Killing and anatta

Abhidhamma
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Bodhi Introduction to The All Embracing Net of Views

, in the exegetical section on virtue, the subcommentary raises an interesting discussion on the justification of a precept prohibiting killing in the context of the Buddhist doctrine of non-self (anattā). When there is no self to be killed, and no self to kill, what grounds can be advanced for prohibiting the act of killing? A similar question is raised in the Hindu classic, the Bhagavadgītā, and the subcommentator might have had this passage in mind in his own discussion, since certain phrases he employs are reminiscent of the Gītā. The Gītā asks: if the one self is eternal and imperishable, the same in all beings, beyond action and involvement, why should one refrain from warfare? The answer it gives is that one need not refrain, that one can participate, can even kill, provided one follows a righteous course, performs one’s duties in a spirit of detachment, and recognizes the reality of the all-pervasive self. But the Buddhist thinker must answer in a way that maintains the validity of the precept forbidding killing, yet does not concede the existence of a self to kill or to be killed.

From the Buddhist standpoint there can be no metaphysical justi- fication for moral antinomianism. The subcommentator establishes his case by defining both the killer and the victim in terms of the “assemblage of formations” (saṅkhārānaṃ puñjo), the continuum of material and immaterial phenomena bound together by laws of coordination and transmitted influence. Though there is no self that kills, there is an assemblage of aggregates containing the volition of killing, which motivates and actualizes the murderous act. The victim, again, is not a self, but an aggregation of dhammas that would have continued to arise in the unified sequence of a singe life if the means of killing had not been applied by the killer, but which, because of the application of the means, is deprived of the vital material basis needed to continue in the same single life form. Thus the three notions of the killer, killing, and killed can all be defined in a way that does not require reference to an existing self, and the precept against killing is spared its validity.

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From the Tika translated by Bhikkhu Bodhi

(THE ACT OF KILLING IN TERMS OF THE DOCTRINE OF NON-SELF)

Sub.Cy.Query:When formations are subject to constant cessation from moment to moment, who kills and who is killed? If it is said that the continuum of consciousness and its concomitants kills and is killed, this answer has to be rejected. For such a continuum is immaterial, and because it is immaterial it is incapable of inflicting any harm by cutting, breaking, etc., nor can it be harmed itself. If it is said that “killing” and “being killed” apply to the material continuum, this alternative too must be rejected. For the material continuum is devoid of consciousness, like a block of wood, and so the destruction of life by cutting, etc., can no more apply to the body than to a lifeless corpse.

Again, the means of destroying life, such as striking a blow, etc., must apply to formations either in the past, the future, or the present. But it is impossible that the means could apply to past or future formations, since those do not exist (at the time the blow is struck). In the case of present formations, any application of the means would be useless. For the present formations, due to their momentary nature, are subject to complete cessation anyway, and hence are already heading towards their own destruction by themselves. Since, therefore, their destruction occurs without any extraneous cause (but follows from their nature), death would not be caused by the striking of blows or by other means. Because the formations are devoid of personal initiative (nirīhaka), to whom do the means of killing belong? And who should be bound by the kamma of destroying life if, due to momentariness, the intention of killing breaks up at the very same time it arises, and does not last up to the time of the act’s completion?

Reply:The “killer” is the assemblage of formations conventionally called a “being,” containing the aforementioned volition of killing. That which “is killed” by him is the aggregation of material and immaterial dhammas that would have been capable of arising (in continued succession) if the aforementioned means of killing had not been applied, but which now continues as a bare procession (of material dhammas) conventionally termed “dead,” deprived of vital warmth, consciousness, and the life-faculty due to the application of the means of killing by the killer. Or else (that which “is killed” may be defined as) the continuum of consciousness and its concomitants alone. Although the mental continuum does not itself form the actual object of the means of killing (since the victim’s body is the object), still the notion of life-destruction remains valid (even with this definition). For, in the five-constituent existence,38the mental continuum occurs in dependence upon the material continuum; so when an enemy applies the means of cutting off the life-faculty to the material continuum in such a way that the successive arising of the vital material states linked up with and supporting the correlative mental continuum is impaired, then the disruption (of the mental continuum) takes place (and the being is said to be killed). Again, the destruction of life is not without a specific cause, nor is the application of the means of killing useless. Death is not without a specific cause:

[36. “Five-constituent existence” (pañcavokārabhava) refers to those planes of existence where all five aggregates—material form, feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness—are found. It is contrasted with one- constituent existence (ekavokārabhava), the plane of impercipient beings, and with four-constituent existence (catuvokārabhava), the immaterial planes, where the aggregate of materiality is absent. In the five-constituent existence the mental aggregates occur in dependence on the body, so when the physical life-force is extinguished, the flow of mental states is disrupted and the being is said to be dead.]

(1) because if the means of killing are applied to the present formations, the aggregation of formations due to arise in immediate succession to them will not arise; (2) because in the present context it is not the “momentary death” of the momentary formations that is intended by the designation “death”; and (3) because the death of the life-continuity (which is meant here) does occur through specific causes, as explained above.39Therefore, death is not causeless. Nor are the means of destroying life void of agency (katturahita). Though formations lack personal initiative, nevertheless, the conventional designation of agency is applicable to causes that are effective through their contiguity and are fixed in their capacity to give results adequate to themselves, just as in the statements “the lamp illuminates” and “the moon brings in the night” (agency is ascribed to the lamp and to the moon).

The act of destroying life must be recognized to pertain not only to the aggregation of consciousness and mental concomitants existing simultaneously with the intention of killing, but must also be admitted to apply to the (entire sequence of states) that endures by way of (the unity and individuality of) the continuum. Just as the accomplishment of activity is seen in the case of lamps, etc., which likewise exist by way of continuity, so too there certainly does exist one who is bound by the kamma of destroying life.

The same method of investigation may, with due alterations, be applied in the case of taking what is not given, etc., as well.

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A post was split to a new topic: Collective kamma, whales, and population decline

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note that conventionally we can refer to agency.