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Insects question
paska
Explorer
So I am in discussions of elders on fpmt on wether insects are sentient or not reincarnation ie rebirth or not. Based on precepts vows. So in tibetan Buddhism which is it do they go from life to life are they sentient.
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I'm not quite sure what you mean. But insects belong to the animal realm and are sentient beings. In the Thai Forest tradition they strictly follow the five precepts, and avoid killing "malaria mosquitoes" or spiders, as killing them represents the generation of small amounts of negative kamma. However, intention plays a big part in here. Are they being killed for fun or for safety? Still negative, but quite a different "dose".
As an Arthropod, some of my favourite cousins are insects
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthropod
Many claim to be sentient, as do some politicians. In vajrayana, I have been taught by a high Lama, that two flies from the back end of a cow once flew around a stupa. This created a beneficial rebirth. Many senior students and western monks found that funny …
As a cannibal (I eat my cousins; prawns) I know a thing or two about reality versus other worldly barbies.
Be kind but don't have a cow …
OM MANY PERME HUM BUG
This book - Metazoa: Animal Life and the Birth of the Mind, by Peter Godfrey-Smith - I found very helpful in clarifying the question of the nature and origin of sentience.
I think there can be no question about this - insects are indeed sentient beings.
I make an effort to adhere to Do not harm and if I find situations where this is not possible then I opt for Do the least harm possible under the present circumstances...
From what I gather ...thus have I heard from some Tibetan Dharma teachers...whatever has a mind is sentient, (hmm so what is mind ?) ... I take this to mean if it knows fear, feels pain and tries to remove itself from danger because it 'feels' threatened , it has a mind and is sentient...
Insects respond to their surroundings, example light dark, temperature etc, so do plants ( some plants and insects have a symbiotic relationship, you scratch my back and I'll scratch your back so to speak..for example bees and flowers, flowers provide the bees with food 'nectar' in exchange for pollination )
However......
Whether insects have a mind sparks many debates
Are they really conscious or just automates
What Beings are conscious
@paska
Whether insects are sentient or not, subject to reincarnation ie rebirth or not, or go from life to life.
One round about way of speaking about such a question, without providing much of a direct answer is.....
Some see each person as temporary coalescence of karmic inertia that differs in its make up with each dispersal and reforming of life. Not enough recognizable identity continues intact from the past to the future to justify saying that anyone is an isolated rebirthed product of another. Some folks might be able to access some threads of karmic inertia that have gone into the mix which they now care for, but these are better described as the undealt inclinations to act in a specific way than as any specific or recognizable past personality.
This actually applies to all sentient life. Each expression of life is just a cab transporting the quotient of available karma that was needed to initiate it's lifeforce.
Here, trying to define what is sentient and what is not, or what constitutes karma and what doesn't, seems questionable when filtered through the limits of human reasoning and our other sense gates.
But....
If one wanted to step onto the path of harmlessness, acting as if everything has some level of potential sentience within it to lose, is not a bad way to start practicing it.
One thing that I came across some time ago which may be relevant here, is that Rudolf Steiner, the rather visionary educator and founder of the Anthroposophy movement, thought that bees were after man the most intelligent creatures on the planet.
Did @Lobster put sentience and politicians in the same sentence? There is a raging debate as to the sentience of politicians. Insects, however, are sentient.
Yes, I think he wrote in haste and we repeat with pleasure...