Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
Hunting
ThailandTom
Veteran
I have moved out of my house due to the atmopshere there, there was something in there that really was causing friction between me and my partner. When we moved to this new place we instantly felt a weight off of our shoulders, strange. Anyway, I was flicking through the channels on the TV (yes now we have one T__T ) and I came across a hunting channel. I watched it for a little while and cannot understand their mentality. They shoot elephants and atilope etc dead and then go up to the dead animal and say how beautiful it is, how an amazing creature it is, well yea it was before you just shot it dead... It is not to survive, it is for fun, not a happy bunny here.
2
Comments
Trophy hunting is absolutely vile to me. Hunting for food and/or to keep herds thinned and healthy, is acceptable to me, even though I could not personally do it.
I occasionally eat meat that was legally hunted by other family members and given to me. If I didn't plan to eat it myself for whatever reason, I gave it to others who were needy.
My grandfather hunted dear and moose, as well as ducks and pheasants. Some venison was eaten, but there was far more than we wanted. The moose was...yuck...and so most of that did not get eaten. My grandparents did eat duck and pheasant.
I would like to learn to hunt (I'm a firearms enthusiast anyway) as a skill but I've never been able to do it because I don't have the legitimate need to. I've never understood trophy hunting and couldn't support it, but if I had to hunt to feed my family I would.
"trophy hunting," that is what I am speaking off. That is disgusting!!
I'm very thankful for that today.
Do not harm sentient beings it is a wrong action that will lead to immense suffering in the future.
( Leaving aside the whole issue of whether animals should be killed for food )
Anyway, I still don't know what to think of it all and I know this is totally off topic as well, but meh. I did over-hear our landlord speaking with our neighbour once (they were friends and the neighbour had lived there for 10 years or so), and they were discussing why she has issues with people not renting the house for too long and why people keep leaving.
I don't think i will do it, but I would still like to be a good shot.
One of my few regrets is shooting a wallaby as a young man.
Oddly enough, when I really think about it, I find hunting more humane than supporting the meat industry as is by buying your meat from the store/fast food/wherever for several of the reasons you mentioned. I find the idea of being able to honor the animal and ensure a quick kill a lot more respectful (so long as you aren't hunting for sport, obviously). But I will admit, it confuses me that some people feel the opposite, as if the negative karma itself lies only in the killing, not in the consuming. And there is the whole "a monk can only accept meat if it wasn't killed directly for him/he didn't see/hear it happen". Trying to apply that concept to lay people, outside of monastics, seems to be the problem though. It makes sense to me that a monk should be able to eat what is given, even if it sometimes contains meat, since there is no other option. But this still doesn't seem applicable to modern society to me, unless you find yourself in a situation where you cannot choose what you eat.
I hope this doesn't offend anyone. I'm not trying to be inflammatory, just contemplating, and I welcome other thoughts on the topic so long as this train of thought isn't too far off the original topic.
When my son hunts, and he brings home food to feed the family, we use it. He is very happy to help feed the family and he learns a lot about self-sufficiency. I think as the world continues on this course, it's going to be important to know how to do those things, and at least I know that if there were some massive economic melt down or something, that we'd be ok with getting our own food. I just don't get the sense that my son is developing some horrible string of karma over killing a deer in the fall. I feel much negative things associated with buying meat at the store. We buy as much as we can from local farms, but it is very expensive. As a result, we do eat less meat.
It's possible at some point in my life/practice I will decide to be vegetarian. Things I didn't think I'd change, I already have, so I am always open to that possibility developing.
I think we also (all) need to remind ourselves to look at this whole hunting/meat-eating/vegan topic not from our own small, individual situation and surroundings, but on a global scale.
I wish I could remember where I read it (and wish I had bookmarked it) but I read a very informative, scientific based article once on how vegetarianism is not, and will never be, a viable alternative for the planet as a whole.
One point (of many) the article made was to break down the person-to-'farm' land ratio needed to provide that ONE person with a decent (not "excellent") diet year round. Long story much shorter, we simply do not have the (farm-able) land necessary to provide everyone with enough grown food.
A counter point to this problem is often: "Well, yeah, but even now -with meat on the menu - many many people around the world go to bed hungry as well. So meat isn't the answer either."
The article pointed out that is because of a lack of even distribution of food - which directly coincides with poverty/wealth/development (of people and countries); where as in a vegetarian world this would be because there just wasn't enough food for everyone. I tend to agree with this -- think of the waste generated by wealthier cultures and countries.
Even as someone who is very mindful of this problem, I know I do 'waste' food now and then- not intentionally, of course, but it happens. Think about the tons of food (tons!) thrown away every week, from each of our local supermarkets, restaurants, bakeries, and fast food places, sometimes for no other reason than an arbitrary "sell by" date on the label. Now times that by 100, or 1000, or 10,000 across the country... the amount of wasted food is astounding.
The other thing we need to remember is that there are cultures all over the world that live in climates and/or on land not suitable for agriculture -on any decent scale. These cultures depend on livestock and wildstock meats, with vegetables and plant foods as minimal supplements.
The bottom line is; the variety and diversity of foods from culture to culture around the world, IS what keeps the world (relatively) well fed. Being globally vegetarian over carnivorous- or the other way around - would only greatly upset the whole food scheme for the planet.
Individually it's a valid and noble choice for each of us, but globally it's a pipe dream, and potentially a dangerous one.
YMMV
I used to be of the mind that farming and eating my own animals would be more ethical - I can ensure their quality of life and make sure they are dealt with humanely, but after learning that the Buddha only ate meat not killed specifically for him now I'm not so sure.
It's like eating meat from the store... It could come from any kind of nasty living conditions, but at least it wasn't killed specifically for me. But farming my own animals... At least they would have lived well.
Going veggie isn't an option for me
It has also had horrible, horrible effects on our health. Eating as much wheat and soy and corn (all of which are GMO...98% of these crops are GMO around the entire world now) as we do, is largely what is causing the huge downfall of health of people in the past 50-100 years.
If we were able to use every single acre of arable land on the whole planet (which we can't because it means clearing more land) we would need. 3.5 billion acres to feed the whole planet. The US has about 900 million of those acres wrapped up in unhealthy farm practices. Maryanne is right. If we were better at sharing, better at not wasting, we could do a whole lot more. But no one wants to give up their $1000 a month grocery budget to feed someone else, thus meaning "I'll have less so you can have some too." That's the last thing that our political climate in the US is supportive of right now, lol. The national standards for living expenses for the US, for a family of 4, is $1450 right now. $765 of that goes to food. We have a decent income and 5 people and we don't spend near $765 on food. Do you have any idea how far that goes in a poor nation? That is months, if not more, worth of food. The state of ND has a budget surplus because of their oil boom that is so large it could solve the food crisis in Africa, but the WHO can't get countries around the world to donate enough to help solve it. Greed IS the main problem, and unfortunately a large % of that greed falls on Americans.
I wonder if that's what I read, too... "The Vegetarian Myth" .
I'll have to look for it. Kindle, ya think?
One of Life's crazy dilemmas, isn't it?
The monks not eating meat killed for them is based on a different culture and type of economy. It is based on an economy where monks are seen as doing their monk things for the good of all of humanity; therefore, they are supported by the lay people in order to focus on their job of monk stuff. The lay people recognize that it is most important for the monks to be as "karmically clean" as possible to ensure the conditions are right for realization, etc. Remember that monks are held to an entirely different standard than lay people (a lot more rules and considerations).
IMHO, if you are going to eat meat, it is best that you personally know and respect from where it comes. Just as we give thanks to those who prepare food for us... we should give thanks to those that become our food. This is all part of our interconnectedness. Something must die for other things to live. It is part of samsara and will probably never be avoided.
I will continue to do my small part in order to maintain this.
I'm copying this over from @Sabre's post on the factory farming thread. So unless we're talking about only eating wild meat, being vegetarian is far more efficient and environmentally freindly.
It could be argued that the only way to completely avoid causing some death, is to gain complete nirvana.
On a side note... people die mining (often forced) materials needed for all sorts of electronics. It is very difficult to live in our modern world and not have some blood on our hands.
I made that clearer in my original post higher up in this thread but might have paraphrased a bit too much in the above quote.