Quote:
Originally posted by RelaX
Are there Buddhists here? I don't know if I'm the only one, but I've always found Buddhism and texts on Buddhism fascinating. If I should ever chose to follow a religion it would be Mahayana Buddhism.
The one thing I wonder about though is if you are a Buddhist, how can you live in the western world? I mean, if you can't kill even a single insect then driving a car would be out of the question.
|
From what i've gathered, Buddhism is a very practical religion.
I've talked to some tibetan monks. (it just happens that the personal monastry of the Dalai Lama has a 'branch' here in my little town in upstate NY), and my dad, who believes in Tibetan Buddhism, has said the same thing to me in a totally different conversation. (I'm an agnostic, by the way.... but buddhism would be my choice, if i HAD to choose a belief system)
Anyway, I asked why Buddhists are allowed to eat meat. And the answer i received was that if they do not actively kill the animal, but buy a dead animal from the supermarket, it doesn't count as taking a life, since the animal is already dead. Not totally convincing, from my point of view, since purchasing meat, promotes the killing of animals for meat, but its another way of looking at it.
Furthermore, he went on to mention (and i guess this has to be taken in context) that plants don't grow very well in Tibet, and well, if you don't want to starve and get malnutrition, you eat meat. Or the lay buddhist is allowed to eat meat, at least. And killing yaks and cows isn't so bad, since taking one life allows you to keep many others alive. (And by extension, i guess eating shrimp is a BAD thing.... )
And back to the point about killing insects when driving. You only do bad things to your karma when killing intentionally. Or at least thats the moral i've drawn.