A cruel scene in singapore

last SG · 2007-12-03T16:03:08+00:00

The world is always an evil one, no matter how you justify it. There are many acts of evil, which is why this world is seen as impure and unruly by all highl...

gigabyte14 SG

we are on top of the food chain

that is all i have to know

soul_rage SG

That's not my point

I refer back to my posting
"Then that would result in the prey of such creatures in that region of the sea getting eaten at a higher rate, and if they have any consciousness, they would blame you for the releasing of these creatures into the place they live in. "

The saving of one life could result in the death of many others. So what are you going to say about the creatures that die because of you releasing a fish you saved into the habitat of other creatures which the fish feed on?

By saving one, you could have killed tens or hundreds or even thousands. So is saving the fish good or bad karma?

soul_rage SG

Why does eating vegetables not constitute bad karma?
Maybe vegetables also know pain?

Gasfene SG

There are kind people like you around because there are cruel people as well. Yin and Yang always co-exists.

bohiruci SG

Dear all ,

judging from the post i saw ,some isnt clear the workings of karma here

and a little knowledge is a dangerous one

setting free to fishes is good deed , it still a good intention

i do not agree if the fish abt to die , we kill it first

in Yogacara teaching we planted seeds for future suffering .by killing ,a seeds is planted ,becos the intention to kill is there

We should just silently pray for the fish to be reborn in Western Paradise
if we really have no means to save the dying fish

I saved a fish on my way home last time on a bus ride , a guppy suddenly jumped out of a man plastic bag and jumping on the floor .I hold it when the bus reaches the river ,but before i could find a waterway for it (which most drain is dry up during the hot season ) the fish tremble ,means its in the last stage of death .

Nevertheless i put the fish in a drain and let the have water in that drain .

I know i have no intention of killing the fish ,and that fish will have a better burial in the water grave then to let it die on the bus

annoy-you-must SG

My apologies. I misunderstood your statement (i thought you meant the released fish is going to be a prey anyway).

However, going by your logic, exterminating lions, tigers, eagles and all carnivorous animals produces good karma?

Perhaps. 'Intention' is the key here.

annoy-you-must SG

Someone please answer this. I've been asked this many times but is unable to give an intelligent reply.

'Vegetables also living things what. You eat them you also kill them.'

bohiruci SG

First , according to Buddha , and science have found out that

the heart of grass does not have experience, consciousness component and cannot remember well

though some scientist place plants to listen to Mozart ,but how long it take to grow well ? 3 months

if human placed in a music environment,how fast ? faster than that

Plants eating is considered lesser karma ,becos when we harvest the plants
the worms will be killed accidentally

I have a shifu who always ordered this crop of vegetable from Cameroon Highland which the family chant Great Compassion Mantra with ordinary water to spray without the fertiliser and pesticide

remember intention is STILL CENTRAL OF BUDDHA TEACHING
we want to kill animal , but does the animal remember who his slayer is ?
yes

thats why the karma is heavy and next life we will encounter ppl chasing for our lives

SnowFlag SG

The slaughter is committed for those who wants to eat meat. Except that the slaughter is done first, then see who wants to buy. So how can say not commited for his sake?

In Buddha's time, he wasn't earning, so he couldn't be too choosy about the food given by others.
But now, most of us makes a living and can actually choose to buy or not.

dangerboi SG

Laughing

I find it funny and not cruel though. I ate goose's legs in china few years ago. The goose were made to run in an enclosed area. They had to run around as they were on red hot burning charcoal. LOL. Having being cooked, their legs were chopped off. Can you imagine a live goose without legs? Twisted Evil

soul_rage SG

No worries. I am just having a fruitful discussion here. I am a neutral party and only like to seek more answers.

Anyway, again, I ask a question.
By exterminating lions, tigers, etc (all the top of the food chain), is that necessarily good karma?

Coz you would leave the 2nd level as top of the food chain, and their numbers would then spread and the destruction to the 3rd level of the food chain will increase manyfold.

in this case, those on the 3rd level of the food chain would hate the person who killed off all of those on the top of the food chain.

Basically, I look at it from multi-perspective

You save the fish, the fish is 'grateful'
You release the fish to the river, it starts eating mosquito larvae.
Because if you had not released the fish into the river, maybe not so many mosquito larvae would have been eaten.
Going by the Karma theory, that would mean that the larvae would be pissed by your act of kindness, coz in their perspective, its an act of cruelty.

Buddha may say 'Those who did not have the intention is innocent'. But is that necessarily so?

The US, based on their intelligence, bombed the wrong house and accidentally killed innocent people. Is that also innocence based on buddhism teachings, since they did not have the intention to kill innocent people?

soul_rage SG

So just because plants may not be able to remember much, means its warranted that we can eat much more of them, and sacrifice more of them than animals?

What if one day, Science finds out that plants can remember, and can know pain, sadness, etc?

So what are human beings going to do? Starve and die?

And judging from how you mentioned about the animal remembering who his slayer is, it means that all I need to do is avoid killing the animal, but then I can continue to consume as much as I want, coz the animal won't know it was I who increased the demand of meat, and therefore increases the no. of animals the butchers kill?

An Eternal Now SG

I used to think that plants are completely biological functions. Then I was watching one of my taiwanese teacher's talks the other day and he explained that plants also have awareness/dharma nature, but they are not the same sort of sentient being as us because they do not have discriminative function. But they do respond to environment, sunlight, etc, and that is also due to awareness. Our forummer Thusness also agreed with this.

So if they have awareness why can we eat them? Because they do not have dualistic consciousness, discriminative mind of a sentient being and do not create karma or undergo rebirth, they do not suffer. But by killing an animal, we are causing them to suffer because of their dualistic identification, discrimination, and attachment. They will attach to pain and their body and cause suffeng. So we must never kill a sentient being.

An Eternal Now SG

No, that is not possible because a plant does not have dualistic consciousness that suffers and give rise to dualistic, negative emotions.

Anyway in the first place plants do not have a nervous system and cannot react mentally to any events. Their reaction does not go through conceptual thinking or 'mental thinking'. Just like if I drop a molten iron ball on your hand, it is not your mind that reacts first, but awareness and the immediate pulling away of your hand.

As my Taiwanese teacher has often said... Awareness is your Buddha-Nature, it is natural and spontaneous every moment. Breathing, walking, seeing, hearing, all are happening spontaneously as the expression of your Buddha Nature but we miss that due to our attachment to mental constructs.

Now going back to the hand, the pulling away of the hand and the immediate pure sensation of the pain does NOT involve dualistic concepts and thoughts -- such as 'I am in pain'. 'I am in pain' only comes after the pure sensation and forms due to our karmic propensity, forming a dualistic relation 'I' and 'pain'.

The pure feeling of pain, or sound, or any perception arises first as awareness, just that. You feel the pain first, or rather more accurate, feeling arises first as pure awareness before you 'know' or mentally perceive the pain. The pain is simply a spontaneous manifestation of your own nature.

Next, it is true that any form of impure meat that is consumed has heavier karma. It does not however mean that eating frozen meat is totally free from karma -- it is just less because it is indirect and not direct killing. Direct killing is more serious, that is why I said previously in this topic,

.....Five Clean Sources of Meat (article)

...Buddha understands the ignorance and habits of sentient beings that have accumulated from aeons of their many past lives. In order to provide sentient beings with an expedient means of embracing Buddhism, those who are not able to convert to a vegetarian diet on a long term basis are permitted to consume meat provided:

(1) That he did not slaughter the animal personally
(2) That he did not instruct others to slaughter
(3) That the slaughter was not committed for his sake
(4) That he did not witness the slaughter
(5) That he did not hear the cries associated with the slaughter...

That is why ordered seafood is not Pure Meat. Frozen meat can at least be considered 'clean meat' -- it is not direct killing, so the karma is not so strong. Nevertheless it is still killing so being vegetarian is best. But not everyone wants to be a vegetarian, so the least is we must try eat only the 5 clean meat. I myself try to abide by this, as I am not a vegetarian.

justdoit77 SG

If so, using the same logic, if the fish is not released, then the level below it will grow in number and bring more harm to next level.
Anyway, release the fish or not is not the purpose of me bringing out this topic coz I know if people like to eat fish, they can come out with 1000 more reasons of eating it.
My concern is if they for sure want to kill the fish, why can't they give it a quick death. Even if the fish will not remember who is the killer, the karma will know it.

An Eternal Now SG

'For your sake' means it's intended for you as an individual.

Frozen meat is sold to masses but not directed specifically to you, SnowFlag, as an individual. It is not killed specifically for your purpose.

Therefore the karma is lighter. But doesn't mean no karma. See my previous post.

justdoit77 SG

You also one who like to discuss about this ah? good.
There are many more interesting articles in the buddhism forum.
Feel free to take a look.

soul_rage SG

I am, I am not against Buddhism, but I am just asking questions that warrant a good discussion in order to understand more.

Amongst the religions, in my personal opinion, Buddhism is one that is closest to my heart, because it stems out from a philosophy on how we should live our life, similar to how I set out my own philosophies for my life.

So for those who are devout Buddhists, please pardon me for any unintended offence. I respect your beliefs but I wish to understand how you view things that happen in life.

soul_rage SG

Precisely, you got my point. Saving the fish may or may not be a good thing.
It could help or it could cause more harm.

However, I agree with you that if we should eat a fish, we should give it a quick death. That is what differentiates us from animals.

For instance, an animal uses its instinct to bring a quick death to a prey because it wishes to quickly take it down and bring it away so that other predators do not come along to snatch the carcass. However, in the event which they cannot give a quick death, they will just eat the prey alive. I guess this is Nature's way of attempting to reduce pain to the victim (by giving an instinct to the predator to kill quickly)

But for us humans, we should give it a quick death because we do not wish the animal to suffer. Abstaining totally from meat is not perceived by me as the correct thing to do. In this sense, I agree with other forumers here on the issue of INTENTION.

I personally minimize (and moving towards abstain) eating live drunken prawns (the type where the prawn is thrown alive into the wok, etc), because there are less painful ways of eating prawns.

Croaking_Toad SG

I would like to pose a question to the above. Does that mean that if we were not to violate any of the five points above, we are able to consume meat in peace? Wouldn't that be deluding yourself that an animal still had to be slaughtered for our meal?

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