I was picking on you, let there be no doubt. I used to hunt a little and fished a lot. I loved it and was very good at it. Then I spent a few years trying to start a business and had no time I could justify spending fishing. Then I became a Buddhist and, while not told to stop fishing, I was told it would/could be detrimental to progress in meditation on compassion and loving kindness. So I made a choice.
But I was also told that making distinctions, like becoming vegetarian because I would think of myself as being more compassionate than a meat eater, would be worse than detrimental to my practice it would pervert it. So that's my story. And it probably means as much to you as your rationale means to others. Possibly interesting (possibly not) but only really meaningful to you. : )
I could see the same sort of unbiased conclusions in your thinking and was fascinated by your description of the path to them. A process with no end or limits unless artificially imposed. FWIW my father was a doctor and loved hunting, fishing and his favorite dinner was a big juicy steak so there is something else at work there than anatomical knowledge. If'ya know whudda mean.
Now to work on my habitual nitpicking of others.
These are some of my favorite lines--inscribed in both English and Sanskrit on the stone walls of the New Temple of Shiva in Varanasi, India:
It seems to me that the most dangerous net of illusion is self-deception.
On the other hand (I hesitate to include this just as the flames of fury are subsiding on this thread but...) this provocation was asked of me one evening at a gathering of Hindus in Georgia: "How can you learn compassion when your mouth is filled with blood?" It followed remarks I had made concerning carnivorism.
Yes--self-congratulation is a trap. It can be one of--apparently limitless--forms of snobbery. Some of the most unaware people I have met have been spiritual snobs. I'm sure you've met quite a few also.
I think there is an element of release of worldly traps in my loss of desire to kill and eat animals. It seems that the path to enlightenment may involve more release than anything else.
If my understanding is correct, at the moment of death there is a flash of brilliant light, the seizure of which, by the deceased, if he can hold on to it, will provide release from the samsara. This is described in the Tebetan Book of the Dead, if I understand correctly.
I could not hope to seize the flash of light, i.e. escape the samsara and the maya, trusting in my own personal resources (a little hint of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer there); however, the grace of God can provide infinite resources (a bit of Judeo-Christian imagery there) (it's all maya, of course), and I think that if I can release enough impediment to the reception of God's love (sin in Judeo-Christian terms), the embrace of the flash of light will come naturally--and easily.
It is my challenge to release as much resistance and impediment as possible--not for the self-serving purpose of seizing the light of maya escape (which, of course, is another illusion)--but for the purpose of opening myself as completely as possible to Him--or, in Hindu/Buddahist terms, to enlightenment.
I just finished a fascinating book: Prince of Foxes, by Samuel Shellabarger, one of the modern world's most underrated authors. The plot turns on Christian mysticism. The theme of this excellent novel is the triumph of virtue.
The climax of the tale is a confrontation of Cesare Borgia, utterly saturated with evil and worldy desire, with a Christian saint, a nun, Sister Lucia da Narni. Both characters are expertly drawn as larger than life by Shellabarger.
The saint hears the word of God. When Borgia asks her why he doesn't hear it, she tells him that it's because he will not listen.
In the scene, Borgia has everyone and everything within his power, and he is determined to wreak evil, including revenge and cruelty. He even threatens the saint with torture and death. However, the saint proves more powerful, and on this crux the plot of the tale turns.
It is quite a fascinating work of literature, and the author's unselfconscious invocation of spirituality (it was written in the 1940s) mocks the cynical aspiritual pseudosophistication of today.
Truth can be found everywhere.