[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Wed, 2005-10-19 at 10:49 -0600, Jim Peavler wrote:

> With no evil intentions at all I cannot help asking any vegetarian who 
> keeps carnivorous pets: What is better about supporting the death of 
> animals to feed your pets than doing so for your own food? 

Several friends of mine who are vegetarian feeds their dogs and cats
nothing but rice and lentils. The pets seem to do pretty well on that
fare. Our dogs loves broccoli (but see how naughty he is in the passage
that follows).

> Do dogs collect bad kharma for eating meat? and if not, why not?

Our dog (whom you know, Jim) has taken to catching mice. He doesn't seem
to realize that he is supposed to kill them. He just walks around with
them in his mouth until they either drown or suffocate, and then he
buries them under a pillow. (I have trained him to bury mice under
Judy's pillow rather than mine.)

Somewhat more troubling to me is that our cat kills birds. She kills the
very birds that we take care to feed. The birds spill a lot of the seed
we put out for them, and that attracts mice. All things are
interconnected.

Your question about karma never occurs to me, because I just don't use
the language of karma much, except when I'm trying to talk to Buddhists
in terms even they can understand. I do, however, give some thought to
the way I feel when my dog kills mice and my cat kills birds. I don't
like it much. But why? It makes no sense not to like it. It is my
problem, not theirs. Indeed, it is stupidity on my part, and lack of
true compassion and impartiality, to be annoyed when our cat kills a
bird. (When I get really annoyed, it's not our cat, but Judy's.) 

A truly compassionate attitude would be to rejoice at the merits of my
cat for being so good at being a cat and getting something that she
obviously treasures, while feeling compassion for the bird who has died
in the cat's clutches. My aim now is to progress to the stage where I
can just watch the cat catch birds that I feed and feel simultaneous joy
and commiseration.

> I have always been puzzled by this and have never had an answer that 
> seemed satisfactory.

If you ever do get an answer that seems satisfactory, be suspicious of
it.

In the hope that this will not be too abrupt a transition, I have
derived much benefit from thinking about the writings of James Hollis,
many of whose books I have read, one in particular that I loved being
entitled Swamplands of the Soul. It is an exploration of the benefit one
can derive by reflecting on the various ways in which we feel
psychologically uncomfortable. 

Hollis says about melancholy that it is an especially rich mode, since
it a feeling we get when we look at the world around us and say "This
really is too bad." It's too bad that nothing at all can live unless
something else dies to provide it food. It's too bad that no mouse or
bird ever lived in a natural setting to be old enough to die of cancer
or Alzheimer's disease. It's too bad we humans are so attached to life
that we continue living long after our children no longer need us. It's
too bad that children die young and that old men didn't. It's too bad
the questions that are most interesting and urgently in need of answers
never do get satisfactory answers. It's too bad about buddha-l.

Tant pis, tant mieux.

Well, that's enough melancholy for now. I'm going to go eat lunch (a
sandwich made of 7 sprouted grain bread and some soybean product made to
resemble and taste approximately like dead turkey flesh) and then try to
understand a puzzling Sanskrit verse well enough that I don't prove my
linguistic incompetence to the students in my Sanskrit class this
afternoon. Too bad Sanskrit is so bloody difficult.

-- 
Richard