Does Emptiness Justify Killing? – Modern Koans

Question: Can the Buddhist teaching of Sunyata (emptiness) be used to justify killing another human being?

If suffering is inevitable and if Sunyata is in essence being freed from that suffering, then could one not interpret killing as freeing the victim from suffering, And thus morally acceptable?

Response:  Sunyata is not freedom. Realizing emptiness gives you to capacity to do away with the causes of self-imposed suffering. I think the question you want to ask is simpler. Since killing someone ends their suffering at some future state (after death), does that justify killing?

Two responses:

Your act of killing causes suffering, to the victim and you.
On what basis can you assure that there is no suffering after death? Of all the possible outcomes of death, do we know for sure that suffering ends? What do you know about experience after death?

I'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

Modern Koans is an ongoing series that recognizes that good questions are often more important then their answers.

The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man. ― G.K. Chesterton

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