Live and let live

I was watching the news when I learnt that a turkey meant to be slaughtered by the President of America on Thanksgiving Day was spared its life. This is wonderful. According to Buddhism, sparing the life of a living being, animals included is better than building seven pagodas.

In real life situation, we can go for vegetarian diet as a way of sparing lives of animals meant for food. These include pigs, cows, goats, chickens and so on. As our food consists of vegetables, we don't have to resort to killing chickens, for example, for food.

If the spirit of non-killing is extended to other things,then wars which involve killings can be avoided. Acts of murder will be a thing of the past. How nice it would be if all human beings practise sparing lives of other fellow men and other beings.

The spirit of 'Live and let live' will then prevail.