OK, straying off topic here, but I'm curious. What do Buddhists think about modern medicine (specifically, taking antibiotics/antiviruses/chemicals to kill bacteria/viruses/cancer)?
I'm not an authority on this by any means. And I expect that different teachers would approach this differently, especially because I am not sure if we can call microbes "sentient beings." But in general the principal is that one should be mindful of what one is doing when one takes an antibiotic, which is slaughtering billions of organisms. It may be worth it, but it is still regretable and is should be done with that awareness and avoided when unnecessary (which is really what the medical community has come to as well, which is that we should not overuse antibiotics). Of course, our immune systems in the course of a normal day are also slaughtering millions of organisms, too, and this can help us remember that life, by its very nature, comes at the expense of other life.
