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Comment by emptysongglass | Hacker News Reader

According to the Buddha, one should not kill any sentient being, sentient being defined as made up of the five skandhas: matter, sensation, perception, mental formations and consciousness.

I had a very easy time following this rule until my houseplants were attacked by spider mites and almost simultaneously my rats attacked by a different species of mites. How does one watch the beings (I don't apply "being" to the plants but do to my rats) they love be drained of their vitality by other beings and refuse to intervene? Is it right?

My wife, who is not a Buddhist, intervened, and both rats and plants survived but this experience deeply shook me. One might say I am experiencing a crisis of faith.

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“What happens when you tune your instrument too tightly?” the Buddha asked.

“The strings break,” the musician replied.

“And what happens when you string it too loosely?”

“When it’s too loose, no sound comes out,” the musician answered. “The string that produces a tuneful sound is not too tight and not too loose.”

“That,” said the Buddha, “is how to practice: not too tight and not too loose.”

Gorgeous.

I'm a strong atheist but Buddhism has always been the religion I've respected the most. At least the philosophical aspect of it.

I used to struggle with this too. To this day I use a box to pick up spiders or mosquitoes and take then outside instead of killing them. But I wouldn't doubt killing termites to save my plants.

We kill everyday. When we walk, or drive the car. We're powerful giants. But we can be respectful giants.

It doesn't absolve us from our "sins", but it's far better than nothing.

I think it can be narrowed down to "be respectful". Letting your rats die would be disrespectful to them. Killing a spider that isn't harming you is disrespectful to them. Walking on top of ants you know are there is disrespectful to them.

This is correct; the "no kill" rule is something you aim for, it doesn't mean you necessarily achieve it. In Mahayana Buddhism there's a story about the Buddha's prior lives, where he decided to kill someone out of compassion: the victim wanted to murder a lot of people, but the future-Buddha killed him to avoid his suffering [1]. Likewise, the Buddhist precepts are training rules, not necessarily commandments that will take you to hell if you break them.

[1] http://venyifa.blogspot.com/2008/09/story-of-compassionate-s...

> Evil men will do evil deeds but to get a good man to do evil deeds takes religion.

I'm kind of surprised that this is a dillema for you. I.e. that you would rather watch the pets under your care, potentially in a confinement you placed them in get eaten up by mites, than intervene.

And that the driving force for that inaction is somehow compassion. It sounds more like confusion.

This is uncharitable. I wouldn't rather. I (myself, as I am now) would rather save them from suffering.

There are thousands of years of analysis by Buddhist theologians on these and other subjects. One critique against intervention is by denying or cutting short the acute suffering of another one denies that being's opportunity to learn the truth of their experience: that what is suffering is independent of a lasting self and temporal.

I do not subscribe wholesale to beliefs because they are believed. The Buddha himself encouraged such critical analysis for oneself. And other religions do the same, though they are often passed over for what is easier: unthinking adherence. From the Quran, "reflect; you have vision."

I am not perfect and I am not blameless. My conflict is a thing I must clarify. Its resolution is wisdom.

Animals don't learn anything suffering from mites and other parasites.

I admire the jainist (?) philosophy of not killing, but it does seem incredibly impractical, to the point of being stupid even. How do you avoid killing mites on the ground when you go out for a walk?

I agree that the Jainist philosophy is impractical: the essential difference between the Jainist philosophy of non-harm and the Buddhist is one of intention.

Jain philosophy.

They sweep the ground in front of them with a broom.

To be precise, the monks do this, and the laity work as jewelers in Manhattan and support the monks financially.

And jewelers are just one step removed from miners and massive environmental destruction

Which obviously does nothing but rearrange the mites on the ground before they’re stepped on, and makes me think they’re hypocrites for adopting a useless measure to make it seem like they actually care. If it is true.

Can you see the mites, though?

The monks had a kind of sieve to filter out small animals from drinking water. There is a famous story when some of them developed extrasensory perception and realized the water they had been drinking contains millions of tiny beings invisible to the naked eye. They went to the Buddha and asked what they should do. The Buddha answered, if you cannot see them, that is fine.

I like this story because it shows there are some limits to how much we can avoid taking life, otherwise we couldn't live at all.

What did the monks who could see them do though? Died from thirst?

Sorry I wasn't clear. If you can see them with your physical eyes, you should take reasonable care not to kill them. If you can't see them with your physical eyes but with extrasensory perception, it does not matter in the context of this particular precept (of taking life).

On the rats, no.

Thank you for this story. I wasn't able to find it myself. Do you have a link?

I did find the story of Thera Cakkhupala, a blind monk who was observed treading on insects [1] but because he was blind and could not see them was blameless. Could this be the story you were thinking of?

[1] http://www.tipitaka.net/tipitaka/dhp/verseload.php?verse=001

No, it was definitely another one, and it mentioned Arhats. I heard it from a Tibetan teacher in the context of clarification of the origin of some Vinaya rules all monks should obey, so I assume the story comes from a sutra from the Kanjur, but I was unable to locate it in any of the sutras I've read so far (very few, actually).

You are trying to find an answer through logical means. This means you need to find a framework with a clearly defined set of axioms and clear reduction rules that bring you to the correct answer. The world does not work like this. All concepts that seem well-defined break when you look at them too close or too far.

Does the dog has the Buddha nature? The answer to that is neither 'yes' or 'no', because neither will lead you where you want.

Isn't the teaching of Buddhism that one should learn to let go of attachments such as love, because they will bring you pain?

All attachments, yes. But I am neither a Bodhisattva or fully enlightened. In addition, the core crisis I am experiencing is whether it is ok to watch a being suffer greatly in its torment by other beings without intervention. If the only act which may stop the other being from their act of torment is an act that results in their death (medicine to the afflicted), is it blameworthy?

Any system of beliefs is going to have a few internal inconsistencies. Speaking from cheerful ignorance of what Buddhists actually believe, from my understanding the "don't kill things" is something in the nature of really good advice grafted on top of a philosophy that really an acknowledgement of impermanence and a set of guidelines around how to live with that. There is no sustainable belief system that stops its people from becoming soldiers.

If everything dies, at some level killing isn't such a sin. There are real practical populations if people use that as a serious philosophical starting point though.

There are definitely tiers to experience. I would expect that a rat can suffer far more significantly than a mite, or even a thousand mites.

Beyond that, your rat depends on you as a pet. I’m afraid that, if you can’t adequately look after your pets because of your beliefs, then you shouldn’t have pets.

The way I learned is that you try not to meddle unless you have wisdom (meaning you have some kind of enlightenment). My opinion is that unless I was the one tormenting other beings, I wouldn't meddle in other person's affairs, specially by killing. This is a good example on the importance of finding a teacher, a Good Knowing Advisor, someone that can dispel these doubts for you.

There's the obvious self-defense exceptions, if a lion or a person would attack me or my family I would shoot him, but an enlightened being may act differently because they may understand something we don't.

Not a Buddhist, but I think it's the desire to attach to things which is the root of suffering, not that you can't love someone.

Attachment (upadana) which arises immediately from desire (tanha). "The desire, adherence, attraction, and attachment for these five grasping aggregates is the origin of suffering."

I agree and should have agreed differently that an absence of attachment does not mean an absence of love.

My interpretation of the teaching is let love exist along with fear etc but don’t cling to love for fear it will pass and don’t cling to fear for fear it will not pass. He wasn’t telling people not to love but to allow it to exist without superimposing your neuroses on top of it.

That is exactly what stoicism is about.

I definitely recommend https://www.amazon.com/Guide-Good-Life-Ancient-Stoic-ebook/d....

If an enemy waged war, will you let them kill you or your creatures? this how I view this matter. these creatures are under my care, and I'm under an obligation to protect them. this obligation overrides any other feelings or beliefs I have.

of course, I'm no Buddhist, and I'm sure you have another point of view about the matter.

It is hard enough (impossible?) to discriminate between living and dead matter. Counciousness does not simplify things. When choosing the correct action in our daily life requires solving harder problems than whether P=NP I think the only requirement is that we try.

As a Buddhist myself... The Buddha did not have pets. That doesn't mean we can't have them, but having them implies that sometimes we can't act according to our values.

Of course your immune system (and Buddha's one) is constantly killing bacteria to keep you alive. Is there a self defense exception? There should be a line somewhere but it's difficult to draw it when we don't even agree what consciousness is. It could also be totally impractical. Probably a Buddhist alive is better than a Buddhist dead because it's necessary to kill smaller beings to be alive.

I don't think bacteria possess the five skandhas necessary for qualification but I'd love to hear an argument against.

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