Question
Dear Zen master,
I have difficulty seeing the difference between killing trees, animals, or human beings. What is your opinion?
Anonymous
Answer from Master Kosen
Fundamentally, killing life is killing life, whether it is a tree, an animal, or a human being.
But we cannot remain solely at the fundamental level. Certainly, what distinguishes human beings from animals is the awareness of being. However, if we begin judging the preciousness of lives according to their awareness of existing, we will quickly arrive at a new form of racism. Not so long ago, people thought killing Black people or Native Americans was not very important. Now millions of cows are killed in Europe for financial reasons, and millions of trees are cut down in the Amazon, also for financial reasons. Perhaps later we will realize the preciousness of life in general.
Kosen