Go Veggie

Amida-shu encourages members to be vegetarian. Here are some reasons to be vegetarian.

• Buddha taught us not to kill animals. Killing brings bad karma. Eating meat means asking somebody to acquire bad karma on one's behalf.
• Animals suffer like us. We suffer because we are animals with the same nervous systems as animals. Please do not inflict upon animals what you would hate to have inflicted upon yourself.
• It takes 3 to 15 times as much water to produce animal protein as it does plant protein. Water is, or is becoming, a scarce resource in many parts of the world, including many developed countries.
• The Lankavatara Sutra teaches "How can the bodhisattva mahasattva who desires to approach all living beings as if they were himself and to practice the Buddhadharma eat the flesh of any living being that is of the same nature as himself?... Thus, Mahamati, meat-eating I have not permitted to anyone: I do not permit it; I will not permit it."
• Even devils who listen to the Buddhadharma give up eating animals.
• Animal foods are higher in fat than plant foods. Plants do not contain cholesterol.
• The amount of land required to support a healthy vegetarian is much less than that required to support a meat eater. In fact to feed the world population on a diet containing as much meat as is consumed by the average North American there would not be enough land on the planet.
• Being Veggie is healthier. Vegetarians have lower incidence of many serious diseases and have longer life expectancy.
• Save pennies for better purposes: vegetarian foods tend to cost less.
• Most flesh that is eaten is reared in factory type conditions where the animals are not treated as living beings but as commodities from the day they are born.
• Animal foods contain far higher concentrations of agricultural chemicals than plant foods, including pesticides and herbicides.
• It feels better being veggie.

In Amida-shu we encourge all people to give up practice that necessitate cruelty. We would like to see a world where animals are not hunted and not raised for slaughter. We would like compassion to prevail. The Buddha would like this too. Namo Amida Bu.

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