Master
Answers Questions
Q:
Eating animals is killing living beings, but isn't eating vegetables
a kind of killing, too?
M: Eating plants
is also killing living things and will create some karmic hindrance,
but the effect is very minimal. If one practices the Quan Yin Method
for two and a half hours every day, one can get rid of this karmic effect.
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.
Therefore, horticulturists say that pruning vegetation helps them grow
large and beautiful.
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
that 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 fruit is a natural tendency, which brings to them no suffering at
all.
Q:
Most people have the idea that vegetarians are shorter and thinner,
and flesh eaters are taller and bigger. Is this true?
M: Vegetarians
are not necessarily thinner and shorter. If their diet is balanced,
they can also grow tall and strong. As you can see, all big animals
like elephants, cattle, giraffes, hippopotamuses, horses et cetera,
eat only vegetables and fruit. They are stronger than carnivores, very
gentle and beneficial to mankind. But flesh eating animals are both
very violent and of no use. If human beings eat many animals, they will
also become affected with animal instincts and qualities. Flesh eating
people are not necessarily tall and strong, but their life span is very
short on the average. Eskimos are almost totally flesh eating, but are
they very tall and strong? Do they have a long life? This I think you
can understand very clearly.
Q:
Can vegetarians eat eggs?
M: No. When
we eat eggs we are also killing beings. Some say that commercially available
eggs are unfertilized, so eating them is not killing living things.
This is only seemingly correct. An egg remains unfertilized only because
the appropriate circumstances for its fertilization have been withheld,
so the egg cannot complete its natural purpose of developing into a
chicken. Even though this development has not occurred, it still contains
the innate life force needed for this. We know that eggs have innate
life force; otherwise, why is it that ova are the only type of cells
which can be fertilized? Some point out that eggs contain the essential
nutrients, protein and phosphorus, essential for human bodies. But protein
is available from bean curd, and phosphorus from many kinds of vegetables
such as potatoes.
We know that from ancient
times till now, there have been many great monks who did not eat meat
or eggs, and still had a long life span. For instance the Ying Guang
Master ate only a bowl of vegetables and some rice each meal, and yet
he lived up to the age of eighty. Furthermore, egg yolks contain a lot
of cholesterol, which is a major cause of cardiovascular disorders,
the number one killer in Formosa and America. No wonder we see that
most patients are egg eaters!
Q:
Man raises animals and poultry, such as pigs, cattle, chickens, ducks,
et cetera. Why can't we eat them?
M: 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. If we have a look at the laws in Hong Kong, even killing
oneself is against the law. So, how much more unlawful would killing
other living beings be?
Q:
Animals are born for people to eat. If we don't eat them, they will
fill the world. Right?
M:
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. When
there is too little food and space is limited, this will cause a drastic
reduction in population. This maintains the population at an appropriate
level.
Q:
Why should I be vegetarian?
M:
I am vegetarian because the God inside me wants it. Understand? Eating
meat is against the universal principle of not wanting to be killed.
We ourselves don't want to be killed, and we ourselves don't want to
be stolen from. Now, if we do that to other people, then we are acting
against ourselves, and that makes us suffer. Everything that you do
against others makes you suffer. You cannot bite yourself and you shouldn't
stab yourself. In the same way you should not kill, because that is
against the principle of life. Understand? It would make us suffer,
so we don't do it. It doesn't mean we limit ourselves in any way. It
means we expand our life to all kinds of life. Our life will not be
limited within this body, but extended to the life of animals and all
kinds of beings. That makes us grander, greater, happier and limitless.
Okay?
Q:
Would You speak on vegetarian eating and how this can contribute to
world peace?
M: Yes. You
see, most of the wars that happen in this world are due to economic
reasons. Let's face it. The economic difficulties of a country become
more urgent when there is hunger, lack of food, or a lack of equal distribution
of food among different countries. If you took the time to read magazines
and research the facts about the vegetarian diet, then you would know
this very well. Raising cattle and animals for meat has caused our economy
to go bankrupt in all aspects. It has created hunger throughout the
world - at least in the Third World countries.
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. You can go to any bookshop and read about vegetarian
research and food processing research. You can read, "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. He lost a lot of money,
prestige and business, but he did it for the sake of Truth. That book
is very good. There are many other books and magazines which can give
you a lot of information and facts about the vegetarian diet and how
it can contribute to world peace.
You see, we bankrupted
our food supply by feeding cattle. You know how much protein, medicine,
water supply, manpower, cars, trucks, road construction and how many
hundreds of thousands of acres of land have been wasted before a cow
is good enough for one meal. Understand? All these things could be distributed
equally to underdeveloped countries, then we could solve the hunger
problem. So now, if a country is in need of food it probably invades
the other country just to save its own people. In the long run, this
has created a bad cause and retribution. Understand?
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. Ask yourself, why does your country, America,
suffer the most? It has the highest rate of cancer in the world, because
the Americans eat a lot of beef. They eat more meat than any of the
other countries. Ask yourself why the Chinese or communist countries
don't have that high a rate of cancer. They don't have as much meat.
Understand? That is what the research says, not I. Okay? Don't blame
me.
Q:
What are some spiritual benefits that we get from being vegetarians?
M:
I'm glad you asked the question in this manner, because it means you
only concentrate on, or care about, spiritual benefits. Most people
would care about health, diet and figure when they ask about the vegetarian
diet. The spiritual aspects of a vegetarian diet are that it is very
clean and nonviolent.
Thou shalt not kill.
When God said this to us, Hes did not say do not kill human beings,
Hes said do not kill any beings. Didn't Hes say that Hes made all animals
to befriend us, to help us? Did Hes not put the animals in our care?
Hes said, take care of them, rule over them. When you rule over your
subjects, do you kill your subjects and eat them? Then you would become
a king with no one else around? So now you understand when God said
that. We must do it. There is no need to question Hirm. Hes spoke very
clearly, but who understands God except God?
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. To meditate on God doesn't mean you
worship God, it means that you become God. You realize that you and
God are one. I and my Father are one, didn't Jesus say so? If
He said He and His father are one, we and His father can also be one,
because we are also children of God. And Jesus also said that what He
does we can even do better. So we may be even better than God, who knows!
Why worship God when
we don't know anything about God? Why use blind faith? We must first
know what we are worshipping, just like we must know who the girl is
we're going to marry before we marry her. Nowadays, it's customary that
we don't marry before we date. So why should we worship God with blind
faith? We have the right to demand that God appears to us, and to make
Hirmself known to us. We have the right to choose which God we would
like to follow.
So now you see that
it is very clear in the Bible that we should be vegetarians. For all
health reasons, we should be vegetarians. For all scientific reasons,
we should be vegetarians. For all economic reasons, we should be vegetarians.
For all compassionate reasons, we should be vegetarians. As well, to
save the world, we should be vegetarians.
It is stated in some
research that if people in the West, in America, eat vegetarian only
once a week, we would be able to save sixteen million starving people
every year. So be a hero, be vegetarian. For all of these reasons, even
if you don't follow me, or don't practice the same method, please be
a vegetarian for your own sake, for the sake of the world.
