From a Talk Given By Very Ven. Thrangu Rinpoche at Gampo Abbey including This is My Monastery: Question: If there are a thousand Buddhists in Boulder, Colorado and each one of them eats one chicken each week: that’s 52,000 chickens in a year. And since verything is computerized, the producers know that they will raise these extra 52,000 chickens because they know they will be eaten. If the Buddhists didn’t eat chicken, they wouldn’t raise them. Rinpoche: If we buy say eight hundred fish at the market today, tomorrow they are replaced by eight hundred new fish. Any action is their karma, not our own. But from our own point of view there may be the foundation, but there is no intention or motivation. Thus we may have the intention of eating meat, but we do not have the intention of killing the animal. Since not all of the four factors are present, it is not a violation of the precept. Question: What about the active intention of trying to stop others from killing? If one thousand Buddhists stopped eating chicken, they would actually have the chance of stopping the chicken breeders from killing. They wouldn’t be able to make money, so they won’t kill them. Rinpoche: In this realm we cannot persuade others not to kill. For example, in the oceans how many small fish are killed by the bigger fish? What is important is for us to refrain from killing, and in that way we can stop killing. It is not possible to persuade others. Question: At Gampo Abbey we take the five precepts daily. Should we formally take this precept of not killing knowing that later in the day we are going to stick a shovel through many worms or whatever. Does it make a difference if our motivation is to develop food here? Does it make a difference whether that precept for that day is formally taken or not? Rinpoche: It’s appropriate to take the precept even though we may kill insects while working. Since we have the motivation not to kill them, then we are not killing intentionally.
Posted on: Thu, 10 Jul 2014 11:12:26 +0000
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