Buddhist

Buddhist cuisine is an East Asian cuisine which is followed by some believers of Buddhism. It is primarily vegetarian, in order to keep with the general Buddhist precept of ahimsa (non-violence). Vegetarian cuisine is known as zhāicài ("(Buddhist) vegetarian food") in China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan; shōjin ryōri ("devotion cuisine") in Japan; sachal eumsik ("temple food") in Korea and by other names in many countries. Buddhism, a... more

Buddhist cuisine is an East Asian cuisine which is followed by some believers of Buddhism. It is primarily vegetarian, in order to keep with the general Buddhist precept of ahimsa (non-violence). Vegetarian cuisine is known as zhāicài ("(Buddhist) vegetarian food") in China, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan; shōjin ryōri ("devotion cuisine") in Japan; sachal eumsik ("temple food") in Korea and by other names in many countries. Buddhism, along with Jainism, recognizes that even eating vegetables could contribute to the indirect killing of living beings because animal life is destroyed by tilling the soil or the use of pesticides. Jainism consequently considers death by starvation (only after undergoing 12 years of strict asceticism) as the ultimate practice of non-violence, while Buddhism considers extreme self-mortification to be undesirable for attaining enlightenment. Both Mahayana and Theravada thinking is that eating meat in and of itself does not constitute a violation of... less