[Inettypofonee]

Hi Milly,

I'm quite puzzled about why you seem to be so troubled about other people eating meat when you're a meat eater yourself. When I stopped eating meat when I was young and before I got involves with Buddhism, it was because I decided that I didn't want to eat my friends, because I liked all animals so much - and it was a very personal choice because I didn't know any other vegetarians at the time. Lets not forget either, that being a veggie doesn't necessarily make one a good person - Hitler was a vegetarian.

HH Dalai Lama isn't the head of the world's Buddhism by the way, nor is he even the head of Tibetan Buddhism, he is an exiled head of state, who is also head (or second) in the Gelugpa school. He gets a lot of publicity because of his non-confrontational attitude to the Communist take over of Tibet and his teachings given at large public venues.

The Buddha and his monks didn't 'sit down to a nice bowl of meat for lunch' they went forth with their begging bowls on alms rounds and accepted whatever they were offered to eat which was placed in their bowls by lay people. This was part of the monks discipline and they just ate the one meal and nothing after middday.

I have been eating meat all my life through ignorance but what can a self-professed Buddhist's excuse be? In Buddhism we each try to look inwards to deal with our own delusions, not try to change everyone else. Its also a mistake to think that monks or teachers are automatically perfect themselves. They still study and practice like the rest of us.

Does not the knowledge of the cycle of Karma mean we come back as any being? So when we eat meat we could be eating our own ancesters? Far-fetched maybe, but Buddhism's own belief indicates this could be so.
For myself, speculation about past and future lives and possible connections with others is just that, - speculation. Fantasising about things we cannot prove one way or the other simply diverts us from practice in the here and now. This lifetime is the one thats important !

To quote the wise words of Ajahn Sumedho "Let go, let go, let go !"

Kind regards,

Aloka