Why shouldnt kill beings

...we have to avoid killing those animals to raise our compassion, love animals as they also feel painful, scare, happy, and sad and even cry...

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 Question 1: why we should not kill beings?

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Beings also have the same Buddha’s nature. Human and animals\r\nall have senses. They are animals because they did wrong things and evil karma\r\nin previous life so they have to be animals so as to pay in this life. If we\r\nkill them in this life, we will have the same result in the next life and it\r\ngoes on and on and will not stop. Killing is also the source of the death,\r\nhatred and wars, etc. Therefore, we need to avoid killing to raise our\r\ncompassion, love of animals because they also feel painful, scare, happy,\r\nsad and even cry. So do us. We all desire to live and are afraid of the death,\r\nso how can you heartlessly stab them. People who keep this precept will always\r\nbe happy, the compassion can easily grow and bring the peace to all of your\r\nsurrounding animals and to avoid killing, we should practice to eat vegetarian\r\nfood. According to the science research, there are a lot of toxic substances in\r\nmeat that harm to our health meanwhile vegetables and fruits are nutritious\r\nsubstances which are pure and easily digestible and avoid many diseases.

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Nowadays, vegetarian food is very diverse and there are many\r\nkinds that are good for our health. So why we need to kill animals to eat and\r\nthen suffer the law of causality. Meanwhile, instead of a meal made from meat\r\ncontains anger and rancor and a bloody soup of suffering, we can have a bowl of\r\nwhite rice, a plate of vegetables and a pure soup.

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 Question 2: Survey in reality

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An essay

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Today, I left the office early to write this essay. There\r\nare no slaughterhouses in the area where I live but even so, I am not brave\r\nenough to go there to do the survey. So I decided to go to a biggest market in\r\nthe area and see if there are any places doing slaughter in large quantity. I\r\nam now standing in front of a house which is adjacent to the road in the\r\nmarket, causing a sight thrilling me to goose bumps. Here was a butchers that\r\nsold a lot of chickens, ducks, baby black chickens, pigeons and dogs meat.\r\nThere were about 4 crowded cages prisoning these animals. They could not move\r\nor turn around, being observed very pitifully. The half-closed eyes showed that\r\nthey had endured very exhaustedly. Some were trying to escape although they\r\nknew for sure they cant. I am standing there and looked at the chickens, the\r\nducks then someone came to the shop and bought chicken and the butcher caught\r\nthe one that the customer had chosen; in less than 10 minutes, the chicken\r\nliving just a few minutes ago was still in front of me and was agitated but now\r\nbecame a well-prepared chicken. A life has just finished. My mind became empty\r\nat the moment. I m still standing there and looking at that house\r\nunconsciously, watching one by one being in and out. There was a voice calling,\r\nsurprising me back to the present. Thanks to a bakery seller, I knew that shop\r\nowners who had been killing countless poultry are couples from Dong Nai\r\nProvince. They went to Thu Duc to start the business. The shop has been opening\r\nfor 4 years. They only sell garden chickens and thats why they have quite a\r\nlot of customers. Each chicken from 1kg - 1.8kg has a price from 130,000 -\r\n180,000. They even sell baby black chickens. In average, they sell about 30-40\r\npieces in one day that counts to 9000 pieces a year. Theyve been selling for 4\r\nyears; it comes to a horrible number. Not only the chickens, there are also\r\nmore ducks. The business is shared with their relatives so they even have a\r\nduck congee shop. They prepare ducks meat and the number of ducks sold is\r\ndouble than the number of chickens and even dogs, too. They bought the dogs and\r\nthemselves get them ready. I saw a lot of big pots in their house. The dogs\r\nwere cleaned, cut into 2 pieces and displayed on the table. It looked very\r\ncreepy. There were some full dogs heads, some were cut in half. Their teeth\r\nwere gritted together and looked very scary. Their blood remains on them very\r\ncreepy. I really dont understand those people who saw that scene but they\r\nstill bought and ate them. Normally, I just pass by without looking but now I\r\nam standing and starring at them - the animals whose fateful lives are counted\r\nby hour, by the pointing of the buyers. Im wondering whether the couples have\r\never thought about the number of animals they killed. They even use the\r\nautomatic machine of poultry feather removal. All they have to do is put the\r\nchicken into that machine and let it spin and then they have a clean chicken.\r\nThe atmosphere in the house is too gloomy for me to come in. The woman said\r\nbecause of the living, she had to find a way to make money and pay for their\r\nexpenses. She also has to raise her 2 growing kids.

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 When I come home, my mind is still obsessed on what I\r\nsaw in the afternoon. They create evil karma by killing those animals to\r\nsupport their family and their living. Are they disculpateing or they dont\r\nreally know thats a bad thing to do?  Do they do those evil things\r\njust for their life, for their impure body? Should they be condemned or they\r\nshould be sympathetic to their plight. It is just a shop but they sell almost\r\nhundreds of all kinds of poultry; so how many human beings are killed in\r\na slaughterhouse? In front of their eyes, they are simply as animals;\r\nso they kill them without any hesitation and they become cold blood and\r\nunemotional slaughters? Just like that, there are getting more and more animals\r\nbeing killed. They will feel animosity towards people who killed them, and then\r\nthey ask for their life back. Hatred paid by hatred; karma paid by karma,\r\ncausality and suffering will happen repeatedly. Walking along home, I witnessed\r\na lot of killing scenes. In the fish shop, they caught swimming fish from the\r\nwater and used a big stick to hit constantly on the fishs head until they gave\r\nup struggling. Crabs crawling were pestled completely crushed on smash. When I\r\nalmost got home, there were some young neighbors gathering to play\r\ncockfighting. Today, I only feel the kill and kill everywhere around me. The\r\nanguished cries somewhere make my heart feel painful and difficult to breathe.\r\nIs it because of the killing karma in previous lives that the hatred makes\r\npeople become ruthless? How do people understand that the lives of human and\r\nanimals are equally important? Im asking myself why people cruelly kill the\r\nanimals that also have their own life and feeling. They can suffer the pain and\r\nthe fear when seeing their fellow being killed in front of their sight with\r\ntears and desire of existence.  How guilty it is! I feel lucky as a\r\nvegetarian since I was a kid, therefore I can feel a pure clean body because I\r\nonly eat pure vegetarian food without lives, enmity. To minimize the killing of\r\ninnocent animals, I will explain the benefits of vegetarian diet as well as the\r\nharmful effects of killing. I hope you can dispel the ignorance and find your\r\nBuddha nature to be aware of the crimes of killing and to respect animal and\r\nhuman beings lives.

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Trần Thị Phương

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Translated into English by Ho Truc Ly.

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