It's ok to grow, harvest and consume vegetables and fruits, because they are not sentient?
Upvote:2
Let me add some qualification to that:
It's ok from the perspective of the Five Precepts and Right Livelihood for lay people, to grow, harvest and consume vegetables and fruits (without the use of pesticides), because plants are not sentient.
The word for sentient being is satta.
From SN 5.10:
When the parts are assembled
we use the word ‘chariot’.
So too, when the aggregates are present
‘sentient being’ is the convention we use.
From my understanding, all five aggregates must be present, in order to consider it a sentient being. The five aggregates are form, feeling, perception, consciousness and mental formations. Plants do not have consciousness and mental formations, to the best of my understanding.
From a scientific perspective, please see Taiz, L., Alkon, D. et al (2019). Plants neither possess nor require consciousness. Trends in Plant Science, 24(8), 677-687.
From SN 23.2:
"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, Radha: when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be 'a being.
"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for feeling... perception... fabrications...
"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for consciousness, Radha: when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be 'a being.'
Also here, from my understanding, a plant does not mentally cling to the five aggregates, so it's not a sentient being by this definition.
The first precept of not taking a life (of a sentient being), therefore does not apply to plants.
OP: Doesn't growing involve harming and killing? Doesn't harvest cut of life?
If pesticides are not used, then it doesn't harm sentient beings.
OP: Doesn't no worry in consuming increase dependency and neglecting right effort?
The second noble truth says that the cause of suffering is craving (tanha), not agriculture and farming. The problem is in the mind.
If we have an aversion (dosa) to agriculture and farming, then that's a negative state of mind.
For lay people, agriculture and farming without pesticides, is ok from the point of view of Right Livelihood and the Five Precepts.
More post
- 📝 Correct meditation Technique
- 📝 What is saupādisesā according to the Pali suttas?
- 📝 How to begin to practice vipassana meditation?
- 📝 Best time, reason to leave according to Dhamma?
- 📝 Is it considered against standard Buddhist doctrine to meditate with music?
- 📝 When did Shakyamuni became buddha?
- 📝 Have any Buddhist thinkers responded to the critique of the Brahma Sutras?
- 📝 Conflicting schools of thought
- 📝 What, precisely, is kamma/karma?
- 📝 Is it possible to abandon desire by means of desire
- 📝 If Dalai Lama is enlightened, why he keeps coming back?
- 📝 Right Livelihood and Working in Technical Support
- 📝 Ghost or horror stories/videos are appropriate during Pandemic moment?
- 📝 How can I be happy at other's happiness?
- 📝 Is there a line of thought in Buddhism that is less centered on suffering?
- 📝 Buddhism and Stereotyping Perceptions
- 📝 Does "which is void of formations (conditioned phenomena) since it is the cessation of them" refer to nibbana or the knowledge that abides in nibbana?
- 📝 About the Buddha Preaching that we Humans are Aliens
- 📝 Scared of growing old – living in the moment
- 📝 Responding skillfully to an insincere apology
- 📝 How do novice Tibetan monks meditate 23 hours a day?
- 📝 Do Buddhist texts record or comment on the then-prevalent varna or caste systems?
- 📝 Can the elements of Buddhist Cosmology be confirmed?
- 📝 To what extent is Theravāda followed in Japan?
- 📝 Modernity and black magic can coexist?
- 📝 Is the Pali Canon the only canon in modern Buddhism?
- 📝 Did Gautama Buddha endorse the caste system?
- 📝 Is there poetry in Pali, and where can I read it, in translation and in original?
- 📝 How to rebuild a relationship after a breach of trust?
- 📝 Meditation focus points and their ill effects
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 It's ok to grow, harvest and consume vegetables and fruits, because they are not sentient?
- 📝 Does hosting guests at home with meat and alcohol (because they are fond of it) amount to aiding the guests break their Sila?
- 📝 What are the rotating cylinders in monastries, and why are they there?
- 📝 What are the various Buddhist scriptural designations and to what do they refer?
- 📝 "Marks of Existence" and "Gates To Enlightenment", are they Same?
- 📝 What are Buddha-fields and Dharma-fields in Buddhism? What roles do they play in various lineages?
- 📝 What are the Three Trainings and how are they practical?
- 📝 What are the Five Pungent (Vegetables/Roots/Spices) and when were they first proscribed?
- 📝 What are the views considered "false convictions", and why are they false?
- 📝 Vijñāna and Śūnyatā... How are they seen as different?
- 📝 how to respect older/elderly people who are conceited and demand respect because of age?
- 📝 How to stop reverberations running in mind? And why they are in the first place?
- 📝 What are the differences between vipassana and mindfulness meditation?
- 📝 Are Vajrayana and Tibetan Buddhism the same thing?
- 📝 How are 'conceit' and 'identity-view' not the same?
- 📝 How compatible are the beliefs of atheists and Buddhism?
- 📝 What are the differences/similarities in the concept of faith as used in Buddhism and Christianity?
- 📝 What are the other Theravada Councils held between the 4th and 6th
- 📝 What are the differences between "Nirvana" in Buddhism and "Moksha" in Hinduism?
- 📝 How irony and sarcasm are seen in Buddhism?
- 📝 What is ignorance in Buddhism and what are examples of ignorance?
- 📝 Why are Buddhas always Indian, male and human?
- 📝 How compatible are (Theravada) Buddhism and the Western life?
- 📝 In simple words, how are body sensations linked to moods and feelings?
- 📝 Are there Theravada meditation retreats that allow one to work for room and board?
- 📝 Seeing things as they are
- 📝 If there are no past and future lives, why should we practice Buddhism?
- 📝 My thoughts don't happen to other people so why are they 'not mine'?
- 📝 Are there many differences between Taoism and Buddhism?
- 📝 What type of Buddhist monks are only allowed to eat two meals per day and why?