04.05.08
James on Vegetarian Religion
James comments on Vegetarian Religion
Excellent comment, but I should offer a pro forma challenge to any ‘tradition’ that says Gautama wasn’t a vegetarian. The stakes are hight for such a possibility, so the interpolators could also be charged with mischief here.
I really don’t know, but I doubt that Gautama, hard-pressed and competing with the Jains, would have compromised here. But of course we don’t really know.
But we do know that despite all the vagaries of Hinduism, that tradition remained fixed on this issue, to its great benefit.
James said,
April 4, 2008 at 7:35 pm ·
From the early Buddhist perspective, it was okay for a monk to eat meat if the donor didn’t kill the animal specifically for the monk. Remember, the Buddha himself wasn’t a vegetarian. In contrast, the Jains were militantly vegetarian.
“The problem is one of discontinuity, restoration, and renewal: as the fate of Tibetan Buddhism hangs in the balance, and suffers a period of discontinuity, the question arises as to its potential restoration: which Buddhism is to be restored?”
The Lama system already deviates significantly from primordial Buddhism. I’m not condemning it (it is an interesting culture), but it’s something that would appear quite alien to the early Buddhists:
“MN 108: Gopaka-Moggallana Sutta — Moggallana the Guardsman {M iii 7} [Thanissaro]. Ven. Ananda explains how the Sangha maintains its unity and internal discipline after the passing away of the Buddha. [BB] Interestingly, this sutta also shows that early Buddhist practice had no room for many practices that developed in later Buddhist traditions, such as appointed lineage holders, elected ecclesiastical heads, or the use of mental defilements as a basis for concentration practice. [TB]”
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.108.than.html