[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Fri, 2005-10-21 at 21:46 +0100, Mike Austin wrote:

> Eating meat is just that. Killing is just that.  Even if one has 
> killed to eat meat, the non-virtue is in the act of killing - not in the 
> act of eating. Furthermore, buying meat is just that. 

Have you heard of Madhyamika philosophy. The whole point of that way of
thinking is to demonstrate in every way one can imagine that there is
nothing at all of whihc one can say "it is just that."

> People seem to ignore the points I am making because this is an emotive issue.

That's not true. People are not ignoring you at all. They are
disagreeing with what you say. From what I can tell from a safe
distance, there's very little evidence of anyone treating this issue
emotively. People are disagreeing with you because what you have been
saying has not been very carefully thought out.

> Consider the general case where 
> one person acts on another's behalf, without being ordered, requested or 
> hinted to do so, and with no intention in the mind of the benefactor. Is 
> the benefactor of that act responsible for it?

What is the relevance of this question to what is being discussed?

> The action - your action - causes discomfort directly. I would say, yes, 
> it is your cause and your responsibility. This would be a 'complete act' 
> in the karmic sense if there was an intention to do it and 'delight' in 
> seeing it through. (This is what I have heard. I have yet to understand 
> the status of 'complete' and 'incomplete' actions.)

Read Vasubandhu on karma. He offers the example, as I said earlier, of
person A asking person B to kill A's mother. B agrees to do the deed. On
the way to the assassination, B has an accident that prevents him from
carrying out the assassination. The deed of killing therefore remains
incomplete. The deed of requesting that the deed be done, however, is
complete. Now suppose A does not know at all that B has failed to kill
A's mother. Believing that B has killed A's mother, A rejoices that he
is now free of his mother. His rejoicing completes the karma of
requesting, and the karmic burden is therefore as severe as it would
have been had B actually killed A's mother. To put it another way, A's
intention to be rid of his mother, and his taking steps to eliminate
her, and his satisfaction on believing that he was rid of her all
contribute to a karmic burden.

-- 
Richard Hayes
***
"When a stupid man does something is is ashamed of,
he always says it is his duty." -- George Bernard Shaw