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The ethics of killing
By most people's standards, I'm a pretty well-rounded, ordinary 24 year old athletic type of guy. I'm considered nice, polite, and I'm well-liked. By the standards of most Americans, I'm a good guy.
But an event this weekend got me thinking. I was at a state park playing a tennis match with a friend. After the game, I had lunch and went to the garbage pale to throw something out and I noticed a bustling anthill amidst the grass. Habitually, I raised a foot into the air and flattened their little home. I had stepped on many ants in doing so, enough that I later had to take a stick and grind away at the bottoms of my sneakers to scrape out the layer of mud and little ant bodies that I didn't want on the floor of my car.
As someone who is interested in the ethics of killing and karma from a theological standpoint (I am not spiritual), what would be the implications of this dynamic? How could one be a good person while also causing death?
How is the karmic debt I've built weighed? I like most animals, I have a dog, I even like insects. Most people think I'm a charitable person. According to some beliefs, would I be reborn in the hell realms and then be reborn as an ant as many times as there are ants that I've crushed? I've stepped on a lot of bugs over the years, a good number of them on purpose. But what about my good acts in society and toward other people? Are those counted for less?
But an event this weekend got me thinking. I was at a state park playing a tennis match with a friend. After the game, I had lunch and went to the garbage pale to throw something out and I noticed a bustling anthill amidst the grass. Habitually, I raised a foot into the air and flattened their little home. I had stepped on many ants in doing so, enough that I later had to take a stick and grind away at the bottoms of my sneakers to scrape out the layer of mud and little ant bodies that I didn't want on the floor of my car.
As someone who is interested in the ethics of killing and karma from a theological standpoint (I am not spiritual), what would be the implications of this dynamic? How could one be a good person while also causing death?
How is the karmic debt I've built weighed? I like most animals, I have a dog, I even like insects. Most people think I'm a charitable person. According to some beliefs, would I be reborn in the hell realms and then be reborn as an ant as many times as there are ants that I've crushed? I've stepped on a lot of bugs over the years, a good number of them on purpose. But what about my good acts in society and toward other people? Are those counted for less?
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http://viewonbuddhism.org/karma.html
And an excerpt on purifying past negative karma:
WHAT CAN I DO TO REMOVE PREVIOUS NEGATIVE KARMA?
Nobody likes to suffer, so we all like to rid ourselves of negative karmic potential.
There are several possibilities, and in fact we may need to try and apply all of these methods as much as we can:
To avoid having negative thoughts that lead to negative actions in the future, we need to observe and control our own thoughts and behaviour, and destroy our negative attitudes.
Similarly, we can observe/study (meditate) our own mind and encourage positive thoughts that lead to positive actions.
We can avoid negative karmic seeds to ripen by purifying it, using the four powers of purification (see below). Although this does not eliminate the negative karmic actions, it can avoid the results to occur.
Ultimately, when we realise emptiness directly (see the page on Wisdom), and remove all our delusions, we are not under the control of past karma anymore.
THE FOUR POWERS OF PURIFICATION
The purification practices found within Buddhism are not unlike the practices applied in many other religions. The most essential mental factor that one requires is sincerity or honesty with oneself. When one wants to purify past negative karma, one has to do some action with the correct motivation.
This is summarised in the following Four Powers of Purification:
Power of the Object: One should practice thinking of all sentient beings one may have hurt. Traditionally, one remembers all sentient beings and the Three Jewels of Refuge (Buddha, Dharma and Sangha), by generating compassion for all sentient beings and taking refuge.
Power of Regret: This should not be senseless guilt or self-recrimination, which are said to be useless emotional torture. What is intended here is to examine oneself and one's actions and to recognise that negative actions done in the past were very unwise.
Power of Promise: As a logical consequence of the above, one should promise not to repeat these negative actions. It is good if one can promise to avoid a negative behaviour for a specific time, or at least promise that one will put effort in avoiding repetition. Not being honest at this stage makes the practice useless or even harmful to oneself.
Power of Practice: Basically any positive action with a good motivation can be used as practice. Traditionally in Buddhism, one can practice e.g. making prostrations (throwing oneself to the floor - as a means to destroy pride), making offerings (to counteract greed), reading Buddhist texts (to counteract ignorance and negative thoughts), reciting mantras etc.
It is often explained that one needs to clear a field by purifying it from rocks and weeds, then planting seeds by study and meditation, giving water and fertiliser by doing positive actions, and automatically new harvest will grow.
The Buddha defined kamma (literally 'action') as intention, and he essentially took the position that we, as sentient beings, have functional choice via intention operating within a broader framework of causality that conditions the choices available to us at any given time. More importantly, from the Buddhist point of view, kamma is primarily psychological in nature, with the results or fruits (vipaka) of intentional actions being experienced as pleasant, painful, or neither pleasant nor painful feelings (vedana) in the mind. In other word, kamma is how we intentionally react to things, our behaviour. (The Buddha basically took the Jain's deterministic view of kamma and ethicized it.)
That said, it's not about good or bad as much as skillful and unskillful. In Buddhism, all intentional actions are understood to have potential consequences, and actions that cause harm to others and/or ourselves are generally considered to be unskillful and something to be avoided. But if what the Buddha had to say about kamma is true, I don't think there's anyway to know precisely how these things will be experienced (AN 4.77), especially considering the complexity of this/that conditionality.
Our experience of the present is conditioned by a multitude of factors, including the results of both past and present actions. For all we know, the results of our past unskillful actions (e.g., killing ants) may count next to nothing compared to all the skillful actions and mental states we've cultivated throughout our lives. More importantly, the Buddha never condemns people merely for making unskillful choices or breaking the precepts; he simply urges them to learn from their mistakes and to make an effort to renounce their unskillful behaviour with the understanding that skillful behaviour leads to long-term welfare and happiness. That's one of the main reasons the precepts are framed as 'training rules' rather than strict commandments.
In this case, the unskillful motivation to harm may be subtle, and may not cause too much stress or suffering right now; but repeatedly cultivating and giving in to the urge to harm may build up over time, becoming an ingrained habit. This can result in not respecting other forms of life and/or inclining the mind towards harming rather than avoiding harm in other circumstances, which can condition more violent behaviour that'll result in more suffering in the future (e.g., maybe losing your temper and harming a pet). Then again, maybe you'll never suffer much over it because of other competing factors. It's impossible to know.
Truly Mind-Less.
I would say that anybody who is capable of being so wantonly destructive and capable of eliminating and eradicating lives in such a way, out of sheer fun and habit, without justifiable cause reasoning or motivation (save personal satisfying gratification) is only a few steps removed from being able to pick up a gun and go crazy in an office block.
No? Really?
Why not?
Start moving up the animal chain... see at which point "up the ladder" you would find it hard to deal a blow to a group of those creatures, in identical circumstances....
small pets?
Dogs?
Monkeys?
Which 'level' is it that now repulses you?
Why don't the others "below"?
it's the same thing....
Also, my dog is affectionate and gets me my slippers. Why would I ever want to deal a blow to my dog?
upon such very fool, pain of evil promptly return
as dust thrown against the wind.
Dhammapada 125
Whoever injures, with weapon or stick, beings
searching for their happiness - when after death -
seeking same happiness, such fool never finds it!
Dhammapada 131
Once in Savatthi the Blessed Buddha said this:
What, householder friends, is the Dhamma explanation befitting to oneself?
Here, householder friends, a Noble Disciple reflects thus: I am one who wishes
to live, who does not wish to die; I desire happiness & do not like any suffering.
If someone were to take my life, it would neither be pleasing nor agreeable to me.
If I kill whatever another being: One who also wishes to live, who also does not
wish to die, who also desires happiness & who also dislike suffering, that would
neither be pleasant nor acceptable to that other being either...
What is displeasing and disagreeable to me, is also displeasing and disagreeable
to any other being too. How can I inflict upon another being what is displeasing
and disagreeable to myself? Having reflected repeatedly thus, then gradually:
1: He/she will carefully avoid all destruction of any life-form whatsoever...
2: He/she will persuade others also to abstain from all destruction of any life...
3: He/she will speak praising harmlessness and avoidance of all & any killing...
In exactly this way is this good bodily behaviour purified in three respects!!!
Eventually you come to see that no matter how small, all life is driven by the desire to fulfill its wants and needs, and is averse to pain. There's some level of mind there, some capacity to observe the surrounding world and interact with it. We just have to get over our natural/unnatural aversions.
metta
Do you go around habitually squishing anthills? WHY?! Is this a sort of compulsion? You're not able to just walk past the anthill and go on your way? Just trying to understand the mentality. So many senseless deaths. What's the point?
On the other hand, it's good that you're reflecting on the incident. Reflect, now, on your motivation. Examine what was behind the impulse to kill.