Karma? Kindness to animals? (video)

Good Deeds (YouTube); Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY

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Mmm, pork chops and bacon. Slaughter him!

What, if anything, did the Buddha have to say about kindness to mere animals? Surprisingly, what we do to living beings -- human, animal, or otherwise -- is significant in a moral dimension. That is, it will follow us and have consequences, good and ill, desirable and undesirable, wished for and otherwise. Animals count.

You want bacon, don't cha? It's sliced stomach.

Providing or making allowances for their safety, protecting their food sources (the environment we share), abstaining from the use of poisons and toxins, all of these are merit. Raising them for slaughter, paying someone to slaughter them, depriving them of environment and therefore of natural food sources, or praising and/or rewarding those who do these things, this cannot be for the long-term good.

There may be short-term profits, to be sure (or why else would anyone do these things?) But the resultants will be very unwelcome. If one cannot help them, leave them alone. They have instinct and each other to sustain themselves.

As humans, as another species, we do not have "dominion." We have responsibility and stewardship. That is the correct translation of the biblical term thrown around in the West to justify animal abuse (hunting, killing, caging, trapping, chasing away), use, and consumption.