I could eat meat for a week more easily than a meat eater could give it up. I know meat eaters are not going to easily switch but I would like them to consider and cut back. For those of you on the verge, who are probably vegetarian by nature but meat eaters by habit, it is easy and beneficial to stop.
Where we see a difference between lion and human is in how the human has taken to breeding, rearing and killing animals for the purpose of food, and so my case draws in part on suffering. Humans also eat meat by habit. Come meal time the human will be choosing which meat to have mixed in with their meal, not what to eat, but what animal to have as part of it. You may ask me how in an illusionary conceived world of no-true-self that suffering can be a concern in my argument and that would be to miss the nature of the illusion and compassionate intent behind curing it. The illusion is as real as it is not real, it is our reality, just not the ultimate ground of all being. The animal suffers as you do when attached to the local I.
If you killed an animal from a group and the members of that group came to look at the body, then they understand themselves as separate beings and they understand the loss of another. Where some fish may just turn on the carcass and eat, most mammals would nudge the carcass of another and we can infer, feel loss.
The lifestyle of the animals we breed for food is unnatural. Even if their upbringing was good, they are still guaranteed an early unnatural death. Take time to imagine the animal not the heavily marinaded, packaged remains that form your meal. The argument than meat tastes good is funny when we look at the amount of preparation going into meat to make it edible, the cooking, the flavouring, the processing. Then the vegetables, if any, are boiled and thrown on the side. Put more effort into the preparation of vegetables, fruit, nuts, soy based alternatives and you have culinary joy that gives value and pleasure to the cook and those who eat it.
Cooking is a lost art form in the west where value is placed on the speedy consumption of carbon copy food and even "healthy alternatives" are packaged in a way that two bought in different years look exactly the same.
Humans make themselves aggressive, sloth-like and heavy in not finding alternatives to meat. The lion is in tune with nature. She does not over eat, over kill or waste any of her prey. Humans eat only very select parts of an animal and discard the rest with less care than they did the life in the first place. Man forces nature to be unnatural and scars the earth.
A very high percentage of people, nearly all, eat meat by a convenience. If in preparing a meal each person had to kill and prepare meat from a carcass, they would find an alternative. My Grandfather was a butcher from the age of 12 to his death at 89 (choosing to volunteer beyond retirement). He knew some things about meat and would never eat a sausage he didn't personally make. Now think of the processing going into meat products to make them palatable, especially for kids; The process is to make them less meat looking and in doing so the product is very unhealthy indeed.
Not loving yourself you are not loving nature and the world you see is yours to suffer. Put value in what you eat and love yourself.
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Tao Wow | Daily Cup of Tao
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