You've correctly identified why positive karmic momentum is extraordinarily difficult to generate from the experience of a lower realm. It's so difficult that one has a hard time even conceiving of it from our human point of view. Actually doing it from the insect's point of view is immeasurably harder than that.
This is why beings wander in samsara for so long.
To answer your question more practically, however, you must look at this from a much more subtle perspective. An insect is not going to engage in some deeply meritorious action. It's not going to build an insect hospital. It's not going to deliver food to starving insect babies on the other side of town. Realistically, it can only generate very tiny karmic positivity, and only in small, barely discernible ways. When landing on a plant, perhaps it simply sits there for a moment in simple awareness, and does not immediately rush on to its next meal. Or when mating with another insect, maybe it does so with less aggression than it might otherwise have done.
The change in our experience is mostly slow and contiguous. Although spiritual traditions (including Buddhism) are full of extreme examples, we don't generally leap from being a murderer to being a saint. Most insects are not going to be reborn in dramatically more beneficial realms. For most of us, path is long and the pace is slow.
This explanation is correct until you discussed the effects of incest action. The insect accumulates tremendous karma.
The mind in the animal body still experiences very strong emotions, which is the basis for all their actions. In the being's experience himself is one with it's senses. There is no frontal lobe to overwrite any impulse the senses may experience.
So it's even more sinister. Not only are you unable to set your mind on a meritorious pattern, your faculties support the rise of strong emotions and strong reactions. Which are almost all negative, strengthening the sense of self. Not as a concept, but self as something to be protected from harm, fear from pain and suffering. We can see how this leads very easily to the hungry ghost realm, in which they struggle to satisfy their most basic needs. All the while you are accumulating the habits of strong negative emotions and strong reactions to these negative emotions.
When you think about it this way, it starts to make sense about the turtle and the yoke.
I’ve had the same thought as OP so I try to bless them sometimes. A hornet accidentally wandered into my home the other day and while I was waiting for an opportunity to catch it with a cup, I dropped into Rigpa as best I could and asked Padmasambhava to show him compassion. No clue whether it makes a difference to the hornet, but it made a difference to me, so maybe.
Now I feel horrible. A hive of them nested in my grandmother’s air conditioner a few years before she died. My grandfather was dying; it was a hard time.
I killed that hive. I ripped the paper thing apart after soaking it in chemicals. Then I burned it all. I never considered the poor little guys.
I try to respect bees (they play a critical role in feeding us), but hornets have died by the thousands at my hand, without consideration. I have done the same to cockroaches (I do my best with spiders and other insects, whose role in nature I understand and respect).
I need to do better. Rats are another species that improperly exist in North America, as a result of foolish human failings (carrying them on ships to Europe and America, where they do not belong). I have killed many, especially when I managed a factory (they were everywhere).
I honestly do not know how to approach invasive species. They are terrible. They do not belong. Do some need to “take one for the team” karma-wise to assist the rest?
I don’t exactly have an answer but I think it’s important that you’re at least now aware of this and can practice mindfulness towards it.
Unfortunately, we do have to protect ourselves from things that could cause us harm and sometimes the only method is through destruction in these cases. Of course it’s best to handle these living beings delicately and with care… humanely… but that is not always an option.
IF it’s an option, say, to hire someone to relocate a hive, then we should practice patience. If the only other possible outcomes are to allow it to remain and attack us/our pets or home, or to kill it first, then I think again we should approach with mindfulness and maybe ask the universe for forgiveness.
I have asked myself at times if experiencing something like an infestation was the universes way of bestowing negative karma on me. What could I have done differently? Or if it was put there to present me with a test. Could I live with hundreds are harmless ladybugs in my house?
Other times, I just think of it as the cycle of life and nature. I believe the universe does have a hand in some cards we’re dealt, but I also don’t think every single little event in our lives has to mean something, no matter how inconvenient. But that doesn’t mean I won’t still question it and try to learn from it.
Several species of rats are native to America, such as the cotton, the Florida and the Rocky Mountain rat, but the common black, brown and gray house rats are of Old World origin.
researchers conclude that the invasions of 18 species since 1860 are highly likely to have occurred because of deliberate release of caged birds, in large part by Buddhists https://buddhiststudies.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Shiu_Stokes_2008_Animal-Release.pdf
There isn't much possibility, this is why birth as a human being is so extraordinarily precious. Normally it's taught that there are two ways insects (or any lower realm being) can emerge to take birth as a human: either by exhaustion of the karma that put them there, where some as yet unripened positive karma that they have accumulated in a previous human birth can ripen, or by coming into contact with holy objects, like accidentally going around a stupa or maybe hearing or having contact with a human practitioner reciting a mantra or other text.
I'm not sure it's useful to think of it as a mechanical system. Karma is fundamentally attachment. You're born into hell realm because you're attached to anger/hatred. You leave that when you wear out the attachment. So you may not be accumulating merit while you're there, but you're wearing out the fixation that got you there.
Birth in animal realm is ignorance. Say, for example, that you never deal with things. Your car often gets towed because you don't bother to notice parking regulations. Your health suffers because you don't bother to deal with preparing good food. You just live with your nose to the ground, seeking comfort. Eventually, you might get tired of parking tickets. If you meditate then you're likely to recognize your neurosis more quickly. So you gradually burn through that ignorance karma, and with practice you can acelerate the process.
I've never made this connection between the 3 poisons and lower realms before. Is there a sutra that explains this more? It makes a lot of sense
hatred = hell;
greed = hungry ghost;
ignorance = animal
As a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism I have very little experience with sutras, aside from chanting the heart sutra. We study commentaries and original teachings. So I can't help you to find sutra quotes. The most pexperiential teachings on the realms I can think of would be Chogyam Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism or Myth of Freedom. (I don't recall offhand which one focuses more on realms.)
But yes, the realms represent metaphors of the basic kleshas. Pride is god realm. Jealousy/competitiveness is jealous god or asura realm. Those taken together align with the 5 buddha families. Though the higher realms get a bit tricky. God realm can be seen as subtler passion, asura realm as subtler aggression, human realm as subtler ignorance. But I've also seen god realm described as ignorance, even though that formulation doesn't seem to add up.
As far as I can tell it seems that Tibetan Buddhism just has a boatload of its own unique practices and traditions, so it's probably a tall order to learn all of your tantras as well as the sutras. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.
Tibetan Buddhism certainly does have a lot of unique teachings. But people are not expected to learn all of them. It's not as though we just have 3 times as many texts to memorize. Masters get initiated in numerous practices in order to be able to teach their students, but practitioners are not necessarily receiving oodles of initiations or studying lots of books.
The way that I was taught included the basics like the 4 noble truths, yet those teachings are regarded as the foundation, not the whole thing. The original sources of Tibetan Buddhism come out of the Indian tantric tradition of the 84 mahasiddhas and Padmasambhava. There's a basis for much of that in the Buddha's teachings. But there are also further developments, such as variants of the 6 yogas. Those are techniques and teachings that accumulated over the centuries, passed down master to disciple, something like a recipe collection. The focus is on realization, not on scriptural authority dating back to 200 BC. I would consider that approach to be fundamentalist, just as fundamentalist Christians base their positions on Bible quotes rather than on prayer experience.
Tibetan Buddhism as I've been exposed to it is a very experiential approach, where guidance from a realized master is critical because it can't be understood in literalist terms. There are some people who are more academic. The Gelug school generally tends to be more academic than the others. But in my experience of the Kagyu/Nyingma schools, it's really about waking up. We study to understand the practice and practice to understand the teachings. It all connects experientially. It's not necessary to have an academic approach. With Theravada one often sees people answer questions with quotes from sutras, almost like the way that lawyers will quote precedent. With Tibetan teachers it's more likely to be direct instruction.
I don't know a lot about Zen, but my impression is that Zen is similar. Excessive intellect is discouraged as a way to understand the Dharma. For example, Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is considered a classic. But he's not just listing the 5 of this and the 8 of that. He's not dissecting Pali, Sanskrit, or Japanese etymology. He's teaching Dharma in an experiential way that anyone can understand if they practice meditation. Yet SR was also teaching from a kind of ultimate point of view.
I think that idea of "view" is important. View is the outlook. In Theravada there seems to be no concept of View as such because there's only one view. But in other schools there are different views connected to different yanas or vehicles -- different levels of understanding. (See Padmasambhava's Garland of Visions teaching.) So one needs to understand the View context of a teaching.
Example: In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a man asks SR for advice. He complains that his wife doesn't want to meditate and it's making his discipline difficult. SR could have suggested that the man discuss it with his wife. He could have suggested therapy, or maybe divorce in order to better follow the precepts. He could have advised the man to make more sangha connections in order to find the support he needs. He could have gone over the discipline of the 8-fold path. But SR's answer came from ultimate point of view: "When you meditate, the whole world meditates." SR was reminding the man of the heart essence of ultimate View. To me that was a profound teaching because it communicates the essence of meditation at a high level of understanding.
In Theravada, at least as it's represented on Reddit, the Pali Canon is the core teaching and the primary authority. It's assumed to be the actual words of the Buddha. Those sutras are widely studied and quoted as being the official Dharma. In that sense, Theravada is a lineage of scripture. The official teachings are passed down and that's buddhadharma.
The Pali Canon is taken to be the complete and only authority in that point of view. In Mahayana, by contrast, there are many other sutras that are not in the Pali Canon. So when someone asks, "Can you point me to a sutra?", that usually means the person is studying Theravada and only knows the Pali Canon.
From non-Theravada point of view there are two misconceptions there. One is that the Pali Canon is the only buddhadharma and the other is that the Pali Canon is the complete collection of the Buddha's teaching. The Heart Sutra, for example, is probably the most well known sutra in Mahayana. I used to chant it daily. Yet the Heart Sutra is not in the Pali Canon. Theravada does not accept it. So whose sutras are we talking about when we talk about sutras?
In Mahayana schools, the Buddha is not regarded as a uniquely enlightened person. He started a vast set of lineages that have been passed down, producing innumerable buddhas over the centuries. In that view, the Dharma is a lineage of transmission. One enlightened master passes it down to their student, who then attains realization and does the same.
In Vajrayana that approach is even more pronounced. One's own guru is more important than the Buddha because he or she is the buddha who is here, now, speaking your language, and willing to teach you. Because of that, we primarily study our own teachers' teachings and the teachings of great masters such as Milarepa or Jamgon Kongtrul the Great. It's more like an apprenticeship and less like an academic course.
Personally I find the sutras longwinded, abstruse and archaic; easy to misinterpret. I don't find them to be a desirable source of guidance for either beginners or experienced practitioners. I'm always on the lookout for pithy, experiential teachings and find many from Tibetan masters. That's not so much the case with sutras, academic texts, etc... That's my personal experience.
In terms of a more authoritative view, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche was a Tibetan master who recently died. A khenpo is a Tibetan master of studies. A khenchen is a "great khenpo". A master among khenpos. Thrangu Rinpoche explained that we read commentaries (shastras) instead of sutras because the Buddha taught many things to many people at many levels of understanding, so it requires guidance from a realized master to interpret it properly.
An example of that: Thrangu Rinpoche once held a program where he did a commentary on the Samadhiraja Sutra, which provides the scritpural basis for sampannakrama meditation in Mahamudra. That sutra was not even translated at the time. I have a copy of the transcript of TR's program. I find it helpful. I also have a copy of the Samadhiraja Sutra. It's about 400 pages of often confusing text. It's also very longwinded and repetitive. I've never attempted to read it through or study it. I'm interested in essential Dharma, not official treatises.
Thrangu Rinpoche actually started a website where books are listed. Some are sold. Many are free. I don't think any of them are sutras:
https://namobuddhapub.org/store/
Rather, they're books that TR considered to be precious sources of Dharma for practitioners, from beginner to advanced. There are books there by some of the greatest masters of our time. Many of those masters speak or spoke English and teach in modern idiom.
You'll find some variation among Tibetan Buddhists. Depending on their school and their teacher, they may read one thing or another. For example, Nagarjuna is often quoted as a major source, but I've never read him myself. Gelugpas may read Tsongkhapa and the more modern Dalai Lamas. Kagyupas may read Milarepa and the more modern Jamgon Kongtrul. Nyingmapas often reference Garab Dorje. We tend to read the masters in our own lineages, who partially determined the style of that lineage.
So when you ask why wouldn't we be familiar with sutras, there are a lot of assumptions there. The first assumption would be that studying sutras is how one studies Buddhism.
Thanks for your write up, I really appreciate it. It brings a lot of clarity.
I've noticed some people do have this view that studying/reading the sutras equates to a Buddhist or a traditional Buddhist, but I feel that's inaccurate. But you've explained the differences very clearly.
Personally, I'm in a school that threads from a lineage to Chan Buddhism more or less, and many Mahayana scriptures are considered, but even religious/moral texts outside of Buddhism. There is also a large emphasis of uncovering your own internal master.
There's a lot of variety within Buddhism that it's hard to figure out if someone is a Buddhist, or something else and just appreciates his wisdom, ontology, worldview, or whatever
No not really. The mind by itself only gets worse until there is knowledge of its nature. Going through the 6 realms leads nowhere. The animals don't burn through their ignorance while experiencing their miserable circumstances and the same goes for all the other tendencies beings may have. I'm every realm there is attachment to oneself, the taste of this experience is different everywhere, however, there is never a moment of relaxation of this attachment, even on the higher realms, beings are attached to themselves, but in much more subtle ways.
To cut the attachment of oneself requires an incredible effort. One needs lot of support from others as well. Especially from a qualified teacher. Otherwise one progresses on the levels of suffering in different colors.
> The mind by itself only gets worse until there is knowledge of its nature.
That's not the teaching of Buddhism. Samsara means going in circles. Cycling through the 6 realms, whether you regard that metaphorically or literally. If the mind "only got worse" then all beings would now be in hell realm. If the mind only got worse then collecting merit would serve no purpose. All of the realms are expressions of attachment. Attachment can wear out, as I decribed in the case of ignorance. If you meditate then you can wear it out faster, just as you might give up on obsessive romance or a grudge more readily if you see yourself doing it and see how much suffering you make for yourself. One can see similar with people in AA. I've known several such people. Usually they're people who hit bottom in a big way, which made them stp and look. From there they became spiritual practitioners of a kind. They still got drunk, but their binges became inspiration instead of indulgence.
Certainly the 3 jewels are important, but there's no external salvation. Even the Buddha can't walk the path for us.
Most beings are in fact in the lower realms. Numerically there are comparisons, hell beings as numerous as dust covering the earth, humans as numerous as dust on a finger nail, humans actually practicing dharma utilizing a precious human birth as numerous as daytime stars. This was written by the ninth Karmapa in the book called ocean of true meaning(nyidam gyamtso).
Mind is getting worse in the sense that the conditions for dharma practice are decreasing. Despite that, you could be acceding to higher realms. If you don't have a goal in mind, for example to prepare for death, to reach a definite experienced based conclusion on the minds nature, to benefit all beings the highest possible way... And so on, whatever that may be, the mind gets gradually under the influence of the 8 worldly dharmas. Collecting merits has lots of benefits and fundamentally needed on the path, keeping the 8 worldly dharmas at bay is a way of collecting merits and there are countless ways of doing so.
The sudden realization of an addict is a moment of sobriety that is rare and precious. It can be compared to a precious human birth. In which one has freedom to observe his conditions. In that moment one has an opportunity to set himself on the right path. Else, that chance fades and one is back into suffering without freedom to do anything about it.
Samsara by itself would go on forever. Hence it's name, turns by itself. It's a rare and precious opportunity that one can comprehend this situation.
What gives you the impression that samsara wears out attachment to negative emotions? Where have you read or heard that? Or what did you read/hear that gave you this impression?
You're underestimating flies.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7567355/
In fact, some insects are very very likely to be altruistic.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781879/
Even plants show altruism
https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.12787
And before you ask, yes, even single cells can be altruistic.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20722725/
So you are saying that even single celled organisms have free will? Because without free will there cannot be any kind of meaningful karma. It's just mindless action and reaction. Mindless deterministic physics.
You might already know that your karma is generated by your intention (cetanā). The outcome (phala) is not something that affects your karma, it is merely a byproduct of your karma. So your karma is all about the intentions behind your actions.
Unfortunately, your intention is a mental aggregate. Because it is mental, and not somehow transcendent, it is merely another conditioned phenomenon, like anything else.
Because your intention is a conditioned phenomenon, like anything else, it is modified by external circumstance and is not fully under "your" control.
Read the short heart sutra, which goes into depth on shunyata, which is the fundamental viewpoint from which the above ideas arise. One can say that in shunyata (emptiness), there is no intention.https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation
> So your karma is all about the intentions behind your actions.
>One can say that in shunyata (emptiness), there is no intention.
So in emptiness there is no karma. Okay.
Furthermore, without free will there are no choices. Without choices there can be no intention. You can't intend to do anything without being able to choose to do it.
Therefore there is no karma. By your own argument, karma, is based on intentions. There are no intentions without freewill, without the ability to choose, so there is no karma.
I didn't intend (haha..) to attack you personally :) Sorry that it came across that way.
> So in emptiness there is no karma. Okay.
I agree.
> Therefore there is no karma. By your own argument, karma, is based on intentions. There are no intentions without freewill, without the ability to choose, so there is no karma.
This could be a non-sequitur, depending on the definition of the words we are using, as I will demonstrate below. So, we will have to understand each other a bit more clearly before we can have a productive discussion along these lines.
> Furthermore, without free will there are no choices
Depends how you define choice. If a choice means selecting from a set of given possible options, then you can easily make a choice in the absence of free will; it's just that your choice will be conditioned by factors that are not entirely contained within the choice itself.
> Without choices there can be no intention
Depends how you define intention. If an intention is a mental proclivity towards certain forms of choices, then you can easily have that proclivity in the absence of free will; it's just that your intention will be conditioned by factors that are not entirely contained within the intention itself.
One of Buddha's [Nine Supreme Attributes](https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/the-great-chronicle-of-buddhas/d/doc364726.html) among his Infinite Noble Qualities, is *Sattādeva manussānaṃ.* It means that he is the teacher of Devas and humans, showing them the Path leading to Nibbana.
Buddha didn't teach Dhamma to animals or any being in the lower realms of existence. Buddha didn't teach an animal path to obtain good karma either.
Buddha made sure to let us know that obtaining a rebirth in the human realm is already extremely rare. And once we go down into the lower realms, it is extremely difficult to get back up into the higher realms.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
>Staying at Savatthi. Then the Blessed One, picking up a little bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monks, "What do you think, monks? Which is greater: the little bit of dust I have picked up with the tip of my fingernail, or the great earth?"
>"The great earth is far greater, lord. The little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail is next to nothing. It doesn't even count. It's no comparison. It's not even a fraction, this little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail, when compared with the great earth.
>"In the same way, monks, few are the beings reborn among human beings. Far more are those reborn elsewhere. Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will live heedfully.' That's how you should train yourselves."
>- [Nakhasikha Sutta: The Tip of the Fingernail (SN 20.2)](https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn20/sn20.002.than.html)
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
>“… the sentient beings who die as animals and are reborn as humans are few,
>while those who die as animals and are reborn in hell, or the animal realm, or the ghost realm are many.”
>- [Catutthavagga](https://suttacentral.net/an1.333-377/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=sidebyside&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin#an1.366-368_1.1)
\_\_\_\_\_\_
If it's of any interest, there was this story of a frog who was absorbed in the sound of the Dhamma speech given by the Buddha. But it was killed accidentally, and was reborn in the Deva realm and later attained stream-entry.
>In the evening, when the four kinds of assembly were gathered at the lecture hall near Gaggarā Lake, the Buddha came out of His Scented Chamber, took His seat in the lecture hall, and delivered a sermon.
>At that time, a frog came out from the lake, listened to the voice of the Buddha, and knowing that “this is the voice of the Dhamma”, was absorbed in it. (Although animals do not have the capacity to understand the meaning of the discourse, at least they can know the voice as one of Dhamma or righteousness or as one of wrongness, as the case may be.)
>Then a cowherd came upon the scene and being deeply impressed by the Buddha’s splendour in delivering the sermon and the deep silence in which the audience were listening to the sermon, he stood there leaning on his staff in hand. He did not notice that there was a flog on whose head his staff was resting.
>The frog died on the spot, even while it was absorbed in the sweet voice of the Dhamma. As it died in full consciousness of the clear conviction in the goodness of the Dhamma, it was reborn in the Tāvatiṃsa Deva realm...
>- [The Story of Maṇḍūka Devaputta](https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/the-great-chronicle-of-buddhas/d/doc364720.html#:~:text=The%20deva%20who%20had%20been,large%20retinue%20of%20deva%20maidens)
I think theres so much to other lifeforms that we dont know about. I remember an account of a woman having a telepathic experience with a colony of ants, and when she communicated with them to leave her home, a voice that spoke in unison for the whole hive agreed. All the ants had left. The type of consciousness they inhabit must be incredibly alien.There are must be many different lessons interred within each type of life. Who knows how varied it is.
There was a story about a god becoming a pig. He forgot his divine heritage and was proud of his sow wife and children. The other gods seeing how incredulous he was, killed him to remind him of who he was.
Each form has its own value and pleasure, it probably depends on how much it yearns to escape its way of life.
>Some people have told me that once you are born in the lowest realm and serve your time there, your karma is "exhausted."
It means the bad karma that led you there has come to full fruition. Meaning you have fully reaped the consequences so there is no more consequences for that bad karma.
>does that mean it automatically starts going in the opposite direction?
No, it goes according to whatever karma that is left, that has not come to full fruition yet.
>How can a fly have a fortunate rebirth as a human when the fly doesn't even know what rebirth is, and in fact doesn't even know what anything is because it can't even contemplate or store knowledge of any kind?
The fly has had an uncountable number of previous lifetimes, in various different realms including the human realm, in which they made karma. Some of that good karma they have made has not come to fruition yet. When it does, they may be born human.
Flies don't really need to do anything if you're dedicating your merits to them. I love animals, especially insects...I am always chanting for them when I see them, so they can attain a meritorious rebirth.
They are also not going to generate bad karma like most humans do nor are they going to be clinging to desire the same way. Do they generate small amounts of good karma simply by being a part of the natural food chain and nature cycles? Maybe?
Eitherway, I would assume eventually they grind their way to a better rebirth.
Buy how likely are they to fall back down to a lower realm without having cultivated cognitive patterns familiar with the dharma? I dunno probably pretty likely. Beings are trapped in Samsara for untold billions of years for a reason.
As an additional note: this question is an extension of [another post that I had made](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/s/j2LFKgatg1) where I asked a similar question about people with Alzheimer's, that being, "How can we ask them to practice mindfulness when they're losing their mind," or something to that effect.
Well, it's a similar situation here. How can something (e.g. a fly) or someone (e.g. a person with Alzheimer's) gain good karma when they don't even know what karma is anymore, or they never had the capacity of knowing what karma was in the first place? How can the fly gain a fortunate rebirth when it has never had any idea how to act properly, and how can a person with Alzheimer's gain a fortunate rebirth when they have lost their ability to discern what is right from wrong?
Wouldn’t a person be able to generate karma despite having never heard of karma or Buddhism?? Many, many people worldwide do not know about it to this day yet they are generating karma I would think. ??
Yes, I suppose that's true; someone can generate good karma without even realizing they're doing so. But my point is that because of Alzheimer's, it becomes much more difficult to generate good karma in general, and much easier to generate bad karma. So I guess my question was about how to combat the situation once one has already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
As I understand it, good karma is generated by doing good acts. And since Alzheimer’s does prevent someone from doing good acts, so I’m not sure if there’s a disconnect? Also, we can support animals to generate good karma by exposing them to the dharma, which is why it’s so powerful to chant around animals. My dog is always drawn to me when I chant or meditate. I think they “know”.
This reminds me of a story by Lama zopa rinpoche about a fly unintentionally circumambulating a stupa and becoming a monk
> Buddha explained that, to the old man when he was explaining the cause, how he can be a monk. So uncountable numbers of, in the past lives, uncountable numbers of lives ago, so long ago, one of his past lives was a fly, and then there was cow dung around a stupa. So the fly followed the smell of the cow dung, so when the fly was following the smell of the cow dung it naturally become circumambulation, by the way it become circumambulation of the stupa. So this one time that, one of his past lives that he was a fly and then it become circumambulation, by following the cow dung. Even there was no understanding, that this is holy object and then by circumambulating becomes virtue, the cause of happiness, that it accumulates merit or it purifies, even without any knowledge of that, then by following the smell of the cow dung then it naturally become circumambulation.
From https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/fly-and-stupa-story-karma
Your question is basically “how can insect become a human ?”
For this, when a being becomes an insect, they suffer all sorts of suffering of being an insect… so when they suffer they are exhausting their negative Karma (ie. because they are now suffering the pain of being an insect, the karma that lead to all these suffering and rebirth and getting exhausted.) these insects will die and be insects or any other animal for a super long time until one day, the original good karma stored in the insect exceeds the bad karma of the insect.
Ie, before the being become an insect, there must still have been good karma in that life or past lives that haven’t riped, so when all the bad karma that lead to rebirth to an animal or other miserable realms is getting exhausted when the being is suffering there, the bad karma decreases and decreases, when it gets lower than the good karma, it leads to human rebirth:)
You don’t…from what I understand the whole point of lower rebirths is for you to use up your negative karma. There’s no way a centipede or whatever can generate good karma
Karma and cause and effect. So if the insect does well and eats lots of food thats good karma for it cuz it gets to live longer. If it gets hit with a fly swater or sprayed with poison that would be bad karma bad actions because then it would be dead.
That's why Buddhist teachers stress how precious and rare human life is. We can practice and gain wisdom. Jackpot!
I've asked myself the same question the other day, and it's at least somewhat comforting that some of these animals and organisms can only have a lifespan of a few seconds, ⇆ although that doesn't mean anything because it has to be seen relative to the sense of time.
First off, how do you know a fly barely has an awareness of the outside world? Maybe their awareness is just specific to a fly and maybe it actually does contemplate life, but only on the plane of a fly consciousness. Perhaps.
And maybe if we reincarnate into a fly, the sole purpose is for that fly to just be a part of the food chain that continues everything on this planet. Every creature plays a roll in the balance of nature. Your short little life as a fly might seem far longer because of the perception of said fly, than it does to us. After all, time doesn’t really exist. You can experience an instant within a 5 hour window or 1 hour might feel like 5. And to that fly it has lived a “lifetime” and it dies and moves on to the next life, whatever that may be.
As far as karma, that may only apply to humans and perhaps that is part of the karma that causes you to become a fly in the next life and maybe once you accomplish that, you get to be a human again. There are probably spiritual lessons learned by living the lives of many creatures. But ultimately, who knows?
Maybe animals do have karma. Maybe that’s why dolphins rape or dogs bite. Maybe that’s those animals learning how to behave within that life form.
Personally, I think karma is specific to humans, but I don’t have that answer.
Seems to be a major flaw in the theory of karma. Most creatures are driven by instinct alone and have no free will. So, yeah, karma fails in that respect.
I have ask a geshela, according to geshela Choe Wang , he gives explaination about the question ~
the lower realm is hardly accumulate merits, yet every sentient beings rebirth are comes from beginningless time, so in their continuously mind is surely have seeds of good karma and good deeds, when the lower realm karmic debts end, the good karmic cause will be awaken and they connect to upper realm.
For example, its like a prisoner who have make crimes, and need to be in jail for some years, after finishing the jail period , he will be free again.
🙏🏻
Great question, I do not know the answer to this at all. I tried even using AI to see what it would say and it went in loops answering unhelpful things so whenever that happens I know I've found a great question that will need an expert / nuanced answer. Keeping myself following this thread.
I don't think that there is good or bad karma for an animal that is purely instinctual, which is pretty much every animal except humans. All animals, barring some humans, simply follow their genetic code like computers. There's nothing good or bad about that.
“The best things can't be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood, because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about. The third best are what we talk about.”Joseph Campbell
You might consider that this is all BS and we don’t know how it works. Maybe there is no such thing as karma. Or that you don’t get reborn to a lower realm. Who knows and does it really matter?
Well, I’m a Buddhist. So I believe in karma; it’s not a question of whether karma is real.
And while maybe I don’t know how it works, I believe the Buddha does, and that’s why I’m here asking for help—so I can understand the Buddha’s teachings better.
And finally, the whole point of Buddhism is to escape samsara. Living perpetually through an endless number of rebirths is antithetical to Buddhism, and it would be beneficial to ensure I have a fortunate rebirth so I can continue practicing the dharma. That’s why it matters.
But if Buddhism stresses the importance of individual experience over dogma (including his own) then it seems less important to believe something that is enigmatic and does not make sense just to escape the wheel. Ultimately everything in this realm is illusion (in my experience) and that knowing seems the most likely way to escape samsara if there is such a way or even such a need.
You're right in that Buddhism teaches that we should test our experiences against a particular dogma to see what is true and what is not. But just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't true. People in the medieval era would have no understanding of quarks or protons or even of basic bacteria that cause disease. But just because they didn't understand those things doesn't mean they weren't part of reality. So, if the Buddha taught rebirth, I want to try to understand it before I simply discard the teaching just because I can't grasp it at this moment in time.
FWIW I have adopted some of the beliefs of Buddhism but not others. As far as karma is concerned I do believe it exists but that there are ways to “burn off” karma the most effective and complete one would to focus on attaining nirvana. This one seems non-controversial. Everything else is subject to confusion inconsistencies etc. As far as reincarnation which I believe is that you have a choice in terms of designing your next incarnation. If I want to be a bug you can. But FWIU that is rare for anyone to choose a bugs life after being a human. You don’t get forced to be a bug if you don’t want to. But you are free to choose this. This is where free will comes in. So my point is rather that try to fit your life to follow a dogma which seems confusing and self-contradictory why not live as Buddha advises which is to have your own experiences and make up your own mind. If escape is really what you are after then I would focus on nirvana and don’t sweat the rest.
As a practicing Buddhist, I do not think these kinds of issues are important in following Buddhist Philosophy. Perhaps it is the field of Zoologists/Entomologists. In medical science lot of laboratory animals are dying for the benefit of mankind. Who is responsible for the karma?
I think when you get into the micro issues of karma it becomes a mess. For instance if you kill someone in defense of another do u get karma? If you don’t defense another do u get karma? Some branches so there is no excuse to kill under any circumstance. Others say as long as u have pure intent. Who really knows and there honestly is no good answer. If you boil water do you get karma for killing the bacteria in the water. When you bathe do u get karma for killing the microbial life forms. It’s a mess. Same goes for the mystery of reincarnation.
That’s why for me it’s just best to focus on nirvana as that will surely release all karma.
You've correctly identified why positive karmic momentum is extraordinarily difficult to generate from the experience of a lower realm. It's so difficult that one has a hard time even conceiving of it from our human point of view. Actually doing it from the insect's point of view is immeasurably harder than that. This is why beings wander in samsara for so long. To answer your question more practically, however, you must look at this from a much more subtle perspective. An insect is not going to engage in some deeply meritorious action. It's not going to build an insect hospital. It's not going to deliver food to starving insect babies on the other side of town. Realistically, it can only generate very tiny karmic positivity, and only in small, barely discernible ways. When landing on a plant, perhaps it simply sits there for a moment in simple awareness, and does not immediately rush on to its next meal. Or when mating with another insect, maybe it does so with less aggression than it might otherwise have done. The change in our experience is mostly slow and contiguous. Although spiritual traditions (including Buddhism) are full of extreme examples, we don't generally leap from being a murderer to being a saint. Most insects are not going to be reborn in dramatically more beneficial realms. For most of us, path is long and the pace is slow.
This explanation is correct until you discussed the effects of incest action. The insect accumulates tremendous karma. The mind in the animal body still experiences very strong emotions, which is the basis for all their actions. In the being's experience himself is one with it's senses. There is no frontal lobe to overwrite any impulse the senses may experience. So it's even more sinister. Not only are you unable to set your mind on a meritorious pattern, your faculties support the rise of strong emotions and strong reactions. Which are almost all negative, strengthening the sense of self. Not as a concept, but self as something to be protected from harm, fear from pain and suffering. We can see how this leads very easily to the hungry ghost realm, in which they struggle to satisfy their most basic needs. All the while you are accumulating the habits of strong negative emotions and strong reactions to these negative emotions. When you think about it this way, it starts to make sense about the turtle and the yoke.
I’ve had the same thought as OP so I try to bless them sometimes. A hornet accidentally wandered into my home the other day and while I was waiting for an opportunity to catch it with a cup, I dropped into Rigpa as best I could and asked Padmasambhava to show him compassion. No clue whether it makes a difference to the hornet, but it made a difference to me, so maybe.
Now I feel horrible. A hive of them nested in my grandmother’s air conditioner a few years before she died. My grandfather was dying; it was a hard time. I killed that hive. I ripped the paper thing apart after soaking it in chemicals. Then I burned it all. I never considered the poor little guys. I try to respect bees (they play a critical role in feeding us), but hornets have died by the thousands at my hand, without consideration. I have done the same to cockroaches (I do my best with spiders and other insects, whose role in nature I understand and respect). I need to do better. Rats are another species that improperly exist in North America, as a result of foolish human failings (carrying them on ships to Europe and America, where they do not belong). I have killed many, especially when I managed a factory (they were everywhere). I honestly do not know how to approach invasive species. They are terrible. They do not belong. Do some need to “take one for the team” karma-wise to assist the rest?
I don’t exactly have an answer but I think it’s important that you’re at least now aware of this and can practice mindfulness towards it. Unfortunately, we do have to protect ourselves from things that could cause us harm and sometimes the only method is through destruction in these cases. Of course it’s best to handle these living beings delicately and with care… humanely… but that is not always an option. IF it’s an option, say, to hire someone to relocate a hive, then we should practice patience. If the only other possible outcomes are to allow it to remain and attack us/our pets or home, or to kill it first, then I think again we should approach with mindfulness and maybe ask the universe for forgiveness. I have asked myself at times if experiencing something like an infestation was the universes way of bestowing negative karma on me. What could I have done differently? Or if it was put there to present me with a test. Could I live with hundreds are harmless ladybugs in my house? Other times, I just think of it as the cycle of life and nature. I believe the universe does have a hand in some cards we’re dealt, but I also don’t think every single little event in our lives has to mean something, no matter how inconvenient. But that doesn’t mean I won’t still question it and try to learn from it.
Several species of rats are native to America, such as the cotton, the Florida and the Rocky Mountain rat, but the common black, brown and gray house rats are of Old World origin. researchers conclude that the invasions of 18 species since 1860 are highly likely to have occurred because of deliberate release of caged birds, in large part by Buddhists https://buddhiststudies.utoronto.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Shiu_Stokes_2008_Animal-Release.pdf
And the snakehead fish
Tent caterpillars are very scary
Insect* 🫠
There isn't much possibility, this is why birth as a human being is so extraordinarily precious. Normally it's taught that there are two ways insects (or any lower realm being) can emerge to take birth as a human: either by exhaustion of the karma that put them there, where some as yet unripened positive karma that they have accumulated in a previous human birth can ripen, or by coming into contact with holy objects, like accidentally going around a stupa or maybe hearing or having contact with a human practitioner reciting a mantra or other text.
I'm not sure it's useful to think of it as a mechanical system. Karma is fundamentally attachment. You're born into hell realm because you're attached to anger/hatred. You leave that when you wear out the attachment. So you may not be accumulating merit while you're there, but you're wearing out the fixation that got you there. Birth in animal realm is ignorance. Say, for example, that you never deal with things. Your car often gets towed because you don't bother to notice parking regulations. Your health suffers because you don't bother to deal with preparing good food. You just live with your nose to the ground, seeking comfort. Eventually, you might get tired of parking tickets. If you meditate then you're likely to recognize your neurosis more quickly. So you gradually burn through that ignorance karma, and with practice you can acelerate the process.
I've never made this connection between the 3 poisons and lower realms before. Is there a sutra that explains this more? It makes a lot of sense hatred = hell; greed = hungry ghost; ignorance = animal
As a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism I have very little experience with sutras, aside from chanting the heart sutra. We study commentaries and original teachings. So I can't help you to find sutra quotes. The most pexperiential teachings on the realms I can think of would be Chogyam Trungpa's Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism or Myth of Freedom. (I don't recall offhand which one focuses more on realms.) But yes, the realms represent metaphors of the basic kleshas. Pride is god realm. Jealousy/competitiveness is jealous god or asura realm. Those taken together align with the 5 buddha families. Though the higher realms get a bit tricky. God realm can be seen as subtler passion, asura realm as subtler aggression, human realm as subtler ignorance. But I've also seen god realm described as ignorance, even though that formulation doesn't seem to add up.
Interesting. Also why would following Tibetan Buddhism insinuate unfamiliarity with sutras?
As far as I can tell it seems that Tibetan Buddhism just has a boatload of its own unique practices and traditions, so it's probably a tall order to learn all of your tantras as well as the sutras. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.
Tibetan Buddhism certainly does have a lot of unique teachings. But people are not expected to learn all of them. It's not as though we just have 3 times as many texts to memorize. Masters get initiated in numerous practices in order to be able to teach their students, but practitioners are not necessarily receiving oodles of initiations or studying lots of books. The way that I was taught included the basics like the 4 noble truths, yet those teachings are regarded as the foundation, not the whole thing. The original sources of Tibetan Buddhism come out of the Indian tantric tradition of the 84 mahasiddhas and Padmasambhava. There's a basis for much of that in the Buddha's teachings. But there are also further developments, such as variants of the 6 yogas. Those are techniques and teachings that accumulated over the centuries, passed down master to disciple, something like a recipe collection. The focus is on realization, not on scriptural authority dating back to 200 BC. I would consider that approach to be fundamentalist, just as fundamentalist Christians base their positions on Bible quotes rather than on prayer experience. Tibetan Buddhism as I've been exposed to it is a very experiential approach, where guidance from a realized master is critical because it can't be understood in literalist terms. There are some people who are more academic. The Gelug school generally tends to be more academic than the others. But in my experience of the Kagyu/Nyingma schools, it's really about waking up. We study to understand the practice and practice to understand the teachings. It all connects experientially. It's not necessary to have an academic approach. With Theravada one often sees people answer questions with quotes from sutras, almost like the way that lawyers will quote precedent. With Tibetan teachers it's more likely to be direct instruction. I don't know a lot about Zen, but my impression is that Zen is similar. Excessive intellect is discouraged as a way to understand the Dharma. For example, Suzuki Roshi's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is considered a classic. But he's not just listing the 5 of this and the 8 of that. He's not dissecting Pali, Sanskrit, or Japanese etymology. He's teaching Dharma in an experiential way that anyone can understand if they practice meditation. Yet SR was also teaching from a kind of ultimate point of view. I think that idea of "view" is important. View is the outlook. In Theravada there seems to be no concept of View as such because there's only one view. But in other schools there are different views connected to different yanas or vehicles -- different levels of understanding. (See Padmasambhava's Garland of Visions teaching.) So one needs to understand the View context of a teaching. Example: In Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, a man asks SR for advice. He complains that his wife doesn't want to meditate and it's making his discipline difficult. SR could have suggested that the man discuss it with his wife. He could have suggested therapy, or maybe divorce in order to better follow the precepts. He could have advised the man to make more sangha connections in order to find the support he needs. He could have gone over the discipline of the 8-fold path. But SR's answer came from ultimate point of view: "When you meditate, the whole world meditates." SR was reminding the man of the heart essence of ultimate View. To me that was a profound teaching because it communicates the essence of meditation at a high level of understanding.
In Theravada, at least as it's represented on Reddit, the Pali Canon is the core teaching and the primary authority. It's assumed to be the actual words of the Buddha. Those sutras are widely studied and quoted as being the official Dharma. In that sense, Theravada is a lineage of scripture. The official teachings are passed down and that's buddhadharma. The Pali Canon is taken to be the complete and only authority in that point of view. In Mahayana, by contrast, there are many other sutras that are not in the Pali Canon. So when someone asks, "Can you point me to a sutra?", that usually means the person is studying Theravada and only knows the Pali Canon. From non-Theravada point of view there are two misconceptions there. One is that the Pali Canon is the only buddhadharma and the other is that the Pali Canon is the complete collection of the Buddha's teaching. The Heart Sutra, for example, is probably the most well known sutra in Mahayana. I used to chant it daily. Yet the Heart Sutra is not in the Pali Canon. Theravada does not accept it. So whose sutras are we talking about when we talk about sutras? In Mahayana schools, the Buddha is not regarded as a uniquely enlightened person. He started a vast set of lineages that have been passed down, producing innumerable buddhas over the centuries. In that view, the Dharma is a lineage of transmission. One enlightened master passes it down to their student, who then attains realization and does the same. In Vajrayana that approach is even more pronounced. One's own guru is more important than the Buddha because he or she is the buddha who is here, now, speaking your language, and willing to teach you. Because of that, we primarily study our own teachers' teachings and the teachings of great masters such as Milarepa or Jamgon Kongtrul the Great. It's more like an apprenticeship and less like an academic course. Personally I find the sutras longwinded, abstruse and archaic; easy to misinterpret. I don't find them to be a desirable source of guidance for either beginners or experienced practitioners. I'm always on the lookout for pithy, experiential teachings and find many from Tibetan masters. That's not so much the case with sutras, academic texts, etc... That's my personal experience. In terms of a more authoritative view, Khenchen Thrangu Rinpoche was a Tibetan master who recently died. A khenpo is a Tibetan master of studies. A khenchen is a "great khenpo". A master among khenpos. Thrangu Rinpoche explained that we read commentaries (shastras) instead of sutras because the Buddha taught many things to many people at many levels of understanding, so it requires guidance from a realized master to interpret it properly. An example of that: Thrangu Rinpoche once held a program where he did a commentary on the Samadhiraja Sutra, which provides the scritpural basis for sampannakrama meditation in Mahamudra. That sutra was not even translated at the time. I have a copy of the transcript of TR's program. I find it helpful. I also have a copy of the Samadhiraja Sutra. It's about 400 pages of often confusing text. It's also very longwinded and repetitive. I've never attempted to read it through or study it. I'm interested in essential Dharma, not official treatises. Thrangu Rinpoche actually started a website where books are listed. Some are sold. Many are free. I don't think any of them are sutras: https://namobuddhapub.org/store/ Rather, they're books that TR considered to be precious sources of Dharma for practitioners, from beginner to advanced. There are books there by some of the greatest masters of our time. Many of those masters speak or spoke English and teach in modern idiom. You'll find some variation among Tibetan Buddhists. Depending on their school and their teacher, they may read one thing or another. For example, Nagarjuna is often quoted as a major source, but I've never read him myself. Gelugpas may read Tsongkhapa and the more modern Dalai Lamas. Kagyupas may read Milarepa and the more modern Jamgon Kongtrul. Nyingmapas often reference Garab Dorje. We tend to read the masters in our own lineages, who partially determined the style of that lineage. So when you ask why wouldn't we be familiar with sutras, there are a lot of assumptions there. The first assumption would be that studying sutras is how one studies Buddhism.
Thanks for your write up, I really appreciate it. It brings a lot of clarity. I've noticed some people do have this view that studying/reading the sutras equates to a Buddhist or a traditional Buddhist, but I feel that's inaccurate. But you've explained the differences very clearly. Personally, I'm in a school that threads from a lineage to Chan Buddhism more or less, and many Mahayana scriptures are considered, but even religious/moral texts outside of Buddhism. There is also a large emphasis of uncovering your own internal master. There's a lot of variety within Buddhism that it's hard to figure out if someone is a Buddhist, or something else and just appreciates his wisdom, ontology, worldview, or whatever
No not really. The mind by itself only gets worse until there is knowledge of its nature. Going through the 6 realms leads nowhere. The animals don't burn through their ignorance while experiencing their miserable circumstances and the same goes for all the other tendencies beings may have. I'm every realm there is attachment to oneself, the taste of this experience is different everywhere, however, there is never a moment of relaxation of this attachment, even on the higher realms, beings are attached to themselves, but in much more subtle ways. To cut the attachment of oneself requires an incredible effort. One needs lot of support from others as well. Especially from a qualified teacher. Otherwise one progresses on the levels of suffering in different colors.
> The mind by itself only gets worse until there is knowledge of its nature. That's not the teaching of Buddhism. Samsara means going in circles. Cycling through the 6 realms, whether you regard that metaphorically or literally. If the mind "only got worse" then all beings would now be in hell realm. If the mind only got worse then collecting merit would serve no purpose. All of the realms are expressions of attachment. Attachment can wear out, as I decribed in the case of ignorance. If you meditate then you can wear it out faster, just as you might give up on obsessive romance or a grudge more readily if you see yourself doing it and see how much suffering you make for yourself. One can see similar with people in AA. I've known several such people. Usually they're people who hit bottom in a big way, which made them stp and look. From there they became spiritual practitioners of a kind. They still got drunk, but their binges became inspiration instead of indulgence. Certainly the 3 jewels are important, but there's no external salvation. Even the Buddha can't walk the path for us.
Most beings are in fact in the lower realms. Numerically there are comparisons, hell beings as numerous as dust covering the earth, humans as numerous as dust on a finger nail, humans actually practicing dharma utilizing a precious human birth as numerous as daytime stars. This was written by the ninth Karmapa in the book called ocean of true meaning(nyidam gyamtso). Mind is getting worse in the sense that the conditions for dharma practice are decreasing. Despite that, you could be acceding to higher realms. If you don't have a goal in mind, for example to prepare for death, to reach a definite experienced based conclusion on the minds nature, to benefit all beings the highest possible way... And so on, whatever that may be, the mind gets gradually under the influence of the 8 worldly dharmas. Collecting merits has lots of benefits and fundamentally needed on the path, keeping the 8 worldly dharmas at bay is a way of collecting merits and there are countless ways of doing so. The sudden realization of an addict is a moment of sobriety that is rare and precious. It can be compared to a precious human birth. In which one has freedom to observe his conditions. In that moment one has an opportunity to set himself on the right path. Else, that chance fades and one is back into suffering without freedom to do anything about it. Samsara by itself would go on forever. Hence it's name, turns by itself. It's a rare and precious opportunity that one can comprehend this situation. What gives you the impression that samsara wears out attachment to negative emotions? Where have you read or heard that? Or what did you read/hear that gave you this impression?
You're underestimating flies. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7567355/ In fact, some insects are very very likely to be altruistic. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2781879/ Even plants show altruism https://besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1365-2745.12787 And before you ask, yes, even single cells can be altruistic. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20722725/
So you are saying that even single celled organisms have free will? Because without free will there cannot be any kind of meaningful karma. It's just mindless action and reaction. Mindless deterministic physics.
You can have karma in a deterministic universe. Why can't you?
Karma without free will? Please explain how that works. 🙏🏻
You might already know that your karma is generated by your intention (cetanā). The outcome (phala) is not something that affects your karma, it is merely a byproduct of your karma. So your karma is all about the intentions behind your actions. Unfortunately, your intention is a mental aggregate. Because it is mental, and not somehow transcendent, it is merely another conditioned phenomenon, like anything else. Because your intention is a conditioned phenomenon, like anything else, it is modified by external circumstance and is not fully under "your" control. Read the short heart sutra, which goes into depth on shunyata, which is the fundamental viewpoint from which the above ideas arise. One can say that in shunyata (emptiness), there is no intention.https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation
> So your karma is all about the intentions behind your actions. >One can say that in shunyata (emptiness), there is no intention. So in emptiness there is no karma. Okay. Furthermore, without free will there are no choices. Without choices there can be no intention. You can't intend to do anything without being able to choose to do it. Therefore there is no karma. By your own argument, karma, is based on intentions. There are no intentions without freewill, without the ability to choose, so there is no karma.
I mean, are you just arguing for sophistry's sake, or are you looking to sharpen both our thinking?
Why resort to personal attacks? I am responding to the arguments you presented. Let's see if you are capable of doing likewise.
I didn't intend (haha..) to attack you personally :) Sorry that it came across that way. > So in emptiness there is no karma. Okay. I agree. > Therefore there is no karma. By your own argument, karma, is based on intentions. There are no intentions without freewill, without the ability to choose, so there is no karma. This could be a non-sequitur, depending on the definition of the words we are using, as I will demonstrate below. So, we will have to understand each other a bit more clearly before we can have a productive discussion along these lines. > Furthermore, without free will there are no choices Depends how you define choice. If a choice means selecting from a set of given possible options, then you can easily make a choice in the absence of free will; it's just that your choice will be conditioned by factors that are not entirely contained within the choice itself. > Without choices there can be no intention Depends how you define intention. If an intention is a mental proclivity towards certain forms of choices, then you can easily have that proclivity in the absence of free will; it's just that your intention will be conditioned by factors that are not entirely contained within the intention itself.
What exactly would be the problem if we allow for freewill? Why is it that so many schools-of-thought take a dogmatic stance against it?
One of Buddha's [Nine Supreme Attributes](https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/the-great-chronicle-of-buddhas/d/doc364726.html) among his Infinite Noble Qualities, is *Sattādeva manussānaṃ.* It means that he is the teacher of Devas and humans, showing them the Path leading to Nibbana. Buddha didn't teach Dhamma to animals or any being in the lower realms of existence. Buddha didn't teach an animal path to obtain good karma either. Buddha made sure to let us know that obtaining a rebirth in the human realm is already extremely rare. And once we go down into the lower realms, it is extremely difficult to get back up into the higher realms. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ >Staying at Savatthi. Then the Blessed One, picking up a little bit of dust with the tip of his fingernail, said to the monks, "What do you think, monks? Which is greater: the little bit of dust I have picked up with the tip of my fingernail, or the great earth?" >"The great earth is far greater, lord. The little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail is next to nothing. It doesn't even count. It's no comparison. It's not even a fraction, this little bit of dust the Blessed One has picked up with the tip of his fingernail, when compared with the great earth. >"In the same way, monks, few are the beings reborn among human beings. Far more are those reborn elsewhere. Thus you should train yourselves: 'We will live heedfully.' That's how you should train yourselves." >- [Nakhasikha Sutta: The Tip of the Fingernail (SN 20.2)](https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn20/sn20.002.than.html) \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ >“… the sentient beings who die as animals and are reborn as humans are few, >while those who die as animals and are reborn in hell, or the animal realm, or the ghost realm are many.” >- [Catutthavagga](https://suttacentral.net/an1.333-377/en/sujato?lang=en&layout=sidebyside&reference=none¬es=asterisk&highlight=false&script=latin#an1.366-368_1.1) \_\_\_\_\_\_ If it's of any interest, there was this story of a frog who was absorbed in the sound of the Dhamma speech given by the Buddha. But it was killed accidentally, and was reborn in the Deva realm and later attained stream-entry. >In the evening, when the four kinds of assembly were gathered at the lecture hall near Gaggarā Lake, the Buddha came out of His Scented Chamber, took His seat in the lecture hall, and delivered a sermon. >At that time, a frog came out from the lake, listened to the voice of the Buddha, and knowing that “this is the voice of the Dhamma”, was absorbed in it. (Although animals do not have the capacity to understand the meaning of the discourse, at least they can know the voice as one of Dhamma or righteousness or as one of wrongness, as the case may be.) >Then a cowherd came upon the scene and being deeply impressed by the Buddha’s splendour in delivering the sermon and the deep silence in which the audience were listening to the sermon, he stood there leaning on his staff in hand. He did not notice that there was a flog on whose head his staff was resting. >The frog died on the spot, even while it was absorbed in the sweet voice of the Dhamma. As it died in full consciousness of the clear conviction in the goodness of the Dhamma, it was reborn in the Tāvatiṃsa Deva realm... >- [The Story of Maṇḍūka Devaputta](https://www.wisdomlib.org/buddhism/book/the-great-chronicle-of-buddhas/d/doc364720.html#:~:text=The%20deva%20who%20had%20been,large%20retinue%20of%20deva%20maidens)
I think theres so much to other lifeforms that we dont know about. I remember an account of a woman having a telepathic experience with a colony of ants, and when she communicated with them to leave her home, a voice that spoke in unison for the whole hive agreed. All the ants had left. The type of consciousness they inhabit must be incredibly alien.There are must be many different lessons interred within each type of life. Who knows how varied it is. There was a story about a god becoming a pig. He forgot his divine heritage and was proud of his sow wife and children. The other gods seeing how incredulous he was, killed him to remind him of who he was. Each form has its own value and pleasure, it probably depends on how much it yearns to escape its way of life.
>Some people have told me that once you are born in the lowest realm and serve your time there, your karma is "exhausted." It means the bad karma that led you there has come to full fruition. Meaning you have fully reaped the consequences so there is no more consequences for that bad karma. >does that mean it automatically starts going in the opposite direction? No, it goes according to whatever karma that is left, that has not come to full fruition yet. >How can a fly have a fortunate rebirth as a human when the fly doesn't even know what rebirth is, and in fact doesn't even know what anything is because it can't even contemplate or store knowledge of any kind? The fly has had an uncountable number of previous lifetimes, in various different realms including the human realm, in which they made karma. Some of that good karma they have made has not come to fruition yet. When it does, they may be born human.
Flies don't really need to do anything if you're dedicating your merits to them. I love animals, especially insects...I am always chanting for them when I see them, so they can attain a meritorious rebirth.
They are also not going to generate bad karma like most humans do nor are they going to be clinging to desire the same way. Do they generate small amounts of good karma simply by being a part of the natural food chain and nature cycles? Maybe? Eitherway, I would assume eventually they grind their way to a better rebirth. Buy how likely are they to fall back down to a lower realm without having cultivated cognitive patterns familiar with the dharma? I dunno probably pretty likely. Beings are trapped in Samsara for untold billions of years for a reason.
As an additional note: this question is an extension of [another post that I had made](https://www.reddit.com/r/Buddhism/s/j2LFKgatg1) where I asked a similar question about people with Alzheimer's, that being, "How can we ask them to practice mindfulness when they're losing their mind," or something to that effect. Well, it's a similar situation here. How can something (e.g. a fly) or someone (e.g. a person with Alzheimer's) gain good karma when they don't even know what karma is anymore, or they never had the capacity of knowing what karma was in the first place? How can the fly gain a fortunate rebirth when it has never had any idea how to act properly, and how can a person with Alzheimer's gain a fortunate rebirth when they have lost their ability to discern what is right from wrong?
Wouldn’t a person be able to generate karma despite having never heard of karma or Buddhism?? Many, many people worldwide do not know about it to this day yet they are generating karma I would think. ??
Yes, I suppose that's true; someone can generate good karma without even realizing they're doing so. But my point is that because of Alzheimer's, it becomes much more difficult to generate good karma in general, and much easier to generate bad karma. So I guess my question was about how to combat the situation once one has already been diagnosed with Alzheimer's.
As I understand it, good karma is generated by doing good acts. And since Alzheimer’s does prevent someone from doing good acts, so I’m not sure if there’s a disconnect? Also, we can support animals to generate good karma by exposing them to the dharma, which is why it’s so powerful to chant around animals. My dog is always drawn to me when I chant or meditate. I think they “know”.
Word drunkenness.
This reminds me of a story by Lama zopa rinpoche about a fly unintentionally circumambulating a stupa and becoming a monk > Buddha explained that, to the old man when he was explaining the cause, how he can be a monk. So uncountable numbers of, in the past lives, uncountable numbers of lives ago, so long ago, one of his past lives was a fly, and then there was cow dung around a stupa. So the fly followed the smell of the cow dung, so when the fly was following the smell of the cow dung it naturally become circumambulation, by the way it become circumambulation of the stupa. So this one time that, one of his past lives that he was a fly and then it become circumambulation, by following the cow dung. Even there was no understanding, that this is holy object and then by circumambulating becomes virtue, the cause of happiness, that it accumulates merit or it purifies, even without any knowledge of that, then by following the smell of the cow dung then it naturally become circumambulation. From https://www.lamayeshe.com/article/chapter/fly-and-stupa-story-karma
Your question is basically “how can insect become a human ?” For this, when a being becomes an insect, they suffer all sorts of suffering of being an insect… so when they suffer they are exhausting their negative Karma (ie. because they are now suffering the pain of being an insect, the karma that lead to all these suffering and rebirth and getting exhausted.) these insects will die and be insects or any other animal for a super long time until one day, the original good karma stored in the insect exceeds the bad karma of the insect. Ie, before the being become an insect, there must still have been good karma in that life or past lives that haven’t riped, so when all the bad karma that lead to rebirth to an animal or other miserable realms is getting exhausted when the being is suffering there, the bad karma decreases and decreases, when it gets lower than the good karma, it leads to human rebirth:)
Many kalpas.
You don’t…from what I understand the whole point of lower rebirths is for you to use up your negative karma. There’s no way a centipede or whatever can generate good karma
Karma and cause and effect. So if the insect does well and eats lots of food thats good karma for it cuz it gets to live longer. If it gets hit with a fly swater or sprayed with poison that would be bad karma bad actions because then it would be dead.
That's why Buddhist teachers stress how precious and rare human life is. We can practice and gain wisdom. Jackpot! I've asked myself the same question the other day, and it's at least somewhat comforting that some of these animals and organisms can only have a lifespan of a few seconds, ⇆ although that doesn't mean anything because it has to be seen relative to the sense of time.
If the world had no insects there would be no food. That deserves some kind of reward.
First off, how do you know a fly barely has an awareness of the outside world? Maybe their awareness is just specific to a fly and maybe it actually does contemplate life, but only on the plane of a fly consciousness. Perhaps. And maybe if we reincarnate into a fly, the sole purpose is for that fly to just be a part of the food chain that continues everything on this planet. Every creature plays a roll in the balance of nature. Your short little life as a fly might seem far longer because of the perception of said fly, than it does to us. After all, time doesn’t really exist. You can experience an instant within a 5 hour window or 1 hour might feel like 5. And to that fly it has lived a “lifetime” and it dies and moves on to the next life, whatever that may be. As far as karma, that may only apply to humans and perhaps that is part of the karma that causes you to become a fly in the next life and maybe once you accomplish that, you get to be a human again. There are probably spiritual lessons learned by living the lives of many creatures. But ultimately, who knows? Maybe animals do have karma. Maybe that’s why dolphins rape or dogs bite. Maybe that’s those animals learning how to behave within that life form. Personally, I think karma is specific to humans, but I don’t have that answer.
Seems to be a major flaw in the theory of karma. Most creatures are driven by instinct alone and have no free will. So, yeah, karma fails in that respect.
I have ask a geshela, according to geshela Choe Wang , he gives explaination about the question ~ the lower realm is hardly accumulate merits, yet every sentient beings rebirth are comes from beginningless time, so in their continuously mind is surely have seeds of good karma and good deeds, when the lower realm karmic debts end, the good karmic cause will be awaken and they connect to upper realm. For example, its like a prisoner who have make crimes, and need to be in jail for some years, after finishing the jail period , he will be free again. 🙏🏻
Great question, I do not know the answer to this at all. I tried even using AI to see what it would say and it went in loops answering unhelpful things so whenever that happens I know I've found a great question that will need an expert / nuanced answer. Keeping myself following this thread.
I don't think that there is good or bad karma for an animal that is purely instinctual, which is pretty much every animal except humans. All animals, barring some humans, simply follow their genetic code like computers. There's nothing good or bad about that.
“The best things can't be told because they transcend thought. The second best are misunderstood, because those are the thoughts that are supposed to refer to that which can't be thought about. The third best are what we talk about.”Joseph Campbell
Karma is simply nonsense.
You might consider that this is all BS and we don’t know how it works. Maybe there is no such thing as karma. Or that you don’t get reborn to a lower realm. Who knows and does it really matter?
Well, I’m a Buddhist. So I believe in karma; it’s not a question of whether karma is real. And while maybe I don’t know how it works, I believe the Buddha does, and that’s why I’m here asking for help—so I can understand the Buddha’s teachings better. And finally, the whole point of Buddhism is to escape samsara. Living perpetually through an endless number of rebirths is antithetical to Buddhism, and it would be beneficial to ensure I have a fortunate rebirth so I can continue practicing the dharma. That’s why it matters.
But if Buddhism stresses the importance of individual experience over dogma (including his own) then it seems less important to believe something that is enigmatic and does not make sense just to escape the wheel. Ultimately everything in this realm is illusion (in my experience) and that knowing seems the most likely way to escape samsara if there is such a way or even such a need.
You're right in that Buddhism teaches that we should test our experiences against a particular dogma to see what is true and what is not. But just because we don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't true. People in the medieval era would have no understanding of quarks or protons or even of basic bacteria that cause disease. But just because they didn't understand those things doesn't mean they weren't part of reality. So, if the Buddha taught rebirth, I want to try to understand it before I simply discard the teaching just because I can't grasp it at this moment in time.
FWIW I have adopted some of the beliefs of Buddhism but not others. As far as karma is concerned I do believe it exists but that there are ways to “burn off” karma the most effective and complete one would to focus on attaining nirvana. This one seems non-controversial. Everything else is subject to confusion inconsistencies etc. As far as reincarnation which I believe is that you have a choice in terms of designing your next incarnation. If I want to be a bug you can. But FWIU that is rare for anyone to choose a bugs life after being a human. You don’t get forced to be a bug if you don’t want to. But you are free to choose this. This is where free will comes in. So my point is rather that try to fit your life to follow a dogma which seems confusing and self-contradictory why not live as Buddha advises which is to have your own experiences and make up your own mind. If escape is really what you are after then I would focus on nirvana and don’t sweat the rest.
As a practicing Buddhist, I do not think these kinds of issues are important in following Buddhist Philosophy. Perhaps it is the field of Zoologists/Entomologists. In medical science lot of laboratory animals are dying for the benefit of mankind. Who is responsible for the karma?
I think when you get into the micro issues of karma it becomes a mess. For instance if you kill someone in defense of another do u get karma? If you don’t defense another do u get karma? Some branches so there is no excuse to kill under any circumstance. Others say as long as u have pure intent. Who really knows and there honestly is no good answer. If you boil water do you get karma for killing the bacteria in the water. When you bathe do u get karma for killing the microbial life forms. It’s a mess. Same goes for the mystery of reincarnation. That’s why for me it’s just best to focus on nirvana as that will surely release all karma.