a website about vegetarianism:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~rone/Buddhism/BuddhismAnimalsVegetarian/EatingMeatHorror.html...During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Liang dynasty, when Buddhism flourished in China, people would always invite monks to recite Sutras at weddings and funerals. Times have changed, and now monks are invited to recite Sutras only at funerals. No one asks them to recite Sutras at weddings or baby showers. Actually, this is wrong. Whether it is an occasion for rejoicing or mourning, leftÂhome people should be asked to recite Sutras and transfer the merit, on the one hand to save the deceased, and on the other to increase the blessings of the living.
During Emperor Wu's time, there was a high monk called the Venerable Zhi. Having attained the Five Eyes and the Six Spiritual Penetrations, he could clearly discern causes and effects. One time, a rich man asked him to recite Sutras at a wedding. Upon entering the house, he sighed and said:
How strange! How very strange indeed!
The grandson marries the grandmother.
The daughter is eating her mother's flesh,
And the son is beating on a drum stretched with his father's skin.
Pigs and sheep are sitting on the couch,
And the six kinds of relatives are cooking in the pots.
People have come to offer congratulations,
But I see that it is truly suffering!
What does this mean? The grandson marries the grandmother. Would you say this is strange or not? Right before she died, the grandmother of the family had held her grandson's hand, not being able to part with him. She said, "You all have your own families, but this little grandson of mine has no one to take care of him. Ah! What is there to be done?" Then she died.
When she arrived at King Yama's court, King Yama gave her the following verdict, "Since you love your grandson so much, you might as well go back to be his wife and take care of him." And so the grandmother was reborn as her grandson's future wife. The workings of the law of cause and effect in this world can be quite frightening.
The daughter is eating her mother's flesh. Outside the house, a girl was eating a pig's foot with great relish, not realizing that the pig had been her mother in its previous life. And the son is beating on a drum stretched with his father's skin. VeneraÂble Zhi then took a look at the musicians who were beating drums and blowing on their trumpets and flutes. What excitement! One man was banging away vigorously on a drum stretched with mulehide, not knowing that the mule had been his father in a previous life.
Venerable Zhi looked at the people sitting on the couch and said: Pigs and sheep are sitting on the couch. Then he looked in the pots and said: And the six kinds of relatives are cooking in the pots. All the former pigs and sheep that had been slaughÂtered before were now getting even and eating the people who had eaten them before! The six kinds of relatives who had eaten those pigs and sheep were now being chopped up and cooked in the pots to pay off their debts.
People have come to offer congratulations, / But I see that it is truly suffering! Everyone thought it was a happy occasion, but the Venerable Zhi only sighed and said, "This is really suffering!" People take suffering to be joy!...[/quote]
And yes, when you are in a family, there will certainly be 'conditions' to be part of the family. Sometimes the conditions are good, sometimes the conditions are bad.
http://www.jenchen.org.sg/vol7no1c.htm
...5 types of offspring
It is normal to expect kinship between parents and their children. Loving parents and filial children are the basis for a warm and harmonious relationship. However, there are exceptions to this norm. According to Buddhist sutras, there are five types of conditions under which people are born to their parents:
1. They are reborn into the family to pay back their indebtedness to the parents. For example, the child is filial, obedient and diligent in his studies or at work. Regardless of the financial situation, he would provide for the needs of his parents.
2. They are here to seek the return of what their parents owed them in the past. This might be due to the parents owing unsettled matters or debts to the child incurred in their past lives. Thus, not only does the child not bring fortune to the family this life, but the parents have to spend a lot of money on him. For example, the child may be sick very often thereby causing the parents to incur a huge amount of medical expenses, or other situations where the parents have to spend a lot of money on him and driving them to financial difficulties. Some of them may even cause the family to break-up or the death of family members. Some may become incapacitated and cause the family to run into huge debts or even bankruptcy. These types of children are reborn to their parents to seek the return of their dues.
3. A child may be born into a family to return the benevolence that his parents had accorded him in his past lives. In this lifetime, everything is smooth sailing for the child and he is successful in his studies and career to bring honour and pride to the family. Hence, he is here to repay kindness of his parents.
4. They are here to seek revenge on their parents. Perhaps there might be hostility between the two parties in their past lives. The parents might have hit the person; insulted him, ill-treated him, or treated him unfairly. He could not forgive and forget. For example, he would beat up his parents, ill-treat them, or even to take their lives in return for what they owed him in the past lives. Hence, he is reborn into the family to seek revenge.
5. They merely borrow the mother's womb to be born into this world. The great sages and virtuous men, monks and nuns, the Bodhisattva path cultivators and the Buddha belong to this category.
If there is hostility between parents and their children, the parents have to sincerely repent and perform meritorious deeds in the name of the children. Parents should not bear hatred and anger but to treat them with compassion and loving-kindness. Then, the situation would slowly improve and the animosity would soon dissolve....
And in fact, the Buddha taught,
[quote]Originally posted by An Eternal Now:
A being who has not been your mother at one time in the past is not easy to find...A being who has not been your father...your brother...your sister...your son...your daughter at one time in the past is not easy to find.
Shakyamuni Buddha
> Samyutta Nikaya XV.14-19, Mata Sutta, Mother
