[Buddha-l] Victimized Vegans?

[Franz Metcalf]

Joy et al., hypocrites lecteurs, mes semblables, mes frères!

Joy wrote,

> With knowledge evolving, thanks to science, we lose our original 
> innocence and what used to be non-volitional *could* no longer be 
> considered as such since now we know. And when we know about "evil" or 
> "harm" and don't act against it, we become guilty by affiliation or 
> somesuch and the non-volitional becomes less non and more volitional.

I agree with you. I'm currently slogging through the Vinaya (in 
Horner's sprightly [not!] translation). What strikes me about the rules 
and their evolution is how consistently they strive to apply the 
principles of humility and non-harming to all the aspects of the monks' 
lives, and yet how often they fail to accomplish this because they 
often seem unaware of the sangha's interdependence with society and, in 
fact, all beings. As you were saying, we know more now about the harm 
we cause in every moment, on every level, both biologically and 
socially. Seems to me, this "is" (knowing), leads to an "ought" (acting 
responsibly). To take the obvious example, since we now understand how 
markets function, we can any longer take seriously as a consistent 
ethical position the practice of monks eating meat that was bought at 
the grocery for them, but not slaughtered for them.

> There seems to be no morality without hypocrisie (= intentional 
> blindness, intentionally-not-wanting-to-know in order to save 
> morality).

Bien entendu, so how far do we take this? The engaged Buddhism movement 
has done a good deal of thinking on this sort of thing. Not so much the 
meat market issue, but the capitalist market issue. I hope that work 
will reshape the sangha, even in Asia. It is certainly reshaping the 
sangha in convert Buddhist centers in the West. And yet I just ate a 
salami sandwich.

As for suicide, I think you see in the Vinaya rules the evolution you 
mentioned. That suicide even appears as a possible option within the 
texts, suggests the canonical view took a long time to clarify. So does 
the view on everything worth discussing, no?

Ton hypocrite auteur,

Franz