[Buddha-l] Insight into Anti-Muslim Violence in Sri Lanka

[bob Woolery]

I've mentioned before in this context the peculiar instruction regarding
eating whatever shows up in your begging bowl.  The finger of a leper was
mentioned, seemingly clarifying both overcoming disgust and vegetarianism in
the clergy.  How does this square with vegetarian eating for a clergy
dependent for food on the begging round?  
Bob Woolery

-----Original Message-----

As I mentioned previously, in China, Taiwan and Korea, Buddhist 
clerics usually observe strict vegetarian diets, but laypeople don't 
(although in Taiwan it is popular for Buddhists and Buddhist sympathizers to

have a "Buddhist" lunch, which is to eat lunch -- but not other meals -- in 
a vegetarian restaurant, often nicknamed "Buddhist" restaurants, although 
that practice seems to be fading). In other Buddhist communities most 
clerics are NOT vegetarian.

So I have no idea which "bodhisattva precepts" you think you are alluding 
to. The pro-vegetarian ones found in the Lankavatara Sutra -- a text you 
have expressed some disdain for in years past -- or the various vinaya 
codes, which don't forbid slaughter and butchering, but offer no meaningful 
guidelines on how to do it properly (only cautioning that meat slaughtered 
especially for you is not buddhistically kosher for clerics -- which shows 
as much lack of consideration for the cow and her family as you accuse 
others of displaying), or simply what people who consider themselves or are 
considered by others to be bodhisattvas? Or perhaps something out your own 
vijnaptimatra?

Dan