Vegetarianism, Living and Sentient Beings

[fruven]

All living beings grow. Animals and plants grow and die. Stone do not grow and die, it stays the same forever except environmental corrosion. Animals can feel pain because we can observe they react by sound and action to pain as we human do. Plants however do not react by sound and action when we chop a plant. We can establish that animals and human has a mind because it can feel pain.

The opposition: Maybe the plant has consciousness but it cannot make sound and act to show pain.
=> How to we proof that plant doesn't has a mind/consciousness?

Also plants gives back to the environment by producing the air animals and human need to breath. Plant needs only to be sustain by light, earth and water to grow. Animals and humans live on plants and on each other. Animals and humans cannot live alone without plants. In other words plants actually sustain everyone here on this planet.

The opposition: We can eat animal because plant is beneficial plants give back to the environment while animal don't. However plant cannot take revenge when it got hurt while animal and human do. So we don't eat plant.
=> How do we argue that it is invalid unless we can established that the mind doesn't reside in a plant and even though plant do grow and die? Is plant even a living being in the beginning? Or how can it not be a being? Or is it even living?

[Big Uncle]

Hahaha! This is really funny. I think at this point everyone is interdependently linked to each other. In Buddhism, we are not looking at which is more important and therefore, we do not kill it. We are looking at where we are causing more suffering.

Clearly in Buddhism, plants are beings that have no consciousness as it does not react to pain nor to happiness. Animals, from the smallest organisms to the largest will react to pain or react to survive. Therefore, animals are beings that have sentience and can perceive sufferings. As to answer your question about plants having a mind, there's firstly no physical proof of any brain. Second of all, plants do not react to stimuli the way animals do. A tree can't uproot itself to escape a lumberjack. A flower does nothing when we pluck its leaves and flowers. So, how does it have a mind. However, some people say that plants do grow better with certain types of music. Well, the good vibrations of the music may have promoted growth but that doesn't mean that it has a mind of its own.

[Q]

Actually, if we strictly look at the scriptures, there is no specific discussion on the matter, there is neither any expression assertion in the form "plants are sentient beings" nor a straightforward denial that plants are not. But there are texts that state that plants are animate objects, just like animals and humans.

However, just because plants are animated objects that doesn't mean that they are sentient beings. Sentient beings are know to have consciousness. Plants on the other hand do not seem to display any form of consciousness but only reaction based. For example, plants will grow more towards the portion of where the light comes from. Also, another point that I think is valid, is that plants do not 'multiply' on the basis of lust or desire, where as humans and animals do.

Then again, this is truly unclear as the text do not strictly say yes or no... so it is something that we would based it on our digression... but if you ask me to pick between a plant or meat... i'd choose to be vegetarian since it does appear to be the lesser evil.

But, if you really are afraid of killing plants because they are sentient beings... then perhaps you can keep your own organic garden and harvest what you need to eat without killing the actual plant... after all, they can regenerate. haha... just a thought...

[rossoneri]

As a Buddhist myself, we should be take responsible of what we are doing and the consequences of or doing. How can one practicing compassion and at the same time he/she indirectly encouraging the killing of animals. It just does not make sense, as a Buddhist we are to be compassion to all sentient beings as we believes all the human and lower realm can be once related to us as we strongly believe in reincarnation and karma.

In the seventh chapter of the Angulimala Sutra, a Mahayana sutra as rare as the Udamwara flower4, Manjushri asks:

"Is it true that the buddhas do not eat meat due to Buddha nature?"5 The Buddha said: "It is exactly like that, Manjushri. In the sequence of lives during our beginningless and endless coming and going in samsara there is no being that has not been our mother, that has not been our sister. Even dogs have been our fathers before. The world of those lives is like a play6. Therefore, since our own flesh and that of others is the same flesh, the buddhas do not eat meat7. Furthermore, Manjushri, the sphere of all beings is the dharmadhatu. As this would constitute eating flesh of the same sphere, the buddhas do not eat meat."

[apprenticehealer]

This is rather funny, and i am now going to complicate the issue even further.

There was a test done several years back by a group of scientists, whereby they hooked up a lot of electronic wires onto a few plants, and these wires are then attached to a machine to record any 'reaction' or 'the slightest movement' from the plants.
Someone then went over to one plant with a big pair of scissors/ pruning shears and started trimming off leaves and branches. Apparently  the surrounding plants all started 'shivering in fear' - as recorded by the machine.
Then in another test, there were 2 separate group of plants. Separated from each other by quite a distant. Both groups of plants were given the exact amount of water, sunlight and in the exact soil mixture. Group A of the plants were constantly talked to with gentle words of encouragement to grow and praises how beautiful and healthy they were . Group B were totally ignored, only tended to in complete silence.
Group A of plants flourished and grew double in size to Group B.

I don't know whether to believe if plants do have feelings or not. But when we harvest fruits from a tree, we are not killing the main tree, or when we harvest vegetables from the ground, the roots will again grow, though it does make me wonder what about root vegetables like potatoes , parsnips etc - do we kill the whole plant ?.

[jessicajameson]

There was a short story written by Roald Dahl called "The Sound Machine". It was a really interesting story from a compilation of short stories of a man named Klausner who was obsessed with sound. He had a theory that there are many sounds in the world that humans were just unable to hear due to their high frequencies.

In turn, he invented a machine that allowed him to tune in to those frequencies, and convert the pitches into audible sound.

When he tests it, he tries it out in his yard. He hears the shrieking when his neighbour cuts roses from her garden. Every time a flower is cut, he hears a shriek.

He then takes an axe and swings it into a large beech tree. He hears a deep and pathetic moan when the tree is cut. He is so shocked and taken aback, that he calls for a doctor to put iodine onto the cut to address the wound.

***

This is obviously nonsense, tree don't have voice boxes, nor the output for sound, or a nervous system. They grow solely on a reactionary basis. Got sun, water, soil - grow!

If it were true, fruitarians and Jain's would be the best in incurring the least amount of karma from killing. They only ever eat fallen fruit, no harvested vegetables and no meat.

[buddhalovely]

In the Buddhist view, the difference between the plant, animal and the humans is in the level of intelligence; and all possess subtle consciousness. Any sentient being that can experience pain and pleasure is thought to possess consciousness. Therefore, the subtle consciousness is not uniquely human.

Consciousness of eye which arises in the mind is dependent upon the sensory organ of the eye. The eye detects light and passes it on to the brain, where the input is processed. Buddha did not teach that eye consciousness was dependent upon a brain, but dependent upon mind which is independent of a brain, that is to say not a part of the brain. (By the way, I have never subscribed to this theory/teaching. It is my understanding and training that mind arises from complex biochemical and electrochemical processes made possible by the neurochemical processes of the organ we call a brain.)

The other five conciousnesses: smell, taste, touch, hearing, mentality are all made possible due to organs which make contact with the exterior world and find residence in the mind, forming consciousnesses integrated by the mental consciousness.

Plants can do all of this as previously stated. The question is, "Do plants have a mental consciousness?", which I can't demonstrate. But, neither can I demonstrate if anyone on this board has a mental consciousness. You each have to volunteer that information to me when asked. The problem with demonstrating that plants have a consciousness is that we aren't smart enough to speak "plant" to raise the question.

[Tenzin K]

In Buddhism, all animals including human consist of Body and Mind. Plants have only Body but have no Mind. They are therefore not animals but are the part of nature. Some Devas live in big trees, one may cut their arms and legs while cutting down trees.

I personally consider living things when they have brains to be animal. Therefore, it is bad karma to kill or hurt them. We don't kill plants, bacteria, fungus or virus because they are not animals according to Buddhism.