Jen Pearly:
I'm surprised no one here has discussed the necessary four elements of karma and how that translates into a definition of killing:
Motivation
Object
Action
Completion
I'm talking about intention to kill a sentient being, taking action specifically to fulfill that intention, and then watching the fulfillment of that action (the dying of the being before one). Without this chain, we don't have killing in the Buddhist precept sense. There are a lot of red herrings on this thread!
Alright, so this is more interesting. A lesson I've learned lately is that the intent behind our actions is more important than the actions themselves. How compassionate are our actions? How much lovingkindness is behind them? How selfless are they?
If I'm driving down the road, squishing frogs and bugs and whatnot, I'm not necessarily doing anything "wrong" if it isn't my intention to do so. I just want to get from point A to point B, and I certainly don't mean to hurt any beings on my way there. Thus, even if I squish a bug, no bad karma is created, because there's no ill-will behind my intent.
But let's take another example, one that happens all the time. Say you go hiking in the north woods, in winter. You get lost. You manage to find shelter and water, but the time for wild edibles is long past. Hours turn into days. If you don't fish or hunt, you will starve. Is it "bad karma" if you go out and kill another being for food? You certainly aren't being malicious, you only want to survive.
Related to this example, isn't the Buddhist attitude towards meat a little odd? Bikkhus are allowed to eat meat as long as they don't kill it, obviously, and as long as the animal is not killed specifically for their consumption. But this policy always assumes that there is someone else to do the dirty work, a hunter or butcher to get all the bad karma so bikkhus don't have to.
What if every butcher, hunter, and fisherman in India decided to become bikkhus? This seems like wonderful news, but now there is nothing to eat.