However, The Godfather also teaches us an important lesson about killing. When Don Vito Corleone wants to kill a man, as he sometimes does for solid business reasons, does he grab a gun and start shooting? Never. Not once in the film does he hold a gun in his hand. Don Corleone sits in his office in the family home in New York and speaks into the ear of his trusted consigliere, who instructs the family caporegimes to send a man who will pull the trigger that shoots the bullet that stops the brain of the disagreeable business associate who "cannot be reasoned with."
Is the godfather responsible for killing the man who has been killed? Where was the real intention to kill a man: in the plotting mind of the godfather who gave the order, or the low-ranking soldier who pulled the trigger of the gun? The answer to these questions seem to me to be that the intention to kill a man was the godfather's, and that it is the godfather, not the man who fired the gun, who is really responsible for the murder. The actual killer is merely a tool, like the bullet fired from the gun is a tool, of the intentions and plans of the godfather. It is the bullet in the brain that really kills, but we do not think that the bullet is guilty of murder: the guilt for the killing lies in the brain that had the intention to kill for a reason and which decided to act on that intention by giving the order to murder.
Similarly, butchers do not kill animals because they enjoy killing or want to kill. On the contrary, when butchers kill animals, they are acting as tools for customers. The intention that leads to the killing of animals comes from the customer's desire to eat meat that they do not need. If the customer needed the meat to live, they would not have a choice and would not be guilty of a free and deliberate decision to have animals killed because they taste good at dinner. In the same way, when a woman shoots a man trying to rape and kill her, we do not think she is guilty of murder: she had no choice but to kill the criminal. It is not the simple act of killing that we look at to decide guilt or innocence, but the reasoning and intentions behind the act. The godfather who orders a rival gang member killed is guilty of that killing, and Tops' supermarket customers who buy steak, chicken and fish are the intentional causes of those animals being killed. The cows, the chickens and the fish would not be killed if the customers did not order their dead bodies for dinner, and the rival gang member would not be killed if the mafia boss did not order it to improve his business opportunities in the drug market.
And I've probably now filled in enough of the argument to explain why I agree with those Buddhists who think that a correct understanding of the first precept of Buddhism means that Buddhists should not normally eat meat. This precept is commonly translated into English from the Pali as "I undertake the training rule to abstain from taking life" ("Five Precepts", 2012). I think this discussion, and similar discussions, matter. Good people, well-intentioned groups of Buddhists and others, disagree about such basic questions, and since the answers are opposed, at least one group must be wrong. The only way to get close to an answer, even if it's not a final answer but only the best understanding we can get at this time, is to have this sort of discussion.
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Reference
Five Precepts. (2012, October 7). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 23:39, October 18, 2012, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Five_Precepts&oldid=516511377
And in my comments this morning, I was again careful to avoid the more complex moral questions. Whether or not it's morally OK to eat meat is a separate question to whether or not Buddhism teaches its followers not to eat to meat. Things are not morally right or wrong because of what a religion teaches.
ReplyDeleteaccording to the basic five rules of buddhist. Eating meat seem like you force the butcher to kill animals for your consumption, you don't have to kill directly. Is it immoral? Honestly, I don't tell you that it's moral, however we have many buddhists who still eating meat, more than a half of Thai people, they aren't vegetarians, and I am one of them. I trust that the animals( include human ) will be retribution what they did. Honestly, I eat every thing I want even an ant I ate; if they were death, I would eat them. I am carnivorous person, I have to eat them for being life. If I suffer myself, I'll be sinister. However, buddha gave us a change that make a merit for animals who you suffer them; Consequently, I trust that all living beings are subject to their own destiny (karma).
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