諸經要集 17.48

17.48

Second, explaining that when sentient beings see a meat-eater, they are all terrified; therefore, one should not eat it. As that sūtra says: "When sentient beings smell the scent of a person who eats meat, they are all terrified and flee far away. Therefore, a bodhisattva cultivating the practice of reality, in order to transform sentient beings, should not eat meat. For example, caṇḍālas, hunters, butchers, and those who catch fish and birds: wherever they go, sentient beings seeing them from afar think: 'Now I am certain to die; this one coming is a greatly evil person who does not recognize sin and merit, severs the life of sentient beings, and seeks immediate gain. Now coming to this place, it is to seek us. Now our bodies all have meat; therefore he now comes, and we are certain to die.' Mahāmati! Because a person eats meat, he causes sentient beings who see him all to generate such terror. Mahāmati! All sentient beings in the sky and on earth, seeing one who eats meat, all generate fear and give rise to doubt: 'Am I now to die or to live?' Such evil people do not cultivate the mind of maitrī, and are like jackals and wolves roaming in the world, always seeking meat to eat, like oxen eating grass or dung beetles pursuing dung without knowing satisfaction. 'My body is meat, precisely their food; I should not encounter them,' and they immediately abandon and flee far away from them, no different from people dreading rākṣasas."