Why Buddhism is vegetarian, the origin of vegetarianism in Buddhism

The background and origin of this is very complicated, I use the simplest parable to answer:

1, the first you have to understand the purpose of Buddhism, can be roughly summarized as the prolongation of life and death of two categories. To prolong life is to make us happy and well in this life (for the living), and to realize death is to make us able to be born again in the next life or to be reborn in the Buddha's Pure Land (for the dying and the deceased). However, both types of directions share the **** same characteristic of accumulating positive energy.

2, do not kill is the most important way to accumulate positive energy, so do not eat meat is to avoid killing, so after the introduction of Buddhism into China, from the beginning to the present, but also experienced repeated discussions (at that time, the Buddha's scriptures have not yet been passed on to more), the first meat and vegetables are not limited to the Liang Wu Di dedicated to the study of the classics to come up with the "desire to become a bodhisattva, starting from vegetarianism! "He called on all monks to become vegetarians (he himself set an example), and so the tradition of vegetarianism was established in China.

3. There are also different emphases in studying Buddhism. Buddhism in China emphasizes compassion, so it emphasizes vegetarianism; Buddhism in Southeast Asia emphasizes separateness, so it emphasizes meat and vegetables.

4. Of course, the Buddha also revealed that if a disciple of the Buddha could not be a vegetarian, he could eat the three pure meats in transition before that. Do not see the kill (did not see the process of killing), do not hear the kill (did not hear the screams of the animals killed), not for me to kill (not because I came to others to entertain me and kill living beings) of the meat of the animals is the "three pure meat," can be eaten. The meat that we see in markets and supermarkets today that has been killed is all "three-pure meat". If you go to a restaurant, don't eat the meat that is killed on the spot, such as boiled live fish.