Big article... good for discussion...lol



The mere use of such names as "vegetarian chicken" and "vegetarian duck" plants seeds of defilement.

During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, when Buddhism flourished in China, people would always invite monks to recite Sutras at weddings and funerals. Times have changed, and now monks are invited to recite Sutras only at funerals. No one asks them to recite Sutras at weddings or baby showers. Actually, this is wrong. Whether it is an occasion for rejoicing or mourning, left­home people should be asked to recite Sutras and transfer the merit, on the one hand to save the deceased, and on the other to increase the blessings of the living.

During Emperor Wu's time, there was a high monk called the Venerable Zhi. Having attained the Five Eyes and the Six Spiritual Penetrations, he could clearly discern causes and effects. One time, a rich man asked him to recite Sutras at a wedding. Upon entering the house, he sighed and said:

How strange! How very strange indeed!

The grandson marries the grandmother.

The daughter is eating her mother's flesh,

And the son is beating on a drum stretched with his father's skin.

Pigs and sheep are sitting on the couch,

And the six kinds of relatives are cooking in the pots.

People have come to offer congratulations,

But I see that it is truly suffering!

What does this mean? The grandson marries the grandmother. Would you say this is strange or not? Right before she died, the grandmother of the family had held her grandson's hand, not being able to part with him. She said, "You all have your own families, but this little grandson of mine has no one to take care of him. Ah! What is there to be done?" Then she died.

When she arrived at King Yama's court, King Yama gave her the following verdict, "Since you love your grandson so much, you might as well go back to be his wife and take care of him." And so the grandmother was reborn as her grandson's future wife. The workings of the law of cause and effect in this world can be quite frightening.

The daughter is eating her mother's flesh. Outside the house, a girl was eating a pig's foot with great relish, not realizing that the pig had been her mother in its previous life. And the son is beating on a drum stretched with his father's skin. Venera­ble Zhi then took a look at the musicians who were beating drums and blowing on their trumpets and flutes. What excitement! One man was banging away vigorously on a drum stretched with mulehide, not knowing that the mule had been his father in a previous life.

Venerable Zhi looked at the people sitting on the couch and said: Pigs and sheep are sitting on the couch. Then he looked in the pots and said: And the six kinds of relatives are cooking in the pots. All the former pigs and sheep that had been slaugh­tered before were now getting even and eating the people who had eaten them before! The six kinds of relatives who had eaten those pigs and sheep were now being chopped up and cooked in the pots to pay off their debts.

People have come to offer congratulations, / But I see that it is truly suffering! Everyone thought it was a happy occasion, but the Venerable Zhi only sighed and said, "This is really suffering!" People take suffering to be joy!

After hearing this story you should understand the horror of killing and eating meat. Let us look at the Chinese character for meat (肉 ) .

Two people (人) are inside the character for meat (肉).

The person inside is linked to the one outside.

Living beings eat the flesh of living beings.

If you really think about it, it is people eating people.

Thus it is best to be vegetarian. However, we shouldn't use names such as "vegetarian chicken," "vegetarian duck," and "vegetarian abalone" for vegetarian dishes. If we are vegetarians, why can't we forget about meat? The mere use

of such names plants seeds of defilement. Vegetarian dishes shouldn't be called by non‑vegetarian names.

Some people who came to the City of Ten Thousand Bud­dhas this time have vowed to become lifelong vegetarians. This is a very good thing, because this way one severs unwholesome affinities with living beings in the six paths. If you don't eat them, they won't eat you; if you don't kill them, they won't kill you. The cycle of karmic retribution will thus be purified.

"What benefits are there in being vegetarian?" someone asked.

I said, "There aren't any. You're taking a loss while you're alive." Because vegetarian food isn't as tasty as meat, you take a loss by being vegetarian during your life. However, if you don't keep a vegetarian diet, then you will take a loss after death. It's like a scale. You have to figure out for yourself which side is heavier and which is lighter.

Why will you take a loss after death if you eat meat? Well, your body is composed of the foods you eat. If you eat vegetables, you will smell like vegetables; if you eat onions, you'll smell like onions; drink milk, and you'll smell like milk; eat cheese, and you'll smell like cheese. If you eat some garlic, your breath will smell of garlic. The things you eat become part of your body. If you eat a lot of a certain thing, your body will become very similar to it. Therefore, if you eat a lot of pork, you will become a pig. Eat a lot of beef, an you will become a cow. This accords with science and logic. The meat you eat incorporates with your body, and after you die you turn into that kind of animal. If you smell like a pig, for instance, after you die King Yama takes a sniff and says, "You smelly thing, you should be reborn as a pig." The same goes for sheep, cows, chicken, and dogs. That's what I mean by being cheated after death.

You can investigate this carefully. Why does a butcher of pigs have eyes resembling those of a pig? It's because he had been slaughtered as a pig many times in the past, and now he has come to seek revenge. Although he is human, his eyes are those of a pig. Cattle butchers have the eyes of a cow. The law of cause and effect is never off. There is a verse:

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 wars in the world,

Just listen to the haunting cries that come

From a slaughterhouse at midnight.

The grief and hatred brewed up in a pot of meat stew is as deep as the ocean. It could never be fully described. The wars and massacres in the world are brought about by the convergence of the evil karma of living beings, causing beings to undergo retribution at the same time. If you listen carefully to the cries of misery coming from a slaughter­house in the middle of the night, you will realize the horror of the ceaseless killing that goes on in there.

Scientists have discovered that people who eat a great deal of meat tend to get cancer. This is because the resentful energy in the bodies of slaughtered animals accumulates in the bodies of those who eat meat and eventually turns into a harmful toxin. We should cut off this relationship of causes and effects with animals and stop the vicious cycle of creating offenses against cows, sheep, chickens, and other animals. Then we will gradually be able to lessen the inaus­picious energy in the world.

At the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas, we want to uphold the Proper Dharma and avert the crisis of killing in the world. We want to slowly and imperceptibly avert this disaster. Therefore we advocate: not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual misconduct, not lying, not drinking, and not taking drugs. At the very least, we should observe the Five Precepts and maintain our purity in that regard. Since you have come to this treasure mountain, don't leave empty‑handed!

A talk given on November 20, 1979.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...

Alright man.

Please list some good, solid alternatives to meat to help GROUND OUT.

All this "do gooder, my karma is better than your karma" stuff aside..some practical food that can ground me out as well as some delicious salami slices.

Your pal,

Cameron

hehehe

One can eat fungus like wood ear (black leafy like stuff) for proteins, tofu, lots of crunchy greens, peanuts, rice. Grounding is of mind my brother. From eating veggies one's energy will reach very high, but if you have a stable mind, its no problem in "grounding".
Being ungrounded and things getting dangerous from eating veggies is only a falsity. There are cultivators that are magnificent at what they do, and do not touch meat.
Their "grounding" methods is keeping the mind free from indulging in flippant behavior, not indulging in visuals, sounds too much, as well as changing their behavior and views of "life".

After a certain level of cultivation, one's energy, on veggie foods, will be fine, no problems. Like I said, "grounding" is of mind.
If eating meat was so necessary to keep one here in body, the Buddha and all his followers would be chowing down on rack of lamb, and what not, and the teachings of cause and effect would be false. --- Also the Daoist Immortals and various Celestial Light Beings would be advocating eating meat... it just doesn't happen.

One will not go crazy...lol Maybe I'm crazy, but I only eat veggies as well.

So basically, "grounding" is dependent on the mind cultivating, not what they eat. Keep to wholesome views, and still mind and heart, and there will be no problem at all.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

There is a good discussion about eating meat going on at David Verdesi's foundation forum atm

http://foundation73.proboards55.com/index....read=1194477565

Cultivating anything requires a healthy body. One can eat anything they want and attain powers to a certain degree. But there are some things that just don't mix. And gaining powers doesn't end one's affinities with those they have conditions with.

I went days without eating anything...body was full, alive, vibrant, and not one ounce of fatigue, plus I only slept for 2-3 hrs a night, up and about the rest of the time cultivating, working, and keeping active.
Deficiency are for those who just don't cultivate... also those who do not understand how to eat. Other than that, if one just eat rice greul all day long, but cultivates wholesome practices, they will have no health problems whatsoever.

The human body has physical traits, but people think it is from human nature. It is not, it is simply from the mind...the conditions in mind manifest in physical shape..thus sharp teeth, and whatnot. Many people only see the surface, and choose not to go deeper, and or think there is nothing more to it.

To know the causes and conditions of things, meditate with the humble intention of awakening to the teachings of cause and effect. As time goes on, things begin to unfold.


Peace and Blessings,
Lin

Sifu Lin I respect your views but if Sifu Max AND David Shen both advocate meat eating I have to stick with that for now.

Will see how things develop in a couple years.

Peace and Blessings Cameron. Stick to what you feel is right in your mind. Let no views from others cause confusion, or even doubt to something you truly feel is good for you. There will always be a time when things change, even for the firmest of cultivators. You won't be alone during that time. Things always get hairy when we think we got it.

If I can be of any help... I'm here my brother.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

Allow me to chime in. I have a sincere wish to the best of my possibilities give what I have learned about what my teacher said in order not to let certain things stick in people's mind he has clarified elsewhere.

He does not simply advocate eating meat. What he said was that it depends on the person... and many seem not yet to be ready to stop eating meat. This is not saying "you shall eat meat"...

The cruelty of eating meat really is something I am struggling with sometimes... and the idea put forth in the story sure is a shocking one if it were true. I don't claim any knowledge on this...

I personally feel that if we start on this path we are not right away able to stop certain things. And I very much hope that some things just develop naturally and we can then let go of them easily...



Harry

There are causes and conditions for everything. Take time to make changes if they cannot be done right away. That is no problem. Even the Buddha during his discourses knew that people would have a hard time dropping meat. He realized a method inwhich to lighten the load of "evil' Karma by giving some pointers so to say;

If one is going to eat meat, let them not hear the animal they will eat, screaming. They should not know the animal prior to eating it, and have not seen them being killed, nor hearing them. The animal shouldn't be of their own household as well.

If not following these guidelines, one will be deeper in the cycle of paying back the deeds. That doesn't mean to not make the effort to change, it just means that those whose body is with conditions that it depends on meat due to karma, and the person doesnot know or even cannot cultivate the way to drop that karma, change, it, eat meat, but do so without the heavier of the two types of karma of eating it.. haha

So it was; If you do not hear the animal, have any relations with that animal; it being your household animal, having seen it before it was killed, fed it, gave it water, taken care of it, its alright to eat it...but this is only if one cannot do without it. Their karma is thus heavy at this point.

Karma is even much more intricate than this, but this example is a hint into how deep things run.
I hope this helps.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

Exactly Sunshine,

My sense is these things should be the NATURAL by product of your cultivation and not some forced rule of conduct.

Now..some people take this to the extreme saying.."Oh..in that case if I just want to kill someone I don't like or rape some hot chick it's ok?".

My guess is if you really wanted to do those things in your heart you would not be cultivating in the first place.

I am open to going veggie in the future if it is balanced. But as far as I can tell now..If Mantra has been doing the practice I am doing for 6 years and eats meat..I am in no hurry..and will only do it when the time is right and not because some self righteous Buddhist(Don't mean you Lin) says to.

If your source of protein is mainly meat and you decide to go vegetarian, you just have to make sure you do it gradually - the enzymes your body uses to break down animal proteins are slightly different, so a 'cold turkey' switch from animal proteins to plant proteins will make you sick. Seen it happen to a friend or two before!

There are fanatics in everything out there on this planet. People follow rules without considering their own problems, conditions, even reason. This is blind, and by no means was it the way the Buddha, or any other Buddha for that matter, taught things to be. They all taught, and do, investigation. When conditions are proper, work with them, when they are not proper, plant the causes for them to be proper.

And yes moving from meat protein to plant protein can be a bit troublesome too fast. During my teens when I switched, I would find problems with enzymes frequently until I amped up cultivation and ate meat once every two wks for a few months before I could drop it without hurting my body.
I wasn't raised veggie eater, but wanted to be. My friends used to hold me down and stuff hamburgers in my mouth in my early teens when I decided to just eat salads when we all went to mcdonalds. hahaha

Peace,
Lin

This is very interesting, Lin.

And I always thought the way some indigenous cultures approached it (talking to the animal and thanking it for giving its life for the lives of the wife and children) was a much better way than eating packaged meat you don't know of where it came from...

thankx for sharing



Harry

I also knew of some cultures who would hunt and or talkk with their animals as well. They may not be aware of cause and effect, but they try to make things happy until they eat it. hahaha It still causes them to have a strong affinity with the animal. But in the next life they may not remember the heart to heart conversation...anything is possible...depends on the conditions.. hahaha

Nowadays I wouldn't touch meat...with all the chemicals and things in them. Even vegetables are being genetically modified to contain fish, animal and other living being body parts. Ridiculous. Its like someone out there realizes that being a vegetarian can actually make one a bit wiser and spiritually high, and so they try to mess with the food to keep people in one place.

Not Fun.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

For the sake of discussion:
If consciousness and life are one, non-dualistic, the eternal Dao, what is the difference if I eat vegetable, fruit, nuts, fungus, fish, fowl, animal, or, for that matter, human? Where is the distinction, is the distinction not illusory?

Tao designed us as a hunter-gatherer, chewer-swallower, digester-eliminator species.

Domestic animals and cultivated plants is a lifestyle of a parasitic species.

What's wrong with us is not that we eat meat (since we are fully equipped to hunt for it and digest it, similarly to animals like rats and baboons and plants like the Venus fly trap or Carnivora, and quite unlike a cow, rabbit, or a rose bush). What's really wrong is that we live the lifestyle of a parasitic species vis a vis both animals and plants, which is an evolutionary dead end for all involved parties.

A species that is not naturally parasitic that adopts a parasitic lifestyle can only deplete all resources it uses to extinction, because to be an efficient parasite that doesn't ultimately demolish its environment, you have to have been designed as such by tao, like intestinal flukes, mistletoe, or tree fungi. Our parasitic lifestyle is a creation of the human mind, not the mind of tao. Whatever we do in order to tweak this way and that way with ways to perpetuate this deadly evolutionary mistake we've made is bound to fail in the long run, and vegetarianism is not the answer by any stretch of imagination -- we can't parasitize successfully on plant foods anymore than on animal foods. As self-appointed parasites, we plant for monocultures, supporting only plants we want to eat and killing all the rest; this kills animals that are supposed to feed off those plants of no interest to us that we've killed, and then animals who'd feed off the plant-eating ones; the cycle of murder is getting wider and wider in overlapping concentric circles spreading from each corn field to the irreversible extinction of 150 species of plants and animals daily. If a vegetarian advocate will step forward and explain to me how this is harmless compared to eating an individual animal (the way our ancestors did for nearly a million years) without eliminating from existence another 150 species in the process, I'm all ears.

Hi Taomeow,
I watched a Discovery Documentary called Alien Planet, there was a science-fiction movie about how an alien planet would look like and what kind of forms of life and intelligence would we encounter. It was made with all the technological details and machines that would imply it. The planet was called Darwin 4.
As I watched this, it suddently dawned to me: why would God conceive this concept of an ecosystem, where, practically, plants and animals hunt and eat each other in order to ballance each other out.
I cannot say that a plant is less alive and counscious than an animal, based on my experience with my garden and flowers.
But I thought then, wait, it must be that, for God, killing in order to eat, transforming and transferring of the essence of one animal to another, is not such a bad thing.
Actually is an accelerated form of evolution. When a higher form of organisation and consciousness eats a lesser one, the essence of the lesser one is fused into the higher one. And so on. And I don't think humans are the top of the food chain. Just the other day my teacher had to pluck some energetic parasite from my skull, where it stood for some days causing me a lot of misery that I didn't have the energy to transform any more...

So, we are food for other beings too... angels I think are the same predatorial essence, only they leave a good imprint on us. At least this is how Aivanhow taught us.
One thing I don't understand about buddhism is why don't they take Nature as it is.
There are so many fun stories about buddhists seeing only what there is...
How about it, Lin?



Little1

Everyone is born with a certain amount of Karma. We have a body, we have at least one sense organ, we have a mind. These are our flour, our water, and our recipe. We may be born with a healthy body like Jack Lelane, or we may have a sickly body. We may have completly healthy sense organs, or we may have bad eyesight or poor hearing. We may be born with a mind that is razor sharp, like Albert Einstein's, or we may have an ill mind. Whatever the quality of our ingedients, they are all we have to work with. If we are very lucky, we can use these ingredients to bake a Buddha.

To bake a Buddha, we need an oven. We have the flour, and the water, and the recipe, but without an oven, it's just inert material. It isn't good to eat. It can't nourish anything. So we must find a good oven to use. Our oven is our cultivation. It too has parts that make it work.

We need a container of some sort: This is our Dharma, our path.

We need some heat: This is our method.

We need fire: These are our precepts.

The Dharma takes many forms, just as there are many kinds of oven. There are big ovens, small ovens, all kinds of colors and materials are used. Some are holes in the ground, some are big hundreds of thousands of dollars industrial affairs. Likewise there are many Dharmas, Taoist, Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, Jewish, Islamic, whatever.

Many of these Dharmas use different methods: prayer, mediation, reading holy words, giving and recieving talks, dipping ourselves in water, offering incense at holy shrines, helping eachother, giving alms... there are endless methods. All of them are like the heat inside our oven. It is the heat that actually "cooks" our ingredients. It cooks and tranforms our basic components into tasty Buddha-bread.

All Paths concentrate and cultivate methods by the keeping of precepts. This is just like an oven concentrating and amplifying the heat from a fire. Precepts are restrictions on our lifestyle that are there to create good Karma for cultivation. There are many sorts of precepts, but one precept that is universal to all Dharmas is the precept against killing. This is because killing is the most destructive action, and it is also the most difficult to give up. It is the first precept, and the last one.

You may get some heat for your oven by not stealing, or by not lying. If you really want to turn up the temperature to "High", take the precept of not killing.

It is okay to take precepts because of a moral judgement. It is okay to take precepts because of an inner knowing. It is okay to take precepts because you understand that your cultivation will not work without them. It dosen't matter why you take the precepts. It is only important that you do.

Just remember that if you are trying to bake a Buddha without precepts, you are like a baker who refuses to heat his oven.

I hope this talk helps.

i like chicken and tuna

Perfect question.

The distinction is only with the one who is attached to them. Living beings are attached to views, their ideas of what is. Therefore they are stuck in relativity because of their views of separation. Because of this, they create the karma that creates more karma which exaggerates the view of separation, leading them to believe it is true.
When one realizes there is no separation, they come to a mind that wouldn't impose harm to another, especially eating them. Animals run and beg for their lives, they are not willing. Vegetables also scream when you harvest them, chop them up. Yet creating affinities with something more closer to the elements in a more purer form than an animal or human, would be better for cultivation.
Humans and animals develop toxins in the body, not good for cultivating a clear mind, healthy body. Vegetables though turn to waste in the body, help to clean out the wastes and toxins. It is just more healthier to eat veggies, makes the body and mind lighter and clears emotional attachments.

It is thus that we utilize an illusion to manifest an illusion to give the illusion others are benefiting. If we know th function of the tool, it is no problem using it, but if we are ignorant to the tool, it no longer is helpful.

Peace,
Lin

"if we are to sense life as one and united,
we should start with sensing it in smaller united groups,
to have a proper bite for our mind to chew.
we are not really individuals,
Tao agrees on that,
there is nothing in the univers that is done by individuality
in the Universe there is only team work.
on Earth, the perfect team is an ecosystem,
in which everyone is food for everyone,
and their essence evolves sometimes merely as an act of eating.
so death could not be something negative,
it is only a means by which the team shares
and lets go,
for the essence to be transformed.
its just one of the many ways of Nature"

In Buddhist School, they take nature as it is. But not conditioned nature, original nature of all things. It is hard to conceive of someone actually knowing, being enlightened to their original nature. That nature is what is "seen" in Buddhist schools, and that is the nature they always refer to.

The nature of an animal is his causal nature, not his inherent nature. The inherent nature of the animal is the Enlightened mind, complete in wisdom. The conditional/causal nature of the animals is to eat when hungry, go to the bathroom when needed, breed. Then hunger gets the better, and they run after other animals if they are carnivores. It is because they are stuck in the state of mind of need and ignorance. But there are tigers and other meat eating animals who have gone to a Buddhist temple on their own, and lived there without harming the monks...only eating vegetables. It has nothing to do with religious moral dogma, Buddhism never had dogma. It has everything to do with right views.


Peace,
Lin




Why would we plant what we need and kill all the rest? The way of vegetarianism is accepted by Daoists not because of religious dogma, but because they realize that humans can actually choose not to kill, impose fear and resentment in other living beings, and thus cultivate to attain their proper result of cultivation.
People may have hunted for millions of years, but that doesn't make them wise, it only makes them hunters, and skillful ones.

Killing animals for food advocates more killing in the world, not eating vegetables. lol
Its like fighting terrorism with more terrorism. Gets no where.

One's nature is not what you describe. What you described are the conditions created by the mind, karma. Hunting is not the original nature, but it arises within it. It is because of ignorance that people kill other people and animals, as well as why animals kill other animals. They are ignorant to the causes and conditions of killing, and so look to fulfill their insatiable desire to eat.

One doesn't even have to eat at all. But that is only with the proper conditions for it.

Peace,
Lin

Chocolate bunny!!!! mmmm

Hi Lin,

I am curious about your usage of the word "more" with words that already have "-er" endings. One of the reasons I am interested is that it was a habit of Max's at the Kunlun seminar that I attended. Is this just poor grammar, or is it a hypnotic tool? Or something else?

Best,

Todd

BTW interesting discussion on karma and conditions of the mind... I'm enjoying it a lot.

Humans are not natural vegetarians. Our ancestors were all meat eaters, prior to there being organized societies that engaged in agriculture. They also had better teeth and general health, speaking broadly. If you don't believe it, take a look at Dr. Weston Price's book here. Just look at the pictures. All these traditional tribes were in much better health before the white man's food arrived. Not only that, the healthiest groups were the ones that ate plenty of organ meats and seafoods. The ones closest to vegetarian were the least-healthy.

I tried vegetarianism and veganism. They don't work. You need some meat and fish, etc. It's part of our heritage. If you don't believe it, read Dr. Price's book.

I'm not saying that, if the plants you eat are healthy enough, you can't be a healthy vegan or vegetarian. But...nobody is consistently growing plants of that quality, for the most part. You either have to have just the right soil, or you have to know what you are doing really well. It's much harder than any of the fools trying to be vegetarian or vegan realize.

Veganism is the real danger. If you can get raw dairy of sufficiently good quality, you really don't need meat or fish. However, the plants that the cow/goat/etc. is eating have to be of really super high quality. Few know how to grow such plants, as I have discovered in my years of studying these issues. Until you can get such plants consistently, best to eat some meat and/or fish on a regular basis. I speak from experience, folks.

and what if, the things we call greed, hunger, agression, passion, deceit and so on, are only functional designs of a greater organism.
we call them names, based on our own set of values.
but what if they are more than that, maybe even not really negative.
we call them negative because it doesn't make sense for the self.
but for the higher multiple-ecosystem-self, it has perfect sense.

what if all the buddhist description of suffering is only that... the observing of natural processes by a mind concerned about it's own survival: birth, poverty, illness, death...

if all of the above would be a taoist view
I think it could be more selfless and compassionate than buddhist view



does this make sense to anyone?

Sorry if I disagree but grounding is dependent on Yin and Yang. Nothing to do with the mind.

If you are a cave dweller and meditating non-stop for three years then only live on "qi" and water due to their extreme Yin condition. However, if you are doing a lot of physical activity and/or living in society then eating meat/fish is not going to deter your spiritual progress as in this state you are more Yang and hence you would need more meat/fish and sexual activity.

It's all about balancing Yin & Yang according to our energetic requirements and own internal make-up following Shen Xiao (5 elements applied to Zodiac).


Remember that Siddharta Buddha died of eating either "mushroom delicacy or soft pork".

aren't your 'energetic requirements' primarily determined by your mind?

When I began to cultivate/meditate in earnest, I rapidly lost my taste for meat and alcohol. I still eat meat when the urge is there (rarely), or when my wife puts it in front of me... (more often than I would like... ) and I drink wine occasionally, but I'm much more sensitive to both. Meat seems to be dead rotting muscle to me now and is rarely appetizing. I get intoxicated much more easily now than I used to. I used to drink quite a bit... All of this is still a reflection of "my" illusion.

Animals run and scream from predators yet the predators still kill and eat them. People still struggle against death yet death is always there to greet them. It is a part of the way. Humans are descended of predators and carnivores/omnivores, is it not their way to eat meat? As we get closer to our nature, why would that not include playing the role of predator. I believe it's more related to conditioning than becoming closer to our nature.

I fully agree that our current parasitic existence is not "natural" yet eating only vegetables does not appear to be a natural state of humanity either. I also feel the natural tendency to shun meat as I continue to cultivate, yet, isn't cultivation a method to achieve our natural state? Isn't nature full of predator/prey relationships? Why would cultivation take us further from our predatory tendencies?

It's all quite interesting...

These days I eat a little bit of meat/fish a few days a week. With all the training, my body needs it.

it makes sense to me.

It makes alot of sense. Although, wouldn't compassion also fit in to the list of functional designs? It seems that it is simply our conditioning that leads us to assign labels like good, bad, desirable, undesirable....

i'm with agharta here in that humans do need to eat meat. i was a vegan for about a month maybe and it really isn't different from eating meat. in my opinion the reason most people feel more "energetic" and experience more "spiritual subtleties" is because it's like a fast for the body.

this is how it works for me

when a typical westerner goes for veganism or vegetarianism they are sometimes already overweight or where previously on a unhealthy diet. when you start eating more vegetables and nuts and legumes which use less energy to process, your body has more energy to detox and clean. people notice this and they say hey i feel great and stay vegans / vegetarians. however, i don't think this is the way to go.

it's just like fasting.

you do it for a little while to give your body some time to reverse the damage and then you adopt a healthy diet to maintain your bodies health.

It is quite simple actually.

Eating animals creates affinities with the animals. Eating vegetables creates affinities with the Earth's nourishing energy directly.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

I'm glad it makes sense

yes, compassion could be just another human label.
if you understand it as such based on religion and morality, that pretty relative.
but my teacher says compassion is not really a label, is a functional term, meaning a precise type of energy that is produced with certain method.

Lin, the energy of the plants is not the energy of the earth.
If it were, when we eat animals that eat plants, we wouldn't eat animal energy, we would eat plant energy.
Plant energy is specific refinement of earth energy, that has certain design.
It's design is more yin, like the plants are more static.
It has the same effect on the mind, making it more static.
If you want to get that, it's good, but only after you trained and studied and practiced a lot.
That means, after you used yang to grow up.
If you do it too soon... you need to move, and you may get stuck.
It's not just theory, is what happens with most of the plant-eaters I know.
Their mind is so static, not very receptive to new, and if they are, they accept it in their own terms.
They are... how can I best put it?! stubborn...
Interesting, the same thing I found years later when I studied Taoist Nutrition and the relation to Taoist Alchemy. They say don't rely entirely on plants, as plants will afect your judgement. And basically this is what happens, for good or for bad.

I am not with nor against veganism. I just say, when you do it, you have to have a SOLID background.
This means it's not beginning levels. At least not in Taoist Alchemy.
My teacher said if you want to have energy to transform the physical in non-physical, you need to eat well.
Later on, in a Huanshan mountain cave, who knows... sweet dew and fresh air...

Its not like this at all. Eating animals that eat plants doesn't mean we are eating the plant energy as well. The energy of the plants have been integrated with the energy of the animal and its body. That means it is defiled, not pure. Eating flesh will only mean the one eating it has to use more energy to digest it, wasting anything it gets from the flesh to digest it.
Eating the plants, one wastes energy digesting, but that energy is not all wasting away. It is used from the food and the body, and since the food is purer than eating it through animals, it adds to the body. One can not eat the waste of another being just for the sake of getting the nutrients the waste has from the other beings.
Meaning, if we eat animals and can get the pure energy from the plans the animal has eaten, then one can eat human and or animal waste and only take out the nutrients from the waste. It won't happen.

Plants taking power over the human is only if the Human and the spirit of that plant have been working with unwholesome things, such as wishing others harm, the plant spirit helping to fulfill the person's desires. Shamans also worked with ghosts, demons and the spirit realm. Those practices aren't all safe. Just because they could do it didn't mean they were free from the consequences of the practice.
Working with spirits and ghosts, demons require one to pay back anything that was given to them by the spirits and demons, ghosts in the first place.

Basically, Plants will never possess anyone.. haha that must be the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of. Possession only occurs if the person and the demon or ghost have the conditions for it. It just doesn't happen out of the blue.

Many people believe that the old Shamans worked "well" with ghosts, demons and spirits. That isn't always the case and it doesn't make for wholesome practice. If one simply cannot let go of eating meat, so be it, but eating vegetables doesn't lead to sickness like eating meat does. Besides, doing things that are not the norm usually get criticized more so than that of the norm.
There is too much misunderstanding on why it is better to eat veggies than meat, and so lots of excuses and intellect get put into it. It is very simple.
Veggies will make you lighter, and meat will make you heavier. Yin and Yang are in vegetables too, but attaching to the notion of yin and yang is ignorant. Whether one sees it now or later, eating the flesh of any living being is simply eating themselves.

Enjoy!

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

P.S.- Whichever way one chooses to live, that is only according to their own conditions. Changes are only made by the comfort in mind of the person. Sometimes it is good to do what makes us uncomfortable in our own cultivation...only when it involves not hurting another being.

Hi Lin I edited my post as I consider it too harsh
Ancient and modern shamans don't consider plants to be so innocent
And yes, that was my point, we eat ourselves, not the individual, but the great-ecosystem.
And it does that because it's the easiest way to transform essence.
This magic principle... we used it very much, a long time ago.
I don't mind being called ignorant, I know I am. I just like to look at a problem from different angles.
Some may be convenient, some not.
It doesn't mean I belive everything I write here. I just look for a sense in all this.
I think I found some, together with the rest of the people that agreed with what I wrote
So please don't take it the wrong way, we are just enquirers (oh did I spell that right)


PS: I didn't say when we eat animal, we eat plant energy too. I said this would be true, if we follow the logic of your arguments. Because you say we eat earth energy when we eat plants. And plants feed on earth energy, no?

PPS: Indeed, plants are no innocent beings. The thought of all the plants used for healing and poisoning... And it is said that every plant we eat can be used for healing... but this is just a "good" way of looking at things.

PPPS: Everything can possess you. If you grow to depend on it. Including living beings. Plant give so much to the plant eaters. In time, they come to possess the plant eaters. How do I define possession? It gives you it's soul. Your soul becomes as the soul of the plant.

It's magical thinking, shamanic thinking... we just explore posibilities, that's it

:-)

Its good to have very thorough discussions...no offense taken, and I didn't find it harsh at all.
Also, I do apologize if my posting made it sound as though I was calling you or any of us here ignorant. That was not my goal at all. We all hold to views here, and this place is a good and safe forum to share and discuss them. Peace.

I may have misread and understood your post. I thought you were stating that we could eat animals in order to get the plants they ate..lol

As for the ideas of possession, everything can, but not everything does. And not everything has the power to do so. Not all Shamans may have seen things clearly, and I am sure they had practices that weren't in their best interest in the long run. A plant may possess one, but that doesn't mean it may possess everyone who eats plants.
There are and were Shamans who sacrificed to ghosts and spirits, demons for powers and insights. They had close relations to them, but their conditions didn't make their practices wholesome. I too am exploring the possibilities Through the conditions I use to do that, I question every method of practice and cultivation presented, and do not take anyone with spiritual abilities to be an authority on anything.

There are many ideas in the world about the expression of the conditions of things ( what is usually called the nature of things). It takes alot of work cutting through it all to actually get some truth. This is why we must rely on our own logic and reasoning, our own common sense.

One's truth is another's falsity. When both have no more views of true and false, then ... Thus.


Peace and Blessings,
Lin

how wide is the definition of "sexual misconduct"?

BTW...for a vegetarian, you are maintaining a pretty hulkish figure


is spirulina and soy protein on the approved list?

haha

I weigh 170 with a 33 waist, have a belly...lol. If anything its the gongfu and cultivation. But I am by no means muscular.
Spirulina... I haven't had that in yrs, and they don't have that in China. Soy protein...almost every week I have tofu...lol


Sexual misconduct can fall into many levels depending on how deep you want to go with it.
There is one basic level which is not having sex with anyone else but your wife/girlfriend. It can go further and be to not indulge in sex so often with one's significant other so as to not be overwhelmed by desire.

Then it can be taken to the next level, thoughts and emotions; with or without a significant other, one would cultivate refraining from thoughts of sexual indulgence, and let the emotions that arise from sexual stimulation to pass through , not to influence their mind.
After this, or before,...either way you put it, one would refrain from masturbation, looking at all forms of sexual visuals; movies pics, as well as looking at men or women and imagining their bodies, looking at men or women and developing the urges to have sex.

That is a lot in which it covers. But usually the lay cultivator, depending on how far they want to take it, just tries to stick with no sex with others while with someone already. One can choose how far they want to go, and ofcourse, based on that choice, they will attain as much as they put in. If they go further, they put down more.

Peace,
Lin

And eating Lins?
In some tribes (native american if I remember well) once one of them would die they would take its bones and make soup with it. Then the whole tribe would eat the soup, and they would say, my ancestors are inside me.

"Veta-Mita-Vegamin...And its so tasty too!"

hahaha Oh no...don't eat this body o'mine please..lol

We all speak from experience Agharta. Most of us have tried vegetarinanism for some times. Or, worse, had thir girlfriend being vegetarians, or *horror* vegan.

I agree with all you said, but I would add that goats and *vegetarians* animals, are not vegetarians at all. They have some 5 stomach, in which they culture bacteria. The bacteria digest the grass, and they digest the bacteria, which contains plenty of protein

That's something.. Veganism being a real danger. People are too occupied with caring for their bodies and making an oversight of everything else. THe body will die, it is impermanent. Use it well to cultivate. Be aware of things we are all a part of...all minds are the same. The body inwhich weexperience through is different, but still part of the mind.

Eating veggies is fine, and cultivation makes the body even better. THere are vegans who live up to 100+ yrs, some are monks some aren't. And monks eat the worst of foods in most temples, both Daoist and Buddhist. People may say they are unhealthy, but those people are holding too fast to the body.

Worrying about how many proteins and carbs and such really takes too much time and focs away from cultivating. Take care of the body, just enough to allow you to cultivate without extreme hindrances in all aspects, not just physical.

Literally, cultivating enhances the cells in the body, the whole physical structure. One doesn't need to eat if they are cultivating wholesome practices. The body will remain healthy.

BUT if your liestyle already includes watching all manners of your food, and you already have it down to a system fully understood, by all means work it all you like. Teach it to others, and make a system so as to allow others to cultivate it in a well amount of time. Our daily lives are filled with so much occupying the mind, eat wholesome, light and get to cultivating.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

P.S.- Please do take care of your bodies, you have this one, its hard to come by...cultivate it well, and waste no time. Yet, don't spend a great amount of your time caring for the body and spending little on cultivating the mind...cultivating wisdom. Wisdom of body is one thing, but overall non dual wisdom is another. ALl things have their benefits, and I simply do praise anyone who knows how much of something to eat and all the inner workings of food and so on. It isn't easy to master. Those who don't should follow something simple, and cultivate their butt off to change the body through cultivation, through one's mind.
None of you are wrong in working with what keeps your body fit. And still , there are certain things that just are the way they are.

Respects to all you nutritionists... my father is one as well. I eat minimally.

Define me the mind, please?

What mind, where, when?

Hmmm, aren't animals and vegetables equally of the earth? One is more mobile than the other. Respiratory function is different. Structure and physiology a bit different. The earth/ecosystem is the mother of all of her creatures. She designed the mobile creatures to eat one another as well as the immobile creatures. Again, if we are reflections of one reality, what is the difference which we eat? We're still all the same. I know there's a difference because I feel a difference but there shouldn't be if this is all illusion and we are one. I believe the difference is all based on conditioning, nothing more, nothing less.


I'll define it - conditioning...

Though they are of the Earth, their energetic make up reacts differently in the body when eaten. an animal has emotions and attachments consciously and is that way because of its mental afflictions. Its body is formed due to that. We eat that, and we are putting such things in our own bodies...that's not good.
Plants are energetically cleaner, vibrant. They don't come with afflictions, unless the person preparing the meal is imposing their energy onto the plant. Plants also respond as any other living beings does, energetically, though karma is karma, eating plants cause one to have conditions with Earth and its elements, rather than with animals and their afflictions. Big difference.
Yet it is illusive, it also does influence the mind. When its not illusive and illusive, there would be no mind to influence, and still the wanting of eating flesh would disappear as well. It just does.
It is to stop hurting animals, stop creating afflictions of killing another living being making them and oneself always falling through the cycles of karmic retribution. The killing of plants is lighter than the killing of animals.

Peace,
Lin

And yet, despite all that, I'm much healthier and stronger now that I eat some raw animal foods instead of being a vegan. Not only that, Dr. Price noted that the mostly-vegetarian Kikuyu had 13 times as many cavities as the meat-eating Masai, who lived right next door to them, in Africa.

There's theory, and there's reality. When it comes to diet, I know which I'll listen to more, my friend.

As you see fit for your path. Both theory and reality are intertwined. Both are the same for they are both perceived and both subject to causes and conditions.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

Causes and conditions of people's life experience vary. One may eat veggies and be fien their whole life, another may eat them and feel bad. I have seen it, and know people like this. It is basically not the food, but the person them self. Causes and conditions decide one's outcomes.
How one handles things is a sign of their mind, points to their conditions with their views of things. This is due to their attachments, karma and creates more. What I am saying is that people can do what they do according to their causes and conditions. If people can eat veggies only and have no problems, then vegan is good. But if some have problems, then they can't eat just veggies. This is according to their karma.

I grew up following Dr. Gary Null's nutritional teachings. His way of veganism is very healthy and complete.

Everything can do good and do bad. This is because of people's mind. There area tings that just result in not good outcomes later on. That is just the way it is. Despite all nutritional dogma on eating meat and what not, eating flesh of another living being is eating one's own flesh. Atleast eating vegetables will not implant much afflictions and toxins in the body and mind.

Peace and Blessings,
Lin

P.S.- I never ate an animal, and sweated to release a scent of strawberries and fruits.