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By Root 939 0

practice is a sane and humane way of life, a positive end in itself; it’s not just the means to a nirvanic end. Conscious, mindful living calls us to be fully present—as if totally intimate with all and everything. While it’s easier than you think, it’s also harder than you think. During the sweltering rainy season, when bugs are rampant, some of the most conscientious and careful monks in India and Southeast Asia use a broom to sweep insects and worms from the path as they walk. They do this not just because they worry about being bitten, but because they are wholeheartedly trying to preserve, cherish, and respect life. All life. This saintly attitude is not essential to begin a Buddhist practice, but remains an ideal to consider. Well-developed practitioners who are able to consistently act on the belief that the smallest insect is a precious being remind us of the degree of effort, awareness, and love such behavior demands.

Not killing may seem to be a very simple instruction to follow, but in reality it’s quite difficult. For example, if I say, “Of course I don’t kill,” I am conveniently forgetting that in a single hour of night driving in my speeding car, I am probably killing dozens or even hundreds of moths and insects who are attracted to the headlights. “But,” I may assert, “I don’t intentionally kill.” I don’t act out anger with violence; I don’t fish; I don’t hunt. However, sometimes I eat meat, wear leather shoes and belts, have an ivory bead on my mala beads. Did millions of tiny silkworms wish to give up their lives so I can wear my yellow Tibetan lama shirt? In truth, it’s very, very difficult to never, ever kill. If you live in the country and have a driveway, each summer day you are running over insects. Think about all the tiny ants that are crushed when we picnic in the park or dig up a foundation for a house. What if you have cockroaches in your kitchen or parasites in your intestinal tract? To kill or not to kill, that is the question.

Even the indomitable Dharma can be touched by an infestation of cockroaches. Karmapa’s KTD Monastery in Woodstock, New York, was established in 1976; two years later we faced a unique moral dilemma. The gentle Buddhist monks in that old hotel on top of the Catskill Mountains were being overrun by roaches. Where, we joked, had they come from? From New York City, like so many of the monastery’s inhabitants? We laughed and laughed, but it soon became a huge problem. Cockroaches were teeming in the corners and between the floorboards. The cockroach community was growing much faster than the human sangha; they threatened to take over the building as well as put us in jeopardy with the health department. And new Dharma students were being put off. It appeared that roaches were threatening the survival of the monastery itself. A decision had to be made—to exterminate or not to exterminate. The lamas, visibly distressed by this decision, spent hours in debate and discussion. What to do? Leave the monastery in threat of being closed down or violate the first Buddhist injunction against killing? It was not a small issue for us.

Finally after many phone calls between Woodstock, Nepal, and the mother Rumtek Monastery in Sikkim, a difficult decision was reached. Within days, an exterminator’s van showed up at the monastery gates. Mounted on the top was a large scuptured insect—it looked like a giant cockroach. Prayers were made, heads were bowed, hearts were touched, and the deed was done. Sometimes in life we make decisions which appear to be as practically necessary as they are painful.

Because I am a lama and teacher, people often approach me looking for satisfactory ways to think about life and death matters: What should they think about capital punishment? What should they do about the termites chewing on their houses? What position should they take on assisted suicides? Abortion? Is war ever justifiable? To pick our way through these thorny issues, we must appreciate and examine all the details and consider each case individually on its own merits. Each of us has to reach