Dear Venerable Robina,
I quite often see your short posts from Santa Fe. I feel inspired and blessed every time I hear your “never give up” and “you can do it” and the precious sense of connection to Lama Yeshe’s lineage – a heart opening link.
I have a question. I have tried not to kill anything since I took the lay precepts in spite of my old love of fishing. I started live-trapping and relocating the mice rather than killing them and they are now my friends and are much less likely to show up in bothersome numbers. That precept of not killing was a kind of sea change for me.
My boyfriend and I both value clean food, without poisons, and if it is meat, not raised in torturing conditions. I remember well you mentioning that everything we eat necessarily involves the death of sentient beings, even the mice and insects in grain fields. You also used the example of a fisherman dying early as a consequence of karma from loving to kill fish ripening for him. I do love to catch fish but I have never loved killing them and I know how one has to harden one’s heart in order to do it. I have no interest in what people call catch and release as it is clearly torture and release.
Where I live it is possible to quite easily catch fish and crabs and prawns and my boyfriend is very upset with me for not using my old skills to respectfully kill and eat some of these beings. I have been saying no and trying to explain the difference, at least for me, between the overall ethics of eating meat killed by others and the personal practice of not taking a life as a kind of hygiene for my own mind. I am tempted though to look for compromise. Can I teach him how to catch a salmon or even hook it myself while leaving the actual killing to him?
I know intention matters, for example, indigenous people traditionally thank the hunted animal for allowing the use of its life energy and I can see that done in a pure way with the motivation to transform the animal into my own body and practice for the benefit of all it could be ok and if my intention were actually that pure.
If I let him do the killing I will still have seen and recognized the sentient being and intended its death. Or I could buy a fish from the guy across the street and let him deal with the karma.
I am not looking for a direct answer as to what I should do, but rather wondering if you see that I am not clear and can help me with my thinking.
Anyway, Dear Robina. I pray for your good health. I am glad to be contacting you and sending love and gratitude.
P
ANSWER
Delighted to hear from you again, dear P! And so glad you’re doing well.
Your logic for not killing is pretty clear. I don’t think you’re missing anything. The bottom line is we want to program our mind as much as possible only with virtuous, non-harming thoughts, as well as actions based on those thoughts.
The key reason for this, of course – and we forget this in the West – is for our own benefit: whatever we do now produces the person we become in the future and our experiences. Who wants the results of killing? No one!
Then, of course, there is compassion for the beings we kill.
Direct involvement in any way with an action that will end the life of a being, whether you do the first or the last action, is called killing. If you think it through, that’s a fact.
Obviously, the level of our motivation determines the intensity of the karmic imprint left on our mind. The karma of a person who kills with anger is clearly much heavier than the karma of a person who kills with attachment, even if they thank the animal for allowing them to use their body. The latter action is still killing, and the motivation, even though not anger, is still only for oneself, therefore selfish.
I think your problem in relation to your partner is your thinking that you’re “letting him do the killing” — this is a misconception. He does what he wants to do; you’re not “letting him” do anything. He’s a grown-up with a mind of his own. If he were a child whom you had responsibility for, that’s different.
The best practice is to allow your partner to think what he thinks and do what he wants to do.
And accept that he’ll get mad at you for not doing what he’d like you to do!
What do you think?
Love to you,
Robina
QUESTION
Thank you Robina. This is really very helpful.
I realize that the nub of the problem for me is my people-pleasing habit much more than the slippery slope of killing. I have always tried to make everyone happy and of course I can’t. It was tempting for me to indulge my attachment to fishing while telling myself I am doing it for my partner. If I don’t he will be (and is) mad at me and I will have to be OK forgoing fresh caught sea food myself, which I completely am.
The hard part is accepting people not liking or being angry with me. Now that is something I need to get my teeth into!
In a way the killing issue was not the main thing. It’s actually easy for me to be clear about that and enjoy the benefits of wishing beings well instead of harm, as I mentioned with the mice.
Your advice is clear and bang on – as I expected. It is such a joy to hear from you!!
Love and Blessings,
P
ANSWER
You hit the nail on the head, P! Well done.
Keep moving, one step at a time. That’s it, isn’t it?
Love,
Robina