From: mayne@dup.cs.fsu.edu (William Mayne)
Subject: Re: Question on Buddhism and Vegetarianism
Reply-To: mayne@cs.fsu.edu
Organization: Florida State University Computer Science Department
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 92 14:09:50 GMT

In article <8660022@hplred.HP.COM> dsouza@hplred.HP.COM (Roy D'Souza) writes:
>
>A couple of quick questions on vegetarianism and Buddhism:
>
>1) One of the percepts for Buddhist Monks is a restriction against eating
>after noon. One source explained this to me as purely an aid to meditation.
>Another mentioned that eating in the mornings and abstaining in the afternoons
>matches the body's metabolism cycle, hence results in less fat gain.
>Does this latter claim have any basis?

I don't believe that the latter claim is even true. The body is able to
store calories, which is just what it is doing when it adds fat. Hence
what matters is the total input, not the timing within short cycles.
Even if there is anything to this claim about timing of meals I am
almost certain that it was not the original basis of the precept for
monks (and often lay people on retreats, by the way) to abstain from
eating after mid-day. It is very doubtful that ascetics in the time of
the Buddha in India were worried about getting fat. Besides being an
aid to meditation the precept may have been instituted to limit the
times during which monks would be showing up to receive food from lay
people. In early times they would go on an alms round (pindapata (sp?))
in the morning and then have one meal of whatever they got. That left
the afternoon for monks to meditate and lay people to go on about their
business.

I have some experience of eating on a schedule like this and I would
say that during times of low physical activity the practice of eating
one meal a day in the morning can actually be quite pleasant and may
have physiological advantages.

>2) I understand that the first percept for Buddhists (Monks and lay people)
>is to refrain from killing. This is often interpreted as requiring a Buddhist
>to be a vegetarian. (Though some interpret this to allow one to eat meat
>if one has not actually killed the animal.) Anyway, my question is this: 
>A book that I recently read, claims that Gauthama Buddha died from eating
>"tainted pork." Does anybody know if this is really accepted as a historical
>fact?

This is a disputed point. The account in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta
(Pali) actually says literally something like "pig's delight". This
is ambiguous. Those who claim that the Buddha was a vegetarian say
this means a truffle or some kind of root that pigs liked to eat.
Supposedly people used pigs to find truffles in Europe until fairly
recently and there may have been something similar in India. There
are Pali scriptures which say that the Buddha specifically allowed
monks to eat meat if it was offered, provided they had not seen,
heard, or suspected that an animal had been killed specifically
for them - not just that they hadn't killed it themselves, since
they didn't prepare their own food anyway. Another account in the
Pali has the Buddha refusing to make vegetarianism as well as some
ascetic rules mandatory when a renegade monk named Devadatta suggested
it. Finally some specific kinds of meat are forbidden (evidently for
practical and/or cultural reasons), which would be unnecessary if
vegetarianism had been the rule.

There are some Mahayana sutras which emphatically claim otherwise.
The Lanka Vatara (sp?) Sutra has a chapter devoted to this. This
is a later scripture, and even refers to the position taken by
the earlier Pali scriptures to the contrary. In spite of this
Mahayana Buddhist sects are by no means all vegetarian.

From the Theravada point of view (the school which accepts the Pali
scriptures which say that vegetarianism is not mandatory) there is
an important distinction between monks and lay people. Monks are
supposed to not be concerned about food except as necessary to
keep the body working. They are not to express preferences or to
but to accept what they are offered. Even so they don't have to eat
everything they are given. They may choose to be vegetarians and some
do. This works out since vegetarianism is recognized as a good thing
and food offerings are arranged accordingly.

Lay people make more choices about their food and may therefore
take more responsibility. Even in cultures where people aren't
vegetarians all the time, like the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka and
Vietnamese Theravadins, food served in temples on special occassions
is vegetarian, at least in my experience. In Thailand vegetarianism
is less often practiced. But even there vegetarian food is specially
separated and marked so monks or lay people on retreat can choose it.
My short stay at a temple while in Thailand was just about the only
time that finding vegetarian food was not a problem.

In all cases for Buddhists the first precept is violated in the
killing of the animal, not in eating its remains. There is room for
opinion on far this should extend to responsibility, e.g.

(1) If you haven't killed the animal yourself it is okay.
(2) If the animal wasn't killed especially for you it is okay.
(3) If you buy meat you contribute to demand and cause animals
    to be killed so it is not okay to do that.
(4) If an animal is not deliberately killed it is okay to eat it,
    e.g. if an animal falls from a cliff and dies its flesh may
    be eaten. This example is actually used. In modern society
    we might say that road kills are fair game. :-)

Almost all Buddhists would agree with (4), at least in principle.

Bill Mayne