities. What would be the right wording so it's sound better but deliver the same message?

I'm trying to clarify something I believe I heard a while back. I think I heard the monk instruct the lay person to say "Bhikku Sanghassa Demi" which I believe was later translated as "I give this to the community of monks" Is this correct?

I am Buddhist, but not a strict vegetarian. When new acquaintances discover this they are often shocked and wonder, "How can this be??!!" I'm going to try and explain my answer and see what others think. I contend that being a vegetarian can often act as a temporary hindrance for some Buddhists. They miss the forest for the trees. One of my own preceding factors for learning about the Dharma was a decision to look deeply at my own consumption of meat and to explore the ethical and moral implications thereof in an honest and heartfelt way that I had never done before. I made a choice not to eat meat and became a vegetarian for five years more or less in parallel to my discovering and contemplating the Buddha Dharma, but to be clear *I became a vegetarian strictly BEFORE I became a Buddhist* or began practicing Buddha Dharma in earnest. Over the ensuing years since then I have abandoned being a strict vegetarian and have continued and strengthened in my practice of the Buddha Dharma. At first, the two seemed to coincide completely, but over time I found myself dwelling on being a vegetarian and being greatly disturbed to find other Buddhists who were not. Upon hearing that another member of the Sangha ate meat I would tend to distrust them and look at them as hypocrites at worst and misguided or lower than me in their ethical understanding of Buddha Dharma at best. I was a proselytizer for becoming a vegetarian to my buddhist/ non-buddhist friends alike and worried about what more I could do to convince others. I grew despondent and anxious over my inability to convince others and suffered thinking about and empathizing with all the animals that were being killed on a daily/hourly/second-by-second basis merely to provide the flesh for the insatiable human demand for meat. When I looked at the scale of the problem, billions of animals dying and billions of people consuming their flesh in this carnivorous world I became hopeless that it would ever stop. I thought all of these thoughts indicated progress on the path as my heart opened up with compassion for all these animals. But there was this nagging thought that I was actually not at all happy and was actually suffering thinking about all this in a repetitive way day after day. It occurred to me that this seemed inconsistent with what my teachers said that progress on the path - on a coarse level - is seen commensurate with an increase in happiness and a decrease in suffering. Finally, it got bad enough that I more or less confessed all the above to my teacher and his response shocked me. He laughed with a deep and merry belly laugh and advised that I should get over being a vegetarian and the best way to do this was to eat a little meat. He asked me how many animals I had saved today suffering at being a vegetarian and how many I would save tomorrow. He contended that my choice of being a vegetarian had not helped even one animal to escape from samsara and that I had yet to even begin to reconcile with the scale of the problem of samsara as opposed to the *nearly insignificant in comparison* problem of the human market for meat. He told me I needed to let go of this attachment to being a vegetarian and congratulating myself on how ethical and moral I was compared to all those who were not and to get busy doing the actual work of becoming enlightened so that I may *actually* help all those animals. When I look back I think my teacher was entirely correct. Being a vegetarian had become a hindrance for me. And since that time I think of all the people (including fellow Buddhists) who react with outrage at the idea that I am not a strict vegetarian and wonder if they are not all on a similar path that will require them to put down this hindrance in the future in order to make progress. Of course, it is my responsibility to overcome this hindrance and make it temporary. No one can do this for me. It simply isn’t the case that being a vegetarian is necessarily a hindrance for some like there is some property of being a vegetarian that makes it impossible for some to progress. There is nothing inherent to being a vegetarian that makes one fall into the trap that I fell into. Rather, it was my own karma and ego that made it so and it is my responsibility to overcome this so that being a vegetarian will no longer be a hindrance for me just as it is not for OyaMist who has the most wonderful answer I could imagine and one I aspire to. So there you have it... a question I've been meaning to ask for awhile and inspired by activity in this related post and some of the excellent answers and discussion within. **Can being a vegetarian actually be a temporary hindrance for some?**

I feel guilty about eating non-vegetarian food (fish, eggs and chicken). I know Buddhist followers, brahmins (Hindus) and Jains follows strict rules for vegetarianism. Does eating any sort of meat have an impact on your overall mentality?

I have heard that Buddha was eating similar to one meal a day. Is this true? Would this not lead to severe constipation? Was it common for ascetics to take medicines to help purge the food waste from their bodies?

The teaching of Buddha Kassapa in Snp 2.2 : > “Killing living beings, > hunting, cutting, binding, > theft, lying, fraud, deceptions, > useless recitations, > associating with the wives of others: > This is a raw stench, > not the eating of meat. > Snp 2.2 (and more similar statements in the whole text of the same sutta) From Buddha Kassapa's quote above, we see that eating meat by itself is not killing karma. However, it is popular opinion that eating meat is definitely killing karma because it indirectly causes the killing of animals. This was also Tissa's attack on Buddha Kassapa, a brahmin by birth. What is the correct understanding of the principle of karma in Buddhism, for this case of eating meat? Why does Snp 2.2 not consider eating meat to be killing karma?

I heard from some brotherhood from Mahayana said Theravada also will do some chanting for eating meat. Is it true ? I have only able to find the Mahayana Mantra but not Theravada info as below https://drukpachoegon.org/meat-blessing-mantra

Q: > 1) What is the proper thing to do if you, as a monk, were to accept > alms but have stomach issues so can't eat all the food? > > 2) What would a monk do if they are allergic to the alms given? > (lactose and tolerant, alergy) > > 3) What is the procedure for alms?

Most if not all Buddhists I know are vegetarian or vegan. Thinking about the precepts this is not surprising - one should abstain from killing. However is this universally true in all Buddhist traditions? Are there some Buddhist traditions that emphasize vegetarianism more than others? For instance I believe the Tibetans were originally pastoral farmers which wouldn't lend itself to vegetarianism naturally. So is Buddhist vegetarianism universal, specific to tradition or culture, or a lot more flexible than that?

This is a questions that often comes up when I visit study groups, particularly when the subject of everyone practicing like a monk/nun comes up. Wouldn't monastics be allowed to farm-just enough for sustenance? It seems extreme that they would just starve because no one fed them. My understanding was that the food offering was mostly established for the lay people to have an opportunity to give and gain merit, but I may be wrong. Is there a canonical reference saying monastics can only eat if given food? What did they do before the order was fully established? What about forest monastics who go of for extended periods alone?

I sometimes see rules suggesting that monks (at least Theravadan) should not eat various animals. The lists vary, but includes to varying degree: elephants, horses, dogs, snakes, lions, tigers, leopards, bears, hyenas, slugs, cows, and humans. When I try to find something authoritative about this, I've come up short. Can anyone shed light on: (1) is there a list of animals that monks are prohibited from eating, and if so, (2) where does this appear in the canon, and (3) how/why were the particular animals listed?

Bread has flour and yeast. Therefore, a scientist can say that it is both an animal and a vegetable grain. Is there anything wrong with eating bread?

I am non-vegetarian but since reading through Buddhist scriptures, I felt like going towards Vegan would be prefered approach in order to follow and know Buddhism. Please guide me on this dilemma. Regards

There is some evidence that plants are 'sentient beings' and can communicate (e.g. see [this article](http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plants) or [this wikipedia page](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_perception_(physiology))) . However Buddhists believe eating meat is wrong because of killing a living entity, what about plants? If this is true what can you eat?

Farmers who breed animals and sale to butcher or for food concern is considered as intentional killing and break first precept?