" Grander .. Greater .. Happier "

Foods from plant sources and dairy products are permitted on human diet, and all other foods from animal sources including eggs should not be eaten.

There are many reasons for this, but the most important one comes from the First Precept, which tells us to refrain from taking the life of sentient beings .. or 'Thou Shalt Not Kill '.

Studies of human evolution have shown that our ancestors were Vegetarian by nature. The structure of the human body is not suited for eating meat.

Humans, like other naturally Vegetarian animals, have twenty eight feet long small and large intestine. They are much longer than those found in carnivores.

The meat we eat stays in our intestines for a longer period of time. Consequently, the meat can putrify and create toxins.These toxins have been implicated, as a cause of colon cancer, and they also increase the burden on the liver, which has the major function of getting rid of toxins.

Antibiotics as well as other drugs including steroids and growth hormones are either added to animal feed or injected directly into the animals.

It has been reported that people eating these animals will absorb these drugs into their bodies. There is a possibility that antibiotics in meat are diminishing the effectiveness of antibiotics for human use!

Food from plants is a more direct source of nutrition than meat. People eat animals, but the sources of nutrition for the animals we eat is plants.

The lives of most animals are short, and animals have nearly all the diseases that mankind has. It is very likely that the diseases of mankind come from eating the flesh of diseased animals. So, why don't people get their nutrition directly from plants?

From the beginning of recorded history we can see that vegetables have been the natural food of human beings. Early Greek and Hebrew myths all spoke of people originally eating fruit. Ancient Egyptian priests never ate meat. Many great Greek philosophers such as Plato, Diogenes and Socrates .. all advocated Vegetarianism.

Many famous writers, artists, scientists, philosophers and eminent men were vegetarians .. Pythagoras, Shakespeare, Benjamin Franklin, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Princess Diana etc.

Buddha emphasized the importance of Ahimsa, the principle of not harming any living things. He warned his disciples not to eat meat.

Meat eating is just an acquired habit. In the beginning, we were not born with a desire for it. Flesh eating people cut off their inner seed of Great Mercy.

Flesh eating people kill each other and eat each other .. " this life I eat you, and next life you eat me " .. and it always continues in this way!

" Isn't eating vegetables a kind of killing, too? "

As we have to eat in order to survive, we choose food which has the least consciousness and suffers the least. Plants consist of 90% water, thus their level of consciousness is so low that it hardly feels any suffering.

Furthermore, when we eat many vegetables we don't cut their roots,but rather we help their asexual reproduction by cutting branches and leaves. The end result can actually be beneficial to the plant.

This is even more evident with fruit. When fruit ripens, it will attract people to eat it by its fragrant smell, beautiful color and delicious taste. It is in this way fruit trees can achieve their purpose of propagating their seed over a wide area. If we do not pick and eat them, the fruit will become overripe and will fall to the ground to rot. Its seed will be shaded from sunlight by the tree above them and will die. So, eating vegetables and fruits is a natural tendency, which brings to them no suffering at all.

" Can Vegetarians eat eggs? "

No ! When we eat eggs we are also killing beings! Man raises animals and poultry, pigs, cattle, chickens, ducks, etc., Why can't we eat them? So ? ! Parents raise their children. Do parents have the right to eat their children? ! All living things have the right to live, and no one should deprive them of this!

" Animals are born for people to eat. If we don't eat them, they will fill the world! "

This is an absurd idea. Before you kill an animal, do you ask it if it wants to be killed and eaten by you or not? All living beings desire to live and are afraid to die. We don't want to be eaten by a tiger, so why should animals be eaten by humans?

Human beings have only existed in the world for several tens of thousands of years, but before mankind appeared, many species of animals had already existed. Did they overcrowd the Earth? Living things maintain a natural ecological balance.

" Why should I be a Vegetarian ? "

I am a vegetarian .. because the God inside me wants it ! Eating meat is against the universal principle of not wanting to be killed.

Everything that you do against others makes you suffer. Our life will not be limited within this body, but extended to the life of animals and all kinds of beings. EatingVegetarian food makes us grander, greater, happier and limitless.

" How can this contribute to world peace ? "

Raising cattle and animals for meat has caused our economy to go bankrupt in all aspects. It's not I who is saying this, it is an American citizen who did this type of research and wrote a book about it .. "Diet For a New America" by John Robbins.

He is a very famous ice-cream millionaire. He gave it all up in order to be a Vegetarian, and to write a Vegetarian book against his family tradition and business.

"As you sow, so shall you reap ". If we kill someone for food, we will be killed for food later, in some other form the next time, the next generation. It's a pity.

We are so intelligent, so civilized and yet most of us do not know the cause of why our neighboring countries are suffering. It is because of our palates, our tastes, and our stomachs!

In order to feed and nourish one body we kill so many beings, and starve so many fellow human beings. We aren't even talking about the animals yet. Understand? Then this guilt, consciously or unconsciously, will weigh down upon our conscience. It makes us suffer from cancer, tuberculosis and other kinds of incurable diseases, including AIDS.

" We buy meat from the butcher! We don't kill ! Therefore, it is all right to eat it ? "

This is a disastrous mistake. You must know that butchers kill living beings because some people want to eat. In the Lankavatara Sutra, Buddha said, "If there was no one eating meat, then no killing would happen. So eating meat and killing living beings are of the same sin "

Because of the killing of too many living beings, we have natural disasters and man-made calamities. Wars are also caused by too much killing.

" Any spiritual benefits from being a Vegetarian ? "

The spiritual aspects of a vegetarian diet are that it is very clean and non-violent. " Thou shall not kill " .. God said this to us. " Do not kill any beings ".

Didn't he say that he made all animals to be-friend us, to help us? Did he not put the animals in our care? He said, "Take care of them ".

So, now you have to become God in order to understand God.

" I invite you to be God-like again, to be yourself, to be no one else. "

Source: " The Key of Immediate Enlightenment " by" Master Ching Hai "