Is there a consistent Buddhist position on animal experimentation?
If experimentation on animals--presumably sentient beings--can help ease human suffering, is it allowed?
If Buddhists are interested in the scientific advances of neuroscience, especially as it might apply to Buddhist meditation, are they troubled that much knowledge of the wiring of the CNS is done from experimentation on monkeys?
Good questions.
The main concern in Buddhism is the amelioration/elimination of suffering in all sentient beings as you well know. However, the issue of "suffering" is not so simple to define, and like so many other teachings with dharma, there is the general approach often referred to as the Middle Path. So, there are some variables here. One is whether the organism being tested is a "sentient being", and another is what kind of "suffering" is being done?
If a sentient animal is caused to suffer grievous harm to help us, there most assuredly would be a problem. But what if the animal doesn't suffer much, or at all, but ends up dying? That might well be OK. Why? Because the animal is really not necessarily suffering, and they're going to die sooner or later anyway. This is why most Buddhists can and do eat meat, including the Dalai Lama until just recently. I think a parallel would be what would be allowed under experimental conditions with human subjects, but even that has some elements that would have to be considered as well?
The above scenario could be played different ways, so what you read above should not be construed as the "final answer". Good questions though.
Shabbat shalom.
