[Buddha-l] Victimized vegans?

[Richard Hayes]

On Friday 11 May 2007 10:12, jkirk wrote:

> You didn't say if the Liberians you referred to eat eggs.

I didn't ask. My friend didn't say. From this, I assume he was a homosexual in 
the US military.

> As for what's denied to the bodhisattva--seems problematic in that one
> never knows if one is a bodhisattva or not.

Surely that is not true. If one has undertaken a vow to cultivate bodhicitta, 
then one is a bodhisattva. If one is not conscious of having taken a vow, 
then there might be a problem.

> Finally, it's a stretch to me to consider sheep shearing as stealing the
> animal's wool, which is a resource that grows back. Shearing doesn't cause
> the animal pain, either. 

This sounds like an issue you should take up with the authors of the 
Lankavatara Sutra and the Shurangama Sutra. I'm just reporting what the texts 
say, not advocating their positions. Indeed, you'll find that I have written 
vitriolic polemics against both sutras, thereby risking uncountable aeons in 
hell. (One of the observations in these texts is that ANYONE who says that it 
is acceptable for a Buddhist to eat meat under certain circumstances is 
misleading people in such a way that will make it impossible for them to 
attain nirvana. The natural consequence of misleading of misleading people in 
matters of Dharma is a few uncountable aeons in hell. 

> Castration and slaughter do cause pain to animals. 

This seems a reasonable inference to make from the behaviour of animals who 
are being castrated or are about to be slaughtered. Calves also give every 
appearance of suffering psychological distress when they are taken from their 
mothers. And if calves were not taken from their mothers, their mothers would 
not provide enough milk to make the dairy industry commercially viable. So 
next time you eat an ice cream cone or spread some cheese on a cracker, think 
of the calf who had to be taken away from its mother.

> Thus, the idea that taking milk for human consumption was
> stealing from the calf could only have appeared because the cow's milk
> supply was meager enough that her calf got short-changed in favor of the
> humans who wanted to drink the milk.

The argument in the Mahayana sutras is much more simple. Any act of taking 
anything that was not freely offered is violation of the second precept. This 
is why it is theft to take a cow's milk, a bee's honey, or a sheep's wool. If 
one is interested in being a bodhisattva, one has to be interested in the 
perfection of good conduct. Pretty good ain't good enough for a bodhisattva. 
If we're talking bodhisattva, we're talking hardcore fanaticism.

I'd say more, but I need to go pack my suitcase for a few aeons in hell. (I 
wonder which hell. Should I pack warm clothes for the cold hells or suntan 
lotion for the hot hells?)

-- 
Richard