We eat whatever is offered to us, whatever food there is, a balanced, nutritious diet. When we explained the food reflection, I mention that even if you are vegetarian, beings are dying for you. This is not just a food issue, but where did the paper come from? It comes from trees. If you have never chopped down a tree, you may have never seen how many beings die when a tree comes down. Within the bark and the little holes of the tree branches, there is like a thousand little termites and bugs and borers that live in any one big tree. When the tree comes down all the bugs on this side are smashed instantly, all the bugs on this side die because of the ricochet effect, the ones on the sides get thrown off, some survive, some don't. Just to have paper, just to have clothing - growing cotton in the fields. How do you grow cotton in the fields - if you don't use pesticides you probably won't get much. Pesticides are the chemicals that are sprayed on cotton to kill the bugs. Ploughing the fields. Virtually everything you have causes the death of other beings. In this way Theravadin Buddhism does not teach vegetarianism because whatever you eat causes beings to die.
What do we teach? It is the intention behind eating that is important, which is to keep your body alive and healthy. So that you don't just eat food because of the desire, "I love, I want, I want, I want, I want", but you are actually eating more to keep your body alive and healthy. Now because beings are dying no matter what you are eating, beings have died for that. Now, you could argue the point, like when climbing a tree to get a coconut. Fine, no being died. Maybe you find a bunch of apple trees and you eat some that don't have a worm in them. Fine, but if it was sprayed there won't be any worms, but other beings died. It is very, very difficult to get any food that was produced and at the same time no other beings died.
Now, since we live in the realm of this body, we need clothing, we need food, and we need shelter. But on the other side, every time we need clothing and get it, every time we need shelter and get it, some being has died, some being has suffered, some being has suffered at the same time. So what are we going to do here? We are stuck in this - in English we have this phrase of a "catch 22 situation" - we are kind of stuck. This is our realm. This is Samsara. The Buddha said yes, this is what we have.
Many people don't take any notice of this so they just keep using, using, using things. And they don't care if they use so much that they throw half of it away. They don't care how many beings died, because they get something. A long, long time ago - longer than some of you have been alive - when we started meditating, one of the first things we realized was not to buy newspapers every day. It was ridiculous, I grew up in Washington DC suburbs, and the Washington Post, the main newspaper in Washington DC was typically as fat as any newspaper could possibly be when I was growing up. I have no idea if it is still one of the fattest or not. Many people would get a newspaper every single day, yet where does it end up 24 hours later? It is in the trash, or maybe it will be recycled. But do people really need one every day? Of course today you don't, because the Internet gives you so much for free, all the news for free. But that was a decision for me and Rosemary in the early days, do we need so many newspapers, do we need so many magazines, do we need so many shirts, pants, anything else that we actually use? Do you actually need this much? Even if it comes down to say buying toilet paper. Ok. Some toilet paper is very good quality and you may only need one piece to wipe your bum with. Some other toilet paper has very poor quality, but it is very cheap. But you might need three pieces if you fold it tight to wipe your bum with, because it rips so easily. And you can actually start testing where you can cut down on using so much paper. Just starting with something like toilet paper.
So can you save a little of the earth's resources? And every time you thing about saving some of the resources, you are cutting down on how many beings die for you to live. And at the same time, you can make it a kind of dedication to yourself. Beings are dying for you to live, what are you going to do with your life to help other beings? Good question! Very good question. What are you doing with your own life to help other beings? When you see that part of your life is actually causing harm in the chain of events, what more can you do to actually help, to contribute more so more can benefit? The issue as to vegetarianism or not can lead you into looking at your entire life, not just at your food but the entire life, and asking what more can you do to help?