I acknowledge and fully subscribe to the maxim that the ways and means of karma are unfathomable.
Nevertheless, I cannot help thinking of something after having seen one of Alex Baldwin's excellent PETA public service videos which I am sure most of you have seen. I'm talking about the ones in which he narrates hidden footage of operatives inside slaughterhouses, farms, labs, etc. One I saw a few days ago (sorry, I lost the link) contained footage and narrative that informs the viewer that most of the hamburger meat we eat in the U.S. comes from dairy cows who, no longer needed to produce milk because of age, go to slaughter. And, of course, horrible footage of cramped quarters in transporting said beast and how they slaughter them are enough to make you lose your meal. But even if the daily cows were treated wonderfully in life and death, I have to wonder this: milk is a complete and whole food that we are provided with in order to nourish us and give us life. Dairy cows are, in effect, like our mothers. We then, in turn, eat our mothers when they are no longer useful to us. Forget about karma; even on a common sense, intuitive level, doesn't that just not jibe? Isn't this intuitively yucky to even the most jaded meat-eating redneck? Millions upon millions of cows are treated as such every year. This has got to be one hell of a build-up of karma.
