The Diamond Sutra Quotes

“Just to think that you are killing an animal to eat, just the very idea, is unaesthetic.

I am not against it because the animal is killed... because that which is essential in the animal will live, it cannot be killed, and that which is nonessential, whether you kill it or not, is going to die. So that is irrelevant, that is not a point for me to consider.

The question is not that you have killed the animal and killing is not good, no. The question is that you have killed the animal -- you. Just to eat? While beautiful vegetarian food is available? If vegetarian food is not available, that's one thing. But the food IS available. Then why? Then why destroy a body? And if you can kill an animal, then why not be a cannibal? What is wrong with killing a man? The meat derived from a human body will be more in tune with you. Why not start eating human beings? That too is a question of aesthetics.

And the animals are brothers and sisters, because man has come from them. They are our family. To kill a man is only to kill an evolved animal, or to kill an animal is just to kill somebody who is not yet evolved but is on the way. It is the same. Whether you kill the child when he is in the first grade or whether you kill the young man when he has come to his last grade in the university, it does not make much difference. The animals are moving towards human beings, and human beings had once been animals.”
― Osho, The Diamond Sutra: The Buddha Also Said...