The Buddha taught to refrain from killing. Many practice this teaching literally by not eating meat, not killing insects, or becoming a conscientious objector in the face of war. However, the precept of not to kill in it’s largest context is about death and the ways we participate in it. The Buddha taught that a human being trembles in the face of two things — danger and death. Therefore, when any one of us causes another human being to tremble we are faced with the prospects of killing– be it killing another’s sense of survival which is to present danger or actually eliminating life. In this larger view of the teaching we can kill by threatening to harm someone, verbal and physical abuse, or denying a living being the basic needs of water, food, clothing and shelter. As a society we are actively albeit slowly killing life. And there is no need to explain causing the actual death of a living being (directly or indirectly). This is only a thought that passed through being shared here.
