The Buddhadharma can be divided into different stages in time: the Proper Dharma Age, the Dharma Image Age, and he Dharma Ending Age. These different ages are evoked by the karma created by living beings-they are the manifestation of their retribution. In ancient times people enjoyed bountiful blessings, and so the water in their wells was as nutritious as milk. People's blessings during that time were vast and copious; their wisdom was also deep. That was the time of the Proper Dharma Age.

The next era, the Dharma Semblance-or Dharma Image-Age, was a period of time when people focused on the appearance of the Dharma-on representational aspects, no longer on the roots. Since their blessings had decreased proportionately, the water was no longer as nutritious as it was before. Presently, in the Dharma Ending Age, not only does the water not have any nutrition, but it contains a lot of poison! Water now is so polluted it can be considered poisonous. The chemical waste-products, nitrates, toxic substances, and so forth, in the water must be filtered out. Even though people try to filter out those chemicals and poisons from the water, ultimately there's no way of getting rid of them completely, and so some remain. The pollutionin the water worsens every day, and so does the pollution in the air.

The pure air that used to surround this whole planet has virtually vanished; even the very air we breathe is toxic. Too many chemicals are being used. When people inhale the air, those chemicals cause a negative reaction in their bodies, so that when people exhale, even more poison is emitted into the atmosphere. This poison pervades all of space. And so now the air is filled with all sorts of poisonous substances and vapors, such as radioactive dust from atomic bomb and hydrogen bomb blasts. Probably some are not aware of this, but just the toxins that come out of people's mouths alone are worse than any kind of poison. Because of this, the world sinks lower every day.

Why are people growing more decadent? It's because they are being infused and permeated with all those kinds of poisonous vapors. People are being virtually steeped in these poisonous fumes to the point that they are "born as if drunk and die as if in a dream." They are so confused by this haze that they no longerknow what it means to be a person. They only want to eat, drink, gamble, engage in licentiousness, and take dope. They cheat one another, kidnap others' children, kill, steal, commit arson, and so on. This is a very dangerous situation.

If people really wish to clean up this polluted world, how can they proceed? They should simply become vegetarians and stop eating flesh foods. If people really want to clean up the environment, they should exclusively eat vegetables and not eat meat of any kind.

Why do I say this? Because the flesh of animals contains the most poison. Not all of this poison is apparent or easily detectable, so many people aren't aware of it when they eat meat. Nonetheless, it slowly accumulates in their bodies, and when one becomes saturated with this poisonous substance, one suffers great harm. No medicine can neutralize this poison because it is bound up with the deep enmity of the animals that were slaughtered for their meat. And so the ancients said,

For thousands of years the stew has simmered in the pot,
Brewing enmity deep as the sea and a tide of hatred that cannot be stemmed.
If you want to know the source of wars in this world,
Just listen to the cries from the slaughterhouse at midnight.

For hundreds of thousands of years we have been partaking of this stew-this meat broth. You may just see it as a pot of stew but the animosity it contains is as deep as the sea.

If you want to know where warfare and insane cruelty come from, if you want to know why there are battles between people between families, between countries, between planets, between world systems, between the earth and space-then you should recognize that it all stems from eating meat. Violent warfare and disasters-the disasters of fire, wind, water, and earth-all come about from taking the lives of other living beings and eating their flesh for our own pleasure and nourishment.

If you want to know why it's so difficult to resolve this hateful energy, then go and listen to the piteous cries from the slaughterhouse at midnight. Listen to the sounds coming from inside the slaughterhouse, where in the middle of the night people kill pigs and the pigs cry out, and where people slaughter sheep and the sheep cry out. Whatever animal is being killed, it cries without cease until its last breath. Their cries emit a poisonous energy, an energy of enmity and resentment. On the one hand,
they cry out for mercy, while at the same time they are saying, "Okay, you are going to kill me now? Well, in the future I will surely kill you in return. This kind of enmity between you and me cannot be resolved, and I will certainly seek repayment for this debt. If you kill me, I will kill you in return; if you eat me, I will surely eat you in the future!"

This venomous energy pervades the atmosphere, and even space is dense with such hateful energy. All the calamities that happen to our planet come from this-because people eat meat and aren't vegetarian. What is the solution to this hatred and war? Return to a meatless diet-it's that simple! If people become vegetarians, all of this animosity will naturally level out. This is how we can transform swords into plow shares and cause everything to be auspicious.