Buddhist vegetarianism

"Above all, you must constantly train your mind to be loving, compassionate, and filled with Bodhicitta. You must give up eating meat, for it is very wrong to eat the flesh of our parent sentient beings."

"Thus, Mahāmati, wherever there is the evolution of living beings, let people cherish the thought of kinship with them, and, thinking that all beings are [to be loved as if they were] an only child, let them refrain from eating meat. So with Bodhisattvas whose nature is compassion, [the eating of] meat is to be avoided by him. Even in exceptional cases, it is not [compassionate] of a Bodhisattva of good standing to eat meat."

"For fear of causing terror to living beings, Mahāmati, let the Bodhisattva who is disciplining himself to attain compassion, refrain from eating flesh."

"If, Mahāmati, meat is not eaten by anybody for any reason, there will be no destroyer of life."

"declared, "It is because of the that the Buddhas refrain from eating meat." And the Lord added: "So it is, Manjushri. There is not a single being, wandering in the chain of lives in endless and beginning less samsara, that has not been your mother or your sister. An individual, born as a dog, may afterward become your father. Each and every being is like an actor playing on the stage of life. One’s flesh and the flesh of others is the same flesh. Therefore the Enlightened Ones eat no meat. Moreover, Mahjushri, the is the common nature of all beings, therefore Buddhas refrain from eating meat." Manjushri also said, "There are, Lord, other, quite ordinary beings who also abstain from meat." "Whatever worldly people do," the Lord replied, "that is in harmony with the Buddhas word should be considered as the teachings of the Buddha himself."

"I can affirm that a person who neither eats the flesh of other beings nor wears any part of the bodies of other beings, nor even thinks of eating or wearing these things, is a person who will gain liberation."