Buddhist vegetarianism
Some Buddhists give up meat out of compassion — but, strikingly, the tradition never agreed it was required.
Buddhist vegetarianism is the practice — urged by some scriptures and embraced by parts of the tradition — of abstaining from meat as an expression of compassion for animals. It flows naturally from two core commitments: the first ethical training, not to kill living beings, and the cultivation of loving-kindness (mettā) and compassion (karuṇā) toward all creatures. To many Buddhists, refusing to eat meat is a daily way of honoring those values.
Yet, importantly, Buddhism never reached a single verdict on the question, and it would be a mistake to assume that all Buddhists are vegetarian. In the earliest texts the Buddha did not require it: monks and nuns lived by begging for their food and were taught to accept gratefully whatever was offered. They were permitted to eat meat so long as it was "three-fold pure" — that is, they had not seen, heard, or had reason to suspect that the animal had been killed specifically to feed them. By this reasoning, fussily refusing alms could itself be seen as ungracious. (The tradition even recalls that when the monk Devadatta pressed for vegetarianism to be made compulsory, the Buddha declined to impose it.) This remains the general stance across much of Theravāda Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia.
The stronger push toward vegetarianism comes from certain Mahāyāna scriptures — texts of the "Great Vehicle," a later movement that emphasizes universal compassion — such as the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra, which argue that eating meat at all is incompatible with great compassion. As a result, vegetarianism became deeply rooted in much of East Asian monasticism: it is often the monastic norm in Chinese and Korean Buddhism and common in Japanese monasteries. Practice still varies widely. In Tibet, for example, the harsh high-altitude climate made farming difficult, and meat-eating has long been common even among the devout. Buddhist vegetarianism is therefore best understood as a sincere and widespread ideal of compassion rather than a single rule binding on all.