All life is precious

[RedLantern]

There are two things in common with all minds as taught in Buddhism.Every mind want happiness and nobody wants to die. If this simple message can spread the world over,people would spend more time on introspection than on execution.

[Tenzin K]

For Buddha, the path to happiness starts from an understanding of the root causes of suffering. Those who consider Buddha a pessimist because of his concern with suffering have missed the point. In fact, he is a skillful doctor — he may break the bad news of our suffering, but he also prescribes a proactive course of treatment. In this metaphor, the medicine is the Buddha’s teachings of wisdom and compassion known as Dharma, and the nurses that encourage us and show us how to take the medicine are the Buddhist community or Sangha. The illness however, can only be cured if the patient follows the doctor’s advice and follows the course of treatment — the Eightfold Path, the core of which involves control of the mind.

In Buddhism, this treatment is not a simple medicine to be swallowed, but a daily practice of mindful thought and action that we ourselves can test scientifically through our own experience. Meditation is, of course, the most well known tool of this practice, but contrary to popular belief, it is not about detaching from the world. Rather it is a tool to train the mind not to dwell in the past or the future, but to live in the here and now, the realm in which we can experience peace most readily.

"All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows one, as the wheel follows the foot of the ox that draws the wagon.

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. It is founded on our thoughts. It is made up of our thoughts. If one speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows one, like a shadow that never leaves."
(Dhammapada 1-2 / Müller & Maguire, 2002.)

[eyesoftara]

Lives are precious and not a single human or animals wants to die. This is clear. Humans can only see humans and animals. For these two realms, the above is true. Not wanting to die is natural and is a kind of grasping to the self. The preservation to this self ironically is the root of all suffering. Further irony is that no matter how much we grasp at this life, we will die eventually.
The Buddha's teaching focus on the preciousness of the human life as it is the optimum type of rebirth that one can achieve Liberation and Full Enlightenment. Hence, the preciousness of life can only truly be applied to the human rebirth. That does not mean we do not treat other humans and animals' life as less precious since killing and heedlessly causing there death directly or indirectly is a sin that cause huge negative karma for one.

The point is that since our life is precious, others lives must also be. And it is necessary to use this precious life to attaint some kind of liberation or create the cause for our cessation from the uncontrolled cycles of rebirth in samsara.

[cookie]

"There are two things in common with all minds as taught in Buddhism.Every mind want happiness and nobody wants to die. If this simple message can spread the world over,people would spend more time on introspection than on execution."

Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. Execution is the carrying out of a sentence of death.

As ordinary people (not going into the discussion of execution of criminals based on the law of a country), we should minimize if not eliminate any form of killing. All beings want to live. This fact is not rocket science. We do everything we can to protect our own lives and that of our loved ones. What difference is it with other beings ? Unless we view them as lower and hence think that they do not deserve to live. A good example are animals.
Yes we certainly need to examine our conscious thoughts and feelings, our intentions on taking away others lives or happiness to satisfy our selfish needs ! Why do we do that ?
Some of us have been conditioned to do so cause our parents, being ignorant, believed that eating by killing was absolutely fine. But we cannot go on blaming others for this condition, we have to consciously make a change if we now know it is wrong to do so.
Others may be residing in lands that have very poor conditions for vegetation or other form of non-meat produce, and hence have no choice but to eat meat to survive. Well, no choice is a sad thing. Would hate to have the KARMA to be born in such a place.

Some other people resort to killing humans in the name of WAR. Killing to conquer a land, to conquer its people, to control their livelihoods, in the name of religion; basically to show others they are POWERFUL. Wow ! The EGO KILLS ! For governments or leaders or individuals who practice this form of ruling for PEACE, please stop and reflect your actions, because its absolutely delusional to think that such actions of killing can bring PEACE.