Hayom echad v'esrim yom, shehaym shlosha shavuot baomer

This blog has a Jewish focus, but I think it's fascinating to spend just one post discussing the myriad Buddhist reasons to go vegetarian. According to Koshelya Walli's The Concept of Ahimsa in Indian Thought, Buddhist reasons to go vegetarian include the notions that eating animals might mean eating one's kin from another life, flesh food is foul and odorous, terrible greed results from meat-eating, and those connected with meat production and consumption will be doomed for future lives. According to the Lankavatara Sutra (a Zen Buddhist text), reasons to go vegetarian include the notions that eating others is like eating your own kind, meat-eating causes attachment to meat, vegetarianism is a just and compassionate diet, a compassionate heart will ensue from compassionate actions toward animals, bodhisattvas cannot reach the ends they desire if they consume meat, animal food is unhealthy and sordid, flesh foods might as well tempt one toward cannibalism, and the eradication of meat consumption will eliminate all unsympathetic deeds in the world.