Basically anything you want - want a piece of paper, where did it come from? Trees get cut down. Have you ever seen a tree getting cut down? Probably most of you haven't, but since I have cut down about a few hundred they always come down with a "boom", they don't just come down gently and everything is nice. They come down with a "boom". Now, do you know how many creatures live in a tree? Inside the bark? Why is it that the squirrels go up and pick in the tree, why is it that the woodpeckers in particular go picking at the tree? They are looking for insects to eat. There are virtually thousands of insects living in any big tree that gets cut down to make wood, to make paper, to make many products. So just to have a piece of paper, we're connected to the process of killing.
We don't teach vegetarianism, Theravadin Buddhism does not teach it, but it does teach you to be respectful and to be thankful for the food that you do have. You have heard me say it, plowing the fields to grow rice, how many creatures are dying? When we lived on our farm, we had a machine instead of a big tractor, we didn't have enough money for a tractor, but we had a machine where I walked behind to plow up our vegetable garden. One day I'm plowing along and a frog jumps away. That is not unusual because there were plenty of frogs there, but that frog had only 3 legs. It could be that some frogs are born with three legs, but this frog wasn't, this frog was born with four, because the blood was spurting out from where the fourth leg was supposed to be. I'd just chopped off its fourth leg, it was going to die soon. All what I wanted to do was plant strawberries there. Planting strawberries caused the death of that frog, plus countless other beings that I would chew up, ants, you name it, they all died just to I could plant vegetables. So, this last question, is it senseless to be a vegetarian, the word senseless to me doesn't apply here. It is just that by being a vegetarian it doesn't mean that you are free of being involved in the cycle of killing.
Some people think that if they eat meat, fish, they are in a cycle of killing but if they eat vegetables they are not. That is senseless, that does not make any sense at all. When we want to eat, that in itself already means that we are hoping food will be produced. Food being produced means beings will die. Now we are not actually hoping that beings will die, this is where things are different. There is different Kamma involved between wishing to eat compared to the wishing for a being to die. The Buddha made a distinction between going up to an animal, pointing at it and saying "I want to eat that animal" and going to a store and simply buying some meat or fish. By going up to an animal and saying "I want to eat that one" this is worse Kamma than going into the store and just getting some food. It is not the same Kamma.
Think of it yourself, what does it feel like? I had a relative once who wanted to teach their children the cycle of meat. They had a bit of land, so the father bought a cow, a baby calf, and allowed it to eat the grass and all, and he would not allow the children to actually play with the calf, he wanted to show them the whole cycle. These people were not actual farmers, they were suburban outer city people who had a bit of land. This relative of mine simply wanted to teach the kids something about the cycle of life. So they raised the cow and they had it slaughtered, and then they ate it. I did not agree with that.
When you are thinking of eating, if you just want to eat to keep your body alive and healthy, that is what we teach here, keep your body alive and healthy. Be thankful that you have food. Now on the other side, as you know with our practice, we are encouraging you "to do more". Because beings are dying for you to live, can you do more to help beings on this planet? Can you dedicate your life so that you are doing more? Because everything that we use in our life, the clothes we wear, the pens we write with, the computers we use, they have all come about through the process of killing. Can you feel that sense of responsibility, that bit of connectedness, acknowledging that since you are alive and you want to stay alive, and because other beings are dying for you, that you can perhaps dedicate your life towards doing something that will actually help other beings?