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Why is killing an insect considered as bad as killing a human in Buddhism?
TheEccentric
Hampshire, UK Veteran
When a human life is obviously worth much more than an insects?
Surely if Buddhism emphasizes how precious human lives are an how common animal loves are taking away a being's human life is taking away a lot more from a being than taking away a being's animal life?
Surely if Buddhism emphasizes how precious human lives are an how common animal loves are taking away a being's human life is taking away a lot more from a being than taking away a being's animal life?
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It is not so much a mathematical equation of the worth of one over another, but is instead the manifestation of a practice fostering empathy, sympathy, tenderness, benevolence, compassion and love without reservation.
If you dare say that you would value the life of a head lice over the health of your daughter, I'll find you and kick you in your petutie.
"Why is killing an insect considered as bad as killing a human in Buddhism?
Am I correct?
Moderator note: Title corrected.
Anyway, to answer that -from my point of view- it's all about the 'act' of killing and the intent behind it .... not necessarily the 'value' or what is being killed.
Personally I don't consider simple organisms or tiny brained animals and insects to be of the same value as higher level animals with larger, more complex brains, anyway. Mind you, I'm not saying they have no value.
I don't take the Buddhist idea of "killing an insect is the same as killing your own mother or father..." literally. But I know this topic has come up before and there is a whole myriad of views on it. I'm just stating mine.....
Currently dealing with a small flea infestation (oh the joys of the country). Definitely not just going to allow this to get out of hand and make my animals suffer in the process/risk catching anything... all the pets now have a dose of flea killer and I don't feel ambivalent about it.
But on the other hand, I recently just bought a bug vacuum that I'm super excited about and have been using it to kindly move bugs/spiders outside.
Intention is everything.
I disagree totally that intention is everything. Example: the middle school girl that whacked an opposing field hockey player with her stick: "I didn't intend to break her leg." Vinlyn: "You're suspended for 5 days."
From the Buddhist point of view, humans are in their own realm or category primarily due to their more developed mental faculties. In fact, that's precisely the definition of the Pali term denoting humans, manussa, which means 'those who have an uplifted or developed mind' (mano ussannam etesam). Psychologically speaking, humans don't seem to be as constrained by instinct as animals appear to be, which is one of the reasons I think the animal realm is often associated with lower levels of intelligence , as well as rudimentary faculties of volition that aren't as open to being developed as ours seem to be.
In Theravada, for example, it's held by those who take the teachings on rebirth literally that animals aren't capable of the same level of intention (cetana) as human beings. As such, they're unable to practice the Dhamma and therefore they must wait until they take rebirth as a more mentally-evolved being (e.g., human, deva, etc.). Taken metaphorically (which many Buddhists do), they illustrate mind states that are base and ignoble, lacking heedfulness and blindly (instinctively) searching for, and acquiring, sensual pleasures.
Whatever the case, the general impression I get is, the more evolved or refined the mental faculties of a being are, the more blameworthy the act of killing that being is and the heavier the kammic impact. If you look at the monastic rules of discipline in the Vinaya, for example, you can see this reflected in the penalty for killing a human being as opposed to that of killing an animal. If a monk (bhikkhu) kills a human being, they incur a parajika, i.e., they are 'defeated' and no longer considered a monk. If a monk deliberately kills an animal, however, it's a pacittiya offense, i.e., entailing confession.
So while the intentional taking of life is discouraged in Buddhism and considered to be a blameworthy act, I don't think it's fair to say that Buddhism equates the life of an insect to that of a human being.
Killing the insect – in a beginningless universe – is killing the sentient being that once was your mother. And this sentient being could in a next life – due to your bad karma – be the one who kills you in return.
Sentient beings are just sentient beings; the insect and your mother are different shapes of the same sentient being. That’s the idea, I think.
It is not my idea, but it is a way of looking at Buddhism, and it would make all killing equally problematic.
It is true, though, that Buddhism focuses on individual life and individual conduct instead of ecosystems or societies. It's a reflection of the arahant solitary meditation and enlightenment practice that gave it birth. When practicing Buddhism means withdrawing from society and focusing all your effort on your own advancement, then a wider view doesn't get a lot of attention. That's an inherent flaw in many eyes that must be addressed. So killing disease carrying mosquitos or killing fish to feed starving children is just as wrong as killing the children? To an arahant, yes it was. Starving children or people suffering from malaria were only working out their inherited karma. That's the circle of birth and rebirth, karma, regrettable but hey, it's Samsara and life is full of suffering so all one can do is work to escape it. What's important is his own state of mind.
But Buddhism is not a dead, static thing. Today we have both the circle of rebirth and the circle of life. The ancients didn't know bugs carried disease, or what caused disease at all except for karma, and they had no idea that an ecosystem depended on death as much as birth. So we have to work on fitting the core beliefs of Buddhism into what we know today. It's not easy. Take our modern "socially engaged Buddhism". Totally foreign to the Buddha, who considered the ills of society to be something one simply had to accept as unavoidable and withdraw from. He never taught we had a duty to change society. He considered killing wrong but didn't tell the King to stop waging war. He taught compassion but didn't do a thing about the starving orphans and widows or preach against slavery in his society. It was all about withdrawing and individual conduct.
Thank you for mentioning "socially engaged Buddhism", a term with which I was not familiar. I quickly Goggled it, and did a quick read about it, and want to learn more. I did just read Thich Nhat Hanh's 14 Precepts of Engaged Buddhism, and while I may not endorse it 100%, it's very interesting.
But that's not exactly the same point as this topic. In my post, I brought up two opposing ideas... One was that I've recently been dealing with a flea infestation and do not feel bad for killing them. That is because my intention is not to simply kill the fleas, my intention is actually to protect my animals and unfortunately, sometimes that's just the way it goes. But the next point I brought up is that I have been using my bug vacuum to safely transport bugs out of my home because I have no reason to wish to kill them if they pose no harm to me, although, many people do just kill a spider when they see one in their home. This is what I mean by 'intention is everything'. I try to live as peacefully as I can in this world, but sometimes even ahimsa can be taken to extreme.
Come on; Buddhism is more intelligent that some kind of 'do or don't' religion.
So is a mosquito capable of suffering? Who the heck knows? And there is the problem.
In crackpot dharma, carrots and magic hats are sentient. Indeed your vegetable soup may have one day been a Buddha before you liquidated its potential . . .
The important thing is to treat all realms with respect, whilst not abandoning your holy hat, head or common sense.
May all vegetables and holy hats be at peace.
"You" may not have intended to kill the viruses or bacteria, but the immune system does it automatically. Unless you consider the individual cells that kill to be you!
Your survival is dependent on the deaths of many living things. Think of how many chickens, fishes etc that you will have to consume in your lifetime. That is the nature of being alive.
This is a game that can never be won.
But I still had a phobia with wasps, hornets, fire ants-- biting and stinging insects (and cockroaches!). It took a little five-year old girl named Athena (yes, Athena!) to help me overcome my fear --and therefore also my irritation. I met her and her mother at the monastery a few months ago. Athena loved to check out insects of all kinds and was very much at ease with them. But her mother told me that she used to be absolutely petrified by insects. So we checked out insects along the path together and since then I've improved considerably.
What I used to do though was get so upset by the presence of a flying insect that I would get irritated about it. It reminds me of this haiku by Issa:
Striking the fly,
I hit also
A flowering plant.
This irritability was a habit ingrained in me long ago, when I was a child. Now I gently brush them away from my head, but I don't swat at or attempt to kill them-- not if I can help it.
The Mindfulness Trainings in Thich Nhat Hanh's tradition all begin with the exact same phrase: "Aware of the suffering caused by ... " For myself, that lucidity is the key to understanding Buddhist practice. It isn't about "Thou shalt not ... " but about recognizing how I am not separate from my sourroundings-- rather I participate in my surroundings. I can make my surroundings more or less peaceful depending on my own mindfulness of a given situation.
These precepts cannot be "followed" in any absolute sense-- that's not even the point (again, they are not commandments). The first Mindfulness Training says: "...I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life..." The point rather is to raise my awareness of it in order to meet suffering with compassion, in order to "cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world." The greater the awareness, the more non-violence can be cultivated.
Whether insects are or are not sentient, they still can teach US a thing or two about tolerance, patience, and non-violence. They can help to train us for other, far more difficult creatures, such as human beings. So yes, I do think that killing insects can have a cumulative karmic effect, watering negative seeds within oneself.
Why would I WANT to kill an insect? I can identify with @zombiegirl 's situation because I had my problem with the flies that got very out of hand. But *IF* I can avoid doing so, I will. I certainly won't go out of my way to kill an insect when there are other alternatives.
We as a society made the decision to declare genocide upon billions of disease carrying insects and other animals like rats because eliminating human suffering trumps other life. Doctors tell us it's dangerous to allow mosquitos to breed and multiply around people anywhere because of diseases picked up from birds that might be waiting for that one bite to infect you or your neighbor. In our daily lives as lay Buddhists, there is an ongoing discussion about how far do we go to keep the precepts while still living a normal and safe life.
But on the other hand, I ended up with foster kids this year and I'm having a problem getting them to stop killing bugs, even outside, simply because it's an icky bug they see. And it's about time for the field mice to move into the house again with the start of cold weather, when we must kill them because no live trap I've tried has ever caught one. Also, to my mind, dumping a live mouse outside in the freezing cold where it will quicky die where I don't see it does not relieve me of the responsibility.
So I go back and forth. In the meantime, some animals get a death sentence because of what they are, while some are cherished for what they are. I have to accept the karma of sitting in judgement.
I just wish people didn't feel like just because you might not be perfect, doesn't mean you can't try to be better. My first post ever on this site was involving the spiderpocalypse I went through in my apartment a few years ago. A nest had hatched and in a panic, I got the vacuum... You know the rest. But now I try to be better.
The other day a barely visible insect crawled across my screen. Why kill it? If really annoying I can blow it away.
Will you stop eating vegetable produce because of the numbers of insects killed during tilling and plant growth, were they even if not sprayed, battle to kill the insects that try to eat their development. No?
Are you sanctioning Murder?
Existence really does involve dukkha. Get over it . . . :wave:
But sometimes people say "Well, it just the circle of life so it really does not matter if you kill bugs or not". This is a huge mistake and not "right action"!
The most skillful way to deal, with tapeworms for example, is to not put yourself in a position where you would have to kill them to begin with. Another example would be roaches. The best way to deal with roaches is to keep your home clean so they don't come there to begin with. Of course that is not always possible but it's more possible than people realize sometimes. The best course of action is to not put yourself in a position where you would have to make that choice to begin with, if possible.
:om:
When I go on my daily walk, I attempt to avoid stepping on insects. When I had some flies in the house during our unusually wet summer here, I either shooed them outside or ignored them (which wasn't easy). On the other hand, we do have some somewhat dangerous spiders out here, so if they are in the house they get killed. Similar with snakes. If I see them out and about...let them be, unless they are immediately around my house or in my window well...then they are killed. And so, as you say, it comes down to choices.
2. As I posted earlier in this same thread, it depends on how one views sentience...where is the line drawn.
But I think I know where you're coming from: some people make a huge deal out of not killing critters, even accidentally. And it's quite understanable that you are irked by that attitude.
I don't subscribe to it either. Sure, don't go out of your way to wack bugs and rodents just because you feel like it-- that's just perverse, Buddhism or not. Even my grandpa, who knew nothing whatsoever about Buddhism scolded me when, as a child, I'd smash ants out of boredom. But if the creature is a pest, a parasite or is stepped on unwittingly , I do not see what the big deal is.
I suspect that this "bugmania" is, in many cases, a distraction, a kind of an excuse to not address some *real* isues in one's life and environment. Don't go out of your way to not hurt bugs. But do go out of your way to help people. That is much, much harder and if you really commit to it, that'll take up all your energy and then some.