I stopped eating meat, but even as I write that, I ask myself whether it's true. I have been eating meat recently - I had some last night, just because I really wanted it. And I ate it at my father's house, because it was what was served. As I woke up this morning, I felt hung over. My body felt heavy and achey, my head was groggy and unclear. And I'm not sure why that would be. I got a lot of sleep; I wasn't up too late. But I did have some barbecued chicken fairly late in the night.
The reason I'm moving away from eating meat is because of the teaching to maintain a state of morality as a base for meditation. It's not that I particularly feel that killing animals is wrong, but simply that the teaching says not to kill. It seems like I should give it a full trial. I've left alcohol, lying, sexual misconduct, and stealing behind too. Of course, I try to. When I first made the vow to follow these five precepts, I was filled with a feeling that this is the first real action I've ever taken in my life. It felt deeply respectful of myself in a way that I've never felt before.
The more I consider this morality (or sila, as it's called in Pali), I understand it to form a wall around myself. It is this wall that protects our own individuality and values. It prevents us from hurting others, and prevents others from hurting us. So often, I've been living in the world like a mess. My interactions with others have no discipline - they resemble a shoddy dance connection, pushing, pulling, leaning, falling... barely making it through the dance on our feet and congratulating ourselves at the originality of it all.
