法苑珠林 93.55

93.55

Tenth, explaining that when a person who eats meat dies, they are reborn among evil rākṣasas and the like; therefore practitioners should not eat meat. As that sūtra states: 'Sentient beings who eat meat, on account of their past habit of eating meat, are mostly reborn among rākṣasas, lions, tigers, wolves, jackals, leopards, wildcats, owls, condors, vultures, hawks, falcons, and the like. Living kinds each protect their own bodies and do not allow them an opportunity; [the carnivores] suffer the pain of hunger and starvation, constantly generate an evil mind, and think of eating the meat of others. When their lives end, they fall again into the evil destinies; rebirth as a human is difficult to obtain, how much less could there be the attainment of the path to nirvāṇa! One should know that eating meat has immeasurable faults such as these. Therefore, if a practitioner does not eat meat, that is an accumulation of immeasurable merit.'