Recently, when I read news about the coronavirus, I think, we often remove viruses, cancer, etc. that cause illness from our bodies as medical treatment, and erase those things.
Wouldn't that be killing?
What is the difference between not being able to live without receiving life from meat, fish, vegetables, etc., and not being able to live a healthy life without killing the source of illness?
Thank you for your question.
Honestly, I don't know.
Why is it not just death, but the expression murder is expressed by attaching the characters life together?
Do you live by killing the interpretation of the characters, or do you live by killing them?
Elimination may be a proposal for each way of life at a distance where the virus and I don't have to hate each other.
Even if it was meant to be destroyed, if it was just molecular level decomposition, can it really be said that they killed it?
Isn't cutting nails or beards or shaving hair lethal?
A lot of questions go through my head.
Unfortunately, I haven't found an answer that I'm satisfied with.
I'd like to find a point of contact linked to the heart of the Buddhist scriptures by getting to know a little more about science and medicine, but I'm sorry that I was only able to answer that I would be scolded if I wasn't living in a daze.
I would like to refer to the thoughts of other monks.
You've thought about life to the extent that your thoughts extended to pathogens and cancer cells.
It made me think seriously, too.
For example, in the same way, amputating a part of the body or arm due to osteosarcoma, etc., and removing cancer cells are “acts to protect lives = medical action” even if the purposes are separate. Killing pathogens with medicine is the same. If you don't regard this as justice, being a doctor will become a 100% hell job, and nobody wants to do it.
However, Buddhism also believes that various lives support each other in the first place.
Cancer cells are originally part of the body, so I'll talk about pathogens, but in the first place, many organisms have become extinct due to pathogens. Since only humans have found solutions, they are special beings.
I don't think pathogens are malicious. Pathogens are also active in order to live and increase. If you look at it as “it's strange to kill it,” humans can't live properly, right?
The Buddha prohibits killing for the proper way of life for humans, but at the same time, I think there is also an admonition to know the importance of life and how it is interrelated.
It's been a long time, but personally, I'd like to say that if you can't live a way of appreciating life, killing germs will also kill. It's the same as whether or not you think “you will receive (life)” with food in front of you.
Please excuse the random text.
“Life → death” I think everything that goes through this process can be called “life.”
In order to make the most of those individual “lives,” we carry out the activity of “receiving other lives for one's own life.”
only people, only viruses...
This is “natural providence.”
In other words, if you deny all killings, you won't be able to live.
However, “what do you get and what don't you get?” is something that is left to each person's judgment.
Eliminate the source of viruses and diseases “in order to live,” and receive only what you need.
“Luxury” is “luxury”... superfluous
“Sawa”... means moisture.
If you ask for more than necessary, extra killing will be necessary.
What is the minimum I need and what would be superfluous?
Isn't that “moderation” important?
[Some supplementary notes have been added to the answers]
I read your consultation.
How far is “life,” or “life”? ↓ was interesting about that.
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/biophys/50/3/50_3_112/_pdf
According to this, “life” is difficult to define due to various problems, but in general, it has the three attributes of “self-replication,” “energy metabolism,” and “cell structure,” and since viruses cannot “metabolize energy,” there are many cases where it is not “life.”
...
What do you think?
Hmm, does it feel like that? Or maybe your curiosity gets you excited?
But is that where it ends?
I think that's the problem. If discussing “life” as an intellectual object or intellectual interest doesn't cause “damage,” then it's a game of knowledge.
Conversely, if it becomes “damaged,” even if the target is a stuffed animal, you may feel a sense of guilt as a kind of murder by disposing of it.
It is probably this “sin” that becomes a problem for Buddhism.
Murder is the “Five Treason Sins (of Mahayana).” The “Five Treason Sins” are five felonies, and it is said that they cause people to fall into an unscrupulous hell.
(Additional note*Whether or not simple murder falls under the “Five Treason Sins (of Mahayana)” may also be a nuance)
Now, however, based on the above logic, it's not a crime if you don't feel guilty even if you kill someone, and I think this is a “crime of slandering the law.” And if it is realized that it is murder, it becomes a “murder crime” at that point. A “crime of slandering the law” is a crime you're not aware of, isn't it?
That “crime of slandering the law” is a crime of condemning and denying “correct teaching,” but people who don't know “correct teaching” don't feel guilty about slandering it.
If eliminating the virus hurts you and becomes a sense of sin, then whether or not you who commit that crime can be saved becomes your Buddha's way.
If not, it's a problem that will go away with it.
In that case, if it were the former, not even one virus could be discovered as a “Buddha” that encourages “Buddhism” in you, let alone “life.”
In order for myself to live
Life of meat, fish, vegetables, etc.
I'm receiving it, and
Because pathogens self-proliferate
It's eating away at our bodies,
I think it's the same thing.
Everything
you can't live without killing...
I think it's such a sinful thing.