Are Zen Buddhists Vegetarians?

I know self-proclaimed Buddhists who brag that they eat meat because they have transcended all notions of right and wrong and are no longer concerned about trivial issues such as eating veggies or the dead bodies of slaughtered animals. They proclaim that only the unenlightened care about such a non-issue. “Grow up,” they tell me. “It’s no big deal.”

Such “Buddhists” are charlatans, hypocrites, practitioners of Wrong Action. I know of two American “Zen masters” who serve turkey on Thanksgiving day. A turkey is a sentient being and has as much right to live unmolested by humans as any other animal. We know they are eaten by wolves and other predators in the wild but those predators are not practicing Buddhists. And there is no human on this earth who can walk up to a wild turkey, a cow, a pig, a chicken, or even a fish and just grab it and start eating. We are not natural carnivores and we lose touch with the Tao/Dao when we hide slaughterhouses from public view and call dead bodies “happy meals.”

One of the few “sins” of Buddhism is claiming to have attained a higher degree of enlightenment than one actually has. That violation of Buddhist precepts was ranked by the Buddha as being the equivalent of killing one’s parents.

Ecologists have observed that a meat-eater riding a bicycle does more harm to the environment than a vegetarian driving an SUV. That somewhat funny comparison of two lifestyles is derived from the fact that about seventeen percent of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is produced by the transportation industry and about eighteen percent by the meat/slaughterhouse industry.

Herbivores can wiggle their lower jaw to the left and right. Carnivores cannot. Herbivores have sweat glands. Carnivores do not; they pant to cool off and die easily if over-heated. Every tooth in the mouth of a carnivore is a fang. Every tooth in the mouth of a leaf and grass eater is a molar. Sharp teeth in the front and molars in the back are the teeth of nut and fruit eaters.

About half of the water used in the U.S. is used by the meat/slaughter industry. There would be no water shortage at all in a vegetarian country. It take seventeen acres of land to feed a meat/dead body eater and only one acre to feed a vegetarian. The world would not currently be overpopulated if this were a vegetarian world. I for one am sick of meat eaters who constantly harp on that issue as if having fewer people on the earth is the answer to all environmental issues. We need fewer animal killers, not fewer people.

And those Buddhists who translate the first precept as being restricted to not killing other humans have ignored the fact that the precept is against killing sentient beings. All animals, unlike plants, are sentient beings. Plants lack a central nervous system and have no means for feeling pain.

There is a difference between real Buddhists and those who call themselves Buddhists to be cool.

Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who Won’t Eat Meat