Typical staples of a Tibetan monk’s diet include salads, beans, lentils, noodle soups, and stir-fried or steamed vegetable dishes. Simple and always seasonal, as they believe that which is presently growing on this earth is the exact food we are meant to be eating at this time of year for optimal nourishment. What Do Thai Buddhist Monks Eat Posted on May 4, 2016 by Norm Duffy Posted in Feature Articles The answer to the questions about Thai Buddhist Monks, and what they eat, will vary depending on who you ask, and what country you are in when you ask.
The interesting thing that St Gregory does in On the Making of Man is combine Aristotelian psychology with the Genesis creation narrative in a way which really seems to foresee the Theory of Evolution. In Aristotelian psychology, there are a number of souls—the plant, the animal and the human—which coexist in Man. We might look at these various souls as functionalities in man. The Vegetative functionality is mere cellular nutrition; the Animal functionality is the sentient experience of one’s environment; the Human functionality is the image of God in Man. Man as the union of body and soul has all these functionalities. Moreover, according to St Gregory these different souls or functionalities were created by God in stages (the days of creation). The Vegetative soul or functionality was created when the Lord created the plants.
The Animal soul or functionality was created when the Lord created the animals. So in On the Making of Man we have the outline of a theory of evolution which treats of the gradual development of vegetative and animal functionalities in the world; and when man is created and given human functionalities, it is on the foundation of these lesser vegetative and animal functionalities which already exist in Creation.
However, in the Old Testament, despite the fact that they can suffer, animals are eaten and sacrificed to God. When Our Lord cleansed the Temple, he did not suggest that sacrificing animals to God was wrong; he was reacting to the avarice of the men buying and selling in the Temple. At no time did Our Lord ever say that we should not eat meat. While he himself is recorded in the Gospel of John only as eating fish (after his resurrection), he attended various meals during his ministry and meat would have been served at those meals. At no time is he recorded as objecting to the meat.
Can Monks Eat Meat Chicken
In his Epistles St Paul legislates that meat-eating is acceptable. He makes some points: we should not eat meat that we know is sacrificed to idols (although we can eat meat sold in the market without raising questions on the grounds of conscience if we do not know if the meat was sacrificed to an idol); we should not have disputes between those who eat only vegetables and those who eat meat: St Paul would rather not ever eat meat than cause scandal to a brother who eats only vegetables. Hence, St Paul has no problem with meat-eating but he also has no problem with people who are vegetarian.
He thinks that the issues are elsewhere. It is true that industrial meat-raising—such as of pigs or chickens in sheds—is terrible from two points of view. First the animals are treated as commodities or machines, so they presumably suffer. Second, they are filled with all kinds of drugs and chemicals and whatever to get them ready as fast as possible for slaughter at a good price, and the food these animals are provided is an unnatural concoction. Apart from any issue of compassion for sentient beings, this makes the meat potentially dangerous for human consumption. But it is a long way to go from finding these practices distasteful to reaching a dogmatic position on meat-eating.
I'm an Orthodox inquirer, also considering vegetarianism, and would love to hear more on this topic.My reason for vegetarianism would be the regular cruel treatment of animals in our culture today. But I fear it would dilute my spiritual focus during the fast.Also, reading from the fathers (St. Jerome, and St.
John Chrysostom), they all seem to suggest that God only allowed the eating of meat because of the 'hardness of our hearts.' So then wouldn't it be good for us to give it up?I am getting confused by the various ethical, theological, and ascetical aspects of the question. Perhaps you could write more on how a lay person might address the desire to be a vegetarian?
However, the historical Buddha and the monks and nuns who followed him were homeless wanderers who lived on the alms they received. Buddhists did not begin to build monasteries and other permanent communities until some time after the Buddha died. Monastic Buddhists do not live on alms alone but also on food grown by, donated to, or purchased by monks.
It is hard to argue that meat provided to an entire monastic community did not come from an animal specifically slaughtered on behalf of that community. For example, let's say you visit your elderly grandmother, whom you have not seen for a long time. You arrive at her home and find that she has cooked what had been your favorite dish when you were a child—stuffed pork chops.
She doesn't do much cooking anymore because her elderly body doesn't move around the kitchen so well. But it is the dearest wish of her heart to give you something special and watch you dig into those stuffed pork chops the way you used to. She has been looking forward to this for weeks. The fact is, to live is to kill. It cannot be avoided.
Fruits and vegetables come from living organisms, and farming them requires killing insects, rodents, and other animal life. The electricity and heat for our homes may come from facilities that harm the environment. Don't even think about the cars we drive. We are all entangled in a web of killing and destruction, and as long as we live we cannot be completely free of it. As Buddhists, our role is not to mindlessly follow rules written in books, but to be mindful of the harm we do and do as little of it as possible.