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HagbardCeline
Student-Teacher-Student-Teacher



Registered: 05/10/03
Posts: 10,028
Loc: Overjoyed, at the bottom ...
Last seen: 19 days, 13 hours
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On Buddhism and mercy killing
#21495001 - 04/03/15 01:01 AM (9 years, 1 month ago) |
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I know Buddhism says that killing cannot be justified, even in euthanasia or suffering pets. Having put a pet to sleep for the first time over 6 months ago, I can mostly agree. It was the most terrible thing I've ever been through and I still struggle with the decision. However in cases where perhaps an animal has struck by a car and mortally wounded, lying there suffering and screaming in pain it seems to be far less difficult decision.
It would difficult for me to know an animal is suffering greatly, that nothing can be done to save it and then just watch or leave it to die.
-------------------- I keep it real because I think it is important that a highly esteemed individual such as myself keep it real lest they experience the dreaded spontaneous non-existance of no longer keeping it real. - Hagbard Celine
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LunarEclipse
Enlil's Official Story


Registered: 10/31/04
Posts: 21,407
Loc: Building 7
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I won't detail the "story", as it's too painful to relate, but trust me on this one. Humans are treated far more inhumanely at "the end" than animals will ever be.
Eliminating suffering to end a shitty existence is a good choice. The "doctors" only give you the choice when even they feel sorry for making someone suffer further. You know it's got to be bad when even those evil money mongering pill pushing idiots feel sorry.
-------------------- Anxiety is what you make it.
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MarkostheGnostic
Elder



Registered: 12/09/99
Posts: 14,279
Loc: South Florida
Last seen: 3 years, 3 months
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Mahayana Buddhist, Thich Quang Duc famously self-immolating to protest the Vietnam War in 1963. I would add that that while numbers may vary, I have seen as many as 137 Tibetan Buddhists who have performed this same ultimate act of protest. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/news/tibet-self-immolation/ I have disagreed with a Buddhist lama on whether killing one cow or half a dozen sardines is more grievous. I insisted it was the cow, the lama said it was the fish. I have disagreed with Orthodox Jews over their idiotic (IMO) rabbinical interpretation of Deuteronomy 14:21 "Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk," as being a lesson in compassion and empathy for a fellow mammal who has carried and borne her offspring, only for it to be taken from her, killed, and her milk collected for the bellies of her calf's gluttonous pleasure. It is a moral lesson, NOT a mindless obedient refusal to eat a combination of foodstuffs like meat and dairy, so that an observant Jew cannot eat a goddamned cheeseburger!
Sometimes Always allow Compassion to motivate you to act swiftly and decisively in its service. This IS Wisdom. As to the opinions of the so-called keepers of the tables in the temples...THEY can be wrong. I have put down several canine friends to end their suffering, and have beheaded a mortally injured duck and wrung the neck of a dying featherless baby bird, for Compassion-sake. I'm not eating mammals any more. We each have our own capacities for how ethical we can become in our consumption of animals. But I've inadvertently moved from euthanasia to ethical eating. A former cousin-by-marriage hit a sheep in New Zealand while drunk-driving. He and his mate thought it compassionate to finish off the bleating animal - by stomping it to death! The path to Hell s paved with good intentions.
-------------------- γνῶθι σαὐτόν - Gnothi Seauton - Know Thyself
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deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
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Quote:
HagbardCeline said: I know Buddhism says that killing cannot be justified, even in euthanasia or suffering pets.
The Rinzai Zen master Nantembo (1839 – 1925) would certainly have disagreed:
"There is no bodhisattva practice superior to the compassionate taking of life"(in Victoria, 2003).
And don't forget:
"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings." --Socrates
Somewhat trite quotes aside, I feel like any absolute proclamations, be they from Buddhist "experts" or from one's own mother, will always prove to ignore the exception to the rule.
I personally feel Buddhism tries to ignore the whole solution to the problem of suffering: simply wipe humanity and all other sentient beings capable of feeling pain from the planet. Voila: no more suffering. Make the wiping clean and painless (perhaps a gamma ray burst or other such relatively instantaneous Extinction Level Event), and one would presumably accumulate such good merit that you'd instantly achieve Boddhisattva level +∞. The only problem remains, of course, is all other sentient beings on all other planets/multiverses. Time to expand our scope of compassionate exploration....
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
Edited by deCypher (04/04/15 12:15 AM)
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