Bacteria ?

minimayhen88

Would it be a transgression of the First Precept ... to condone / praise the killing of bacteria - to prevent infectious diseases?
I have seen this question on other forums and have been wondering about the answer ... as the answers always seem pretty vague / subjective?

xxxx

lobster

Yes.
Also don't wash, clean your teeth and wear a face-mask to avoid breathing in small insects. Then go and join the Jain Sangha.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahimsa_in_Jainism
On the other hand you can live in the real world.

Save the worm - it too is a potential Buddha (thus have I heard) :crazy:

person

I like this question and have been trying to find a satisfactory answer myself. The issue is since killing a sentient being is negative karma is a bacteria sentient? A sentient being is one that has a mind. Generally in Buddhism insects are considered sentient but plants are not, so where does that leave single celled organisms? In the first Mind and Life meeting between scientists and the Dalai Lama they thought that an ameoba was sentient since it reacted to its environment.

A sunflower reacts to its environment and moves to face the sun, a venus flytrap reacts to stimulus as well, and there is also a Mimosa Pudica that withdraws its leaves when touched. So, personally I don't feel that reaction to the environment is a useful criteria, I mean if you look at animals biochemistry do we really do anything other than react to stimuli, only in a more complex way. There is a type of ameoba that displays altruism as well, when they are short on food a community will come together and %20 of the ameoba will sacrifice themselves so that the rest can move to a new area.

My current opinion is that a being needs nerve cells or some kind of nervous system. But I don't know, I'm hoping to find a loophole that says its ok to kill mosquitos. In the meantime I'm careful of insects and don't worry about bacteria.

Also the weightiness of karma is dependent upon the complexity of the sentient being, so killing a human has more weight than a mosquito.

Jeffrey

An amoeba is alive but I don't think it is sentient.

Daozen

These critters are everywhere! In fact, they form an essential part of our own bodies.

"A healthy adult human harbours some 100 trillion bacteria in his gut alone. That is ten times as many bacterial cells as he has cells descended from the sperm and egg of his parents."

I don't set out to harm them, nor could I avoid doing so even if I tried. Thus I don't believe it breaks the First Precept.

tmottes

I worked in a microbiology lab for two years. I would grow and harvest billions of billion of bacteria in order to identify what was contaminating sterile medical equipment. I certainly hope that this doesn't come back to get me. :eek:

Jeffrey

If you get a cold you can say it's the revenge of the cosmos.

Jason

minimayhen88 said:

Would it be a transgression of the First Precept ... to condone / praise the killing of bacteria - to prevent infectious diseases?
I have seen this question on other forums and have been wondering about the answer ... as the answers always seem pretty vague / subjective?

xxxx

It can definitely be a difficult question to answer, and the answer really depends on how one interprets the first precept: Panatipata veramani sikkhapadam samadiyami (I undertake the precept to refrain from destroying living creatures).

The Pali term pana means 'that which breathes,' and according to Bhikkhi Bodhi denotes "any living being that has breath and consciousness." The term isn't just limited to things with lungs that respire, though. It all stems from how ancient Indian religions and philosophies viewed life, and breathe was the main symbol or representation of life/life energy, and any organism that respires and/or metabolizes can conceivably be covered under this term. The real question, however, is whether or not bacteria possesses consciousness, which itself is conjoined with feelings and perceptions (MN 43). Any kind of organism that seems to intend, react to pain, etc. would most likely qualify, in my opinion, which most likely excludes bacteria.

That said, the precepts seem to leave room for these kinds of grey areas. For one, bacteria that cause diseases aren't often perceive as living beings, and as Bhikkhu Bodhi notes in his tract, "Taking the Precepts," a full violation of the first precept involves five factors: (1) a living being; (2) the perception of the living being as such; (3) the thought or volition of killing; (4) the appropriate effort; and (5) the actual death of the being as a result of the action. Therefore, if there's no perception of a living being, only an illness caused by harmful, insentient microbes that's treatable by medicine (i.e., antibiotics), then there's no violation of the first precept, or at least not a full one.

In addition, assuming that bacteria are sentient and/or covered under the Pali term pana, I think Susan Jootla brings up a good point about the importance of the intention behind such actions as making, prescribing, and taking things like antibiotics in her essay, "Right Livelihood: The Noble Eightfold Path in the Working Life":

If we manufacture, deal in, or use insecticides or other kinds of poisons in our work, we are engaging to some degree in wrong livelihood because here, too, we are breaking the First Precept and directly encouraging others to do so as well. However, the motivation behind the use of such material has a great deal to do with the depth of the kamma being created. A doctor rightly gives drugs which are harmful to bacteria and viruses, not because he hates the "bugs," but in order to help cure the human being. Here the good more than balances the bad. But if we go about applying poison to rat-holes and cockroaches' hideouts with anger or aversion toward the pests, we would be generating considerably strong bad kamma.

taiyaki

In Samsara everything you do with body, speech, and mind causes some kind of suffering to others and yourself.

The consequences are infinite and impossible to pin down.

May we all study and practice hard so that we recognize our buddhahood, so that we can help this burning world.

seeker242

The Buddha allowed monks to take medicine to cure themselves of diseases. I would bet some of the concoctions they used killed bacteria. I doubt he ever said not to take them because they may kill bacteria.

tmottes

Jason said:

The Pali term pana means 'that which breathes,' and according to Bhikkhi Bodhi denotes "any living being that has breath and consciousness." The term isn't just limited to things with lungs that respire, though. It all stems from how ancient Indian religions and philosophies viewed life, and breathe was the main symbol or representation of life/life energy, and any organism that respires and/or metabolizes can conceivably be covered under this term. The real question, however, is whether or not bacteria possesses consciousness, which itself is conjoined with feelings and perceptions (MN 43). Any kind of organism that seems to intend, react to pain, etc. would most likely qualify, in my opinion, which most likely excludes bacteria.

I always found it interesting that the aerobic (with oxygen) process of producing nutriments for cells is call respiration. On the flip side, the anaerobic (without oxygen) process of producing nutriments is called fermentation. [Name similarities are probably coincidence, but interesting none-the-less]

Also, mitochondria (a cellular structure that produces energy for the cell [power plant]) are required for cellular respiration. These mitochondria were supposedly a bacteria that came to "live" inside higher order cells. These days, they can't survive on their own, nor could the cell survive without them (there are some exceptions); and thus neither could any animals or plants. (two reeds leaning against each other).

Neither bacteria, nor viruses have mitochondria.

Citta

Your quoting Susan Jootla, Jason reminds me of a real situation back in the days when Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche was still in the robe as abbot of Samye Ling monastery in Scotland. The place was overrun with rats. In the main shrine room food offering would be left after pujas and the rats would scuttle among them,, Most people were not bothered by this, but the monastery was given notice that an inspection was to take place to assess its suitability as a public venue. This could have led to a ban on visitors and retreats.
Trungpa Rinpoche was concerned. Every night he would go around the monastery putting pieces of paper into the rat holes which contained mantras and requests asking them to leave
The rats did not budge.
Eventually a month or so before the official visit he phoned Rentokill and booked an appointment..
This upset him a lot..but he took the view that the propagation of the dharma had to come first ...he said " I will take responsibility for the karma ".

Sile

I once read a story of a Western man living, I believe, in Thailand, as a forest monk. He recalls his small sangha's challenging task (much of it assigned to him!) of coaxing thousands of ants to leave a cistern.

Maybe someone here remembers it? I'd love to read it again.

When I lived with the local tribe, they had need on several occasions to ask various animals to vacate the woodpiles - snakes, in particular. More often than not, the animals left.

vinlyn

To go back to the original post, in my view there are two reasons to ask such a question. One is for an intellectual sort of game, which is fine. The other is for an "I gotcha" toward all of Buddhism, which is fine, also.

Ultimately, the real question is -- where do you, as an individual, draw the line.

An associate of mine was a "live and let live" kinda guy...until he discovered a den of copperhead snakes living in the partitions of his house...and just for the record, it was a modern house in a modern upscale subdivision. And, if you lived in Thailand as I did for a couple of years, you might be very unkind toward snakes and lizards and spiders, and centipedes and millipedes, etc.

You (all) draw your individual line wherever you want, and I'll draw the line wherever I want, and as Citta pointed out, "I will take responsibility for the karma".

lobster

Some Theravadin monks are not allowed to dig their food gardens in case they inadvertently molest an insect. The generous laity have to protect these karma avoiders by doing what Zen monks are able to do. Ahisma is a good principle and ideal but pragmatically it is not fanatical extremism that works but a middle way.

OM MANI PEME HUM
as I used to say to worms - for my benefit :wave:

Dakini

minimayhen88 said:

Would it be a transgression of the First Precept ... to condone / praise the killing of bacteria - to prevent infectious diseases?
I have seen this question on other forums and have been wondering about the answer ... as the answers always seem pretty vague / subjective?

xxxx

No. Tibetan medicine has its own set of antibiotic herbs. Your body kills bacteria that don't belong in the system all the time.

How would it serve humanity for you to get a serious illness or die? Eliminating a compassionate being who had the great fortune (or karma) to have a precious human rebirth, and the opportunity to do great good in the world and eliminate suffering for other sentient beings, only to allow some bacteria to live, would NOT be the "greater good" in this equation. In the Mahayana tradition, killing is ok if it serves a greater good, as the Buddha illustrated in the "Boat captain" story, where he killed a murderous boat captain in order to save all the passengers' lives. Studying scripture can be more helpful than splitting hairs re: precepts. Scripture is there to guide us, and provides some wonderful examples of how to handle moral dilemmas.