[Buddha-l] Buddhists taking a stand against Islamaphobia

[Richard Hayes]

On Aug 3, 2012, at 00:57 , Franz Metcalf <franz at mind2mind.net> wrote:

> We live on the suffering of others.

That is the fate of all heterophagic life forms. So one could well say that our very survival depends on the death of others, which is the occasion for what some psychologists call existential guilt. Still, it does not follow from that that our every action causes suffering to others, unless you want to push the point that our very survival is a requisite to any action, and therefore every action, being the product of a heterophagic survivor, prerequires the death of others.

> Just that an arahant is one who no longer produces karma. Thus, de jure, an arahant's actions must not create suffering. As I agreed, this is pure dogma.

Now you are conflating acting and producing karma. An arhant continues to act but does not produce karma. And if you want to push the point that all acting requires survival, which in turn requires heterophagy, then the arhant is not an exception to the general rule that all action is in some sense built within the framework of causing suffering to others.

> 
>> Third, Mahāvīra never counseled suicide. He counseled harmlessness. Dying as a result of not harming others is not by any stretch of the imagination suicide. The primary intention of the act of suicide is to kill oneself. The primary intention of desisting completely from harming others is desisting completely from harming others.
> 
> Quite correct as regards intention. But I wonder if here you are quibbling, Richard. The intention to not kill anything else results in the result of killing oneself. If that is not direct suicide, it is surely self-destruction.

There are philosophers (Jack Meiland comes to mind) who have made the point quite convincingly that if one intentionally performs act A and knows that act A will have, or will increase the likelihood of having, consequence C, then one intends C. The stock example is driving while intoxicated. One's primary intention in driving while intoxicated is to transport oneself from one place to another, but if one know that driving in that state is more likely to involve an accident, then in effect one intends to have the accident. This line of reasoning can be applied very widely. In eating, one's primary intention is to dispel hunger and survive, but if one knows that eating entails the death of a living being, then every act of eating is the intentional destruction of life. And desisting from eating, which entails one's own death, is also the intentional destruction of life. There is no getting out of it.

I have been living all summer in bear country. Every bit of advice I have seen about what to do if you meet a bear begins with "Try not to meet a bear." I suppose the Buddha and all other Indian sages knew this. Their advice about what to do about the pain of life was always "Try not to have a life."


> Still, you are the philosopher

Not really. I'm pretty much a charlatan.

> Speaking of getting out of jail, I must go. Thanks, Richard for keeping me at least marginally honest.

Now we just need to find someone to keep me honest.

Richard Hayes
Chair, Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico