"People become vegetarians for different reasons, but to abstain from eating meat because one thinks it is better for health or for 'making merit,' or from the consideration that a chicken or fish might have been one's relative or friend in a previous lifetime, are not Buddhist reasons for being vegetarian. A Buddhist abstains from eating meat because he knows it is right to abstain, and not from what he might get, personally, from doing so. He is a vegetarian for the sake of the animals, not for his own sake; he considers the effects of his actions upon others."
Venerable Abhinyana (1946- )