From the Words of My Perfect Teacher, in the Chapter called “The Ordinary or Outer Preliminaries,” the section entitled “The Ten Negative Actions to be Avoided,” the first action to be avoided is taking life. This is one of three physical acts that is included in this section.
Patrul Rinpoche says that we human beings spend our lives taking the lives of others “like ogres.” Whether it be through eating the flesh of other beings killed to feed us; walking through a grassy meadow and crushing insects as we walk (a more modern example would be driving and killing insects as they hit the windshield of the car); or indirectly through eating the flesh of beings who have killed innumerable beings as their own sustenance, none of us is free from accumulating the karma of taking life.
The action of taking life is complete when it includes four elements: identifying the being to be killed is the basis of the action; wishing to kill is the intention; the actual killing is the execution of the action; the death of the animal is the completion of the act.
However, we can also describe it using the three elements that generally accrue karma: the intention, the act, and the rejoicing. Even though we may not participate in the intention or the act of directly killing another being, we may still rejoice in its death if it benefits us in some way. Also, Anyen Rinpoche had this comment to make about the idea of a neutral intention or action: We may not have the wisdom to know whether our action is actually neutral or not; we may simply be overpowered by ignorance. This could be another way that we delude ourselves.
Let us all contemplate or reflect on how we can lessen the accumulation of this karma; through regret and purification, a change in action, or any other way you can suggest. When we sit nyungne, for example, we will all eat vegetarian food for a week. Are there other small or large changes we can make in our lives to better abide by this precept?
Thanks for your comments! Allison
#1 by Yontan on June 28, 2010 - 12:51 PM
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This is a tough one. You’re right, none of us can escape it.
Commercial farming practices slaughter countless, countless field mice and rabbits, pulling those monster combines through the fields, etc. Eating at a restaurant ties us to their mousetraps/poison. Spraying your house for termites, taking antibiotics, swatting mosquitoes….
I have chickens. They eat worms. If I didn’t have chickens, they wouldn’t eat those worms.
As inevitable as killing is – or being tied to it at the least – I’ve approached the matter as a way to inspire me toward the bodhisattva path: “This life you find yourself in is completely suffused with suffering, old age and death. I cannot prevent your dying, but I can try my best to refrain from causing any harm as a way to increase my compassion and decrease self-centeredness. I will save all of you, personally when I am liberated myself from this whirlpool.”
Taking spiders and ants out of the house is not difficult. Mosquitoes on the other hand, I think I’m about 50/50 with the ones I’m able to successfully catch and release without squishing.
#2 by Clotilde Wright on June 28, 2010 - 4:56 PM
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You have chickens-cool. Speaking specifically to eating meat, this is a tough one. I have not put in the effort to become a vegetarian. The only ways that I can aspire to address the real suffering of animals at this point, thinking specifically of factory farmed animals, is to try to buy free range and limit my meat intake.
I remember the Dailai Lama saying that he admired a Hindu festival he observed because it was vegetarian, whereas it is a cultural practice for Tibetans to eat meat. So, he thought people should think about this subject, just as Rinpoche is asking us to think about it now.
My question is this: if we are knowingly taking in meat, is there some kind of a specific purification or dedication we can perform which can help? Should we work harder to become vegetarians?
#3 by Yontan on June 28, 2010 - 8:05 PM
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It’s a somewhat common bit of Tibetan “truism” that the bigger the meat the greater number of beings can be sustained per death. It has a certain ring of excusism in it, but I do think of it when I hear that certain class of vegetarians/vegans, the desperately rightous, speak about not harming beings. When possible, I would encourage those of us who do eat free-range meat to also think about the devastation to life caused by industrial farming vs organic, local small-scale farming. Let alone the above-mentioned combines, tillers, etc, there’s the lingering and compounding poison effect from herbicides and pesticides. Yucky stuff.
All we can do is be as informed as possible, and look for that bodhicitta motivation.
I have a when-eating-meat prayer from Kunkhyen Jigme Lingpa somewhere….
#4 by Chris E. on June 28, 2010 - 8:20 PM
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I actually struggle with this. I honestly don’t like to eat meat. I don’t dislike the taste but, having seen animals slaughtered, its source is usually at the front of my mind.
We often eat foods that don’t contain meat. In fact, our favorite breakfast sausage is the soy-sausage that is sold in many supermarkets (even my meat-i-tarian son prefers it to pork sausage, yummy!). There is a Taiwanese mock smoked goose that is better than any picnic ham I’ve ever tasted (but is hard to find, I can try to get the name and phone number of the importer for anyone who would like to try some).
So, I suppose that since I’m unsuccessful (partially successful??) as a vegetarian, I’m trying to minimize how much meat we eat. When we DO buy meat, we try to buy free range, grass fed, or the meat that is deeply discounted because it is about to go bad (somehow it seems better to eat it than to have the animal give its life for no reason).
As to other killing, we practice catch-and-release insecticide
. We try to eat organic foods to prevent the deaths from insecticides and herbicide runoff. Although we can’t prevent the bugs on the windshield, we try to limit driving to help limit the deaths and damage from oil production.
#5 by Julie on June 28, 2010 - 10:12 PM
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AAAAGh! Whiny rant alert (and I am really not prone to whiny rants…)
Oh man, so many mice this year. Worse yet, they have been deer mice, which are the ones that carry the deadly hantavirus. I wouldn’t get quite so spun up about plain grey field mice. I just don’t even want to handle these…dead or alive.
I tried to catch and release. I really did. I drove one a fair ways away, put it out at the side of the road, and it promptly ran into the street. Another time I was carrying the container to the back part of the property, a dog distracted me, I stepped into a hole, the mouse and trap flew into the air, mouse escaped the trap, but didn’t escape Libby the outdoor mouser.
It would appear that 100 yards away is not far enough to keep them from coming back in. And so I wound up with a garbage can with several mice in it one night, and dumped them the next day down the road. I have no idea what they are even eating…and cleaning the live-catch traps is a real mess… (note to self: need an outdoor sink).
We are currently really clearing out the garage so they have less place to hide and nest, wearing high-quality masks. Found a couple of holes we didn’t know about. To really keep them from coming in through the garage will take having the concrete replaced (it sags and they can get in under the door). Which will probably be $10K or so…
So I am killing them again for now. At least the rate is decreasing. Deer mice don’t usually come into houses, but I guess we are just special this year.
I have much regret, I do not rejoice. But killing is killing. So we will try to set aside the money for a new garage floor and a professional consult from an exterminator to find and eliminate the entry points.
And sing the song that Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso sang when someone asked him about the moths being killed on the windshield as they travelled:
All you sentient beings I have a good or bad connection with
As soon as you have left this confused dimension,
May you be born in the west in Sukhavati
And once you’re born there, complete the bhumis and the paths.
And Miller moths…don’t get me started on miller moths…
Okay, whiny rant over…
Julie
#6 by Yontan on June 28, 2010 - 10:29 PM
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Julie, I have the same mice coming in my house. Last fall it was crazy: think I caught about 12 in six weeks. Just kept taking them down to the creek/RR tracks about a mile down the street. Found a hole in the garage like you and sealed it up best I could with stuffing and heavy bricks. We were down to about one it seemed, then none for most of the late winter. Now there’s a couple running in and out of the kitchen. (Need to go inspect that spot in the garage again.) Sad part, when I went to dig out the mouse trap there were FIVE tiny little dead mice in there. Starved I’m sure. (sigh)
Here’s a side note about the hantavirus: bleach effectively kills the virus (I use activated bleach, about 2/3t ea bleach and vinegar into a gallon of water – add them to the water, not together then water!) Spray the area down really well before you start cleaning up droppings, urine, etc. I spray again when I’m done just for good mojo.
Statistically, going back about 17 years when the first big outbreak happened, you have about 1:13,000,000 chance of catching the virus (after which you have about a 70-75% chance of surviving it); you have about 1:100,000 of getting hit by lightening; winning the $200,000 prize in the CO lottery is 1:3,563,608.83.
You’ll win it four times before you get the virus. By then you’ll have your own personal live-in physician.
#7 by Anyen Rinpoche on June 28, 2010 - 10:51 PM
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Rinpoche says…(after laughing very hard at Yontan’s comment)
When I was at the shedra, I lived in an earth house. There was no concrete; I had nothing to put my food in. There was butter and tsampa out in my room. There were hundreds of mice in my room. At first, I pretended like I was a great Lama and I didn’t do anything. But they pooped in my butter and tsampa so I had nothing to eat. I think Yontan is right–I never got sick.
Finally, I built some traps. I caught 5 or 6 mice in each trap and emptied them into a box. I marked the mice using a needle and thread on their ears (this was very non-virtuous!) so I would know when they were returning. After I realized that they have to be released miles away not to come back, I carried them across a river past the village on the far side of the shedra. I released them, never even worrying about what they were going to eat once they got there. Maybe this was negative action, but there are many guesthouses for mice in Tibet.
#8 by Anyen Rinpoche on June 28, 2010 - 10:53 PM
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Sorry, I missed a line.
Rinpoche said, “Those mice were dancing on my bed at night!”
#9 by Yontan on June 28, 2010 - 11:51 PM
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Tell Rinpoche he can sew me up and take me across the river whenever he wants.
#10 by Chris E. on June 29, 2010 - 7:06 AM
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I’m howling. Our school in Taiwan was in the middle of a bunch of rice fields. We had rodents (they ranged from gargantuan mice to small rats, in Chinese they are all called lao shu). I didn’t mind them too much. In fact, I rather enjoyed them. We didn’t have a problem with them pooping in food, although we had one crawl into the copy machine and die. To my knowledge, that was the only rodent fatality in the school (it took is a week to figure out where the smell was coming from).
Caroline became the Mouse Trapper Extraordinaire. I don’t know if it is available here, but she used “mouse paper.” It is like fly paper, but with REALLY strong adhesive. Good luck getting it off the floor if the wind flips it over (one of the reasons SHE was responsible for mouse catching). I have an image of her a couple thousand meters from the school in a business skirt and high heels peeling a mouse/rat off the paper with a wooden spoon. The mouse/rat was bald on one side, it outline was still on the paper in fur. BUT, it was alive. Everyone thought we were crazy to release them (the other traps didn’t work, and we wouldn’t poison them, as recommended by our neighbors).
I hope the non-virtue of peeling them from the paper is outweighed by the virtue of releasing them. I also hope the non-virtue of having a hungry mouse stuck to paper with his nose centimeters away from peanut butter is less than the virtue of releasing. I can’t imagine being stuck on the paper with the sticky-goodness of the peanut butter goal *in clear sight*.
#11 by Clotilde Wright on June 29, 2010 - 7:47 AM
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Its so heart warming hearing about everyone’s attempts to save the mice!
Anyone whose lived in Japan knows you can’t escape roaches. Miraculously I only had one cockroach to contend with in two of the apartments I lived in. One of my students said if you’re going to kill a roach, hold up a pillow because they can fly! So, I did go after one, it was so big I heard it walking on the tatami from another room. I felt like a samurai going into battle with my pillow as a shield and the bug spray in hand. I feel really bad about that!
But, honestly, its really hard when it comes roaches! Can we think of killing them as part of preventing disease? Is it more justifiable? The same with bed bugs. I think I’ll keep Julie’s purification prayer handy….
#12 by Julie on June 29, 2010 - 8:34 AM
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Okay, I trap the mouse in my live trap, dip it in bleach and set it free? And it won’t come back?
Or maybe I should sew them together by their ears? Tho I think hantavirus is unique to the US, so Rinpoche didn’t have that issue. If it were just field mice…and the deer mice are MUCH cuter and bolder. And I’d bet Yontan’s statistics are for the population as a whole, as opposed to the population of people who live in a rural setting and clean out their garages. I don’t even want to think about the barn…Although it occurred to me the other day that one of the stalls could be turned into a retreat cabin.
I have heard that mice need to be on the other side of water to avoid a return. Rinpoche’s story confirms that. I have also heard that placing a strange mouse into a new population makes them prey to the resident mice. You wouldn’t think such small things would be territorial, but then I look at hummingbirds…
One thing I would never do is poison…the warfarin is an anticoagulant and is a long, unpleasant death. And big trouble if a dog gets it, too.
I do wish I had a video of me tripping in the hole, the mouse and trap flying up in the air and Libby chasing it down. You don’t know whether to laugh or cry, some days. And then splice in a shot of Clo with pillow and spray can, going into battle with Roachzilla…entitled “Buddhist approaches to pest control.”
If Libby wouldn’t do the same thing to a cat that she does to mice, I would consider that. (There I go, shoving my karmic repercussion onto another being.) Of course, here in coyote-ville, cats are fair game, too. Looks like I get to talk to some concrete companies.
There’s a melody to the song. Some days regret is the best you can do.
#13 by Julie on June 29, 2010 - 8:42 AM
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Please don’t sew me up and take me across the river! I promise not to poop in anyone’s food! I think we’ll keep Yontan, too.
#14 by Anyen Rinpoche on June 29, 2010 - 9:07 AM
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You do realize that the needle and thread was just to *tag* the mice–no actual sewing together of mice was done.
I have to say that Chris E’s comment is one of the funniest things I have ever read. But a half bald mouse…that must be its own kind of karma.
I am pretty sure Rinpoche isn’t planning to dump any of you across the river…yet.
Allison
#15 by Julie on June 29, 2010 - 9:20 AM
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But I am sure he could get lots of mileage out of the threat!
#16 by Yontan on June 29, 2010 - 9:51 AM
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(I was speaking of a particular river, one we’re all trying to cross.)
Thanks Clo for reminding me of giant flying roaches. When I lived in FL we kept those big coffee cans in all the lower cupboards, with a spoon of peanut butter in the bottom and a smallish hole cut in the lid. SOP was to get up, take a shower, dress, gather the coffee cans, take them back out to empty, replace, go about your day. Blech. 2″ long, crunchy, flying bugs that watch you when you walk across the room.
So, sounds like we have some handle on the pest control part. Does anyone have feelings about the cost-of-life aspect to vegetarian food production versus attempts at humane slaughtering of “big meat?”
[Can't remember who told the story - a student of Kalu Rinpoche (or was it the 16th Karmapa?) - saw him in a seafood restaurant holding his palm up to the lobster tank and chanting mani's. And then he ordered lobster.
[I should probably stop trying to tell stories I heard 15 years ago.]
#17 by Nancy on June 29, 2010 - 10:59 AM
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I don’t think I have laughed this hard at any other of the comments as I have at these. I am sure I generated lots of karma when I lived down south with all the bugs and how I kept them out of my house….long before I realized I was a Buddhist….though I did like it it seemed like a health hazard and a social norm. I am glad we have less in Colorado and I don’t have to worried about that now….though I have noticed more lately. When I visited my brother in Mississippi last year at the end of the visit he commented on how well I did with all the little roaches that were in his FEMA trailer and how I didn’t freak out as he expected. We had a pool growing up and there were those BIG flying ones that scared me. I too have wondered about Yontan’s comment on “cost-of-life” aspect of being a vegetarian. I think I will contemplate on that and whether being one would be beneficial….with all my allergies I am running out of food options. Though do always lose weight at nyungne and trust me it isn’t from a lack of eating enough food – it’s hard to eat 2,000 calories in one sitting but I bet I get close to that.
#18 by Chris E. on June 29, 2010 - 1:16 PM
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Yontan, I just got what you were saying and thankfully didn’t have a mouthfull of coffee (I often laugh at how SLOW I am, he he he).
I don’t mind roaches, honestly. We never had problems with them because we have cats (cats LOVE roaches, fun toys that aren’t so fun once you’ve broken them). Maybe it was growing up with them, but I’m fascinated by them. But, I’m a bug guy. I think bugs are cool.
Yontan, the issue of GMO soy in some of the soy foods that we like bugs me, as does the fact that it is often processed with toxic chemicals. My mother is planning a move to Bolivia, but is concerned about smoke from the burning of the forest for agriculture. I’m suspecting that the land is going to be planted in soy (could be wrong, I haven’t researched it). The economics are complex, but in many ways, I feel a link between some of my soy consumption and the burning of those forests (even if the bean I ate came from Argentina).
I really don’t know. When I think about doing anything, the best I can do is try to minimize impacts. As I think about it, I think that I must see minimizing impacts as lessening death/improving quality of lives?? I dunno, I’m thinking out loud here.
(Allison, no matter how many times I saw her in the field peeling mice off the paper, I’d double-over with laughter. Every time I think about it, I snort with laughter — thank goodness it hasn’t occurred to me during group meditations).
#19 by Anyen Rinpoche on June 29, 2010 - 5:20 PM
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I can imagine it would be difficult to control yourself.
#20 by Sarah on June 29, 2010 - 8:40 PM
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Great conversation!
I am in the same place as Clo, intending eventually to become vegetarian, but not putting enough into that currently. I have intentionally chosen meat less often, and I am increasing this as I am able.
One thing that is helpful to me is simply being aware that a being died, this was their body. My mother, my father, my son, aspiration for equanimity. In the past, I often didn’t really think about it as I was preparing a meal, or chosing what to order – now I do think specifically of the animal that has died, wish for a human rebirth for them, aspire to have a positive karmic connection, and say a some “om mani padme hung hri”. Same for any roadkill…
In our culture, the mass marketing of meat seems divorced from the idea of death, it seems to be another reflection of our avoidance of death, separating the death of the animal from the body. Doesn’t it seem similar to picking up a pack of crackers, to pick up a pound of ground beef? Or should I say, didn’t it in the past?
Awareness, intention…
#21 by Julie on June 29, 2010 - 10:43 PM
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There is no way to feed the 400 million people in the US (much less the 6+Billion in the world) without commercial farming. Buying foods that are carefully grown is a luxury for most.
Agreed that moving to vegetarian is an idea slowly germinating. If only Dave and I liked the same vegetables…Maybe we will watch “Food, Inc” this weekend and get some momentum built. He is so incredibly soft-hearted…and I think he might just ignore the mice vice trapping or killing them. And then they would start dancing in his tsampa and butter.
Do animals suffer? (vice feeling pleasure and pain). Can an animal being earn future karmic merit for its suffering? Besides the karma for a human, what is the karma for an animal?
#22 by Ananda on June 29, 2010 - 11:21 PM
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Reflecting on karma, I find it is completely inscrutable to an ordinary being like me. I don’t see the direct effects of karmic actions. I see effects (suffering! everywhere), but I don’t have the wisdom to know the cause. For example, the giant oil spill and all the fish and animals dying there- how can one explain that in terms of karma? So many beings are affected and implicated.
The laws of karma make complete logical sense, but I don’t think I have been able to truly observe them myself.
So, following precepts is an act of faith for me. I am grateful that we have these teachings to guide us to proper conduct, and I wouldn’t want to do anything else besides try to follow my refuge and bodhisattva vows.
But I wonder, is there a way to understand karma more directly? Not just based on logic and teachings or assumptions, but through observation?
#23 by Yontan on June 30, 2010 - 12:10 AM
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Ananda, greed cut corners and created this monstrous mess which is going to cost BP WAAAAYYYYYY more than they saved. Give us a harder example!
(deep breath in…)
[rant=] Julie, I love you but you’re dead wrong about organic farming. A 22-year study at Cornell (July ’05 of July issue of Bioscience Vol. 55:7) showed that organic farming produced the same corn and soybean yields as industrial/commercial farming, with 30% less energy input and much less water usage. We have all been sold a bill of goods, basically propagated by Dupont et alum who desperately need to keep fanning the flames of this 1950′s fantasy of feeding the world. Now we are seeing Roundup® resistent weeds springing up in defiance of this Utopian dillusion. (See “Roundup resistant weeds pose environmental threat,” Associated Press, Jun 21, 2010.) Their way hasn’t worked, and neither will any other way, inasmuch as their will always be suffering and starvation (especially for those living in a giant sand pit!) But we don’t have to poison our food to keep (as many) people (as we can) fed. [/soapbox]
Maybe this is the place to discus it. Not sure. Seems at least somewhat germane to the attempts to decrease suffering if not outright killing.
Besos, all. I’m late for milam.
#24 by Julie on June 30, 2010 - 8:25 AM
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Granted, I made the comment without actually thinking about it. My pondering before getting out of bed went along the line of “We can’t feed 400million people a diet of mostly meat without commercial farming.”
I have no idea how much commercial farming plays in how the rest of the world feeds itself. Except that they don’t eat as much meat. And large parts of the world don’t feed themselves that well at all.
So I am outside the area where I can argue that I know what I am talking about. Mind you, when I am in this mode, I pick up new pieces of information very carefully.
That’s my 10 minutes of free time for this morning…!
#25 by Nancy on June 30, 2010 - 8:37 AM
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OK a little off the original topic but……there is a very interesting book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver about ‘commercial vs local/homegrown farming’ – it was quite an eye opener for me. One comment I remember is that if we all bought 10% from local farms we would put a ‘hurt factor’ on the BIG commercial producers. 10% – WOW! I thought I can do that.
#26 by Yontan on June 30, 2010 - 9:16 AM
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[differentish subject:]
There’s a lot of skepticism in Western Buddhism around karma and rebirth. Are there other reasons we use for not taking life and trying to preserve it, besides fear of a bad rebirth?
#27 by Chris E. on June 30, 2010 - 12:19 PM
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Yontan, you are right about organic farming. My mother-in-law has grown veggies for market sale for . She switched from modern synthetics to organics about 15 years ago. If my recollection is correct, she saw a short dip in production overall, but after getting the organic methods right, it came back. In fact, I heard that some of her crops increased in productivity. What REALLY increased was her sales. Demand was so high that she stopped selling in markets, and started delivering her produce directly to long-term customers. People buy 100% of what she is willing to sell (she eats 1-2%, he he he)..
Julie, the meat is the issue. Think about the process: In most cases, unsustainable frankensoy is grown in one nation, shipped to another to feed livestock, which is slaughtered and shipped to a third country for consumption. I boggles the mind.
Yontan: One thing that occurred to me is that birth, life, and death are a process. I wonder if consuming meat is really a bad thing, as long as the animal has not suffered. The flesh of the animal means that the animal has moved on, hopefully to a better rebirth. For me, the issues are a.) suffering and b.) environmental degradation. If you are looking for reasons for non-Buddhist friends, maybe suffering and environment? Funny, I hadn’t really considered meat consumption from the perspective of my own karma, lol!! (for me, the non-karmic arguments had me re-considering a heavy meat diet a long time ago).
#28 by Yontan on June 30, 2010 - 3:56 PM
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Yeah. I certainly don’t understand the workings of karma, but what I’ve been taught leads me to believe that it’s all about intention and gathering accumulation, while trying to avoid the things that are at odds with that effort. The Buddha never proscribed eating meat as far as I can tell, but he did tell his monks not to eat meat that hadn’t changed three hands, and had possibly been killed just for them. He more than anyone understood the workings of interdependence. If monks were forbidden to eat meat, the market for buying meat to feed them wouldn’t be there, and that animal wouldn’t be killed. This is true regardless of how many hands pass it along before it gets to the monk. Also, He more than anyone understood that each being must die and be eaten by life. So what, then? It seems he taught this as a skillful means for softening the heart, generating compassion, revering life’s preciousness, etc., etc.
Like so much of the buddhadharma, we can certainly fool ourselves into allowing whatever we want, to be called “dharma,” but to really understand that a life was cut short to sustain my body, and to tie that sacrifice to my bodhisattva efforts (which require this body to remain), and to intentionally focus on the karmic bond between this animal whose flesh is being eaten, and to use that to strengthen my commitment to this and all beings… takes a lot of awareness and compassion. It’s much easier in a way to either stay away from it or remain ignorant of the whole thing. (I was a vegetarian for almost 10 years, and vegan for about 8 months of that.)
Myself, when I’m a cow, I always hope to be eaten by an aspiring bodhisattva instead of a mountain lion or McD’s customer. Doesn’t always happen for me, which is sad, so I try to do my part as a human to help out my mother cows.
#29 by Spencer on July 1, 2010 - 9:27 AM
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What about driving? Just a short trip to the supermarket on a summer night can be genocide for flying creatures. When I really think about this one, the only place I want to drive is to Rinpoche’s house. Nothing else seems worth the incredible carnage that my windshield inflicts on helpless little bugs. What to do what to do?
I’ve got to go drive to my clinic now, how will it even out between the karma of treating patients and the karma of pollution, wars for oil, adding to the angst of other drivers, and killing small sentient creatures.
I hate that conundrum.
#30 by Angela Tsultrim on July 7, 2010 - 8:44 PM
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Actually, I may have been one in a million to have caught the hanta-virus. Probably a case of over active imagination butttt….. I was given free living in Crestone in an old school bus that was converted into a cabin, very hippie, very Crestone, but I needed to clean it because no one had lived there for awhile. Lots….I mean lots of mouse poop. That night I woke up with sore throat, achey muscles, sweats, just like catching a bad flu, but it was summer and this body has never caught the flu in the summer, and I got scared and started praying hard not to get sick and I had a dream some very big guy was standing next to me, shoved his hand down my throat and pulled out a bunch of wiggling red centipede like worms with vicious snappers snapping away. The next day I was fine. Call it what you will, but I’m thankful. However, now that I think of it, what is the karma for killing germs and viruses? Does that apply? We are so into our cleaning products in America. It seems like the karma for overcleanliness and getting rid of the first germ we detect with multi-antibiotics, is resitant strain bacteria’s and viruses. Maybe too much pathophysiology and microbiology running through my head lately.
#31 by Yontan on July 10, 2010 - 9:38 PM
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Awesome story, Angela. thanks for sharing it.
If we look, how can we stop killing? Really? One’s every move to sustain oneself results in depriving others of that sustenance. It’s a closed system. The point simply cannot be to eradicate the act of killing.
So what is the point, then?