Instead of going vegetarian, some Buddhists will opt to prioritize preventing food waste over vegetarianism. While alive, the Buddha merely restricted his intake of meat but did not fully ban it. In fact, the Buddha's last meal was tainted pork which led to the Buddha contracting food poisoning and death.
According to the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, a Mahayana sutra giving Gautama Buddha's final teachings, the Buddha insisted that his followers should not eat any kind of meat or fish. Even vegetarian food that has been touched by meat should be washed before being eaten.
In general, Buddhism prohibits the eating of any and all meat, because (1) the killing of animals violates the First Moral Precept and (2) meat is considered an intoxicant to the body, which violates the Fifth Moral Precept.
The Buddha is known to have practiced extreme forms of fasting which led to his emaciation and to have famously abandoned it before his great awakening. Nevertheless, different forms of fasting are practiced in various Buddhist traditions.
On the day of Siddhartha's thirty-fifth birthday, Sujata, the daughter of the local village headman, spontaneously made him an offering: a bowl of sweetened rice cooked in condensed milk. It was this meal that gave Siddhartha the strength to sit under the Bodhi tree and awaken.
After reaching enlightenment at Bodhgaya, Shakyamuni meditated and fasted for forty-nine days. Thus, showing him as an emaciated renouncer relates to his enlightenment and his status as a yogic ascetic who has ultimate control over his body.
The 81-year-old spiritual leader pointed out many in the Buddhist world are vegetarians because they believe it is wrong to slaughter any creature. The Dalai Lama, though, is non-vegetarian.
All of India's most widely practiced religions have dietary laws and traditions. For example, Hindu texts often praise vegetarianism, and Hindus may also avoid eating beef because cows are traditionally viewed as sacred. Muslim teachings, meanwhile, prohibit pork.
Chinese Buddhist monastics and the more devout lay Buddhists practise a permanent form of abstinence by becoming vegetarian or vegan.
Do Zen Buddhists Eat Meat? Those following a Zen Buddhist diet or shojin ryori abstain from consuming meat as well as other strong flavors such as garlic and onion. Consuming these foods is thought to cloud the ability to effectively meditate.
The Dalai Lama even did his best to be a vegetarian though he comes from Tibet originally where for many generations the people have eaten large quantities of meat, as is natural for a people used to living in a very cold climate with little agriculture. So he used to be a big meat eater like most Tibetan Buddhists.
Buddhism, the Thai state religion, teaches that use of intoxicants should be avoided.
Food is prepared as a spiritual exercise with attention to balance, harmony, and delicacy. Conscious eating is followed among all Buddhists. Buddha advised monks to avoid eating 10 kinds of meat for self-respect and protection: humans, elephants, horses, dogs, snakes, lions, tigers, boars and hyenas.
Buddhists try to do no harm (or as little harm as possible) to animals. Buddhists try to show loving-kindness to all beings, including animals. The doctrine of right livelihood teaches Buddhists to avoid any work connected with the killing of animals.
On the one hand, the vinaya (the rules of monks) explicitly allows monks to eat meat. On the other hand, Tibetan Buddhism idealizes the practice of compassion, and expects practitioners to focus their efforts on relieving the suffering of all sentient beings—a category that explicitly includes animals.
In Jewish tradition, the prohibition on mixing dairy and meat products has been interpreted in several different ways. Some see it as an implementation of the same principle of separating animals authorised for consumption from those that are forbidden.
The biggest chunk of beef eating population is Muslim by faith, according to NSSO data. Around 63.4 million Muslims consume beef/buffalo. That adds upto 40% of the total Muslim population. For Christians, this figure is around 26.5%.
Jainism. Jainism practices non-violence and has strict rules for the protection of all life. For this reason, they do not eat eggs, fish, meat or poultry.
Buddhists do not believe in any kind of deity or god, although there are supernatural figures who can help or hinder people on the path towards enlightenment. Born on the Nepali side of the present day Nepal-India border, Siddhartha Gautama was a prince around the fifth century B.C.E.
He then would sleep for an hour. Thus we can see the Buddha was busy the whole day. In fact he only slept one hour each day during this 45 years of teaching. During the early hours of the day he saw the whole universe, blessed it with his boundless love and brought happiness to millions.
Cunda Kammāraputta was a smith who gave Gautama Buddha his last meal as an offering while he visited his mango grove in Pāvā on his way to Kuśīnagara.
The Buddha also practised meditation but concluded that in themselves, the highest meditative states were not enough. Siddhartha followed this life of extreme asceticism for six years, but this did not satisfy him either; he still had not escaped from the world of suffering.
In fact, Vinayapitaka that details Gautam Buddha's food habits post nirvana talks about his fondness for not just madhuka (honey) and mantha (a kind of porridge made with parched barely, honey and curd) but also of panna (sherbet) made from seasonal fruits, especially Panasa (jackfruit), Tadgola (ice apple), breadfruit ...
Then the Buddha addressed all the monks once more, and these were the very last words he spoke: "Behold, O monks, this is my last advice to you. All component things in the world are changeable. They are not lasting.