Dairy farm and calves

Buddhist ethical conduct including the Five Precepts (Pañcasikkhāpada), and Eightfold Ethical Conduct (Aṭṭhasīla).
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AliochaKaramazov
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Dairy farm and calves

Post by AliochaKaramazov »

Greetings to all,
And my respectful salutations to the members of the Sangha.

I wished to have more clarity on a specific incident, may I please receive your guidance and help ?
I basically work on a dairy farm and abstain from certain actions that I’ve addressed to my boss (e.g. separating calves from their mom, putting flies traps). Yet, he sometimes sells calves to people who fatten them up to make meat out of them.
Today I helped putting two calves in a trailer that will apparently join a group of calves and sometime later be unfortunately killed.
Have I acted wrongly ?
As intention is kamma I feel I’m out of the wrong but doubt persists.
Navigating everyday life in the realm of work isn’t always self evident and I’m still easily prone to guilt.
I thank you for reading me,
With mettā.
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Sam Vara
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by Sam Vara »

AliochaKaramazov wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 11:53 am Greetings to all,
And my respectful salutations to the members of the Sangha.

I wished to have more clarity on a specific incident, may I please receive your guidance and help ?
I basically work on a dairy farm and abstain from certain actions that I’ve addressed to my boss (e.g. separating calves from their mom, putting flies traps). Yet, he sometimes sells calves to people who fatten them up to make meat out of them.
Today I helped putting two calves in a trailer that will apparently join a group of calves and sometime later be unfortunately killed.
Have I acted wrongly ?
As intention is kamma I feel I’m out of the wrong but doubt persists.
Navigating everyday life in the realm of work isn’t always self evident and I’m still easily prone to guilt.
I thank you for reading me,
With mettā.
It was working on a dairy farm that led to me becoming vegan, as I saw first hand that the dairy industry is necessarily predicated upon the beef industry. Quite apart from any incidental cruelty, calves have to be killed because maintaining large numbers of economically unproductive male bullocks into ripe old age would put the price of milk beyond most people.

However, you haven't broken any precepts. The first lay precept is against killing. If you didn't kill the calves or intend to kill them, then the kamma related to killing them belongs to someone else.

You might want to think about alternative employment if it makes you uneasy, but in terms of precepts there is nothing agaist putting calves in a trailer. :anjali:
dharmacorps
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by dharmacorps »

If you didn't knowingly kill or order a living being to be killed, you didn't break a precept, but you probably have an occupation not suitable to a Buddhist if you are trying to observe right livelihood. Most farm jobs do involve killing on some level.
AliochaKaramazov
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by AliochaKaramazov »

Thank you very much for your answers :anjali:
I appreciate knowing a fellow Buddhist practitioner was also working on a dairy farm, and I understand your desire to have turned vegan. Thank you for your kind answer Sam Vara, I hope that you are well :candle:
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Dan74
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by Dan74 »

Hi Aliocha :hello: Здравствуйте, если Вы русско-говорящий

I think it's great that you care about such things. Working there, perhaps you can help the animals, make their lives better, fill your heart with compassion for them and for all creatures, including those of us who don't know better, who are in the darkness.

This attitude is worth cultivating, for your sake and for the sake of the world, in my opinion.
_/|\_
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dawn of peace
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by dawn of peace »

Sam Vara wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 12:29 pm However, you haven't broken any precepts. The first lay precept is against killing. If you didn't kill the calves or intend to kill them, then the kamma related to killing them belongs to someone else.

You might want to think about alternative employment if it makes you uneasy, but in terms of precepts there is nothing agaist putting calves in a trailer.
if the intention to put calves in trailer is killing the calves,this will break the first precept. without such intention, this will not break the precept even if the calves die eventually, but is this considered to be wrong livelihood, which selling the calves to someone who eventually kill the calves?
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Sam Vara
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by Sam Vara »

dawn of peace wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 6:46 am
Sam Vara wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 12:29 pm However, you haven't broken any precepts. The first lay precept is against killing. If you didn't kill the calves or intend to kill them, then the kamma related to killing them belongs to someone else.

You might want to think about alternative employment if it makes you uneasy, but in terms of precepts there is nothing agaist putting calves in a trailer.
if the intention to put calves in trailer is killing the calves,this will break the first precept.
It would, but this isn't what is happening. Nobody uses a trailer to kill, but for transporting things.
but is this considered to be wrong livelihood, which selling the calves to someone who eventually kill the calves?
I don't think so, as it is the business owner who sells them.
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Pondera
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by Pondera »

AliochaKaramazov wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 11:53 am Greetings to all,
And my respectful salutations to the members of the Sangha.

I wished to have more clarity on a specific incident, may I please receive your guidance and help ?
I basically work on a dairy farm and abstain from certain actions that I’ve addressed to my boss (e.g. separating calves from their mom, putting flies traps). Yet, he sometimes sells calves to people who fatten them up to make meat out of them.
Today I helped putting two calves in a trailer that will apparently join a group of calves and sometime later be unfortunately killed.
Have I acted wrongly ?
As intention is kamma I feel I’m out of the wrong but doubt persists.
Navigating everyday life in the realm of work isn’t always self evident and I’m still easily prone to guilt.
I thank you for reading me,
With mettā.
Mishka!!! Where’s Dmytry? Where is Ivan!!!! We haven’t gone for drinks in years. Is Ivan still in the infermery!!! I heard he made a pack with the devil!!!

One of my favourite books. I love the whore house scene in the public house. Good, good memories of that. It’s a social construct if you can believe it. You enter the bar. To your left, a table with chairs and a stair case leading to the bedrooms up top. In front, the bar. To your right, the private lounge where Dymitry sat with his people drinking.

Have you acted wrongly? Perhaps. Contributing to the death of an animal is not good for the animal if you can believe that. Whether or not it is good for YOU should not be the question.

There are eight livelihoods out there. I’m sure you can find one.

Mishku!!! :toast:
Like the three marks of conditioned existence, this world in itself is filthy, hostile, and crowded
Meggo
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by Meggo »

I don't know if you broke any precept, but if you knew that your "helping" was against the intention of the calve e.g. calve trying to get free and you restraining the calve with force, then you knowingly induced suffering and thus your actions were wrong.
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Sam Vara
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by Sam Vara »

Meggo wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 4:38 pm I don't know if you broke any precept, but if you knew that your "helping" was against the intention of the calve e.g. calve trying to get free and you restraining the calve with force, then you knowingly induced suffering and thus your actions were wrong.
At the risk of seeming contrarian here, sometimes we need to restrain animals and prevent them from harming themselves. That's preventing suffering, or at least intending to, so it could be a completely kusala action.
AliochaKaramazov
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by AliochaKaramazov »

Pondera wrote: Sat Nov 26, 2022 8:32 am
AliochaKaramazov wrote: Wed Nov 09, 2022 11:53 am Greetings to all,
And my respectful salutations to the members of the Sangha.

I wished to have more clarity on a specific incident, may I please receive your guidance and help ?
I basically work on a dairy farm and abstain from certain actions that I’ve addressed to my boss (e.g. separating calves from their mom, putting flies traps). Yet, he sometimes sells calves to people who fatten them up to make meat out of them.
Today I helped putting two calves in a trailer that will apparently join a group of calves and sometime later be unfortunately killed.
Have I acted wrongly ?
As intention is kamma I feel I’m out of the wrong but doubt persists.
Navigating everyday life in the realm of work isn’t always self evident and I’m still easily prone to guilt.
I thank you for reading me,
With mettā.
Mishka!!! Where’s Dmytry? Where is Ivan!!!! We haven’t gone for drinks in years. Is Ivan still in the infermery!!! I heard he made a pack with the devil!!!

One of my favourite books. I love the whore house scene in the public house. Good, good memories of that. It’s a social construct if you can believe it. You enter the bar. To your left, a table with chairs and a stair case leading to the bedrooms up top. In front, the bar. To your right, the private lounge where Dymitry sat with his people drinking.

Have you acted wrongly? Perhaps. Contributing to the death of an animal is not good for the animal if you can believe that. Whether or not it is good for YOU should not be the question.

There are eight livelihoods out there. I’m sure you can find one.

Mishku!!! :toast:
Dear Pondera,

Thank you for your answer and for the amusing reference to my username!

As for the possibility of the « wrongness » of the livelihood, it becomes more apparent to me that it may not necessarily be so considering that intention is karma, and as I don’t have any intention to either kill or to incite to kill nor to trade or do business in meat, I feel I keep myself from engaging in a wrong means of living (as I do many chores revolving around feeding the animals, cleaning, gardening, etc., which would be considered as « rearing cattle », which is right livelihood and it is only my boss that is trading and doing whatever business he’s doing with the animals).
And if what my boss decides to do with the animals defines the quality of my livehood (right/wrong), it’d mean my livelihood changes from wrong to right beyond my grasp of action and without my intentions or decisions for that to happen (sometimes a calf can go to a breeding farm), which would seem contradictory to what I understand from the suttas.

And as for contributing to the death of an animal (which I don’t have any intention for), similarly, one can contribute to the deaths of beings and kill them when ploughing the land but if one doesn’t have any intention to kill, he wouldn’t be compromising the precept in my understanding as his intention is to simply plough (especially considering that «  farming » seems to be included as a right livelihood), but he would still contribute to deaths anyway ! Then it would be more about the degree to which we refrain from harm and engage in the practice (such as the potter in the sutta which fabricates clay pot by using earth that he hasn’t dug up).
There surely are other means of livelihood as you suggest, but I might find myself again in doubtful circumstances if I can’t manage to decipher the greyish areas that they could imply.
I’d genuinely be ready to quit the job if it was indeed clear that it was wrong livelihood though. At any rate, I’ll refrain from certain actions that are doubtful to me and continue to adress it to my boss.

I thank you :candle:
With mettā
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mjaviem
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Re: Dairy farm and calves

Post by mjaviem »

In my opinion all the jobs are kind of wrong livelihood. Unless you go forth to live the holly life you won't be doing the right livelihood:
SN 45.8 wrote:...
“And what, bhikkhus, is right livelihood? Here a noble disciple, having abandoned a wrong mode of livelihood, earns his living by a right livelihood: this is called right livelihood.
...
I would suggest to pay everyday attention to your work to see if you are not doing the right thing. If you are not engaging in killing nor help killing or trading with living beings but still feel some guilt about your work then update your resume and start looking for a job that would make you feel you're not harming anyone. In the meantime make sure your actions don't cause harm to these animals. I'm sure you are very compassionate about them and in your treatment to them. This compassion you show in your OP seems a nice way of living.
Namo Tassa Bhagavato Arahato Sammā Sambuddhassa
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