[Buddha-l] Re: on eating meat

[Mike Austin]

In message <1129953443.4294.20.camel at localhost.localdomain>, Richard P. 
Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> writes
>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."

Richard,

For the purpose of discussing conventional truth, under the designations 
karma and cause and effect are used, it is quite OK to designate actions 
in this way.  There are those who fatuously say, "It's all empty anyway" 
in order to avoid further analysis. I hope you are not one of these.  If 
you wish to leave the discussion, just do so.  But please don't trump it 
with sunyata.


>> 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?

Please don't pretend to be obtuse. When someone kills because they think 
someone else wants them to. That is the relevance.


>> 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, I am well aware of the above distinctions. You have hit several 
targets correctly - but not the one I set up for you to hit. That is the 
one where A has no intention and B acts nevertheless. If you do not wish 
to address it, then don't. Please don't address something else instead.

-- 
Metta
Mike Austin