About This Answer
A questioner has heard it said that working as an anaesthetist is wrong because it makes people lose mindfulness. Ajahn Dtun says it is the first time in his 46 years as a monk that he has heard such a doubt. When we are ill and need treatment, we take the anaesthetic. Every night we lie down and sleep for hours without mindfulness. If half an hour or two hours of anaesthesia to treat the body counts as losing mindfulness, then we should never sleep, but stand, walk and sit day and night until the end of our lives. Such doubts, he says, come from the defilements in people's minds.
Without anaesthesia we would thrash about like a fish being clubbed, and the doctor could not do the work. Given the choice, he says, everyone would choose anaesthesia. He himself has had it many times for surgery and gladly accepted it, and never worried about losing mindfulness. Those who give it are helping us and should be thanked. It is not a wrong livelihood and makes no bad kamma: anaesthetists are not harming people but sparing them pain in operations, tooth extractions and other procedures.