[Buddha-l] Buddhas Meditation

[andy]

> 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?

Um,  both?  What, from a Buddhist perspective, is the cause of the redwood's 
suffering?  

> 
> 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.
> 

Well, there it is.  Samsara.  Universal value.  So every redwood is special, 
and thus its destruction is wrong?  Life and death are not so simple. 

> 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.

Well, if I had to choose. . . .   This is why I brought up the Gita.  Are we 
supposed to think that Arjuna can war away at his relatives without doing 
wrong as long as he is not attached to the fruit if his actions?  I don't 
think that conclusion follows for Buddhism.  

> 
> 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.

What is the source of suffering?  I agree that the motivation of the actor is 
not definitive.  Are we dealing with a straw man on a slippery slope?  But this 
is a good place to bring up the simile of the double-handed saw.  

    Monks, as low-down thieves might carve you limb from limb with a
   double-handed saw, yet even then whoever sets his mind at enmity, he, for
   this reason, is not a doer of my teaching. This is how you must train
   yourselves: neither will my mind become perverted, nor will I utter an evil
   speech, but kindly and compassionate will I dwell, with a mind of
   friendliness and devoid of hatred.  (Kakacupama Sutta)

So the redwood is delusional, if it suffers, because it is attached to its own 
existence, when actually it is empty of self.  So it doesn't really matter 
what the attachment status of the sawyers is. 

	Now this is where the original objection to the "cosmic perspective" comes 
in, if the redwood is not an essential being, destroying it is no great loss, 
since in the absolute sense it doesn't exist anyway.  And the only source of 
wrong is the mental attitude of the destroyer?  In fact, we could imagine a 
Paul Bunyan Bodhisattva who with the finest of upaya and double-handed saws who 
come to liberate redwoods from the illusion of their own self-existence by 
turning them into decking, for their own good, of course.  

But you are right, the good intentions don't matter, since the redwood would 
suffer nonetheless. So how does one go about enlightening redwoods?  My point 
would be that the imposition of a universalist position of sunyata is 
violence, and a form of attachment to non-attachment, or in other words, 
nihilism.  This is not the buddhist position, although it may have been put 
forth by some buddhists (with "swords of no-sword" and so on).  Emptiness does 
not justify clearcuttting. 

But the flip-side doesn't follow either.  Redwoods die.  The species itself may 
well be headed to extinction.  Trying to save them, to preserve being, is the 
other form of universalism, eternalism.  So do trees have standing?  Yes, 
because they can suffer.  Not because they have a right to life or existence. 
And so the attitude of the actor should be kindly and compassionate.
 

-- 
James Andy Stroble, PhD
Lecturer in Philosophy
Department of Arts & Humanities
Leeward Community College
University of Hawaii