Animal Rights and the
Dhammapada
Rosemary A. Amey
© Copyright retained by the author, December 1996
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Do not what is evil
Do what is good.
Keep your mind pure.
This is the teaching of Buddha.
(Dhammapada, 183.)
Background: Buddhism and the
Dhammapada
What does Buddhism have to say about animal rights?
Among the world's hundreds of millions of Buddhists, there is disagreement about this
basic issue. I first became interested in Buddhism because two of my favourite restaurants
(Buddha's Vegetarian Foods and the Lotus Garden, both on Dundas Street West in Toronto)
are Buddhist, and are very careful to serve only vegetarian food with no eggs. In one
restaurant I was told that this was necessary because Buddhist monks and nuns eat there.
This suggested to me that Buddhism takes the plight of nonhuman animals very seriously
indeed. On the other hand, my fiancé and I have several friends who are Buddhist, but
continue to eat meat and feel this is consistent with Buddhism.
Do Buddhists, or at least Buddhist nuns and monks,
have to be vegetarian? What does Buddhism have to say about our treatment of animals in
general?
To resolve this controversy, it is necessary, I
feel, to return to the Buddhist scriptures and see what (if anything) they have to say
about the issue.
So far, I have been frustrated in my attempts to
purchase my own copy of the Bhuddist Pali scriptures -- perhaps because they are eleven
times as long as the Bible. The bookstores I have been to all stock large numbers of books
about Buddhism, but not the scriptures themselves! These secondary (or worse!) sources
about Buddhism shed little light on what the Buddha's own teachings about animals were.
However, I have been able to acquire a copy of an
important part of the Pali scriptures, the Dhammapada. Dhamma (Dharma in Sanskrit), means
"law, a moral law, a spiritual law of righteousness, the eternal law of the Universe,
Truth;" and pada means "foot" or "step." So the Dhammapada are
the steps we must take to live according to (Buddhist) moral and spiritual laws. According
to scholar Juan Mascaró, "that the spirit of the Dhammapada is the spirit of Buddha
is accepted both by his followers and by scholars." Therefore, it seems reasonable
that we can derive at least a first approximation of the Buddhist approach to the question
of animal rights from the basic moral foundation laid by Gotama Buddha in the Dhammapada.
Not Killing and Not Hurting
In Buddhism, there are five "precepts,"
which could be considered to play a similar rôle as the Ten Commandments do for Jews and
Christians. These precepts provide moral guidance for lay Buddhists as well as monks and
nuns. They are concisely summed up as follows:
He who destroys life, who utters lies, who takes
what is not given to him, who goes to the wife of another, who gets drunk with strong
drinks -- he digs up the very roots of his life. (Dhammapada, 246-247)
The injunction against destroying life is known as
the First Precept.
In addition, the Buddha also tells us not to
"hurt" others, for example:
He who for the sake of happiness hurts others who
also want happiness, shall not hereafter find happiness. (Dhammapada, 131.)
Probably because not killing and not hurting are so
important, Buddha repeatedly asks us not to do either in many places throughout the
Dhammapada (see next section for details).
The fact that the First Precept and other teachings
forbid killing and hurting is not controversial among Buddhists. Where the controversy
comes in is the question of whom Buddhists are forbidden to kill or hurt.
Who is Protected by The First Precept
and the Prohibition on Hurting?
Do the First Precept and other passages against
hurting protect non-human animals? Perhaps they, like the Judeo-Christian Commandment
"Thou shalt not kill," were intended to apply only to humans. This possibility
can be ruled out almost immediately, for in the Dhammapada, there are numerous explicit
injunctions against killing or otherwise hurting "living beings," rather than
"persons":
But although a man may wear fine clothing, if he
lives peacefully; and is good, self-possessed, has faith and is pure; and if he does not
hurt any living being, he is a holy Brahmin, a hermit of seclusion, a monk called a
Bhikkhu. (Dhammapada, 142. Emphasis added.)
The wise who hurt no living being, and who keep
their body under self-control, they go to the immortal NIRVANA, where once gone they
sorrow no more. (Dhammapada, 225 Emphasis added.)
A man is not a great man because he is a warrior and
kills other men; but because he hurts not any living being he in truth is called a great
man. (Dhammapada, 405. Emphasis added.)
It seems clear that the Buddha has taken pains to
make it clear that the injunction against killing or hurting is not confined to humans,
but extends to other "living beings."
Then we might wonder, who or what are these
"living beings"? Some have argued that the protection of "living
beings" extends to plants as well as to animals, for they are also alive. If this
were the case, then it could be claimed that for a Buddhist, eating a rabbit is no worse
than eating a carrot.
Here I am at a disadvantage, as I have not yet
learned Pali, nor do I have the scriptures as originally rendered in Pali. However, a
beautiful passage suggests that the beings referred to are sentient beings:
All beings tremble before danger, all fear death.
When a man considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill.
All beings fear before danger, life is dear to all.
When a man considers this, he does not kill or cause to kill. (Dhammapada, 129-130.)
Here, the Buddha explains that we should not kill
out of consideration for the feelings of fear and the love of life that beings experience.
Moreover, he says all beings share these attributes, suggesting that the word which
Mascaró has translated as "beings" really means "sentient beings."
Some skeptics may claim that nonhuman animals are
not really sentient. However, in another passage, the Buddha alludes to the sentience of
fish in a metaphor describing an unquiet mind:
Like a fish which is thrown on dry land, taken from
his home in the waters, the mind strives and struggles to get free from the power of
Death. (Dhammapada, 34.)
This passage suggests that, like the
"beings" referred to in Dhammapada 130 (see above), the fish's life is dear to
him -- otherwise why would he "strive and struggle to get free from the power of
Death" when removed from his aquatic home? If the Buddha believed fish to be
sentient, it is highly improbable that he would deny that many of the other animals
commonly killed and hurt by humans (e.g. mammals and birds) are not sentient. Therefore,
at least fish, birds, and mammals could not be killed or otherwise hurt according to the
First Precept and other teachings which protect sentient beings. It is quite possible that
the First Precept covers other animals as well.
So why didn't the Buddha come right out and say that
"animals" should not be harmed, rather than "living beings"? Perhaps
it was because, when and where the Buddha lived, practitioners of other well-known
religions such as Jainism were already conscientious about protecting animals and so it
would have been obvious to the Buddha's students that not killing "living
beings" meant not killing animals. Perhaps there was no word in Pali which would
encompass both nonhuman and human animals, so that the term translated as "living
beings" was needed to be inclusive. Or perhaps the Buddha wanted us to be more
concerned about sentient animals, rather than any nonsentient animals which might exist.
Implications for Our Treatment of Animals
Since the Buddha's time, there have been enormous
changes in the relationship between human and nonhuman animals. Practices such as
vivisection and factory farming would have been unknown to the Buddha, and so of course
they are not explicitly mentioned in the Dhammapada. Moreover, the Dhammapada is very
concise, and does not catalogue all the possible misdeeds which could be committed against
animals (note that includes humans as well as nonhumans!)
However, although the myriad harms to animals are
not all explicitly mentioned in the Dhammapada, we can infer a great deal merely from the
First Precept and the teachings against hurting other beings. It is clear that the Buddha
does not want us to kill or hurt animals ourselves. Therefore, Buddhists cannot be
hunters, fisherpeople, trappers, slaughterhouse workers, vivisectors, etc., nor can we
"euthanize" homeless animals in so-called animal "shelters."
What about eating meat? Some might claim that, as
long as people don't kill animals themselves, it is okay to eat meat. However, note that
passages 129 and 130 in the Dhammapada specify that we should not "kill or cause to
kill." When people buy products made from the bodies of dead animals, they must
necessarily cause someone to kill those animals. Therefore, meat, leather, and fur are off
limits. It is probably true that, in order to be economically viable, killing older, less
productive animals is necessary to produce milk and eggs -- certainly this is one claim of
the egg and milk industries in justifying this practice. If so, then buying milk and eggs
also necessarily causes killing, and thus should be avoided under the First Precept.
How about meat that someone else has bought? In
most, perhaps all cases, by accepting meat served to us by someone else, we are causing
killing. For example, if meat-eating friends invite us over for dinner, they will buy
extra meat for us in anticipation of our visit, or if our visit was unplanned they are
likely to buy extra meat to restock their larder after we leave. In either case, our
acceptance of the meat has caused additional animals to be killed. So ideally, we should
not accept meat served to us by others, and should let people know this in advance
whenever possible.
Some claim that the contents of their stomach do not
matter, only the contents of their mind. However, the Buddha points out that we should
give thought to what we eat:
He who lives only for pleasures, and whose soul is
not in harmony, who considers not the food he eats, is idle, and has not the power of
virtue -- such a man is moved by MARA, is moved by selfish temptations, even as a weak
tree is shaken by the wind. (Dhammapada, 7. Emphasis added.)
Not to hurt by deeds or words, self-control as
taught in the Rules, moderation in food, the solitude of one's room and one's bed, and the
practice of the highest consciousness: this is the teaching of the Buddhas who are awake.
(Dhammapada, 185. Emphasis added.)
Probably these passages refer to avoiding gluttony
as well as vegetarianism. Certainly, people who find the thought of "giving up"
meat (or other products of animal killing) distressing should also consider if they have
allowed themselves to become too attached to material pleasures, and heed the words of the
Buddha:
He who does what should not be done and fails to do
what should be done, who forgets the true aim of life and sinks into transient pleasures
-- he will one day envy the man who lives in high contemplation.
Let a man be free from pleasure and let a man be
free from pain; for not to have pleasure is sorrow and to have pain is also sorrow.
(Dhammapada, 209-210.)
Although the ideal of detachment does not mean we
are forbidden to experience material pleasures, clearly allowing one's attachment to, say,
the taste of meat to override adherence to the First Precept is contrary to the spirit of
the Dhammapada.
Many people have tried to justify killing animals
because of the (alleged) benefits it brings, whether economic benefits to people who work
in animal-killing occupations, or potential medical benefits which might arise from
vivisection. But the Buddha says:
He who for himself or others craves not for sons or
power or wealth, who puts not his own success before the success of righteousness, he is
virtuous, and righteous, and wise. (Dhammapada, 84. Emphasis added.)
That is, doing the righteous thing (obeying the
Precepts) has a higher priority over worldly "success." Moreover, the Buddha
cautions against being overly attached to our current bodies:
Consider this body! A painted puppet with jointed
limbs, sometimes suffering and covered with ulcers, full of imaginings, never permanent,
for ever changing.
This body is decaying! A nest of diseases, a heap of
corruption, bound to destruction, to dissolution. All life ends in death.
Look at these grey-white dried bones, like dried
empty gourds thrown away at the end of the summer. Who will feel joy in looking at them?
A house of bones is this body, bones covered with
flesh and with blood. Pride and hypocrisy dwell in this house and also old age and death.
The glorious chariots of kings wear out, and the
body wears out and grows old; but the virtue of the good never grows old... (Dhammapada,
147-151).
Although the Buddha does not ask that we harm our
body, either directly or by neglecting our bodies' needs (this would be pointless), he
emphasizes that the body is impermanent, and we should be more concerned about being
virtuous than about preserving the body. Therefore, killing animals (a violation of the
First Precept), cannot be justified by the claim that it will prolong human life.
Moreover, unlike the Judeo-Christian scriptures, the Dhammapada does not claim that humans
are superior to or more important than other animals.
Where does it end? It is a depressing fact of life
that absolutely everything we buy has involved harm to sentient beings at some point in
its production, simply because the vast majority of people are willing to harm nonhumans
whenever it is expedient. For example, the vegetables we eat may have been fertilized with
bone meal, plant-fibre clothing may have been treated with animal-derived products,
medications are currently required by law to be tested on animals. However, in buying
products such as these which do not require killing for their production, it is not clear
that we are causing others to kill -- especially if we are also working to change the
practices in these industries. Still, it is best to keep the consumption of all products
to a minimum, both to minimize our monetary contribution to killing, and in keeping with
the Buddhist ideal of detachment.
Implications of the Dhammapada for Animal Rights
Activists
At a minimum, the Dhammapada is consistent with
animal rights. Indeed, it seems to mandate many of the goals of the animal rights
movement, for example the abolition of the meat industry and vivisection. Given that the
Dhammapada is one of the core scriptures of Buddhism, it is difficult to see how Buddhists
who do participate in activities which kill animals can justify the discrepancy between
their practice and the words of the Buddha.
However, animal rights activists should note that
killing of animals in "shelters" is also forbidden. As far as I am concerned,
this is a logical consequence of animal rights as well as Buddhism, however it is an
unfortunate reality that many who consider themselves part of the animal rights movement
still see killing of homeless cats and dogs as legitimate or perhaps even necessary.
Also, although the goals of animal rights are by and
large consistent with Buddhism, too often the actions taken to achieve these goals are
not. Many animal rights advocates speak harshly of those who oppress animals, but what
good does that do? The Buddha reminds us to
Never speak harsh words, for once spoken they may
return to you. Angry words are painful and there may be blows for blows. (Dhammapada,
133.)
So how are we to work to liberate our fellow
sentient beings from suffering? We would do well to reflect frequently and often on the
following:
Overcome anger by peacefulness: overcome evil by
good. Overcome the mean by generosity; and the man who lies by truth. (Dhammapada, 223.)
It is sufficient merely to tell the truth about what
is happening to animals -- there is no need to attack the character of the people
committing these actions as well. And striving to live peacefully will teach the world
more about compassion than hostile ranting.
Of course, this isn't easy! I don't claim to have
mastered this myself, although it is something I continue to strive for. Buddha
acknowledges the difficulty, but encourages us to keep striving:
If he makes himself as good as he tells others to
be, then he in truth can teach others. Difficult indeed is self-control. (Dhammapada,
159.)
At times when this ideal seems pointless, and
frustrating, and futile, let us try to set aside our rage and despair at what our fellow
humans are doing to animals, and focus on the love for animals which motivates our animal
rights work:
For hate is not conquered by hate: hate is conquered
by love. This is a law eternal. (Dhammapada, 5.)
References
The Dhammapada, (translated by Juan Mascaró).
Penguin, 1973.
Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha Taught (2nd ed.).
Grove Weidenfeld, 1974.
Source:
http://www.ncf.carleton.ca/~bp239/dhamma.html
Update : 01-12-2001
