[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist pacifism

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Mon, 2005-10-17 at 02:41 +0100, Mike Austin wrote:

> If one buys meat, it is the intention and action of the butcher etc.
> that determines if he kills. No order is given. Such an order would be
> just an imputation from the butcher's side.

This sounds like the thinking of someone who wants to eat meat and
doesn't want to acknowledge that the decision to do so results in the
unnecessary killing of animals. What I would prefer to do is just to
acknowledge responsibility for being a significant part of an
unwholesome and harmful process and that my own attachments are a factor
in my participating in it. Nothing wrong with being honest.

> Many years ago, before I encountered Buddhism, I used to live in a small 
> hotel  where I was working in south Germany.  The hotel had a fish tank. 
> One could select a fish to eat.  I couldn't do that, but I felt OK about 
> ordering fish or meat on the menu that did not have to be killed for me.

I can't see any difference at all. That's the kind of rationalization
that enables all manner of harmful conduct to go unchecked. This is
approximately the kind of thinking of someone who says "I knew there was
a concentration camp in my town, and I was happy to be rid of all the
Jews and homosexuals and gypsies and communists who used to live in the
town, but I myself had nothing to do with buying the poison gas or
shoving people into the gas chambers or disposing of the bodies, so my
hands are clean."

> This was my instinct at the time, and it still is. Reading that karma is 
> occasioned by actions through one's three doors - body, speech, mind - I 
> think it is a reasonable approach.

Well, that kind of thinking may have worked well enough a thousand years
ago, but it is just not good enough for the world in which we live
today. If you are going to think in terms of karma at all, you really
must think in terms of interconnectedness, and that means taking at
least some responsibility for every unwholesome act that you could
prevent but choose not to prevent.

-- 
Richard Hayes