This was brought to mind when i was picking fleas out of my cat's ears and crushing them the other day. I thought, I don't kill any other kinds of animals, so why am i doing this? In fact, I make a point of releasing even the smallest insects outside. But this made me think about the subject and the question arose... What would Buddhists do if they had pubic lice?
I believe there's a line between rights and nature, whereas a flea's or a lice's defense is their numbers and small size, and if allowed to ho on uninhibited would cause the sickness or death of the host, therfore it becomes a matter of instinctively portecting one's physical being, which is hardwired genetically. Not to say that killing is right or wrong in tha respect, but is a part of nature and is just how biological systems function and maintain balance. Even when i squash a flea though, i give thought to the flea, try to make it painless and quick, and as less traumatic as i can, because we have no idea, fleas could be the most advanced and intelliget creatures ever to hace existed, yet their physical limtations and sprcifically adapted body would have surely kept their intellect chained. As an example, look st some of the infrastructire ants and termites build, and how about bees? they have their own biological equivalent of GPS and can communicate evffectively to to others in a colony the location of a food source 10 miles away down with accuracy within a few feet. As humans we need billions of dollars o0f infrastructure and technology to do the same. Maybe insects are so smart that they have no need for technology becuase they have the genetic biotech that is so adavanced it's not necessary, as well as their small size allowing them to exist in a microcosm, a sublayer of the rest of the animal kingdom. The next time you have a beehive removed from your property, sprinkle diazinon on your lawn to fend off ants, or swat a fly, think about the fact that you may have very well killed an advanced lifeform, or even wiped out a techno-natural civilization with chemical weapons. Peace
im not a big fan of animal rights, i know that we shouldnt treat animals cruelly for the sake of of treating them cruelly, but i'll be damned if any smelly, long haired, whiny animal rights activist is gonna get me to stop eating meat
the mass hoarding of animals is really wrong, i have seen some farms in america (not america bashing, im sure it happens elsewhere) of thousands upon thousands of animals hearded up and slaughtered. it aint cool. i live on a farm where sheep get arnt closed up iwht 20 in one meter anda "decent life". i would like to just kill what you want to eat there and then.
Good point sicks, I think of it like that sometimes too. My only excuse is when they're trying to eat me! I think it's pretty justified then!
I'm a Buddhist and if i had pubic lice i would have them irradicated immediately and then i'd try to find out who gave me them in the first place. I just see it as the way things naturally are. Karma i guess. The lice would make my pubes itch so i'd get rid of them. ^.^