It's ok to grow, harvest and consume vegetables and fruits, because they are not sentient?
Upvote:2
Let me add some qualification to that:
It's ok from the perspective of the Five Precepts and Right Livelihood for lay people, to grow, harvest and consume vegetables and fruits (without the use of pesticides), because plants are not sentient.
The word for sentient being is satta.
From SN 5.10:
When the parts are assembled
we use the word ‘chariot’.
So too, when the aggregates are present
‘sentient being’ is the convention we use.
From my understanding, all five aggregates must be present, in order to consider it a sentient being. The five aggregates are form, feeling, perception, consciousness and mental formations. Plants do not have consciousness and mental formations, to the best of my understanding.
From a scientific perspective, please see Taiz, L., Alkon, D. et al (2019). Plants neither possess nor require consciousness. Trends in Plant Science, 24(8), 677-687.
From SN 23.2:
"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for form, Radha: when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be 'a being.
"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for feeling... perception... fabrications...
"Any desire, passion, delight, or craving for consciousness, Radha: when one is caught up there, tied up there, one is said to be 'a being.'
Also here, from my understanding, a plant does not mentally cling to the five aggregates, so it's not a sentient being by this definition.
The first precept of not taking a life (of a sentient being), therefore does not apply to plants.
OP: Doesn't growing involve harming and killing? Doesn't harvest cut of life?
If pesticides are not used, then it doesn't harm sentient beings.
OP: Doesn't no worry in consuming increase dependency and neglecting right effort?
The second noble truth says that the cause of suffering is craving (tanha), not agriculture and farming. The problem is in the mind.
If we have an aversion (dosa) to agriculture and farming, then that's a negative state of mind.
For lay people, agriculture and farming without pesticides, is ok from the point of view of Right Livelihood and the Five Precepts.
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