Do Less Harm

Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. I was invited to speak in Quartzite, Arizona last week, at this year's RTR, an annual gathering in the desert for full- and part-time van dwellers from all over the country. I spoke, as I often do, about the importance of living in line with our core values so that

what we think, what we say, and what we do, are all in alignment. It's a way of ensuring undisrupted inner peace. A woman raised her hand to ask the following question, for which I didn't have a good answer at the time, but upon deeper reflection, I've reached what I

think is the core of the matter. She described her internal conflict as follows: On one hand, she was raised on a farm with many animals; from chickens to pigs, goats, and cows, some of whom were designated as pets, which the family never butchered nor ate,

while others were strictly raised for consumption. Even as a young girl she didn't understand the distinction, and now, as an adult, she loves bacon, eats meat, and doesn't think twice about a chicken salad, but she still has pet pigs, turkeys, sheep, and so on, whom she never eats. She is struggling to make sense and peace with simultaneously loving animals, yet eating them as well. She sees bacon as someTHING, but Roger, her pet pig, as someONE. As a result, she said she feels inauthentic.

I initially thought the conflict resulted from a lack of commitment to one way or the other. To illustrate what I meant about commitment, I used the example of dating multiple people at the same time, which is commonplace, harmless, and perfectly acceptable. However, continuing to see other people after getting married creates conflict, internal and otherwise, because a commitment has been made, a vow, a promise never to do that again.

Applying this to the meat-eating/animal lover dichotomy; all I initially thought was missing was a commitment; she has not vowed to stop eating animals, so there was no conflict of interest, per se. But upon further contemplation, not only has she not yet taken the step to honestly look at ALL animals as someONE, not some THING, she struggles with the same Buddhist invitation with which I also had difficulty for a very long time: To do no harm.

It is literally impossible for us to do no harm; our very existence is only possible at the expense of others. We inevitably kill living organisms every time we breathe, wash our hands, and so on. Our life contributes to the general overpopulation problem, and we are one more mouth to feed, one more consumer, et cetera. "Doing no harm" is not an option. So I used to wonder Why even bother? Why even try?

But then I changed the wording from Do NO Harm to Do LESS Harm, and now, I see every action as an opportunity to ask myself Is the harm I'm about to cause avoidable? And then, I practice doing less harm when I'm about to buy something, or eat something, drink, watch, listen, read, et cetera. Every single moment is an opportunity to contemplate ways and options that minimize the harm I cause through my choices. Not just harm to others, but also to myself.

By now, you are probably familiar with the practice of the three gates when it comes