Vegetarianism vs. Non-Vegetarianism

Dear Fellow Cultivators:       :)

Question about Vegetarianism:   I would like to hear about
the personal experiences of those who have experimented with both vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism.

I have done both and it seems to me there was a period in my my life when things went more smoothly with less confusion when I practiced a rather strict form of vegetarianism.   (not veganism)

However, it requires a lot of work, a certain commitment, and a financial outlay at least in the beginning.

I am aware that Grandmaster Lu states that both
vegetarianism and non-vegetarianism are due to affinity,
but I would still like to hear the personal experiences of
others.

                                                               ???

Once you have done bardo, any meat you eat is clean

also, what matters is in the mind. If you are a vegetarian, but you eat mock meat and think "wow it taste like real meat", then you are not a vegetarian.


j

Dear Saraswati & Dance,

Dance I love your answer, and I agree with it very much.

Saraswati, I recently became a seafood vegeterian.  I never ate a lot of meat to begin with, so I figured I'd might as well cut it out of my diet. Now I eat only fish (no shrimp, lobster, etc.)  just tuna and a few other types of fish, and that is maybe only once a week or once every two weeks.  

Like you, I have also experimented with being vegetarian and non-vegetarian.  Either way, there really hasn't been a difference in my life or my cultivation. The only difference to me is that I am consuming less beings that were once "living,"  though I am completely aware of the fact that nobody can ever be a complete vegetarian unless they refuse to drink water, lol...

Like Grand Master said, vegetarianism is an aiding condition, but not the root condition for Buddhahood.  It is only an exterior form of Buddhism.

I believe vegetarianism or non-vegetarianism  is up to one's affinity, as Grand Master has mentioned in his articles.  
There is the argument that it's more compassionate not to  eat meat.  Then there is the argument that it's more compassionate to eat it and do deliverance for it.  I say nobody can tell which act is more compassionate than the other because it's really up to the individual's sincerity, no matter what they decide to do.  

If anybody is interested, here are some links on the topic:

http://www.tbsn.org/english/library/plj/mrp.htm

http://www.tbsn.org/ebooks/picto/chap3.htm

http://www.tbsn.org/english/library/plj/davtm.htm

Om mani padme hum

Lu