Investigation Into the 'Ethics of Murder'

Ajahn Brahm: How does one interpret the first precept in everyday life? Is being a Buddhist and a soldier mutually exclusive? Are there instances when one can perform a 'mercy' killing and not attract negative results? How does kamma work in relation to the murdering of living beings? How might society justly deal with such grievous actions and ultimately, how can one forgive?

Funky monk Ajahn Brahm provides practical approaches to this bewildering array of serious and complex issues.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Buddhism
• Buddhist
• Ajahn
• Brahm
• Dhamma
• Dharma
• ethics
• investigation
• murder

[crazykayaks]

Satori 1800:Hi you are right, but i am a man who commited murder, not a murderer...there is a subtle difference. I have found my buddha nature and now your anger surpasses mine. i wonder,in previous lives how many times you too were a soldier or a murderer?

Are you a vegan now like me, or do you sponsor the murder of animals?do you swat flies and stamp on ants.

The past cannot be changed, but boy we can learn from it.

thanks for you reply.

[crazykayaks]

As I am an ex soldier and a new buddhist Ajahn Brahms talk was awesome

[eltb82]

@Alexisme1001 Why do you think murder would be the only way to stop them? Surely changing their minds would be far more ethical?

[Alexisme1001]

Gandhi was wrong. If one could go back in time and be given the opportunity to kill Hitler and Stalin before they came to power, doing so would be completely justified.

[beaterfred]

Thanks for the advice! I will definitely go vegetarian after my final exams. The thing is I haven't had time to go shopping even and been eating takeaways and anythin I could get my hand on for the past week or so. Final year masters in engineering with 2 weeks before exams is not a good position to be in. lol... Especially as a starting vegetarian!

[cricket279]

@beaterfred I have learned so much about ethical veganism from Professor Gary Francione. Please check out his website, abolitionistapproach . com

[cricket279]

@beaterfred It's incredibly easy (and cheap!) to eat a healthy,balanced vegan diet. For omega's 3, 6 & 9 simply add a tablespoon of ground Flaxseed and shelled hemp (from health food stores) to your cereal using soya, almond or rice milks. Fantastic start to the day and has very high nutritional value. For further advice please visit thevegansociety.co.uk The real issue here is that of morality. If we are to reject violence then we must not participate in the senseless killing of sentient beings

[beaterfred]

@cricket279 I used to love chicken and sea food and while I loved animals and never swatted flies or killed spiders, I thought it would be very difficult for me to turn vegetarian. After listening to one of Ajahn Brahm's talks I stopped eating meat and I was a vegetarian (without being tempting even once) for 5 months. But I'm a final year Engineering student and I was getting weak and I didn't have time to prepare proper meals so I eat fish now, but only until the end of my exams! :)

[cricket279]

I love Ajahm Brahm. I need to take this opportunity to speak on behalf of non-humans. All sentient beings deserve to not be exploited. Please consider going vegan. We kill 56 billion animals (not including fish) every year for no other reason than their bodies 'taste good'. Non-human animals value their life as much as you or I and fight to hold onto it, please don't needlessly take it from them.

[reinux]

i'm not a buddhist monk, but my guess is that allowing someone to live with the personal history of such an act is just as inhumane if not moreso than physically crippling them.

if their act involves murder and you need to murder them in order to prevent that act, then you have an unsolvable dilemma, and you can't be blamed for deciding either to kill that person or not.

you can't quite "kill a criminal", according to this guy, because there are no criminals, only people who commit crimes.

[doctormoo]

if i have tme, i will listen to it again. Do it from pure heart- i wil remember that.