Worse karma if eating animal alive?

[RedLantern]

It is far important to know the life that the animal lived,rather than the way they died.There is something odd about people who do this sort of thing.Human being are able to discriminate between right or wrong and it is plain wrong to eat animals alive, It is cruel to eat other creatures to stay alive.Causing unnecessary suffering to the animals is pure cruelty.Eating live creatures is often more circus of squeamishness than a culinary adventure.I will never try this even if I am not a vegetarian!

[ilikeshugden]

I believe that eating any form of meat is bad. But the three options are the worst. Eating it alive is just plain wrong in my opinion as it is experiencing the pain that you are giving it. Also, having someone kill the animal just so you can eat it is very bad, you also receive the bad karma for "making" the man kill for you which means you "made" him create more negative karma for himself.

[Aurore]

Let's just think about how we would like to die ourselves. Do we want to have a quick death or a slow death while our bodies are being tortured?

Eating the animal alive or its body parts while it is still alive shows the person wants more out of his/her "food" than mere taste and freshness. It's for a culinary experience. With the lack of insight to be able to see the animal's pain while you are eating the cooked parts or alive shows one truly disregard the pain one instilled on another being. Whilst many people are brought up from childhood to eat meat, eating animals live is something purely out of choice.

Personally, I feel it's worst karma to eat an animal's body parts whilst it's still alive.

[Ensapa]

Of course the karma will be heavier if we eat an animal alive, because the pain and agony that the animal has to go through will be much, much more than what it has to go through if it was killed beforehand. So logically, it would be a lot worse for us to eat an animal while it is alive as the law of karma dictates that the cause resembles the result, and therefore that will how our deaths will be.

The best thing to do is to avoid meat altogether in my personal opinion, so that there is less unnecessary suffering.

[ilikeshugden]

I think in terms of karma, they are all roughly the same as the animal has to endure intense suffering before its death. I believe that these forms of eating animals does have more negative effects than eating pre-made food which is also very bad. I would never eat these sorts of things, it is just plain wrong.

[Ensapa]

I think in terms of karma, they are all roughly the same as the animal has to endure intense suffering before its death. I believe that these forms of eating animals does have more negative effects than eating pre-made food which is also very bad. I would never eat these sorts of things, it is just plain wrong.

Not really. An animal that is executed i.e does not see who it is killed for suffers a bit less. Now, lets imagine what the baby octopuses in the video on the first post of the thread have to go through: they get chewed by the teeth of the person, and get jabbed and beaten up by the tongue, and then they have to go down a narrow and constricting bath, right into a vat of acid and they are dissolved in it until they die. How can you compare this with just, maybe, a chop and they die?

[Q]

In general... killing to satisfy our taste buds is negative karma. Why? Because the act of eating or killing this animals causes us to be more attached to samsara... any action that causes us to fall deeper into samsara generates negative karma. Why is it so? Because we are not polishing our Buddha qualities that will potentially bring benefit to countless of beings.

In relation to the types of killing being done, there are sutras that explain how heavy one's karma will be in different scenarios. First of all, asking someone to kill for you... meaning you eat meat that has already been killed, the act of killing just this animal has caused the butcher and you to collect that negative karma equally. Just because we don't kill the animal does not mean we don't collect the negative karma. Take for example, for every second we breath, when we are not doing anything to improve ourselves so that we be of benefit to others, that is generating negative karma as well.

So, for the 3 scenarios, which will generate the worst karma? For every millionth of a second one causes suffering to another sentient beings, they collect the negative karma for doing so. Therefore, I would say that the worst of the 3 would be the third scenario... eating the animal's body while it is still alive.

[Ensapa]

In general... killing to satisfy our taste buds is negative karma. Why? Because the act of eating or killing this animals causes us to be more attached to samsara... any action that causes us to fall deeper into samsara generates negative karma. Why is it so? Because we are not polishing our Buddha qualities that will potentially bring benefit to countless of beings.
Also dont forget that by killing we create more enemies, especially if we eat them alive, they will remember us as the person who has caused them much suffering and they will hold on to that grudge, and they will come back and make sure that we have enough obstacles to not get out of samsara.

In relation to the types of killing being done, there are sutras that explain how heavy one's karma will be in different scenarios. First of all, asking someone to kill for you... meaning you eat meat that has already been killed, the act of killing just this animal has caused the butcher and you to collect that negative karma equally. Just because we don't kill the animal does not mean we don't collect the negative karma. Take for example, for every second we breath, when we are not doing anything to improve ourselves so that we be of benefit to others, that is generating negative karma as well.
Yes you are correct. But for someone to point out which animal to kill will also incur something additional: the animal itself will hold a grudge.

So, for the 3 scenarios, which will generate the worst karma? For every millionth of a second one causes suffering to another sentient beings, they collect the negative karma for doing so. Therefore, I would say that the worst of the 3 would be the third scenario... eating the animal's body while it is still alive.

I like your points, Q. But the question is, if some of us have done this due to ignorance, what can we do to purify them? Also, what are the negative effects of such actions that we can observe in this very life itself?

[Manjushri]

Whether the animal is eaten after death or alive, you chose to eat it. I feel the karma is the same, because, both ways, to satisfy your own curiosity, craving, want and desire, the animal is killed. Of course how heavy your karma depends on carrying completely your intention, motivation, feeling and result. If one takes joy in what they do, with the sole intention of killing and hurting the animals, then I guess the karma is far worse, than if one was forced to eat the animals against their will. Of course both instances would creative negative karma, with the difference on how heavy the negative karma is. I wonder what the resultant karma is for the person... when the karma ripes for him/her to experience the result of their cause, it must be one hell of an unplesant experience!

[Ensapa]

Whether the animal is eaten after death or alive, you chose to eat it. I feel the karma is the same, because, both ways, to satisfy your own curiosity, craving, want and desire, the animal is killed. Of course how heavy your karma depends on carrying completely your intention, motivation, feeling and result. If one takes joy in what they do, with the sole intention of killing and hurting the animals, then I guess the karma is far worse, than if one was forced to eat the animals against their will. Of course both instances would creative negative karma, with the difference on how heavy the negative karma is. I wonder what the resultant karma is for the person... when the karma ripes for him/her to experience the result of their cause, it must be one hell of an unplesant experience!

I would like to disagree that the karma is the same. if we inflict more harm and horror to the animal before we eat it, obviously the  negative karma that will come back to us would be a lot more compared to if we just duly kill it and let it die before we partake its flesh because that method would cause the animal less pain in the execution process. Result resembles the cause.

[jessicajameson]

I agree with what Ensapa wrote. It's completely different for a being to watch themselves being eaten alive as opposed to being dead and then eaten (and hopefully already in the next rebirth). I assume that the consciousness is still in the body when they're being eaten... how freaky.

With this in mind, when I used to eat meat my parents would never allowed me to eat anything killed specifically to be eaten by us. They would only allow me to eat seafood that we frozen, or meat that has been already killed and chopped up into their different parts.

In that scenario, is the karma the same? 

[pgdharma]

All animals have the capacity to feel pain as all animals are sentient, ie they can experience pain and mental suffering, and there is now increasing scientific evidence that sea creatures, notably like squid, octopus, shrimp and lobster can as well - at least to some degree.

When we contribute to the suffering and to the shortened life of an animal, we create negative karma. This negative karma forces us to experience a similar result to the cause. If we have shortened the lives of others, then we must experience a shortened life in return.

The Yoga Sutras tell us that the karma we acquire from eating animals is the karma of stealing, because while we do not kill the animals ourselves, they are being killed for our consumption. The act of eating another’s flesh is a tremendously harmful karma, because we have preemptively taken away their vehicle for enlightenment.

So whether we eat them alive or indirectly when someone killed the animals for our consumption, it will reap negative karma but worst when we eat them alive as we are directly inflicting and prolonging their pain and sufferings.

[Tammy]

I am not a dharma scholar but my gut feel tells me it is DEFINITELY worse karma eating animals while they are still alive then after they were killed.

Why? My logic is simple - in the process of consuming the meat while the animal is still alive, we are inflicting much much more harm to them; the pain of being eaten bit by bit, suffering from a slow death, not to mention the mental agony and fear and hatred that the animals feel - this is much worse then killed and be done with.

I just dont understand why would a human being with perfect mental faculty would think of ways to inflict pain and agony upon other sentient beings!? Have they no feeling when they see the victim suffering in intense pain?

Find sources of protein in plants!

[diablo1974]

Eating it alive or kill it and then eat it, both will result in bad karma. It is because the being that you have killed experienced pain and the person who have killed it having a improper motivation. If i were the animal to be eaten, i would rather be eaten by a buddha than a normal human being as buddha eats u up with pure compassion.
Our guru will scold and torture us using words but as students we must understand he is actually scoldng ur ego and attachments to your habits.

There are still buddhist traditions consuming flesh of animals but many other buddhist traditions including tibetan buddhism has in recent years promote and create awareness of not taking meat as food to sustain our bodily needs.

[DS Star]

... With this in mind, when I used to eat meat my parents would never allowed me to eat anything killed specifically to be eaten by us. They would only allow me to eat seafood that we frozen, or meat that has been already killed and chopped up into their different parts.

In that scenario, is the karma the same?

Jessica Jemeson, I believe your parents are Buddhists of Theravada tradition, thus the practice of eating only frozen seafood or meat that already been slaughtered and chopped into their different parts.

Theravada Buddhists believed 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.

"... meat should not be eaten under three circumstances: when it is seen or heard or suspected (that a living being has been purposely slaughtered for the eater); these, Jivaka, are the three circumstances in which meat should not be eaten, Jivaka! I declare there are three circumstances in which meat can be eaten: when it is not seen or heard or suspected (that a living being has not been purposely slaughtered for the eater); Jivaka, I say these are the three circumstances in which meat can be eaten." —Jivaka Sutta

In my own opinion the karma should be different if we eat the meat of animals that already dead for sometime as compared to those eaten alive as described in many posts here. I especially like pgdharma's post as below:

All animals have the capacity to feel pain as all animals are sentient, ie they can experience pain and mental suffering, and there is now increasing scientific evidence that sea creatures, notably like squid, octopus, shrimp and lobster can as well - at least to some degree.

When we contribute to the suffering and to the shortened life of an animal, we create negative karma. This negative karma forces us to experience a similar result to the cause. If we have shortened the lives of others, then we must experience a shortened life in return.

The Yoga Sutras tell us that the karma we acquire from eating animals is the karma of stealing, because while we do not kill the animals ourselves, they are being killed for our consumption. The act of eating another’s flesh is a tremendously harmful karma, because we have preemptively taken away their vehicle for enlightenment.

So whether we eat them alive or indirectly when someone killed the animals for our consumption, it will reap negative karma but worst when we eat them alive as we are directly inflicting and prolonging their pain and sufferings.