Are you also going to open a topic on whether Buddhists can eat
bear?
I'm going to answer whether Buddhists can eat bear first
just in case:
In Buddhism, the views on vegetarianism vary from school to school. According to Theravada, the Buddha
allowed his monks to eat pork,
chicken and beef if the
animal was not killed for the purpose of providing food for monks.
Theravada also believes that the Buddha allowed the monks to choose
a vegetarian diet, but only prohibited against eating human, elephant, horse,
dog, snake,
lion, tiger,
leopard, bear, and
hyena flesh[1]. Buddha did
not prohibit any kind of meat-eating for his lay followers. In
Vajrayana, the act of eating meat is not always
prohibited. The Mahayana
schools generally recommend a vegetarian diet, for they believe
that the Buddha insisted that his followers should not eat
meat or fish.
Next. I think drinking water doesn't have much karma because
first of all, you don't have the intention to kill any beings when
you drink, and intention is a necessary factor for karma.
Secondly I don't think there are many sentient beings in water,
especially in the clean water of Singapore. Microbes, germs, virus,
don't necessary mean sentient beings -- sentient beings are beings
that have consciousness. Since these single celled or multi-celled
beings do not have a nervous system, I do not believe they are
sentient beings, I do not think they feel pain, I doubt they have
consciousness that can be reborn. My Master told us that eating
medicine to kill off bacteria is blameless because these bacterias
are not sentient beings.
As for beers: in Buddhism we are told to abstain from alcohol
and other intoxicants because alcohol causes 'carelessness', i.e.
stupidity and stupid actions you'll never think of doing while
sober. I have personally witnessed this in my friends when
sometimes they get dead drunk, even lapsing into unconsciousness
(scary incident). Sad to say, I'm also guilty recently of
frequenting clubs and binge drinking quite frequently and I am
going to quit this habit. Haven't been a good Buddhist, haven't
been a good example...
Refraining From Taking Intoxicants
By Ven Kumara
Venue: Residence of Lee Hock Seng
Special occasion: Dana upon moving into new house
When Buddhists move into a new house, they invite monks for dana in
order to make merits. These merits are then shared with the devas
who are around. In doing this, one is offering one of the highest
dana possible to the devas. The devas are honoured and, in
reciprocation, will protect the house and its residents. Those whom
the devas have sympathy for are bound to meet with good
fortune.
Ven Kumara then continues with the series of talks on
‘Blessings’.
The next blessing is that of refraining from taking
intoxicants.
Here’s a story on the origins of intoxicating drinks. Long ago in a
forest in the Himalaya Mountains, there was a big tree. The top
branches grew such that they formed a receptacle-like depression
where rain water collected. As a creeper plant climbed up the tree
trunk, its fruits fell into the pool of rainwater. Sometimes birds
also dropped fruits into it. They then fermented in the
water.
The monkeys and birds that drank this fermented liquid became
intoxicated and fell into a drunken stupor after which they woke
up. A forester witnessed this. Curious, he tasted the fermented
liquid. It made him feel good. A hermit came along and the two of
them had a good time drinking and feeding on roasted birds.
The idea then came to them that they could make money by selling
this fermented liquid. So they collected the drink and sold it to
the people in a nearby city. As their business was good, it did not
take long for them to realise that they had to find out how they
could manufacture it themselves. They spent time studying the
process and were able to mass-produce alcohol. The inhabitants of
that city soon degenerated into drunkards who could not work.
Consequently, they could not afford to buy the alcohol.
Seeing that their sales had dropped there, the two men moved to
Savatthi, another city, to continue their business. The King
himself was so taken with the alcohol that he bought 500 jars of
it. Soon he was partying on the alcohol.
Sakka Devaraja (Thni Kong, the God of Heaven) saw this and decided
that he must do something to prevent the world from being ruined by
this evil habit. He came to earth in the guise of a Brahmin and
levitated himself in front of the King, carrying a jar. The King
was curious and asked the Brahmin what the jar contained. The
Brahmin replied that if he wanted to know, he would have to drink
it himself, but warned him of the consequences.
“You’ll be in a stupor, unable to control your mind, actions or
speech. You will also be unable to discriminate between good and
bad, and become shameless. Your reputation will suffer and you will
lose the respect of others. You will also break your precepts. In
doing so, you will also harm others as well as yourself.”
The King realised the folly of taking intoxicants and destroyed his
store of alcohol. However, alcohol had already been discovered and
continues to be made and drunk till this day.
During the time of the Buddha, a monk who was an accomplished
meditator with psychic powers took intoxicants, became drunk and
unmindfully laid on the ground with his feet pointing at the
Buddha. The Buddha criticised the foolish act and set down a Vinaya
rule prohibiting monks from consuming alcohol.
Here, we can see that taking intoxicants can bring about much evil.
If one were to refrain from it, one could be free from all these
evils. So, we can rightly say that refraining from taking
intoxicants is a great blessing.
SBS
Just a note: Sakka Devaraja is Shakyamuni Buddha's previous
incarnation.
Btw... I read that over the past 15 years, life expectancy in
Russia has varied from roughly 58 years to 65 years for men, and
roughly 71 to 74 years for women.
The reason why males have such lower life expectancy is because
many Russians tend to be alcoholics and die early from
alcoholism.
The harm of alcohol to health is much worse than tobacco... if
abused on a long term. In fact scientists have ranked alcohol as more dangerous than many drugs
like ketamine, ecstasy, tobacco, marijuana, LSD, etc (not that I
recommend the other drugs).