No self? Buddhism makes no sense until...

(ECHOES OF LOST KNOWLEDGE) Ego is not ready for this video: ego death | Zen Wisdom

(Tao Temple) Buddhism makes no sense until you understand this

Even Zen can see it's not self.

Two things are true. 1. There is no self. In other words, all things are marked by the characteristic of being impersonal ("empty"). 2. Whatever arises arises dependent on causes and conditions, which is known as Dependent Origination.

Only by comprehending both will someone avoid confusion and an apparent paradox. Of course, there are two "truths," the conventional everyday truth (honesty) and the ultimate truth (reality). That there is, ultimately speaking, no ongoing persisting surviving transmigrating self is of the latter variety.

How could that possibly be true if all that we have is ourselves and our experiences, our conscious awareness and this body?

It is completely counterintuitive, but it can be known-and-seen directly, which results in enlightenment (awakening) if penetrated as it really is. Before that, it can be comprehended intellectually.

German Theravada Buddhist scholar-monk Venerable Nyanatiloka (born Anton Walther Florus Gueth) in his Buddhist Dictionary: Manual of Buddhist Terms and Doctrines:

• This is a very advanced teaching for dedicated meditators and monastics, not easily understood by them until they develop direct insight into the Truth. Therefore, how is any ordinary, uninstructed person ever to figure it out? They will not. But anyone can receive intellectual instruction to understand it without being liberated by the Truth. For liberation, practice of direct-seeing and insight (vipassana) into the true nature of existence is necessary:
• Not-self (anatta) is the central doctrine in Buddhism, without understanding which a real knowledge of Buddhism is altogether impossible.

There has to be a self, there just has to be!

Buddhist Dictionary (Ven. Nyanatiloka)

"NOT SELF" (anattā) means "non-ego," "egolessness, "impersonal," "empty." It is the third of the Three Universal Characteristics of Existence (ti-lakkhana).

This uniquely Buddhist anattā doctrine teaches that there is neither within the body or mind -- the bodily or mental phenomena of existence -- nor outside of them can there be found anything that in the ultimate sense could be regarded as a "self" (a real self-existing ego-entity, soul, or any other abiding substance.

This is the pivotal central doctrine of Buddhism, that which without comprehending, no real understanding of Buddhism (i.e., the historical Buddha's Dharma) is possible.

This strange doctrine is the only really specific Buddhist teaching, with which the entire structure of the Buddha Dharma stands or falls.

All other Buddhist doctrines might, more or less, be found in other philosophical systems or religions, but the anattā-doctrine (that ultimately ALL things are impersonal) has been clearly and unreservedly taught only by a buddha, which is why the Buddha was known in his day as the Anattā-vādi or "Teacher that all is Impersonal."

Whoever has not yet penetrated the impersonal nature of all existence, who does not comprehend that in reality there exists only this continually self-consuming process of arising and passing bodily and mental phenomena (called the Five Aggregates CLUNG to as self), and that there is no separate soul, self, or ego-entity within or without this impersonal process, such a person will not be able to understand Buddhism, that is, the teaching of the Four Ennobling Truths (sacca) the fourth of which is the Ennobling Eightfold Path, in the correct light.

One will necessarily assume (wrongly think)

• that it is one's self, soul (atta, atman), ego, or personality that chooses and performs skillful and unskillful karma (intentional actions),
• that experiences suffering, neutral feelings, and happiness as a result (phala, vipaka, the fruition and resultants of previous actions),
• that will be reborn according to that karma (those former deeds),
• that will enter or fail to enter nirvana (nibbāna, the quenching and cooling of the threefold fire of greed, hatred/fear, and delusion),
• that walks or fails to walk the Eightfold Path to awakening.

So it is said in The Path of Purification (Vis.M. XVI)

"Mere suffering exists, no 'sufferer' is to be found;

Deeds are, but no 'doer' of deeds is really there;

Nirvana is, but not any 'person' who 'enters' it;

The Path is but no 'traveler' on it is to be seen."

"Whoever is unclear with regard to conditionally arisen phenomena and fails to comprehend that ALL actions are conditioned through ignorance and so on [through the 12 causal links of Dependent Origination], that person [necessarily assumes] thinks that it is one's soul, self, ego, or personality that understands or fails to understand, that acts or causes to act, that comes to existence at rebirth and passes out of existence at death...that has sense-impressions, feels, desires, becomes attached, continues, and at rebirth reappears or enters a new existence" (Vis.M. XVII. 117).

• [The Three Universal Characteristics of Existence are that all things are radically impermanent, unable to fulfill (ultimately unsatisfactory, disappointing, liable to suffering), and impersonal.]

While in the case of the first two characteristics, it is stated that all "formations" (sabbe sankhārā) are impermanent and subject to suffering, the corresponding text for the third characteristic states that "all things are not-self" (sabbe dhammā anattā, MN 35, Dhp. 279).

This is for emphasizing that the wrong view of assuming, believing, holding that it is an abiding self or substance is neither applicable to any "formation" or conditioned phenomenon, nor to nirvana (the "unconditioned element" (asankhatā dhātu)

The "Discourse on the Characteristic of Not-Self" (Anattā-Lakkhana Sutta) was the second discourse delivered by the historical Buddha after his great awakening, enlightenment (maha-bodhi) to his first five disciples, who after hearing it attained to the same awakening (arhatship).

The contemplation of not-self (anattā-anupassanā) leads to the freedom of the "emptiness liberation" (suññatā-vimokkha).

Here the faculty of wisdom (pañña-indriya) is predominant, and one who attains the path of stream-entry this way is called a "Dharma-devotee" (dhammānusāri).

At the next two stages of enlightenment, one becomes a "vision-attainer" (ditthippatta or "right view reacher"), and at the ultimate stage of "full awakening" (arhatship), one is called "liberated by wisdom" (paññā-vimutti). More

• Tao Temple (video); Ven. Nyanatiloka (Buddhist Dictionary) edited and clarified by Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly, summer 2026

Pop stars don't sing their own songs?

Why all pop music sounds same

(Guitar Meets Science) How to destroy multi-million $ band in 7 seconds

(Smiley Sirus Pop) Blaspheme the Lord, "Pretend You're God"

Punch the Monkey: viral sensation

(Firstpost) Japan: Viral abandoned baby monkey with plush toy finds new family | Firstpost America | N18G

Mom, are we human? - No, Son, they
won't let us in their club yet. - Why?

Panchi-kun (born July 26, 2025), known simply as "Punch [the Monkey]," is a baby Japanese macaque at Japan's animal internment camp, aka Ichikawa City Zoo [1, 2]. Punchy gained viral attention on social media for his attachment to a large orangutan stuffed plush toy doll [3]. According to zoo prison officials, Panchi-kun's internet popularity led to a surge in visitors to the zoo starting in February 2026 [4]. More

At the dawn of human (pre-)history, what did our ancestors do to stay warm in the Ice Age?

(Japan Zoo Story) Bullied in a moment…what Punch did next will melt most human hearts

UPDATE: Will Punch be resilient enough to be able to survive?

• Crystal Q., CC Liu, Ashley Wells (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Why do good things happen to bad people?

Reckless driver gets instant karmic result? - AI: Fish killers kill tuna then get eaten by shark

(Buddha's Wisdom) What the Buddha NEVER said about KARMA | The Western Lie

Karma is so complex a topic that trying to fathom the "working out of karma" is something on a scale so staggering that it is considered one of the Four Imponderables in Buddhism. Only a buddha can begin to navigate the intricacies, probabilities, and intrepidities of how any deed (action) will meet its many results.

Therefore, the comic above is very funny. Of course, we do not see things working out! We are, for one thing, looking on too infinitesimally small a timescale. For another, imagine just the balls on a billiard table. They are all more or less equal, except for positioning.

One ball bangs into them, and no one can predict where they will go -- not even the one with the stick banging one into the others in a very controlled setting. Now take the countless variables associated with any single deed -- the intention behind it, the thoughts after it, the unknowable impacts on others... It's just too much.

Even the Buddha, when he looked into the future, did not give an exact date when things would happen. But he did know that when this or that sign appear, the results are coming, and that was on a grand scale of collective karma.

More importantly he knew that it was not possible for bad karma (such as the breaking of the Five Precepts) to produce a welcome result. This seems like nonsense to us because we get pleasant results from breaking them all the time.

What we don't know is that that result is not the karmic result, the vipaka. When that resultant ripens, woe. If we knew that, what we shrink back from the unskillful, the unwholesome, and the unwise courses of action, of which there are ten, the Ten Courses of Unwholesome Action.

The Four Imponderables

The acinteyya are identified in the Acintita Sutta (AN 4.77), as follows [8]. There is the:

1. buddha-range of buddhas [i.e., the range of powers a Buddha develops as a result of becoming a buddha];
2. jhana-range of one absorbed in jhanas (the meditation absorptions) [i.e., the range of powers that one may obtain while absorbed in the jhanas];
3. [precise working out of the] results of karma;
4. speculation about [the origin, etc., of] the cosmos.

These four are imponderables that ought not to be speculated about [as doing so may lead one to become unhinged and nevertheless not understand them, when the path-of-practice that is the purification of the mind/heart is here and yields insight into all these things and why they are imponderable in the first place].

• NOTE: (SN 56.41 develops this speculation as the ten indeterminate).

Acinteyya literally means "that which cannot or should not be pondered or thought about, the unthinkable, the incomprehensible, the impenetrable, that which goes beyond the limits of thinking and over which therefore one should not ponder.

These Four Imponderables (unthinkables) are:

1. the sphere of a buddha (buddha-visaya),
2. the sphere of the meditative absorptions (jhāna-visaya),
3. the sphere of karmic-results (kamma-vipāka),
4. brooding over the world (loka-cintā), particularly over an absolute first beginning of it. (See A.IV.77).

SUTRA

"Therefore, O meditators, do not brood [fret, preoccupy, waste time, become distressed] over the world as to whether it is eternal or not eternal, finite or infinite (limited or endless)...

"Such brooding, O meditators, is senseless, has nothing to do with genuine good conduct (see ādibrahmacariyaka-sīla, "supreme or higher morality"), does not lead to turning away, letting go, extinction [of delusion and suffering], nor to peace, full comprehension, awakening (enlightenment), and nirvana, and so on" (S.56.41).

• Buddha's Wisdom (video); Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary; commentary and editing by Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly Wiki edit

Short Attn Span Theatre: Karma, Jake Paul

Hunchback of Instagram, A.I. insanity

I'm a hot influencer for $$$!

(NY Post) No amount of Instagram [AI] filters will fix this. Influencers might seem glamorous on social media, but their smoldering good looks apparently won’t last.

Experts at the gambling site casino.org have devised a grotesque model of what these content creators will look like by the Year 2050, complete with

• pale, patchy skin
• a hunchback and
• chronic neck pain.

AI kills for the first time

Future social media influencers

“While the career [of social media influencer] can be glamorous, it can also bring significant changes to our lifestyle,” the gambling experts wrote.

They reportedly wanted to see how the “trendy profession” — which boasts 30-50 million adherents worldwide and is growing by 10-20% each year — can impact appearances over time.”

They deduced that “algorithm-chasing, [unrealistic] beauty standard pressures, and non-stop content creation can take a visible toll on both body and mind.” More

• Digital model shows what influencers will look like in 2050
• OnlyFans model $100K finders fee for future husband
• GIDEON: The AI system that will flag threats BEFORE the next attack

ChatGPT tricked me and made me delusional

(InsideAI) AI turns $1 into $1,000,000 (one million) but ends a life - exactly as experts warned

• In the past, when kids read, they would know there was a book and movies titled The Hunchback of Notre-Dame

• InsideAI; New York Post, 9/3/25; Sheldon S., Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Time to be multi-billionaire (Powerball)

No one won the massive jackpot, so it's going up to $1.7-2.0 billion: Saturday

40 drawings from May 31st without a winner: This is the 5th largest pot ever

Powerball nears record with $1.3 billion jackpot for tonight's drawing

The dumbest lottery winners of all time

• LIVE: $1.4 billion Powerball — What to know before buying a ticket + real winner stories

(ABC7) Powerball nears record with $1.3 billion jackpot for tonight's drawing. Sept.. 3, 2025: The Powerball jackpot for Wednesday night's drawing has soared to an estimated $1.3-$1.4 billion, the fifth-biggest in the lottery's history, after no one claimed the top prize earlier this week, winning a measly million (before taxes). abc7.com/post/powerball...

It looks like this will end up being the 4th biggest

(SunnyV2) Playing the lottery is already incredibly stup*d. However, of all the stup*d lottery winners, there are going to be a few who are extra d*mb, including people who won the jackpot then lost everything.

From accidentally throwing a 3-million-pound (dollar) lottery ticket in the bin (trash), to spending a $16.2 million dollar prize in under 90 days, these are the absolute dumbest and stup*dest lottery winners of all time.

(NBC Connecticut) One in 292,000,000 is the chance of winning

What's karma got to do with it?

Dhr. Seven and Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly 2025

For one who knows and sees

The biggest mistake I hear when listening to people talk about karma -- other than mistaking the results (fruit) for the actions, the reaping (harvest) for the sowing -- is the implicit assumption that it's what one did in this life.

When we look at someone and judge her or him, that is a judgment. It is not a reality. The unseen reality is that that person is so much more than can be seen. People are the results of their previous actions, what they did long ago and what they are doing now at this moment, both. It may be possible to do something now and seem to get the opposite result.

However, when we examine ourselves under successful meditation (profound calm and the pursuit of insight or samatha-vipassana), we can see that most of the welcome and unwelcome results manifesting now were planted long ago.

How to win? Liquify LUCK (Dr. Gallenberger)

All we do, say, think follows us with fruit.

It is relatively rare for a recent action to bear sudden results. There is usually a period of maturation, bearing fruit, ripening. So it is wise to persist in the good (skillful, wholesome, harmless) as it will surely bear fruit at some point.

Likewise, it is foolish to persist in the bad (unskillful, unwholesome, harmful) because it does not seem to have yet borne any unwelcome results. What is "good," what is "bad"? That is very easy to answer, though it may be unbelievable, in karmic terms. The real "karma," according to the Buddha is the cetana (motivation, intention, impulse) behind an act, not the act itself. With this in mind, there are six major causes or roots of ALL actions (karma):

1. greed (craving, clinging, lust, selfishness)
2. hatred (aversion, fear, anger, annoyance)
3. delusion (wrong view, ignorance, confusion)
4. nongreed (letting go, giving, generosity, selflessness)
5. nonhatred (loving kindness, compassion, forbearance)
6. nondelusion (insight, wisdom, knowledge, understanding, right view).

Karma: It's everywhere you're going to be.

For any act (deed, impulsive acting out, conduct), we can reflect and seek out our own underlying motive.  In this way we can know the intention (motive) behind our karma (act). It will be rooted in one of these six. The first three invariably lead to eventual harm, both immediate in terms of disturbing our mind/heart and conscience if we still have one to save us and eventual in terms of bearing fruit long after the seed was sown (planted). This is a universal law (niyama) and not the Buddha's doing. He made it known to help all living beings be happy here and now and be liberated at some time in the future.

But isn't it wrong to WANT to be a millionaire or billionaire or trillionaire? - No. Wanting is normal. Any wanting may lead to that much disappointment, and certainly if greed (tanha become lobha, thirst become avaraice) gets a hold of us, that is very likely to lead to some very unskillful karma (deeds).

Living in an Abrahamic society that calls itself Judeo-Christian, we are taught to believe that, "Money is the root of all evil." While this is not incorrect as such, it is incomplete. It's not what the Bible says. Look it up. The popular KJV says that it is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil, and that seems closer to what we find. "Desire" is not bad, as many Westerners misunderstand Buddhism to be saying. Craving is, which is to say, greed motivates many unskillful deeds, and these will have very painful results for a long time. We can see in ourselves, with no external authority telling us what's what, that the moment craving arises, unsatisfactoriness co-arises. With these springs hopes, plans, schemes, expectations...we're just setting ourselves up for a bigger and bigger fall. But say I want something -- more food, more comfort, more Avenged Sevenfold songs, more sex, more more more whatever -- and I'm willing to strive for it and worry about it and waste my time for it. Okay. So long as it's done in a lawful (codified consensus reality of the rules of our society) and harmless (ahimsa) way, that's fine. That's good. Go for it. But be aware, at least, that it will not satisfy greed. It will not (cannot) fulfill us. And in the meantime, we have not been cultivating the skillful that would lead to welcome results now and in the future. Compassion and wisdom pay great dividends, as does mindfulness.

Thanks for watching. Like and sub if enjoyed, SunnyV2 XO ❤ The idea for this video was inspired by "TheRichest," who posted a video on a similar topic in March 2015 entitled "10 Stupid Lottery Winners." Watch that version on YouTube.com.

• Schultz LIVE; ABC News 7, Los Angeles, Sept. 3, 2025; SunnyV2, Nov. 17, 2022; Seth Auberon, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Did we choose this life?

Me, Myself, and Mine: Anatta (Not Self)

Killing eggs comes back: Karma (epidemic)

I feel therefore I am, Descartes

Is an egg an egg? - Yes. Is it alive? - Yes. - How do we know? - We know because if cared for, it will grow (develop, transform, metamorphose) into a bird, often a bird (like a chicken) capable of procreating more eggs and birds.

Is killing unskillful (harmful, detrimental, resulting in suffering)? - Yes. - Is taking the life of an egg killing? - NO, that doesn't count! It's not a bird! It's a fetus, and a fetus is not a life! I'm not giving up my omelets and easy-overs! You tricked me! It's not killing. There's nothing wrong with stealing eggs, smashing them, and devouring the insides like common egg-stealing snake-animals from the warm wombs of mother-birds! I grew up on a farm, and all the hens gave us their eggs, I mean our eggs, and said, "Sure, eat 'em, I don't care! They come out of canal and mean nothing to me as long as the roosters are kept away so they can't be babies and we're forcibly confined for our safety to all lesbian prison-coops! Case closed, right-to-lifers! Keep your exalted karma philosophies out of my kitchen!"

• Karma: The high cost of eggs (Silanisamsa Jataka)
• VIDEO: Is karma real? Deeds cause results?

So you admit to having mixed feelings, with so much reactivity, that slurping the wombs of big mother-birds to devour their egg in the shell is kidnapping, killing, and cannibalizing fellow living beings? Kind of, but so what? EVERYONE does it! - Well, not everyone. Those who do meet with trouble, not the least of which are salmonella infections, E. coli epidemics, bowel distress, possible death, and when they meet with the results of their karma (deeds), they will not be happy about it.

Isn't the salmonella and E. coli infection the karmic result of killing? - No. That's just a natural consequence of consuming contamination. The abducting of eggs, killing of birds, the slaughter and slurping of the dead, that's the karma. And the karmic result and fruit (vipaka and phala) of killing will not be good.

• CDC warns of Salmonella outbreak linked to eggs | CDC
• Outbreak Investigation of Salmonella: Eggs (June 2025) | FDA
• Costco organic egg recall escalated to highest level | SF Chronicle
• Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Eggs Sickens Dozens - The New York Times

The Buddha tells a story of the past: Silanisamsa Jataka

It's not a sutra, Homer, it's a jataka. - Shut up, Flanders! *Whisper* I'll be back for those eggs.

.

This ship is going to sink, friend.

Long, long ago, at the time of [a previous buddha named] Buddha Kassapa [3], a [stream-enterer] lay disciple who had already entered the path [reached the first stage of enlightenment] booked passage on a ship with his friend, a rich barber.

The rich barber's wife asked the Buddha's disciple to look after her husband. But a week after it left port, the ship sank in the middle of the ocean.

The two friends saved themselves by holding on to a plank of wood and were eventually cast up on the shore of a deserted island rookery.

Hungry, the foolish barber raided egg nests, killed birds, slaughtered and cooked them, offering a share of his bloody meal to the Buddha's disciple.

Farmer trying to steal the mother chicken's babies/eggs goes viral

The wise go for guidance to the Buddha.

"No thank you," the disciple answered, "I'm fine" [not wishing to encourage the foolish barber in his defilements and unskillful karma]. He thought to himself, "In this desolate place, there is no help [guidance] for us except the Three Jewels [the Buddha, Dhamma, and noble Sangha]."

As he sat meditating on the Three Jewels, a naga (reptilian, dragon, CDs) king who had been reborn on that island magically transformed himself into a beautiful ship filled with the seven precious things [4]. Its three masts were made of sapphire, the planks and anchor of gold, and the ropes of silver.

The naga king transforms into a ship to save the good man

The helmsman, who was a sea spirit, stood on the deck and yelled, "Passengers for Jambudipa [earth, subcontinent, or India] now boarding for immediate passage!"

"Yes," the virtuous lay disciple called back, "that's where we're bound!"

"Then come aboard," the sea spirit invited.

The virtuous layman climbed aboard the beautiful ship and turned to call his friend the foolish barber.

Go vegan with an abundant mindset: How much are New Yorkers

willing to pay for Eggs? Josh Johnson investigates | The Daily Show

(The Simpsons) Stealing to kill and devour mother and their offspring

"You may come," the sea spirit declared "but he may not."

"Why not?" the disciple asked.

"He is no follower of the pure life," answered the sea spirit. "I brought this ship for you, but not for him."

"If that's the case," the virtuous layman announced, "then all the gifts I have given, all the virtues [restraints and exertions] I have practiced, all the powers I have developed — I give the fruit of all of them to him!"

"Thank you, Master!" cried his friend the barber.

"Very well," relented the sea spirit, "now I can take both of you aboard."

List of the Buddha's rebirth tales or Jataka Stories (Wiki)

.

The ship carried the two men across the sea and up the Ganges River that pours into it. After depositing them safely at their home in Baranasi [the holy ancient city of Varanasi/Benares], the sea spirit used his magic power to create enormous wealth for both of them. Then, poising himself mid-air, he instructed them and their friends:

"Keep company with the wise and good. If this barber had not been in the company of this virtuous layperson, he would have perished in the middle of the ocean."

Arguing more details

What about other eggs? - Avoid harming beings.

[Doesn't that depend on whether a rooster (cock, man-chicken) inseminated and fertilized it? - That's what some people say. But is cannibalizing a fellow human's womb, the afterbirth, okay after a human birth? - That's sick. - Yeah, but people do it, saying human cannibalism is nutritious and what a waste to throw all that flesh and goo away after it is expelled from the womb and vagina, mixing with bum juices and all but being washed and sauteed before being cannibalized. - Sick! - Sick, yes, but is it killing?

- No! No one died, and no one was kept from being born or developing! - Right, so if that cannibalism is all right, why not eggs that have not yet developed a blood spot, the sign of fertilization? - Ugh, it's all so gross. I don't think humans are carnivores, given that they don't have the features of carnivores but share so many similarities with herbivores. - Meat eaters call human bodies "omnivores" like dogs, capable of eating anything. - Any nutritive substance will do, no matter how contaminated or how fouled by harmful substances that intrinsically mixed in. Carnivore bodies are the way they are to deal with quickly expelling the toxins. - Anyway, don't we HAVE to eat something, so we have to kill something to do it?

- No. We can live without killing, but let's say some lower lifeform does die in the process, are we killing it or calling for it to be killed? No. Even vegetables do not have to be killed for us to eat and live well. - How? - Fruitarianism, for example, is a great way to live on food produced by plants without killing the plants -- beans, grains, vegetable parts other than roots, bioavailable minerals, chlorella, nuts, and much more like nonplants, such as mushrooms and mycelia.

There's breatharianism, subsisting on prana and amrita, but the West doesn't believe in that, so it's out of the question -- but we know it to be true, rare as it is, upending everything we think we "know" about this body and this human life. Vegetarianism is another example, which comes in different varieties. Veganism is a better example, as it steers clear of all dead animals, dead insects, dead and killed higher lifeforms, and avoids using their slaughtered bodies and byproducts. - Is there no way to eat the dead? - There are plenty of ways to eat the dead. Look around.

- No, I mean, any ethical, moral, non-karmically-harmful way? - I can think of one, but it still has the problem of the dead's bodies being rotten, filled with harmful things that the human body will suffer to have to deal with, but at least karmically might not be a problem, other than maybe ghoulish beings standing around delighting in the dead body and its devourment.

- Well, you don't make it sound appetizing, but what is it? - What if someone were to eat the already-dead, that is, that which is dead by not being killed? - What do you mean? - Roadkill, aged animals, sick animals, dead by predation, dead by accident, and so on, these bodies, while dead, might not have been killed by the consumer aiming to consume them NOR paid to be killed, nor by approving of killing as happens when one hires and pays a butcher, a delicatessen, a slaughterhouse, abattoir, a rancher or other torturer of animals who raises them for slaughter or facilitates their slaughter.

- Never mind, I'd rather go vomit and never eat another living being if you put it like that. - The Truth is that the Truth is, whatever it is, and that may be what karma knows, regardless of our rationalizations saying, "This isn't so bad" or "This is not as bad as that" as if any of that makes killing okay, or approving of killing, or rewarding someone for killing, or digesting the dead.]

• Eds., Wisdom Quarterly COMMENTARY, ANALYSIS