諸經要集 17.56

17.56

Tenth, explaining that when those who eat meat die, they are reborn back among evil rākṣasas and the like. Therefore, practitioners should not eat meat. As that sūtra says: 'Sentient beings who eat meat, perfumed by their past meat-eating, are mostly born among rākṣasas, lions, tigers, wolves, jackals, leopards, cats, owls, vultures, and hawks. Other living creatures guard themselves against them, giving them no opportunity, so that they suffer the torment of hunger. Constantly generating evil thoughts of eating the flesh of others, at the end of their lives they fall again into the evil destinies to take rebirth. A human body is difficult to obtain, how much less could they attain the path to nirvāṇa! One should know that eating meat has immeasurable faults such as these. Therefore, when a practitioner does not eat it, that is a heap of immeasurable merit.'