Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 5/30/2009

Question
hello Laurie,

i am currently research on the viewpoints from the Buddhism of mechanical heart, stem cells, xenotransplantation and genetics engineering these kind of science experiments. from my researches, it is unmoral for Buddhists to kill any living beings if it's for selfish purpose.

my question is, what is moral to Buddhism? are Buddhism for or against these experiments?

best wishes.

Answer
Thank you for letting me answer your question.

I am not a true expert in these types of matters, nor because there is no edict that I know of specifically pertaining to these matters am I speaking for the entire Buddhist religion.  This is strictly my own opinion based on my eight years of Buddhist study.

It is common in religions questions to look for black and white answers; something is either good or bad, right or wrong.  In Buddhism, that is not always the case.  The degree of karma an action produces depends on the intention producing that action.

In general, yes, for Buddhists killing any sentient being is wrong. However, if an embryo is destroyed with the intention that the result of that action is to find a way to cure ALS for example, then the person killing the embryo still acquires the karma for doing so, but it is less, because the intention is to use that one life to save many others.

That of course does not condone the killing of the embryo.  As I said, the person that kills the embryo will incur negative karma and will at some point have to suffer the results of their actions.

As far as xenotransplantation, I would say that would be wrong in a Buddhist context.  For us all beings are sentient beings, be they pigs or rats or humans.  And because we reincarnate many, many times, we have probably been a pig or a rat at some point. And conversely, the pig or the rat in this life has in a former life been a human.

So, to my way of understanding,  killing a pig to get an organ to use for a human would be no different than killing one human to get an organ for another.  It would be wrong.

I would say the only exception to that is if somehow the human receiving the organ was going to be able to help multiple other sentient beings.  But since pigs and rats cannot choose to sacrifice themselves for the good of others, killing them would still be wrong, but killing a human who has free will in order that another human be saved that could in turn help many more humans would again still be wrong, but the intention of doing good would lessen the karma incurred from killing the human.

As far as genetic engineering is concerned, if there is a way to genetically engineer someone for the sake of improving the quality of their lives and it would not cause the death of another sentient being, then I do not see a problem with it from a Buddhist standpoint.

Buddhism has no problem with science or scientific experimentation in general.  In fact, His Holiness, the Dalai Lama is quite in favor of finding the commonalities between Buddhism and science. I believe he has implied, if not stated that if science finds something to be false that the Buddhist doctrine has believed is true, then the Buddhist doctrine should change and choose the scientific truth over religions dogma.

Of course if one killed another sentient being or used genetic engineering for negative reasons, then I believe that a Buddhist would not condone such actions.

As I said before, these ideas are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of other Buddhists or Buddhism as a whole.

Do not hesitate to ask any further questions as I will be happy to try to answer them.