June 9, 2005

• 
  A Xangan emailed me to refer me to read Xangan Cafengocmy who visited Vietnam and wrote a very good entry about his trip.  Anyone interests can check on the link.

  
  

  MY THOUGHT OF RELIGION
  
  A few weeks ago, walking down to my basement to get a bottle of wine, I saw a mouse.  It ran into a corner.  On my hand was a hard cover book.  I threw the book reflexively and killed the mouse.  I wondered where the mouse came from.  That same night I saw a long black tail which quickly disappeared behind my TV.  The next day I stopped by Home Depot to buy a few mouse traps.  That weekend I trapped four mice.  I found out that one of the windows in my basement had a small gap where probably the mice got in.
  
  When I trapped the mice I had concerns about health and sanitary.  I was fully aware that I broke the wow to refrain from killing living creatures.  When I was young, innocent, and foolish, I was able to keep a wow to practice my religion.  Now, older and supposedly, not necessarily, or truly wiser, I indeed actively destroy living creatures, for my own benefits.

  
  

   

  
  

  If I know a man who will commit a terrible crime to destroy a lot of people, for example Hitler, or Pol Pot, or a serial killer; should I or would I take his life away to save multiple thousands of other lives?  I actively save lives but I also will break the vow that forbids me to kill. 
  
  During the 60, in Vietnam, there was a Buddhist monk, Thượng Tọa Thích Quảng Đức, who opposed the religious suppression from Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime, poured gasoline over himself and ignited the fire to commit suicide.  Buddhism does not condone violence.  Although he might consider the act of killing himself as courageous and right to fight for his belief, not only he actively took a life away, he also committed violence.

  
  

   

  
  

  Question:  Should one break the vow of refrain from killing, kill one life to save multiple lives?  Should one break the vow to refrain from killing to save his own religion?
  

  
  

   

  • 10:48 pm
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