[Buddha-l] on eating meat

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 01:54 +0100, Mike Austin wrote:

> However,  I still read the meat-eating as something that may degrade the 
> individual - not something of karmic (blameable) nature. 

Degrading the individual is exactly what any kind of unwholesome karma
does. It has nothing to do with blame. It has everything to do with
consequences. If it does harm to self or others, it is unwholesome and
its ripening is degradation.

You might want to reread the karma chapter of the Ahidharmakosha, where
there is a lengthy discussion of the karmic consequences of having
another do an act for one. If you have someone else act on your behalf,
even indirectly, you increase the bad karma of two people: yourself and
the person who acted on your behalf. think if you'd like to eat meat,
for whatever reason, you should at least have the decency to kill the
animals yourself. Then only you get degraded, instead of you and your
local butcher (and the workers at the killing plant, and the driver who
transported the doomed cattle from the ranch to the abattoir, and the
rancher). 

-- 
Richard