mayne@nu.cs.fsu.edu (Bill Mayne) (02/28/91)
Continuing my previous post on the precepts, right livelihood, and the limits of personal responsibility I come to the latter, a more subjective and personally uncomfortable part. I begin quoting from Francis Story's essay "Will and Responsibility", reprinted in "The Buddhist Outlook", Buddhist Publication Society, 1973. This is an anthology of some of the writings of Story (1910-1971). It carries no copyright notice: *** QUOTE - Francis Story "Will and Responsibility" *** The whole of Buddhism centres about man's personal, individual responsibility. When an act of volition is performed, it is the responsibility of willing the act which determines its character as either wholesome or unwholesome Kamma. Just as a man is only responsible for his own actions, and not in any sense those of another person, so also his moral responsibility is limited to foreseen or foreseeable results. If there were not this strict limitation of the field of responsibility to the intention, the deed, and its immediate result, it would become quite impossible to distinguish between good and bad Kamma. [Story gives as an example the possibility that money given for a charitable purpose could be misused with disasterous results, but that the donor would not be karmically responsible for this, nor should such a possibility be used as an excuse not to give. He continues...] Thus, in Buddhism, the Precept to abstain from killing means just precisely that, neither more nor less. Its primary, if not sole object is to prevent the arising of unwholesome states of consciousness which are the ineluctable accompaniments of a desire to take life and the act of killing...There cannot, in other words, be any moral responsibility attached to involuntary or accidental killing..." [A strong argument against euthanasia follows.] It is because of man's inability to control events in the external world beyond a certain point that the Buddha did not concern Himself with the matter of food...If flesh was offered by the lay disciples it was "pure" - that is, permissable - if three conditions were observed. The Bhikkhu should not eat it if he saw, heard, or suspected that the animal had been specially killed for him. When those three conditions were fulfilled, his mind was pure because he was absolved of moral responsibility...Just as there cannot be any responsibility for an action performed by another, so there cannot be retrospective responsibility for any act already committed by someone else without one's knowledge. Buddhism is concerned with mental states, not with economics, so that to bring in considerations of supply and demand is irrelevant. Such considerations only serve to extend the field of individual responsibility beyond all legitimate bounds, exactly in the same way as do considerations regarding the possible evil effects of giving charity that may be misused by the recipient..." "It must be understood that this article is not a criticism of vegetarians or vegetarianism..." *** END QUOTE *** It must be understood that the position Francis Story was taking regarding vegetarianism, at least as regards bhikkus, is thorougly supported in the Pali canon, specifically the Jivaka Sutta, and that he was writing partly in response to criticisms sometimes aimed at Theravadins by some Mahayana Buddhists who are vegetarians. I am a lay Theravada Buddhist and a vegetarian myself, although I accept the rationale of Francis Story and the Jivaka Sutta. I bring this up not to address vegetarianism, but because of its relevance to concerns such as >"...Among the problems raised by an attempt to practice samma ajiva are: > >1. whether one can support, by working, paying taxes and accepting > benefits, a government which is engaged in warfare, or actively > preparing for it; [Jack Carroll's quotation of Ven. Saddhatissa.] As I explained in my previous post the Pali canon tells us explicitly that dealing in weapons is wrong livelihood. So we would have good reason as Buddhists to take some middle position such as not working directly in the military or defense industries. But believing that we are personally guilty if we pay taxes or accept any benefit from our government, or use oil from the fields of Kuwait, may reasonably be equated with extending personal responsibility to actions already committed by others without our knowledge or consent. This may be further than we need to go. (Okay, call me a hypocrite for my vegetarianism.) Perhaps others struggling with the issues recently raised by the Gulf War, which, as I write this, is thankfully all but over, can take some comfort in the limits of responsibility. We need not separate ourselves entirely from our very imperfect society in our zeal for the precepts. Not even bhikkus do that. Neither must our accomadation and moral separation mean a wholesale abandonment of larger concerns. The Jivaka Sutta, the primary source of Francis Story's argument regarding vegetarianism being optional for bhikkus and by extension other limitations of personal responsibility, does go on to show that adhering to the first precept means more than not performing slaughter ourselves. *** QUOTE - Jivaka Sutta 11, translation by Ven. Nyanamoli *** If anyone slaughters a living being for a Tathagata or his disciple, he lays up much demerit in five instances: When he says "Go and fetch that living being", this is the first instance in which he lays up much demerit. When that living being experiences pain and grief on being led along with a neck-halter... When he says "Go and slaughter that living being"... When that living being experiences pain and grief on being slaughtered... When he provides a Tathagata or his disciple with food that is not permissable... he lays up much demerit. Anyone who slaughters a living being for a Tathagata or his disciple lays up much demerit in these five instances." *** END QUOTE *** In conclusion, we do what we reasonably can, taking responsibility for our own voluntary actions, not willfully having others do for us what we should not do for ourselves, but restricting our attention to our own acts and their immediate consequences, not looking down a long chain of causality for sources of unproductive feelings of guilt. I certainly have enough faults which I can do something about. I don't need to go looking very far wrongs to set right.
srinath@unix.cis.pitt.edu (Srinath Viswanathan) (03/02/91)
Hi, I don't think your vegetarianism is necessarily hypocritical. Hindu lay belief (as I have heard from my mother and grandmother) is that the hunter of the game (or Butcher) is sinless, but the consumer (buyer) of the flesh is not. I have always interpreted this to mean that the hunter is sinless as he is only doing his job, and earning a living to feed his family (following his dharma, in Hinduism) while the consumer is wilfully supporting killing, even though he may have other sources of food that don't require killing. I don't know if I have stated myself clearly enough, or whether this notion is too far in your opinion from the precepts of Buddhism, but I think it should be possible to make a case for vegetarianism in Buddhism. Interestingly, there are parallels in Hindu mythology of Gods accepting flesh as gifts from hunters; the explanation for this is the same that you give for a Bhikku being allowed to accept flesh as food. Best wishes, Srinath srinath@unix.cis.pitt.edu