Spiders and other creepy crawlers

[Taylor]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Let me add that with spiders at least, if you want them to live you should NOT throw them outside. Maybe put them out in the garage. By putting them outside, there's a good chance you are just killing them anyway!!!

http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyth/myths/comein.html

Beat me to this one! Haha

Anyways, the precepts are just one of the many faces of our "Genjokoan", if you will (I recently went on a bit of spiritual bender, running around looking for "something" so play along for a bit please :P)

As far as my understanding, or lack there of, is concerned the koan of our life is exactly what you're referring to here. Yes, technically we do not kill. Yet we kill to eat. Just because a cabbage doesn't scream doesn't mean it enjoy's being wrenched from the soil. No to mention the mice and insects in our wheat and blah blah blah...

If you're looking for an answer to this question, no one (not even the mighty Jundo and Taigu :P) can give it to you. It's your life to lead based on the hard and fast guidelines of the precepts. There are no commandments here to break. Only a fluid life that requires a fluid response.

Gassho,
Myoken (Taylor)

[bcaruthers]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Thank you all for your replies. It appears that the answer to the question as to kill or not to kill depends on how you personally feel and interpret the precepts. If one feels guilty for killing spiders then they should refrain from killing them. If it doesn't bother someone to kill them then that is OK too.

Gassho,
Bryan

[Taylor]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Thank you all for your replies. It appears that the answer to the question as to kill or not to kill depends on how you personally feel and interpret the precepts. If one feels guilty for killing spiders then they should refrain from killing them. If it doesn't bother someone to kill them then that is OK too.

Gassho,
Bryan

Well, maybe! Haha I certainly don't think we should kill things just because it doesn't bother us. To one person killing a fly is no big deal, to another killing a person is no big deal. Cabbage and humans, life and life. Where do we equate what's "ok"?

Refrain from killing at all costs, really. I think this goes without saying. But if you're about to be bitten by a spider and you kill it while brushing it off, maybe better off? No easy answers here, and they don't fit into any nice boxes.

[Saijun]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

I'm going to come off as the harsh fundamentalist Buddhist on this one. While it's true that (as I recall) traditionally killing an animal was a lesser offense than killing a human, it is still an offense. Killing is still killing. I am absolutely terrified of spiders (and centipedes, we have those too), but when I come across one in the house, it's the "paper and cup" trick every time. Then I run screaming back into the house.

However, it's not that I refrain from killing out of a sense of guilt or fear of karmaic punishment; it's a duty. I've taken Bodhisattva vows, and vows I do not take lightly. By choosing, moment by moment, to honor those sixteen precepts and four great vows, I (in my own small way) am granting unconditional protection to all sentient beings, if only from myself and my own ignorance and unskillful action.

Hi Saijun,

This is really something that we will get into a bit more during Jukai preparations, when we 'wrestle' with the Precepts a bit ... find how they fit in our life. Many views on these things, and I dare say, "many 'right views'", not only one (many 'wrong and harmful' views too, not only one).

But just let me ask you a question:

Then, how would you have handled the termites in our little wooden home if the only option were killing (or moving), assuming there were no other options (such as some new discovery in termite removal)? How would you handle biting spiders in the room of your infant son if you could not catch them all, or chase them all away?

This is where the Precepts get a little "rubber meets the road" to the complexities of life.

My wife and I also reach for the paper cup, and remove the 'little crawling Buddhas' to the outdoors when we can.

Gassho, J

PS - We do not have 'flame wars' and the like at Treeleaf.

Hello Jundo,

Having not been in either of those scenarios, anything that I could say would be pure conjecture. However, I do see your point. If preventatives didn't work (lemon oil, vinegar etc. for spiders and orange oil(?) for termites) and there were no other options, then I could see perhaps the inevitability of a bug bomb to protect the other inhabitants.

That having been said, I suppose what would be important for me would be to acknowledge that yes, I was just responsible for the intentional killing of thousands of termites, several spiders, a snake, what have you. So I suppose it's that old question again: "What can I do right now?"

Thank you for bringing that example back to me. Sometimes I need people to snap me out of the "harsh fundamentalist Buddhist" mode. _/_

Let me add that with spiders at least, if you want them to live you should NOT throw them outside. Maybe put them out in the garage. By putting them outside, there's a good chance you are just killing them anyway!!!

http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyth/myths/comein.html

Beat me to this one! Haha

Anyways, the precepts are just one of the many faces of our "Genjokoan", if you will (I recently went on a bit of spiritual bender, running around looking for "something" so play along for a bit please :P)

As far as my understanding, or lack there of, is concerned the koan of our life is exactly what you're referring to here. Yes, technically we do not kill. Yet we kill to eat. Just because a cabbage doesn't scream doesn't mean it enjoy's being wrenched from the soil. No to mention the mice and insects in our wheat and blah blah blah...

If you're looking for an answer to this question, no one (not even the mighty Jundo and Taigu :P) can give it to you. It's your life to lead based on the hard and fast guidelines of the precepts. There are no commandments here to break. Only a fluid life that requires a fluid response.

Gassho,
Myoken (Taylor)

Matt and Myoken,

Thank you for sharing this--it is very useful information that I was heretofore unaware of.

Metta and Gassho,

Saijun

[Hoyu]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Let me add that with spiders at least, if you want them to live you should NOT throw them outside. Maybe put them out in the garage. By putting them outside, there's a good chance you are just killing them anyway!!!

http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyth/myths/comein.html

Wow! Your post here Matt has made me realize how many spiders I've probably killed by trying not to kill spiders! Thank you for the garage tip

Gassho,
John

P.S. Great work towards saving all sentient beings!

[Hoyu]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

If one feels guilty for killing spiders then they should refrain from killing them. If it doesn't bother someone to kill them then that is OK too.

I think that compassion rather than guilt would make a better determining factor to, or not to take a life.

Gassho,
John

[Undo]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Matto wrote:Let me add that with spiders at least, if you want them to live you should NOT throw them outside. Maybe put them out in the garage. By putting them outside, there's a good chance you are just killing them anyway!!!

http://www.burkemuseum.org/spidermyth/myths/comein.html

I'm afraid that article is very misleading. There is no such genus as house spider as such. Some species would prefer certain conditions to live but they are quite variable. The vast majority of spiders would and do live happily outside. The reason more spiders are seen in a house at certain times of the year is because of mating cycles. The males tend to roam about looking for a female and get lost and end up in the house, rather than they choose to live there.
Most spider species have been arround for 200 million years and really are living fossils and more than capable with dealing with nature.

Getting back to the OP. I think a bigger concern with spiders is dealing with the irrational fear. you'll never be able to kill all the spiders. Kill the fear instead and the spider problem will be gone.
The vast majority of spiders are harmless to humans and has already been mentioned, a lot can not even pierce our skin. A spider loves to be left alone and it will leave you alone.

[Hoyu]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Undo wrote:
I think a bigger concern with spiders is dealing with the irrational fear. you'll never be able to kill all the spiders. Kill the fear instead and the spider problem will be gone.

_/_

[Kyonin]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Like all around here, I cherish life. I truly do. But when it comes to safety and health, I don't might kill an mosquito here and there.

You see, I live in a place where we have dengue. Nasty disease transmitted by mosquito bite. So it's either protect my own health or let mosquitoes bite me.

I usually do a pretty decent job keeping them away from inside the house, but sometimes my mind is not mindful and the ape inside me just squashes them.

Not sure how to fit this into the precepts but if you are protecting your health and your families, I think it's okay to do what you need. Just as long as you don't go all postal and kill just for the heck of it.

Just my two pesos.

[Graceleejenkins]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

I live with many spiders in my house, and those I may need to move have become garage spiders for years!
I try very hard not to kill anything that I don’t need, too, but if I need to, and it seems to be fair in the cycle of nature or life, then I do so, and I don’t feel guilty.

Once my nephew smashed a preying mantis against a wall, and I strongly told him that he shouldn’t have done that. He asked me why not, because he had seen me kill a mosquito. What was the big deal? Because we were late for boyscouts, I didn’t have a good answer right away.

Afterwards when I thought about it, I told him it wasn’t “right” because the preying mantis didn’t die for a real purpose, like being food for something else, but died only because of my nephew’s boredom. I told him that I do not go out of my way to kill a mosquito and kill it only if it starts to bite me, and to me, killing a mosquito to keep it from biting me seems a natural part of the cycle of nature. Insects bite, and their victims try to kill them to stop them from biting. However, he killed the preying mantis because he was bored, and to kill outside of a natural cycle, because you are bored or afraid or for a sense of fun, seems wrong to me.

I would look at termite extermination the same way. In the natural world, termites have a right to try to eat a creature’s abode, and other creatures (including us) have the right to try to stop them or to eat them—part of the natural cycle. I know there are always cases that test the limits, but this somewhat unconscious rule has worked well for me, and I haven’t felt guilty about what I have killed.

Nonetheless, it makes me happy to have people at least consider what they are doing, as we are here, even if we may not all draw the limit at the same place. Gassho, Grace.

[Risho]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

I would definitely rid my environment of any funnel web spiders.

[Hoyu]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

Choco wrote:
Not sure how to fit this into the precepts but if you are protecting your health and your families, I think it's okay to do what you need. Just as long as you don't go all postal and kill just for the heck of it.

I agree with you Choco. Here is what I wrote above:

If one feels guilty for killing spiders then they should refrain from killing them. If it doesn't bother someone to kill them then that is OK too.

I think that compassion rather than guilt would make a better determining factor to, or not to take a life.

Gassho,
John

Let me expalin further what I meant about compassion, which ties into what you have written. It's like when Jundo Sensei had the termites. Getting rid of them was still an act of compassion. To let them be would create a hazardous condition for all who enter the Zendo. Just seeing the earthquakes during our Zazenkai is a good reminder of all who have been saved by not having it cave in on them.
Likewise, as you mentioned, killing mosquitos to prevent illness/death to you or others is also an act of compassion. Well in my opinion anyway!

Gassho,
John

[Undo]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

I would definitely rid my environment of any funnel web spiders.

:shock: funnel webs are part of one of my favourite groups. I even managed to breed some last year and got 101 little slings


back to the OP.
Withot putting any pressure on you or your wife. It is quite common for a local zoo, animal park or your local arachid club to run courses for arachnopobes. They can tell you all you need to know about spiders and try and help with the phobia aspect too.

[Stev]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

My problem is flies, because of where we live and how we live, a very open house in a small hamlet where mostly everyone has some sort of livestock and due to the time of year, every time I sit I am attacked by flies!! Now as I am writing this, a metre from where I will be meditating in an hour or so there are no flies, well none annoying me anyway but I can guarantee the moment I sit there will be flies using my head nose and arms for a landing stage. I have really been struggling as to what the best thing is to do because it just does not feel right killing flies so I can meditate.
I did once keep bees, and tried dressing up in my bee keeping gear but apart from feeling stupid ops: it is Southern Spain and 34C in the shade so though it kept the flies off my skin it was far too hot!
So then I tried Dukka, I told myself the fly crawling up my nose was nothing but Dukka and I should embrace it as nothing more! Well to be honest that does kind of work depending on how the actual sitting is going, but when one has about 5 flies drinking one's sweat there comes the point where I have to move!!
But now I have the perfect weapon and strategy, it is a tennis racket shaped thingy with batteries that zaps the flies, it is meant to kill them but I found it only stuns them, so when I sit and the flies come I stun them with my racket, out of a 20 minute sitting I get about 10 minutes peace, and end up peacefully relaxed surrounded by 4 or 5 little sleeping souls.
Unless of course it is one of those times when I have caught my own ear or arm, that zapper hurts!!
Karma eh!!!

[Taigu]

Re: Spiders and other creepy crawlers

You know what baby, you are ( I am damn sure this is intentionnal), you are , how shall I put it.... You are the guy, shape, triangle-like thing that WE, flies, bump into every---F-------time we try to enjoy our flying skills....
Could you ,please, remove this so we can fly as flies.

gassho

BUDDHA..flies