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RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/13/14 4:55 AM as a reply to _.
we are killing birds, fish and all other natural mosquito enemies which is causing increase in mosquito population so we are now forced to take care of mosquitoes ourselves. It is not debatable if its right or wrong because it is our duty to exterminate them. I personally am worried about how much those fuckers are flying around lately...

besides killing such a foul creature is not immoral but it is actually act of great kindness =)

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/13/14 4:01 PM as a reply to _.
Death is not really a thing.  But suffering is very much a thing.  
When compassion must be cultivated, one must avoid either.  But there is a higher compassion that, once achieved, will seek to kill the things which may inhibit Dharma, including pyschopathic humans.  This compassion may also decide to allow a sentient being to suffer in order to cultivate more compassion in them.   That is the path of the Dharmapala.

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/13/14 5:17 PM as a reply to Tom Tom.
Tom Tom:
Apparently there is some research trying to make mosquitos extinct or to eradicate large populations.  http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-07/killing-mosquitoes-genetic-trick-makes-digesting-blood-deadly

T
his can't be something the Buddha would advocate....

Being a mosquitoes seems like a very stressful life. Let's end there agony in masses and give them a chance to get reborn as higher beings...

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/13/14 7:26 PM as a reply to Florian Weps.
Yes, Florian, I agree. And this is very much what the existentialists said, too.

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/13/14 8:12 PM as a reply to tom moylan.
Don't get me started on water fluoridation . . .  

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/13/14 10:19 PM as a reply to Mark.
Argh! I wrote a lengthy response to this comment, but as I pressed "publish," impermance ate it, killed it dead! emoticon

And if I tried to reconstruct, then I would miss my sit. So, hold those thoughts. . . .

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/13/14 10:49 PM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
So, if you think you aren't killing all the time, realize that you are. Driving down the road at night in the South in any season except winter kills hundreds of insects on the front of your car. Everything you eat involved the killing of many, many beings. Everything you buy involved it also in some way. We kill constantly for our survival one way or the other. You can't walk on the lawn without killing things. You can't walk in a forest without killing things. Just today I breathed in a bug into my nostrils and it died when I went to remove it. It is sad but true.

But these examples don't rise to the Buddhist precept against killing, for they don't show the four elements of so-called throwing karma. We aren't talking Jainism here, are we?

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!

I have a Christian mystic friend who, before she mows the lawn, walks all over her yard to ask the bugs and creatures to leave. Even though her mowing her yard is not killing in the precept sense, I think her mindfulness is exemplary, the extra mile that it can only do anyone's own mind/heart good to take. 

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/26/14 9:43 PM as a reply to Not Tao.
Not Tao:

Learn to love to cockroach, and your life will be better.

I live in the U.S. South. They fly right into your face down here! Used to be even worse when I lived in Florida. They aren't very cuddly, y'all.

Not Tao:
Also, ants only come where there's food.  You don't have to kill the ants, just seal your food and they go away on their own. 
I wish. They seem to stick around even where there is only water, as in the bathroom. One time I did get them to leave by literally asking them to leave. Or maybe my husband poisoned them when I wasn't looking. 

Not Tao: 
Or maybe there are ants in your house for a while.  Are they hurting you?  Maybe it makes you embarrased when company comes over?  Maybe you just believe ants aren't supposed to be in a house?  These are all things you don't really have to care about.  Just decide not to!  It's no more difficult than that.  

Well, they are annoying and can really build up their population! My husband's main strategy lately has been to find where they are coming in and block that entryway. With the cockroaches, they really can be health threats, not just annoyances, so I definitely don't want them nesting in the house, though I think everyone in the South has them nesting in their abode, whether they know it or suppress that knowledge. I think that the cockroach is a good object for extreme equanimity practice, though! It may do me good if I could attenuate that reaction of rage and disgust and fear when I seem them. If I could find a way to see them as being with a plight. 

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/26/14 9:47 PM as a reply to Simon T..
The Tibetan center where I used to sit had a railway on one side of it and an and exterminator company on the other side. Try staying concentrated sometime with an earth-shaking train roaring past on one side, and the unmistatakable smell of bug poison wafting in from the other. Like trying to meditate in a hell realm.

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/26/14 10:52 PM as a reply to Mark.
Mark:
I'm guessing we are all willfully blind to many things - not to pick on you but you probably didn't "think" about all the insects being killed by driving a car. It is however clear to 3rd parties that you have no excuse in regards to your responsibility for the resulting insect deaths. Now you may not have felt bad (self alert) about it but that does not seem a reasonable criteria for morality.

I don't drive a car in order to kill beings; I drive a car to get to work to support myself and my family. In Buddhist precept terms, this is not karma for killing. It doesn't fulfill intent to harm, and it does fulfill protection of my family by the means available to me.

Mark:

Intention is an interesting idea - I tend to associate intention with self. It is committing an act consciously. If we have faith in what the Buddha taught (or are awake, it seems) then we realize . . .  that there is no self. That means that intentions are NOT only the decisions we consciously acknowledge. 

I'm not following a logic here at all. First, I don't think it is completely accurate to say that the Buddha taught that we have no self. In terms of the moral training, and even in terms of wisdom training, we certainly do exercise a self. (See the chapter on "No Self vs. True Self" in MCTB.)

Moreover, having "no self" means we are somehow personally responsible in the here and now for intentions we are unaware of . . . how? If we are unaware of an "intention," then in what realm of consideration or by what definition can it be said to be intention at all? I get that you are talking about legal concept of neglect, but in the case of neglect, there has to be a codified standard of behavior (statutes, case law) first and the person's willful and reckless disregard for that standard when acting in the world. The Buddha's precepts don't codify a standard against driving my car to work because bugs may accidentally be killed on the way by flying in front of the car. 

Ethics, as opposed to a moralistic morality, is always a matter of making tough decisions.

Mark:

I think I have a moral responsibility to seek another moral framework when the Buddhist one clearly can't be observed. Not killing anything is litterally impossible.

Again, the Buddhist precept is not against accidental killing or killing that happens on the way to fulfilling another goal that is necessary and good to meet, like feeding one's family or protecting them from deadly organisms. Our primary moral dilemma as mammals is that life eats life. As Florian tried to say above, working through moral dilemmas and tough tradeoffs is the practice. Working within the precepts is a way of grappling with ethics. The five following components of killing are required for karma to be thrown:

Object (targeting a particular insect)
Intention (through the arising of habit/ignorance, aversion, or attachment, motivation to harm/annihilate that insect forms)
Act (doing the harmful act by which killing may be achieved)
Completion (watching the insect die before one's eyes as a result of the intended action)
Feeling (fulfilling the intention through completed action reinforces feeling, view, and future action)

The reason that in practicing we avoid killing an insect is because killing habituates our minds to future killing. We are trying to reprogram ourselves out of habits that cause us suffering (and incidentally cause other beings suffering).

Mark: 
The example your son gave is a great example of how the focus on not acting leads to terrible conclusions. Pushed to the extreme it leads to a political system where priveleges are preserved - behaving like that in the real world it would not be random chance that the majority are in the firing line. On a simpler level your son (observing those morals) would not call the fire bigade or an ambulance either because that intentionally puts those people at risk (even driving to the scene is dangerous).

My son encountered this scenario in a college philosophy class. He's not a Buddhist. The philosophy professor was deconstructing morality into ethics. Are you saying that you would definitely know who in that scenario ought to live and who ought to die, and you would be willing to be the selector? Really? Explain to me exactly why the one person should lose life by active intervention of a bystander to save 5 other people. Are you comfortable with playing God to that extent? If so, on what ethical basis?

As for your slippery-slope argument that my son's refusal to choose a particular person to die by his own hand means he will also subtend a politics for the privileged is a bit farfetched. And, in fact, my son is a self-identified socialist.  As for refusing to call the fire fighters--no, he would not refuse to call the fire fighters. His intent would not be to kill the firemen, nor is it more probable than not that a fire fighter, by being called to do his job, would die.

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
8/27/14 3:52 AM as a reply to _.
Jen Pearly:
Mark:
I'm guessing we are all willfully blind to many things - not to pick on you but you probably didn't "think" about all the insects being killed by driving a car. It is however clear to 3rd parties that you have no excuse in regards to your responsibility for the resulting insect deaths. Now you may not have felt bad (self alert) about it but that does not seem a reasonable criteria for morality.

I don't drive a car in order to kill beings; I drive a car to get to work to support myself and my family. In Buddhist precept terms, this is not karma for killing. It doesn't fulfill intent to harm, and it does fulfill protection of my family by the means available to me.

Perfectly undestandable position Jen. But you do have a choice to not kill all those insects. It would require making compromises in your life that you don't want to make. I would not want to make them either! Most people are ignoring a lot of things that break the precepts e.g. funding wars (paying taxes) 

Mark:

Intention is an interesting idea - I tend to associate intention with self. It is committing an act consciously. If we have faith in what the Buddha taught (or are awake, it seems) then we realize . . .  that there is no self. That means that intentions are NOT only the decisions we consciously acknowledge. 

I'm not following a logic here at all. First, I don't think it is completely accurate to say that the Buddha taught that we have no self. In terms of the moral training, and even in terms of wisdom training, we certainly do exercise a self. (See the chapter on "No Self vs. True Self" in MCTB.)

I'm learning and not a teacher - a recipe for bad explanations, sorry. May also just be flat out wrong!

I should have written no-self instead of "no self". I'll try to reword what I wanted to say.

We may be aware of some intentions and unaware of others. Some of the intentions we are aware of will be latched on to by the "ego/self" and we project "my intentions", we may choose not to own some of them too e.g. "X made me do it". Intentions that are unconscious (the latent tendencies in buddhism) still lead to actions that are mine (I and others suffer the consequences). So I think we can use the buddha's teachings to see that moral responsibility includes those unconcsious intentions. For example I'm not as compassionate as I "should" be, but it is not a conscious intention on my part to be uncompassionate, still I'm better off realizing that I should change the latent tendencies - thereby owning the ugly bits that my ego/self often tries to hide.


Moreover, having "no self" means we are somehow personally responsible in the here and now for intentions we are unaware of . . . how? If we are unaware of an "intention," then in what realm of consideration or by what definition can it be said to be intention at all? I get that you are talking about legal concept of neglect, but in the case of neglect, there has to be a codified standard of behavior (statutes, case law) first and the person's willful and reckless disregard for that standard when acting in the world. The Buddha's precepts don't codify a standard against driving my car to work because bugs may accidentally be killed on the way by flying in front of the car. 

At the risk of confusing things I'll try to reword. I am responsible for my latent tendencies. Owning those is better than not owning them. Because by owning them I'm more motivated to address them. There is a risk that I play games (strategies of avoidance) if I think I'm not responsible for them, leading to things like suppression of emotions.

To give an example in your case - the intention is to kill the insect when you let your husband do that. If the intention was not to kill the insect then you would not let your husband do that e.g. you would save the insect. Not acting (or acting to get others to act) is as intentional as acting yourself (as far as morality is concerned).

There are different approaches to ethics, one is codified rules. I'm interested in the idea of virtue ethics which gets away from the idea of rules. You are right that it is codified rules in the judicial system.

Ethics, as opposed to a moralistic morality, is always a matter of making tough decisions.

Mark:

I think I have a moral responsibility to seek another moral framework when the Buddhist one clearly can't be observed. Not killing anything is litterally impossible.

Again, the Buddhist precept is not against accidental killing or killing that happens on the way to fulfilling another goal that is necessary and good to meet, like feeding one's family or protecting them from deadly organisms. Our primary moral dilemma as mammals is that life eats life. As Florian tried to say above, working through moral dilemmas and tough tradeoffs is the practice.

I was a bit harsh in that satement. It did send me off looking at things outside of buddhism in regards to ethics. An ethical framework that is based only on the precepts is not enough. I don't think that is what the buddha taught but I think buddhist circles can reduce it to that. There are so many interpretations and I think there is value in looking to ideas within one's own culture for ethics because there is a huge cultural aspect to morality.

Working within the precepts is a way of grappling with ethics.

Agreed and lots of value to that - maybe it can be complimented by other ideas too.

The five following components of killing are required for karma to be thrown:

Object (targeting a particular insect)
Intention (through the arising of habit/ignorance, aversion, or attachment, motivation to harm/annihilate that insect forms)
Act (doing the harmful act by which killing may be achieved)
Completion (watching the insect die before one's eyes as a result of the intended action)
Feeling (fulfilling the intention through completed action reinforces feeling, view, and future action)

I think this is a case in point of distorting things - the risk of codifying the precepts if you like.

"targeting a particular insect" would support random acts of violence e.g. the Boston bombing was not targeting a particular person. 

"through habit/ignorance" - this is what I tried to say earlier - we are often not aware of habitual reactions and we are often not aware of our ignorance. If we are lucky the awareness arises with insight practices.

"doing the harmful act" would allow someone to use another person e.g. a child soldier is executing orders but should this make the person giving the orders free 

"Completion" back to my grissly bomb example - the perpetrator does not hang around to watch it 

The reason that in practicing we avoid killing an insect is because killing habituates our minds to future killing. We are trying to reprogram ourselves out of habits that cause us suffering (and incidentally cause other beings suffering).

That is one reason. It also leads to discussions like this. If we take the extreme - targetting a particular insect, focusing on a dislike of it, squashing it slowly to observe the act in detail then reflecting on right the action was. Well  that is certainly going to mess someone uyp in the worst sense. I don't think many people would behave in that way so it is nearly not worth considering.

I do think it would be positive for you to not kill insects - it is obviously something that resonates in you. If you are conscious of greed/aversion/ignorance driving the action then going ahead is not skillful. I would avoid trying to convince people who don't have the same sensitivity on that particular issue.  They may be more sensitive on other issues that you are not. Seems to have been a good discussion point.

The reason I see for teaching karma is to help improve morality. If you can see an interpretation of karma that allows for immoral actions then I would question the interpretation rather than think the immoral action is OK.

Mark: 
The example your son gave is a great example of how the focus on not acting leads to terrible conclusions. Pushed to the extreme it leads to a political system where priveleges are preserved - behaving like that in the real world it would not be random chance that the majority are in the firing line. On a simpler level your son (observing those morals) would not call the fire bigade or an ambulance either because that intentionally puts those people at risk (even driving to the scene is dangerous).

My son encountered this scenario in a college philosophy class. He's not a Buddhist. The philosophy professor was deconstructing morality into ethics. Are you saying that you would definitely know who in that scenario ought to live and who ought to die, and you would be willing to be the selector? Really? Explain to me exactly why the one person should lose life by active intervention of a bystander to save 5 other people. Are you comfortable with playing God to that extent? If so, on what ethical basis?

I was stupid taking your son to task - nothing personal in that. It was just the example you offered.

Now that I have dug the hole I'll try to get out of it emoticon

That particular situation is constructed to cause the debate. For example in a real world situation we don't know how many people will die when making the decision. They may all jump out of the way in time. The train may be able to stop. Someone else may intervene. So it goes on. If I was trying to dodge the bullet I'd say there is more hope of saving someone by avoiding the train heading toward a crowd. So I'd think about it in terms of saving life rather than killing.

But for the sake of the hole, lets assume we know the one person is sure to die. These types of decisions are made all the time. For example in hospitals, drug research and humanitary aid, the list goes on. I think the underlying question is "is one human life worth the same amount as five human lives" my answer is no. So if you put me in some god awful situation where I must decide I'll try to "save" as many as possible (rather than "kill" as few as possible). I would not be comfortable with that decision - but I would be even less comfortable not acting.

An ethical basis would be virtue ethics - I guess a lot of people would appreciate 5 people being saved.


As for your slippery-slope argument that my son's refusal to choose a particular person to die by his own hand means he will also subtend a politics for the privileged is a bit farfetched. And, in fact, my son is a self-identified socialist.  As for refusing to call the fire fighters--no, he would not refuse to call the fire fighters. His intent would not be to kill the firemen, nor is it more probable than not that a fire fighter, by being called to do his job, would die.

I think I am on the slope emoticon My point is to say that inaction is a moral choice. So for example if a system supports a favored few at the expense of many our inaction maintains that status quo. I'm guessing you are living in a western country and I'm guessing you can see that we have a political system (both the left and right) that is very much looking after the interests of a small number of people.

I'm sure your son would call the fire fighters too. It is on the other end of the scale of the same type of question. My point is that we do accept to act and those actions do have negative consequences - it is unavoidable. We can try to choose to not see the negative consequence but I understand buddhism encourages owning them.

Best wishes to you and your son.



RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/1/14 3:43 PM as a reply to Mark.
Thank you, Mark, for engaging in this conversation. You've given me a lot to think through, which I'll do for a while instead of hastily replying. Besides, I've become quite busy. . . . 

Jenny

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/1/14 7:46 PM as a reply to _.
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.

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/2/14 8:33 PM as a reply to Eric M W.
Eric:
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.

In a word, no. My understanding from the teachings I had at a Tibetan center I used to attend was that, no, you have to do what you have to do for your and your family's health.

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.

I agree: It is very odd. That's why, in my original post, I talked about my becoming aware that, even though I won't kill a cockroach, I'll contrive, through helplessness, to get my husband to kill it for me. Somehow, this seems even worse than if I killed the bug myself, because I'm being dishonest and I'm leading my spouse into killing (not to mention basically effecting the killing of the bug indirectly). It is all problematic, no?




RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/2/14 9:21 PM as a reply to Eric M W.
Eric M W:

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.

I think someone brought this up, but the reason for allowing meat is isn't because monks really like it.  The bikkus (ideally) aren't going out with their begging bowl thinking "man, I hope I get some meat today."  They go out and take whatever they get.  If a householder puts meat in their bowl and the monks turned their noses up, then the householder would be offended and maybe stop giving food.

If every butcher, hunter and fisherman decided to become bikkhus, then you wouldn't hear a peep from the monks; they would just eat rice, daal, aloo palak, biryani, saag, naan, paneer, kheer, samosa, jalfrezi, chana masala,   Mmmm... what was I talking about?

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/3/14 3:03 AM as a reply to Teague.
Just remember, it is basically impossible to grow and harvest and transport even grains and vegetables without killing zillions of beings. Death and life are part of the carbon cycle, the nitrogen cycle, the oxygen cycle, etc. This is inescapable.

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/4/14 1:01 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
Daniel, yes, but see above: None of the things you mention involve intent to harm, right?

Jenny

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/4/14 1:43 AM as a reply to _.
Say an ignorant man left destruction in his path wherever he went, yet had no idea of this and no intention to cause it. Consider the point of view of those destroyed and those who cared about those who were destroyed. Is their some solace for them in the knowledge of his ignorance? Is their suffering somehow reduced by it? Was the destruction somehow less by blindness? Is he more or less likely to keep destroying things by lack of insight into what he is doing?

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/4/14 8:29 AM as a reply to Daniel M. Ingram.
It seems like there are different levels to view this issue on.  Here are two:

1) The global/cosmic level where killing happens on epic scales, but not necessarily with intention, but out of need for the system to operate.  In this case, incidental killing can't really be considered wrong; maybe just unfortunate in some cases.

2) The being-trying-to-attain-enlightenment level, where someone is trying to cultivate purity of mind through right action right speach and right livlihood.  Incidental killing will still occur, but this being will avoid intentional killing because it developes mental turmoil and is not conducive to enlightenment.  At some point (as in Bill Hamilton's case) he/she may feel that occasional intentional killing is somehow okay.  (Maybe killing a mosquito while doing insight meditation).

Personally, I try not to kill whenever possibly.  Removing a spider or wasp vesus killing it makes me feel less conflicted and might just make an iota of difference in my meditation.  

-T

RE: Is Killing Ever Right? Of Mosquitoes and Men
Answer
9/7/14 1:54 PM as a reply to _.
Jen Pearly:
Thank you, Mark, for engaging in this conversation. You've given me a lot to think through, which I'll do for a while instead of hastily replying. Besides, I've become quite busy. . . . 

Jenny

Hi Jenny, it was a very worthwhile chat for me - thanks. Motivated me to look more into improving morality off the cushion.