Killing invasive species.

[Joey]

its not but in the instance of Thutben Darge Ling (Rinpoche's 1st gompa back in America) it was either exterminate the rats or the authorities will close down the gompa. They had not much of a choice.

If faced with such a problem, peoples should firs try to displace garbage cans, raise the level of area cleanliness and they would naturally leave. Only when such measures fail, you could try wit extermination. It seems to me that "killing the pests" is more often done for convenience rather than necessity. In which case is understandable.

i heard that they had to do it immediately and it was too late for the cleanliness thing. the authorities gave them 24 hours or so to take action or face eviction.

i am not too sure of the full story but perhaps wai meng could get more info of it. this is all of the info i could get

[awacs]

i heard that they had to do it immediately and it was too late for the cleanliness thing. the authorities gave them 24 hours or so to take action or face eviction.

Actually i was talking generally, not about this case. In that particular case, the spiritual benefits for whole community, and all sentient beings probably far exceeded the need to protect those beings from suffering. There is mention of similar event in Milarepa's biography, when he was ordered by his lama to make a hailstorm on certain area and thus killed many animals. Some of them were later revived.

[GonzoEnder]

AWACS. You are correct to point out that there is still negative karma attached to killing. Negative karma was even generated in killing the would-be murderer, by Buddha in a previous life aboard the merchant ship in the Jakata Tales. Buddha took this karma unto himself, because, as a Bodhisattva he could purify it much faster than the intended murderer.

Killing is ethical when there is NO OTHER OPTION and killing the being benefits many beings greatly