Question: I face challenges going veg(etari)an because of my Mother’s insistence to eat her cooked meat dishes. Is there advice for this?
Answer: As a reminder, here are six key reasons to not eat animals (and their produce).
[1] Personal Well-Being: Diseases do not arise from well-balanced vegan diets. Medical proof states that many diseases spring from much meat-eating, while the WholeFood Plant-Based Diet (WFPBD) can prevent and even reverse many diseases. Our body constitution is not ideal for meat digestion. As examples, our teeth and intestines are almost identical to those of herbivorous and not carnivorous animals.
Eating animals who die in great fear and hatred, we thus devour their toxins of fear and hatred, which affect our spiritual and physical well-being. Outbreaks of many-animal related diseases that spill over to humans as epidemics and pandemics, such as bird-flu and mad cow disease, are also related to support for meat.
[2] Well-Being Of Animals: Animals live imprisoned and tortured lives before the final horror of being slaughtered. While alive, they suffer from overcrowding, castration, forced impregnation, separation from loved ones and countless other cruelties.
[3] Well-Being Of Environment: Rearing of animals depletes the Earth’s resources of energy, land, crops and water. It also creates large amounts of harmful animal sewage and greenhouse gases which pollute and contribute to the climate crisis.
[4] Well-Being Of Fellow Humans: More than two-thirds of the Earth’s crops are used for cultivating plant-based animal feed to breed and fatten animals to be slaughtered for their flesh. No human starvation will exist at all if animal rearing for richer meat consumers is lessened or ended, with the crops directly used for feeding poorer countries’ people.
[5] Peace On Earth: Wars, riots and other related forms of mass human unrest can be collective evil karmic results from mass-generated hatred, when group-slaughtered animals, who died in great fear and hatred are reborn as humans, who then encounter their previous oppressors and killers.
[6] Universal Filial Piety: All beings have at one point or another been reborn as our beloved family members. Veganism is thus a practice of loving-kindness, compassion and equanimity for all beings, recognising that they have Buddha-nature (佛性: the potential to become Buddhas) like us too.
The above reasons should be known well personally, before sharing them with your Mother, so as to explain why you prefer to go veg(etari)an, (and why she should perhaps consider eating less animals too).
Question: What if she is not agreeable to those reasons?
Answer: Beyond using various ways to reiterate the reasons above, perhaps by summarising related book and news articles, a (simultaneous) alternative is to gradually but surely eat less and less of the animals served. Doing this, there should be less and less animals cooked for you to prevent waste of time, effort and money.
There should be ongoing learning of tips on how to eat healthier, with those shared at https://nutritionfacts.org and https://nutritionstudies.org, to share them regularly. (This is keeping up with the [1] first reason above.) Always be well-informed to always inform well. As most people are concerned about their personal well-being, this provides powerful motivation to eat less animals.
The [6] sixth reason should be emphasised too, that you wish to be filial not just to her, by persuading her to create less evil karmas from urging you to eat animals, you also wish to be filial to all past mothers, by not eating their flesh. Add that going veg(etari)an also creates meritorious virtues (功德) for all beings, including herself.
Related Article:
上求佛道者应当如何饮食?
How Should All Aspiring For Buddhahood Eat And Drink?
https://TheDailyEnlightenment.com/veg