Life Wisdom: The Important Matter of Food: Eat a Vegetarian Diet
When will this wave of the COVID-19 pandemic come to an end? This has truly been on my mind; I’ve been thinking about this that the earlier people can remove their mask, the more comfortable people can feel. Yet, we cannot stop wearing mask. At this critical time, it requires everyone to follow rules; only when people follow rules can the pandemic situation be brought to an end safely and peacefully. By then, everyone will be safe and well and the world will become clean from the virus.
People will not need to feel fearful when they go out, nor will they have doubts about one another when interacting with people. “Where has this person been to?”, “Is this person healthy?” Things like these are something people think about when coming across other people. The Buddha said that greed, anger, ignorance, arrogance, and doubt are the five spiritual illnesses of our world.
Of the five spiritual illnesses of the world, greed comes first. Indeed, greed comes first. Don’t humans all have greed? After birth, babies were offered cotton wools soaked in sugar water. In my memory, the first natural thing that the babies did was sucking the sugar water offered to them. This is what we humans learn to do first when we are born in this world. In fact, it takes us no efforts to learn, we do this naturally.
When the babies are offered by adults, they would start sucking it straight away. This is what happens to humans when first coming to the world. In the several decades within a person’s life, from the moment he is born until he dies, he has to continue eating no matter how old he is. Eating is a major part of life; of our whole life, we eat every day to receive the nutrients to be healthy. So, every day, we typically eat two or three meals to be in good health.
For some, they eat many times within a day, including snacks; food goes in our mouths and we try to fill up a bottomless pit. It will never be full. This practice goes on for several decades and it is rather fascinating. Such is the law of nature, speaking solely about the human body, it always, always needs food. With greed and desires, can people be satisfied? It is hard.
Actually, being full is being satisfied. When we are full, we’ve eaten enough, and we should have a thought: we are grateful! After our meals, let us put our palms together and be grateful. Before we eat, let us also put our palms together to think about how our food comes about. Think, where did our rice come from? Surely, it came from grains of rice. How do we get rice? Well, farmers replant rice seedlings and they grow with the sun, water, soil, and time.
The four elements need to be favorable, with proper soil, proper water, proper weather, and proper sunlight. Everything must be just right. Only when all four elements are just right, can farmers have a good harvest, and the crops can sustain the needs of humans and animals in the world, as well as all the creatures. Both humans and animals need to give of themselves.
Take oxen for example. They pull carts and plow fields. Yet, are humans grateful to the oxen? We should be grateful to the oxen. We need to know to reciprocate. We need to know principles, be grateful, and appreciate their work. We should cherish our relationship with the oxen and express our gratitude to animals.
As humans, we need to nurture enlightened love. To be enlightened means to have awareness. For us to enjoy what we have now, we need to realize all the hard work that went into it. This is being aware. With this awareness, let us be grateful to everything for all that exists in this world come about by humans, animals, and nature working together. We should be grateful that we are blessed. So, while we are enjoying our blessings, don’t forget the grand lessons from this pandemic, which is the important matter of food.
Eating is a great matter. We need to first educate people about eating, how to purify our mouth by not eating animal meat. With a translucent and pure heart, we don’t kill or harm animals. Only when everyone becomes a vegetarian will humans stop killing animals. Because people like to eat meat, industries raise and kill livestock to supply meat to people for them to satisfy their palates.
Do those who eat meat gain any benefit? No. Animals carry viruses and bacteria, and people can contract diseases by eating meat. So, let us be grateful to the land for giving us grains, vegetables, and fruits for food.
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