By Mary Fahnestock-Thomas, Hamilton
I appreciate Dan Tomlinson’s erudition and efforts to set me straight on the Sixth Commandment. Most people here in the Bitterroot identify as Christian, so I used it as a sort of common language.
My dad could have written Dan’s letter, and decades ago I would have ended up feeling confused and somehow unworthy, despite my extensive education. But I’ve learned a lot in those passing decades, and most of it didn’t come out of books.
If Dad were around today and tried to put me in my place — I think it’s called mansplaining these days — I would smile sweetly and lovingly and say, “Dad, you can squirm and weasel as much as you like, and play with language and labels to put people where you want them, but deep within you, you know damn well that this would be a better world for all of us if we, human beings, were not so ready to kill for our own beliefs and convenience.”
The Zen Buddhist way of approaching the subject of killing is much more extreme — or generous, depending on how you look at it. All beings, even all things, are interdependent and therefore part of each other, so killing or destroying anything is killing or destroying ourselves. This point of view provides not a rule, but a tool for navigating and appreciating all the facets of this seemingly complicated, but perhaps actually very simple, existence.