Within or without?

I had lunch with a friend today and he was telling me about his stays at a Vipassana meditation center. It sounded pretty interesting if a little heavy handed with the rules and regulations. What I wondered about was the emphasis on self examination. Can we ever know ourselves? I don't belief we have that capacity. Can we know others? I don't believe we can. Can we know anything? I think not.

Having said all that, I do believe that as I understand Buddhist teaching, universal compassion is what we should practice. It seems to me that this involves opening ourselves outward to encompass all that we can. I like to use the word 'empathy', meaning feeling for all things, including ourselves. I realize that with our delusive perceptivity our 'empathy' may be foolish and unhelpful. If I were a cynic, and unfortunately I think I am, I could say that at least then my delusions would not be directed completely inward.

Levels of sentience

I have a friend who has ants in her house. One day I put some plates with food on them in the ant zone. When we discovered the plates seething with ants I attempted to wash the ants down the drain. My friend stopped me. 'Let them eat,' she said. For several days I watched as the food congealed and hardened and the ants continued to feast.
During a recent snowstorm I found an Audubon Warbler floundering on the snow. I brought the beautiful bird into the house and attempted, unsuccessfully, to save it. At the same time I was trying to come to a decision about the phalanx of mice who had invaded my house. If they had stayed on the floor I wouldn't have cared, but their tiny feces were everywhere, especially on my kitchen counter. I know there is an allowed maximum of mouse feces in the flour that we eat, but I did not fancy mouse turds in my cheese sandwiches. Reluctantly I put out traps. The mice gorged merrily on the bait. Live traps seemed even more cruel and also ineffective. The mice are still here, but their population has declined at least for now. Procrastination has its uses.

Justifications can be made for killing.

Where do we draw the line?