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Mosquito-borne diseases?
dhammacitta
Explorer
I reckon this question must have been asked already, but I would like to explain my situation. My country is currently facing a dengue fever epidemic. Some people in my very street got it. I used to be fearful of it, and would kill many mosquitoes. By following the five precepts, I let that go. However, now I wonder if it isn't best to kill the mosquitoes, so they don't kill people?
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And I guess it comes down -- in part -- to what do you consider sentient?
But even then, I'm sorry, but I think mosquitoes are less important than humans.
If Buddhists accept that insects and other small organisms are sometimes killed while harvesting vegetables, but vegetarian diets are sometimes preferred to meat-based diets (depending on the tradition), then I think killing mosquitoes is probably okay too, especially in the interest of health and safety. I got dengue fever after being in Thailand... it was terrible.
I'm not in Thailand, I'm in Brazil, which is often hit badly as well. I have a suspection that I too caught it last month. And people getting in my street as well... That makes me feel a bit responsible for letting these mosquitoes live. So I'm assuming it's okay only in the sense that the intention is not as evil. After all, should we just let the planet get run over by plagues that might kill millions? This might be speciesism, but I agree that human life is more important in the sense of opportunity for good and Awakening, and the overwhelming hurt that a person dying might cause. Truly a intricate matter. This is intentional killing, after all. No chance it was adressed in the suttas? No expert out there?
Yeah, you might get some karma from killing them. But sometimes it's just unavoidable. Do your best. That's all we can do.
I do not know much about dengue. Can you contract it just from getting stung? In which case, killing the mosquito after it has already stung you won't do much good anyone and the best way to prevent it is to prevent getting bitten at all. Repellant, carefulness when coming in the house (brush mosquitos off your pants before you go indoors) wears appropriate clothing and mosquito netting if needed and so on.
The issue is in what you do for prevention. Insecticide, cleaning up standing water where mosquitoes can breed, etc. I don't think it's so much about swatting one...although every mosquito you do swat is one less than will be stinging anyone.
While living in Thailand, in terms of health, it was my greatest fear. It's often called "bone break fever" (to give you an idea of how painful it is), can spiral out of control to become dengue hemorrhagic fever or dengue shock syndrome, where there can be permanent damage to some organs. Once you get it, you usually become immune to repeats...except that there are 4 varieties of the virus, and immunity is only for one of the 4...so you could get it 3 more times. And, the more times you get it, the more risk of severe complications
It's where concepts of killing and suffering understandable get muddled together.
There is no life that doesn't act as the grim reaper to some other life. Thinking that their might be some activity of ours that does not entail the killing of others, is not only being ignorant of the laws of existence but in itself is a cause of more suffering.
The nitty gritty of our trouble with this comes from how we attach to the various identities involved. (ours or theirs). Part of the purpose of a Buddhist meditation practise is to expose the illusory nature of our concepts that there is a separate "ours or theirs".
It's not about applying different values to different lives which is really just another way of validating our own identity but is instead about how to face this issue in a way that doesn't continue to feed the separation between our own identity and others.
We hopefully make various choices to minimize the suffering we create around us but nothing stops the death that we wield with every breath. No Suttra can absolve you from this truth.
This is why the Buddhist Suttras don't attend to the measuring of death but instead just illuminate the path to the cessation of suffering's cause.
This, at least, is where my question get's answered.
As far as trying to save yourself from illness, all you have to do is a) apply mosquito repellant, b) maintain screens on your doors and windows in good condition, and c) if one lands on you, blow it off with a puff of air.
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
However, that said, the Dalai Lama has confessed to killing mosquitoes, occasionally. Not as a regular practice, but occasionally.
We live in the woods, so we're surrounded by water. We have a lake north of us, a river that winds west and south of us and a swamp to the east, all within a quarter mile or so. So, we're pretty much stuck with the water, lol. Bird bathes and ditches are some of the worst places for mosquitoes. If you can, make sure ditches are well drained and either don't use bird baths, or refill it with fresh water on a regular basis and rinse it out to get rid of any mosquito eggs. Just wearing proper clothing can be a great deterrent but I imagine it's a lot harder to wear jeans and a sweatshirt in Brazil than it is in Minnesota!
What part of Brazil? With the seasonal flooding that goes on in a large part of the country, there's nothing any gov't could do about that. Improving drainage and sanitation systems, though, is a reasonable expectation.
You know, the Carter Center (Pres. Jimmy Carter's charitable org.) has health initiatives around the world that address problems like this. You could look it up online, and see if you could get any ideas on safe and affordable solutions to mosquito-born diseases.
@dhammacitta you can make homemade remedies that help with repelling things, too. We have a lot of natural products available here that work decently. Not as well as the high powered stuff, but decent. Perhaps you can find something similar. Also, you might be able to find them in a type that doesn't require you to spray them and thus wouldn't affect your asthma. My oldest is asthmatic and he uses a cream repellant so it doesn't irritate his lungs.
But as @karasti said, homemade solutions seem like a good idea. I completely forgot about that. I'll see if I can find a good way to get rid of them, without hurting them. I miss being the person that 'wouldn't hurt a fly'.
By the way, it's both enlightening and distressing to know there is no safe haven in the world. I thought about moving to a country less neglected, but I'd only find another flawed, flawed country. Just differently flawed.