[Buddha-l] Buddhas Meditation

[Dan Lusthaus]

Andy,

> So eating meat is wrong if it  entails these emotions, but to stick to 
> this as
> an absolute rule causes more suffering than not.

Same question as to Timothy: Is this "suffering" in the animal or in the 
persons abstaining or indulging?

It is very disheartening to see so many supposed compassionate Buddhists 
(except Lidewij) eager to dismiss this issue as goat-herding when literally 
the issue is life and death, plain, simple and stark.

One's mental attitude while killing trees, animals, fellow humans (branded 
enemy or friend) is of some consequence, but not necessarily to the one 
being killed or to those who care about the one(s) being killed. This is NOT 
an either/or equation.

Which is preferable?

(1) That a deranged, angry, greedy, "attached" individual refrains from 
killing your family?

OR

(2) Someone with cool, non-attached precision, wipes out your family and 
moves on...

There are plenty of people who can commit homicide with no regret, with 
detachment, etc. Some of them we might label sociopaths or psychopaths (I 
can't keep up with the psychiatric jargon book, but believe the former term 
is "in," i.e., an acceptable 'official' diagnosis these days, while the 
latter is currently eschewed as pop-psych -- but I could be wrong). Let's 
stipulate that they can kill without feeling any personal discomfort. 
Satisfied? I hope not.

Back to the redwood. One might attempt to argue that in general people do 
not chop down trees unless motivated by one or more of "greed, hatred 
(anger), or delusion", the three poisons. A lumber firm is motivated by 
greed; someone with a need to destructively lash out at a defenseless tree 
may be motivated by anger (not necessarily at the tree itself, but who 
knows?); Or some deluded being, imagining Redwoods are pods from another 
planet, imagines he is saving the earth by chopping down the invaders. In 
the absence of greed, hatred or delusion there would be no reason to chop 
down a redwood.

Maybe. Nonetheless, the redwood itself cares nothing about that, and should 
someone come along and chop him down while non-attached and whistling his 
favorite dharani, the redwood would suffer just as much.

In stark terms, the redwood (or cow, or human) could care less about the 
mental state of someone who kills (or ignores) it. The motivations of the 
killer are irrelevant to it, since it suffers (or doesn't) regardless. The 
cow doesn't care if the vegetarian is casual or high-strung. It prefers not 
to be slaughtered regardless. If messed-up emotions lead to its being 
spared, that's just fine with the cow.

This psychologizing of acts of carnage is a thorough misapplication of 
Buddhist thoughts on the matter. Much as most current legal systems make 
distinctions between degrees of guilt for killing someone -- from types of 
negligence, to manslaughter, all the way up to first-degree murder -- Buddha 
in the Pali texts draws distinctions between the types of motivations 
producing an act and the attitude while performing it, the less negatively 
motivated the better. But there are nevertheless hard and fast "rules" --  
encoded in the vinaya -- that are to be followed regardless of one's 
motivations or attitudes at the moment, such as no consuming or preparing 
human flesh for consumption, even for good reasons (e.g., medicine). 
Theravadins can eat meat that was not slaughtered esp. for them, but not 
lion meat, or elephant meat, etc. (the reason being it could be construed as 
a political act, since certain animals were associated with royalty). The 
psychological aspect is a factor, but never the only factor, nor does it 
invariably trump other concerns. Ask the cows and redwoods.

Dan