[Buddha-l] "Nature" and eating meat

[curt]

Joy Vriens wrote:

> curt wrote:
>
>>> Yes humanism, the Human project is a project. We can't judge the 
>>> whole project on the basis of somme rotten pears (as the Curt 
>>> doctrine would require us to do). ;-)
>>
>
>> I wonder what is motivating you to say such an unpleasant thing?
>
>
> It wasn't meant to be unpleasant, sorry for that, but it was my 
> understanding that you
> based your assessment of a religion, not on its self proclaimed
> objectives and methods, but on how (some) influencial Buddhists put
> their religion into practice, and especially politically. 

Thank you for your very kind reply to my rather over-sensitive 
protestation. You are correct in that I am more insterested in "what do 
buddhists do?" rather than "what would buddha do?" It is not that I am 
some kind of rank materialist - its just that I tend to agree with 
Goethe who said "In the beginning was the Deed."

> I already
> mistrust the Buddhism of Buddhists in high power positions, especially
> in the times when conquering power really meant that: conquering power.
> A very naive view if this were a forum on political science, but on a
> Buddhist forum I have a right to judge (predemocratic) politics
> (guided, misguided or not guided by religious principles) from a
> (intimate) religious point of view.

Yes you certainly do have that right - and I think that your mistrust is 
not completely unreasonable. But I do think that Buddhism has had a 
positive impact on Asian society - and that this has sometimes been a 
top-down phenomenon from "Buddhist rulers".

>
> <.... snip snip snip.....>
>
>> But on the subject of "nature": I know it is something of a truism, 
>> but I also think that it may be at least in part true, that 
>> Buddhism's attitude toward nature changed as it moved out of India, 
>> and especially as it moved North and East.
>
>
> Nature being the physical, the corporal, the "animal" in us?

In Buddhist terms I would take "nature" to be everything that is subject 
to change - (which doesn't really leave much else, does it?).

- Curt