Meaningful Interpretation of Chinese Character Meat （肉）

In the Chinese character for meat （肉） are two people.
The one inside has been caught by the one outside.
So when living beings eat the flesh of other living beings,
If one really stops to think about it, isn't that just people eating people?

The Chinese character for meat （肉） is a picture of a mouth - an open mouth, since the horizontal stroke at its base is missing--and inside the mouth is a picture of a person, while outside the mouth is a picture of another person waiting. The person outside the mouth hasn't gone in yet. The person inside the mouth would like to escape, but can't. He's stuck inside the mouth. The one inside has grown while inside the mouth, so although the enclosure is only three-sided, he can't get out. Why is he stuck there? Basically this is a pictograph of a person being eaten by another person. The one who is eating the meat is on the outside--he still resembles a person. But the one on the inside is already no longer a person. He has turned into an animal. Not only has he turned into an animal, but he's been trapped--detained there. He can't go up and he can't go down; he's stuck right in there. He's as cooped up as if he were in a pen. The pen could be a pig pen, or a sheep pen, or a cow pen. The person on the outside is keeping watch over the pen so that the animal can't escape. He intends to eat that animal's flesh. So the poem reads: "In the character for meat are two people."

And there's another obvious thing about this character: those two people have an irrevocable connection between them. The one eating and the one being eaten have an involvement with each other that cannot be severed because they are bound up in resentment. They'd really like to get at each other.

In this way living beings eat the flesh of other living beings. Think about it. We people are living beings and what we eat is other living beings. So this is a case of living beings eating other living beings. Horses, cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and dogs are all animals. And all other creatures are also living beings.

Well, does the interpretation sound meaningful as a start to reduce your intake of meat? It is up to you to decide.

Introduction

Well let me start off with a self introduction. I have been a vegetarian since April 2004, starting out as a lacto-ovo vegetarian. I remembered on the last day of being a meat-eater, I took a few bites on the chicken drumstick before spitting everything out. It was just that few moments that I decided to become a vegetarian for good.....

Bring me to a few months back then, I was observing accumulating merit by being vegetarian for a whole month to my grandfather who had passed away. Somehow I had get used to eating vegetarian food but after the month of observation, I didn't continue to be one... Until someone passed me a vcd from VSS "Seeds For a Better World" that after watching had an impact on me. I still ponder for a while before that final day where I say goodbye to being a meat-eater.

I didn't realise that I have been a vegetarian for 7 years 7 months already. I am trying to cut down on products containing dairy and egg.