Following the Cultural Revolution Buddhits Can Eat Meat?

Once a year there is a day set aside for the Qingming or Tomb Sweeping Festival in China. The festival is a time for people to take time to enjoy the change in nature and the weather, but also to visit the tombs of deceased relatives and revolutionary martyrs, show their respect and remember them. The idea is that you would go and clean the tomb of your deceased and give offerings such as food, wine and spirit money to ensure that they have enough where ever they are. With cremation being more widely used offerings are taken to the temple or place of worship and burnt along with copious amounts of incense which is used at Buddhist and Daoist Temples.

My parents were visiting during the festival and we were considering the significance of it. When you look at Graveyards across the world you see many graves unkempt, enshrouded in weeds, covered in graffiti and without fresh flowers or evidence of visitors. Spring is a time of new life and perhaps this really is the best time to look back at the lives of those who have left us. If every nation had a day in which they looked back then perhaps the respect for our elders and the past would be greater.

During the day ceremonies were held at various places of worship throughout China and I was lucky to experience a Buddhist ceremony at the Jade Buddha Temple in Shanghai. The temple was overflowing with people trying to watch the spectacle of monks in traditional orange/yellow robes and people gawking and praying. The vocal music I heard yesterday was highly melismatic and somewhat melodic which differs from what I have been led to believe about Buddhist music and perhaps traditions have evolved or been lost during the cultural revolution.

Many local people came to the Jade Buddha Temple during the service to make their offerings and showed no interest in the proceedings whatsoever. These delightful locals of all ages literally elbowed and barged their way through the crowds with no polite word or consideration for the toes which they stepped or bodies that they bruised and shoved as they made their way through. Very Buddhist.

On my return journey to Suzhou I found myself sat next to a local Middle School English Teacher who had been to a Buddhist Temple in Pu Dong that is being rebuilt post it's destruction during the cultural revolution. The destruction of places of worship reminds me of Henry VIII when religion became highly inconvenient to his matrimonial plans, history does repeat itself. The teacher I met had donated money to the temple for its refurbishment and so they had been invited to visit the temple in order to see the work and receive a gift for their contribution. I asked about their beliefs and it could appear they could tell me very little and yet they considered both themselves and their parents to be Buddhist. I asked what I personally consider the most basic question for a Buddhist "Do you eat meat?". Yes, modern Chinese Buddhists eat meat. Is this to blame on the Cultural revolution and everything that it stripped away and deprived the nation of? Who is to say what China and the Chinese people would be if it hadn't been for the cultural revolution. 

"Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure" Jane Austen.