Although a lot of Buddhist practitioners are vegetarian, nine out of ten have all had seafood in the past and have committed substantial negative karma. In just this lifetime, over tens of thousands of lives have been killed to satisfy people’s appetite. Who did these living things die for? Why did we pay to eat seafood in the first place? Why did the restaurant owner ask the chef to kill? And why did the chef consent to kill? It’s all because of this “self.” Because of the “self,” the proprietor of the restaurant, as well as the employees, have committed the same karma; because of the desire of this “self,” they were all accomplices. That being the case, what is “self”?
~ Depicted from THE FOUR SEALS OF DHARMA : All Phenomena Lack Self-Existence