吃肉即是人吃人

　　Eating Meat Is Equivalent to Eating People

　　试听夜半屠场里，猪嚎、羊哭、牛哭，

　　求救命的声音，你就知道战争的劫运是从何处来的了。

　　Stand outside a slaughterhouse at midnight. Listen to the pigs, sheep, and cows bleating and wailing,

　　begging for their lives. Then, you”ll know where war comes from.

　　千百年来碗里羹，

　　冤深似海恨难平；

　　欲知世上刀兵劫，

　　试听屠门夜半声。

　　For hundreds of thousands of years,

　　the stew in the pot

　　Has boiled up a resentment

　　that is very hard to level.

　　If you want to know why there are

　　calamities and wars in the world,

　　Just listen to the sounds that come

　　from a slaughterhouse at midnight.

　　从古以来我们人都愿意牺牲他人，来利益自己；甘愿杀他人的生命，来滋补自己的生命。这样生生世世彼此互相残杀，互相食啖，所以这碗肉羹的冤恨深似海。因为一切众生都是好生恶死，可是人用强制的手段，残杀其他弱小的生命，所以它们死前这个瞋恨心是很重的，在它心意识里充满了瞋恨，而想要报复，这种仇恨的思想是没有法子填平的。

　　From ancient times until the present, people have enjoyed benefiting themselves and sustaining their own lives by taking the lives of others. In life after life, people have been slaughtering and devouring one another. The hatred in the resulting "meat stew" is as deep as the sea. Human beings have taken the lives of the smaller and weaker creatures by force, ignoring the fact that all beings wish to live and are afraid of dying. Before those creatures die, their minds are overwhelmed by hatred and thoughts of revenge. There is no way to quell the feelings of enmity.

　　你想知道世界上互相战争的劫运，试听一听半夜屠场里，猪嚎、羊哭、牛哭，求救命的声音，你就知道刀兵劫是从何处来的。好像以前南北越互相残杀，现在阿根廷与英国互相轰击，这就是因为杀生太重了，所以有这种用飞机、大炮、飞弹互相毁灭的情形。又说：

　　Do you want to know where war comes from

　　 Stand outside a slaughterhouse at midnight and listen to the pigs, sheep, and cows bleating and wailing, begging for their lives, and you”ll understand where war comes from. For example, take the past war between North and South Vietnam, and the current war between Argentina and England. These wars arise because people have done too much killing. That”s why countries annihilate each other now with planes, cannons, and missiles. A saying goes:

　　肉字里边两个人，

　　里边罩着外边人；

　　众生还吃众生肉，

　　仔细思量人吃人。

　　In the Chinese character for "meat"

　　there are two people:

　　The one inside has been caught

　　by the one outside.

　　When beings eat the flesh

　　of other beings...

　　Why, if one really stops to think about it,

　　isn”t that just people eating people

　　中国这个「肉」字，是个口字张开，里边有一个人，外边又有一个人等着。外边的人想进去，但还没进去；里边的人想出来，但出不来，因为与上边这个人粘住了，所以不能跑出这个死框。这个「肉」字，就是一个被吃的人和一个吃肉的人。吃肉的人在外边，还是个人；被吃的人已经变成畜生了，而且又被卡住，不上不下，好像被困住了，虽然口是开着的，但有个人在外边堵住，所以出不去这个框框。这个框框或者是个羊圈，或者猪圈，或者牛圈。被吃的人就住在里头，外边有个人管着不准他出来。为什么不准他出来？就因为要吃他的肉。

　　The Chinese character for "meat" 肉 is a pictogram of an open mouth 口 (a box) with two people 人, one inside and one outside. The one outside is trying to get in, and the one inside is trying to get out. He is trapped inside this pen of death by the person outside.

　　This character depicts one person eating the flesh of another. The one eating the meat is on the outside, still in human form, while the one being eaten is trapped inside and has already turned into an animal. Even though the mouth is open, his escape is blocked by the person outside. The box could represent a sheep pen, a pig pen, or a cattle pen. The one about to be eaten lives inside, while the person outside stands guard, because he wants to eat the flesh of the one inside.

　　所以这吃肉的人与被吃的人就有一种关系，互相罩着，解不开冤结了。我们人是众生，所吃的肉也是众生，无论什么动物，牛、羊、马、鸡、犬、猪等，都是众生之一。有人就说：「这些众生是天生来给人吃的。」那么如果说，动物是预备给人吃的，那人又是预备给谁吃的呢？所以天生的物质，不一定是给人吃的。只是人弱肉强食，人比其他动物高明，就想吃其他动物的肉。

　　Unable to extricate themselves from the bonds of enmity, the meat eater and the one being eaten follow each other like shadows. We are beings, and yet we eat the flesh of other beings, such as cows, sheep, horses, chickens, dogs, and pigs. Some people say God put these animals here for us to eat. If people are supposed to eat animals, who is supposed to eat people

　　 Creatures, whether or not put here by God, aren”t necessarily meant fo…

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