Good Questions, Your Answers

Is being a vegetarian and refraining from smoking and drinking alcohol part of the Buddhist ideal? The answer for you as a Buddhist can be straight forward and simple. But whatever the answer is: just face things as they are. Make no excuses. If you realized that you were there, no path is needed.

Any path without focus on both compassion and wisdom can not be called a Buddhist path. All Buddhist schools agree on this. So, does eating meat develop wisdom and compassion? Is it the result of wisdom and compassion? Or is eating meat irrelevant to you? Fine, be straight forward.

Some modern teachers say that Buddha ate meat. Did they witness it? Buddha may have permitted monks to eat meat under very limited circumstances. Would he allow monks to eat meat today? Just decide for yourself. What is the ideal and how should you work towards it? No excuses. Just straightforward action.

CU Shifu
Spring 2006

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