buddhism, some general questions.

Sm0ke

having only recently started to pursue this noble religion i have a few questions.

1.i have just recently become a vegatarian! by recently i mean in the last week, but i have a sort of terrible guilt from having eaten meat for so long and am finding it hard to look at this as dukka, i mean i have to blame myself.(no one said the path to enlightenment was easy!) i was wondering whats the best way to exit from the mindset of blaming myself for everything?

2. are tattoos forbidden or accepted? i know certain other cultures like the maori do not want there art emblazoned on the bodies of others. is it ok to have buddist tattoos or any tattoos?

3. drink and drugs, i know they pollute me so i guess these shud be something that i need to stop aswell?

i will probably have more questions soon i havnt finished reading the 4 noble truths yet.

MeditationMom

Welcome Sm0ke, and "Happy Buddhism" to you!

by SmOke- 1.i have just recently become a vegetarian! by recently i mean in the last week, but i have a sort of terrible guilt from having eaten meat for so long and am finding it hard to look at this as dukka, i mean i have to blame myself.(no one said the path to enlightenment was easy!) i was wondering whats the best way to exit from the mindset of blaming myself for everything?

You mention "the path to enlightenment" - this "goal", this end point called enlightenment, you will find is again the beginning. I say this to give you a taste of Buddhism which has as its goal to take you out of dualistic thinking, meaning to free you from ideas of good and bad, blame and forgiveness, good karma and bad karma. Another "goal" is to "train" you to be able to remain in the present or better to untrain you from all your mental habits that keep you out of the present.

Here now, you are a vegetarian. That's it. Forget the past. Tomorrow you may be a vegetarian with a craving for a burger and you will either eat one or not. Be present, enjoy everything with gratitude and don't indulge thoughts about it. Thoughts are like people coming into your house. If you don't like them don't have them over If you like them, feed them. You will find many wonderful thoughts in Buddhism. Ultimately no house guests

If you don't pay attention Buddhism lends itself just like Christianity to ideas of good and bad, sin and sainthood, with all the guilt and confusion it causes.

You say there is guilt about past meat eating. Are you feeling sorry for the lives of the animals? In that case say a heartfelt prayer of apology to them about your ignorance and selfishness and know that their forgiveness towards you is instant. Let their compassion teach you.
If you do this truly from the bottom of your heart your guilt will be replaced by gratitude and humility. Do this as long as it takes for this humility and this gratitude to replace your guilt. Their bodies have nurtured your body until now. They deserve your gratitude, not your guilt.

Or is it concern for yourself, that it gives you a disadvantage towards enlightenment? In that case trust existence a little more as it guides you on your path towards enlightenment. The time simply has not been ripe for you to be a vegetarian or a Buddhist until last week. Trust it.

by SmOke- 2. are tattoos forbidden or accepted? i know certain other cultures like the maori do not want there art emblazoned on the bodies of others. is it ok to have buddist tattoos or any tattoos?

Your concern here shows respect for Buddhists, but Buddhists don't think that way. If a Buddhist saw you with a tattoo most likely he would be concerned for you to have caused such physical violence to yourself, such staining of your skin; or that now you have made the mistake of "identifying" yourself as a Buddhist or wanting "to be part of a club". Buddhist teachings ultimately want freedom for you, from all "clubs" and identifications.
People who wear tattoos often express their gratitude that way and maybe you would tattoo yourself out of gratitude for Buddhism. I think you would find that the longer you stay away from meat, and the longer you parctise meditation, silence, the less you will be inclined towards tattooing or drug use for that matter. When you look at it closely it is all a form of violence or self destruction.

You are now on a much better path towards self destruction! This is all about the destruction of your false self and the discovery of your true self. Not surprisingly all the self destructive things we do to ourselves are nothing but clumsy attempts towards enlightenment and wholeness - a longing for something we can't quite explain, a deep peace. No need to feel guilty about anything in the past. Apologise sincerely, be grateful and enjoy this new part of the journey.

Much Love to you.

Asiaprod

MeditationMom wrote:

You are now on a much better path towards self destruction!

I like that a lot. Welcome back MeditationMom, nice and thoughtful post.
By the way, I have Tattoos and never think about them.
The only issue i would raise is the one of meat. I eat meat and at the moment have no inclination to stop. I believe that evolution has brought us down this path and that meat supplies us with essential nutrition. I think the bad aspects to meat eating have to do with the way the animals are treated or abused. I find nothing wrong in eating meat as long as one give appreciation for it. No, I do not mean praying to Buddha and giving thanks, but mentally being aware of the animals sacrifice and acknowledging the gift of sustenance.

MeditationMom

Hi, Peter - I forgot that you had both tattoos and love your meat! There you go, SmOke - your first Buddhist Koan - Asiaprod is a wonderful Buddhist and Buddhist teacher and we all love him very much. He has great humility, compassion, insight and all the other good "Buddhsit" things that are really important. Meat eating, tatoos, drugs, alcohol are irrelevant and thinking about them will just keep your mind very busy and your emotions in a constant rollercoaster of "temptation", "guilt", "regret", "for-or-against-opinion states" etc. Be yourself with integrity and a clear, present mind and see what feels true to you to do or not to do.

You may like the idea that Osho (an Indian Mystic and one of my most important teachers) had, of "Zorba the Buddha". He said that Buddha alone is too dry, too intellectual, too serious and Zorba the Greek (An old movie with Anthony Quinn) is just a drunken fool, a slave to the bottle and his lack of discipline. Osho's vision was the celebrating, loving, dancing, singing Zorba, with the freedom and enlightened consciousness of Buddha.

As far as meat eating is concerned - in eastern thinking all things and phenomena in our material world are formed by the "dance" of two forces: yin, which is the expansive, centrifugal force and yang, the contractive, gravitational force. A carrot, for example, growing downward into the ground would be considered more yang than a bunch of parsley growing upwards.
Then there are certain ways in which these two forces interact with each other. Yin attracts yang, extreme yin attracts yin, extreme yang attracts yang, super extreme yang turns into yin (for example popcorn - the kernal of corn is already very yang, very dense and contracted. You add more yang in the form of heat and this extreme yang turns into a fluffy, light, yin piece of popcorn)
Our bodies exist in a specific yin/yang balance - all of us a little different. A Russian man, with a big, squarish face for example would be considered more yang than a slender, longish faced fair-skinned New Yorker woman. The Russian can pack away a bottle of vodka (yin) every night and be very happy but the New York woman would collapse and instead needs to do a lot of yang, in the form of shopping, exercising, fighting with her husband, eat steak, have plastic surgery (a very extreme form of tattooing) etc.

Regarding our discussion here, meat eating and tatooing are yangizing and therefore balance drugs and alcohol, or other yin. That is what I meant by saying, as you stay away from meat you will be less attrackted to drugs and alcohol. The same the other way around. If you stay away from alcohol and drugs you will be less attrackted to meat.
When it comes to meat eating and vegetarianism we need to remember that these recommendations were made in a very hot(yang) climate (India) and with the goal to be able to sit and meditate(yang) for most of the day. So more yin food - vegetables - were simply more helpful.
In our climate which is colder(yin) we are more attrackted to meat(yang). Meat also makes us want to move more which is helpful when we have physical jobs.

So, if you are, for example, a Buddhist construction worker, you would benefit from eating meat, especailly in the winter when working in the cold outside on the roof. Then when you sign up for your annual meditation retreat you would be wise to switch to a vegetarian diet so you can sit for long periods of time in a heated meditation hall without too much restlessness.

Your whole body, all your organs, work all day to maintain a certain balance. As you go to extremes, back and forth on the yin/yang scale, from meat, rock and roll, hard work, aggressive friends - to drugs, alkohol, sleeping, TV, icecream, hanging out - all your energy gets used up in this effort towards balance. If you stay more in the middle of the pendulum swing with a vegetarian diet, moderate lifestyle, all that energy becomes available for progress towards enlightenment. Therefore you will find times of fasting in most religions, for example. That is where discipline comes in also, which is nothing but a practice in non-attachment. Unfortunately all this has been misunderstood as sin versus virtue, purity versus impurity, holy versus unholy etc and ends up making people rebel against what serves them on this path towards enlightenment, which is freedom form all of these notions altogether.

As I said in an earlier post about this issue, meat eating is not the problem, gluttony(greed) is, as well as ingratitude and indifference towards the animal's sacrifice. The same gratitude should be given to the carrot as well!:) Not "Thank you, God, or, Buddha, for my food, but Thank You animal or plant for giving your body for the sustenance of my body, your life for my life." - like Asiaprod says. This would naturally help with not eating more than neccessary and foster humility and compassion.
Then again, on a Zorba day you dig in, stuff your belly, enjoy, laugh and sing, and as Buddha your gratitude and compassion would be such that it would almost be too much to bear. Also as Buddha you know, nobody is eating nobody.:)

coffee_cake

MeditationMom wrote:

Meat eating, tatoos, drugs, alcohol are irrelevant

Ohh...I know you meant this slightly differently in context but that leaps out as being iffy to me.
It's true that being obsessed with avoiding something is as bad as being obsessed with it (I think) but I think what the OP needs to remember is that there are good reasons for the precepts being what they are rather than thinking they're irrelevant.
Smoke, it's not about avoiding it and feeling guilty. These precepts aren't commandments. Alcohol and drugs tend to be an issue because they can lead to breaking other precepts etc. And because it's hard enough to get a clear focused mindful mind as it is without being intoxicated! But you should think about why you feel they might have a bad effect on you and why abstaining is a good idea.

Sorry, little rambly today...

Oh and MM I do see your point about meat and its effect on the body hence why eating/avoiding it is good for that reason, but it's also because these animals are living sentient creatures too. Their lives should be respected as well.

Personally I eat meat - not that much, actually - and I enjoy and need it, but I won't go out of my way to have meat killed for me. That satisfies my conscience for the moment.

MeditationMom

Nice post, bluewolf - maybe I should have stated in addition to what I said, that I highly recommend staying away from alkohol, drugs, meat, etc, as well as lots of much lesser "sins" or bad karma. As you say, there is ancient wisdom in these recommendations, be they precepts or commandments. They just work. To follow them without beating ourselves up when we don't is the experimental way to confirm to ourselves the value of them. Sometimes we have to learn the hard way, sometimes we can just watch others and it is quite obvious.

As far as meat eating - again - people really enjoy and think they need meat, and I agree that without proper knowlegde of how to get your protein from a vegetarian diet it may not be such a good idea to be a complete vegetarian. But it is absolutely possible and feels good! The Dalai Lama being a sturdy and happy living example. But he has many good cooks.

Our western lives are so full and free to do whatever we want - eat, drink and be merry with wine, women and song, drugs, endless entertainment while so many live in the most cruel suffering or poverty - we wonder why we feel so empty. For many it comes as a surprising relief to find that the "rules" of our ancestors offer a way to a deeper sense of happiness.

The freedom to discover for ourselves, is the joy of the spiritual journey, in contrast to the enforced religions. With this freedom I have found to have raised surprisingly moral, kind and peaceful children - much better human beings than I, or my parents were at their ages since I had so much rebelling to do first to assert my freedom. Now I have an entirely new freedom - all freedoms lead to this freedom, which could also be called no freedom (the Buddhist in me coudln't resist)

Goodshape

I'm not really sure how to word my thoughts on this without sounding like someone who simply doesn't want to give up the easy luxurys of living (probably because that may well be true, but rather than a lecture I'm looking for actual answers to questions).. anyway, I'll give it a shot.

First, the main question - why should it be considered unwise, even from a spiritual point of view, to "eat, drink and be merry with wine, women and song, drugs"? I can see how doing anything to excess is a 'bad thing' from many points of view, but why deny ourselves the pleasures and experiences of this life? I have a hard time accepting anything which tells me 'not to do' without a clear and stated reason.

MeditationMom, I quite liked what you had to say about these things in your first couple of posts here - which I took to mean that it's up to the individual to find what works best for them, which promotes a certain amount of experimentation and personal research, which I like (as oppose to rules, precepts or commandments). But I'd be interested to hear what others think also.

Two things in particular would be that massive blanket term "drugs" and also meat eating. Is it totally against the Buddhist philosophy to accept certain drug induced states of mind and experiences as having a spiritual context? And why, with so much emphasis on death being a natural part of life, should we concern ourselves with the death of an animal which is used to feed and sustain us?

Asiaprod

Goodshape wrote:

First, the main question - why should it be considered unwise, even from a spiritual point of view, to "eat, drink and be merry with wine, women and song, drugs"? I can see how doing anything to excess is a 'bad thing' from many points of view, but why deny ourselves the pleasures and experiences of this life? I have a hard time accepting anything which tells me 'not to do' without a clear and stated reason.

This is always a great question and there will be many opinions. As I understand it historically, Monks (and nuns) undertaking training for the monastic life have to observe 227 rules (more for nuns). Within these rules or precepts are five which are undertaken by all those trying to adhere to a Buddhist way of life.
The Five Precepts are to undertake the rule of training to:
• Refrain from harming living beings
• Refrain from taking that which is not freely given
• Refrain from sexual misconduct
• Refrain from wrong speech; such as lying, idle chatter, malicious gossip or harsh speech
• Refrain from intoxicating drink and drugs which lead to carelessness

So the standard answer is that drink and drugs lead to a careless mind which can ultimately lead one to making bad choices. I make many bad choices:) .

The answer to meat is even easier for me. In the Buddha's own words

"Monks, I allow you fish and meat that are quite pure in three respects: if they are not seen, heard or suspected to have been killed on purpose for a monk. But, you should not knowingly make use of meat killed on purpose for you."

We could of course then say that any meat sold in a shop is killed on purpose to be eaten. That would be true, but it misses the point, a Buddhist should not be the one to choose/select if an animal is to be killed to provide food. Think of selecting a lobster in a restaurant, that is a no no. Going to a friends house and being served lobster to eat is ok. Its tied into having respect for the sanctity of life, be it human, animal or insect, or whatever. That does not stop me killing flies or mosquitos as I consider these to be a health hazard. Buddhism is all about making choices, being able to choose gives us freedom. Being told what to do does not give us freedom IMO. Buddhism helps us to choose wisely.
Obviously, different sects will have their own rules. In reference to the Dalai Lama, there were many groups of Tibetan workers that received dispensations from him to eat meat or fish because their work was hard, in the cold, and at high altitude. Only meat and fish could supply them with the nutrients they needed to perform their tasks.
Tis the nature of man to impose rules which do not always make sense to the observer.
At the end of the day, it is up to each individual to decide what precepts they will adhere to and what Karma they will incur by there

coffee_cake

Goodshape wrote:

First, the main question - why should it be considered unwise, even from a spiritual point of view, to "eat, drink and be merry with wine, women and song, drugs"? I can see how doing anything to excess is a 'bad thing' from many points of view, but why deny ourselves the pleasures and experiences of this life? I have a hard time accepting anything which tells me 'not to do' without a clear and stated reason.

The precepts always have reasons and you're more than welcome to ignore them but you might find things more difficult for yourself if you do. They're there as guidelines, which is how I look at it.
Right, let's take alcohol and drugs. Why can they be a bad idea? Like I said in my other post, it can be generally quite difficult to maintain mindfulness on a constant basis when we're quite sober. When we're intoxicated, it becomes that much more difficult. Plus we can have lots of judgement lapses which can lead to all sorts of messy situations. Whether it's as simple as drinking too much and feeling sick as hell for ages, or saying something to someone that you really shouldn't have and having to deal with the consequences of that, a lot of bad things can happen. What good effects are there from alcohol etc? I ask this not in a judgemental way - I intend that you should ask yourself this. Think about why you drink. For the taste? Or for other reasons? Are they really worth it?
I personally drink very little. I don't abstain entirely. But I do make a conscious decision when I'm out about whether I'll drink or not and whether I really want to. A few moments of consideration is all it takes.
Another way to look at it is something the dalai lama said (I'm so going to mangle his point but I hope I can get it across somehow) - some things that can be perceived as pleasures might not really be pleasures at all if looked at in another light or indulged in to excess. But Buddhism is the middle way; not a path of extremes. So, we don't eat ourselves sick but we most certainly do eat

Ok, my general point in this long spiel is that all it requires is a little mindfulness and careful consideration when we partake in any of these pleasures and experiences. If you can indulge in them in moderation, go for it. If you consider that you could be better off without them, go for that too. Just remember actions have consequences.

Two things in particular would be that massive blanket term "drugs" and also meat eating. Is it totally against the Buddhist philosophy to accept certain drug induced states of mind and experiences as having a spiritual context? And why, with so much emphasis on death being a natural part of life, should we concern ourselves with the death of an animal which is used to feed and sustain us?

If we were out in the middle of nowhere and had no easy means of survival, then the death of an animal is used to feed and sustain us, yes. But given the world we live in now, it's more than easy to eat very well and get all the nutrients we need without meat. We don't seem to kill animals based solely on need - animals are killed en masse and a lot of meat can be wasted and thrown out. Do we appreciate that something has died so that we may eat it, a sentient creature, or do we just chomp?
Death is a natural part of life, yes, but life is a precious thing in all sentient creatures.

Asiaprod

bluewolf wrote:

Ok, my general point in this long spiel is that all it requires is a little mindfulness and careful consideration when we partake in any of these pleasures and experiences. If you can indulge in them in moderation, go for it. If you consider that you could be better off without them, go for that too. Just remember actions have consequences.

That is definitely the most-thought provoking reply I have seen you make Bluewolf. Thank you for it. It made me stop and think too:cool:

coffee_cake

Asiaprod wrote:

That is definitely the most-thought provoking reply I have seen you make Bluewolf. Thank you for it. It made me stop and think too:cool:

Thanks, I'm glad