At work, a tiny little flying insect landed on my desk. At first I thought he was dead because he wasn’t moving, so I gently pushed him to see if he reacted, and he moved so I left him alone. Some time later, when I picked up a call, I shoved my electronic cigarette and it unfortunately crushed him. So I thought I killed him unwittingly, I felt guilty. I took a closer look, and I could see that although crushed his antenna was still moving, probably in agony. I felt bad, now right away a being was suffering and was going to die because of me, was perhaps afraid? I decided to crush him for good, voluntarily this time, to alleviate his suffering.
What do you think of this story? Was I wrong the first time? The second?
If so, how can I mitigate this bad kamma?
And finally, how can we help him have a better rebirth, if at all possible?
I think it’s not ours to judge if some other being should live or die. For example, perhaps even this agony was still better than what awaited it after that life? We have no way to know, so it’s not ours to make that call. What’s important is that we make all reasonable efforts to support the well-being of other beings
Greetings @Satananda .
We come across situations like this everyday… some obvious, some not so It is a topic that has been discussed quite a few times. Have a look using the search function, regarding 1st precept, killing of insects, etc.
Here is a link to the killing of insects topic, which discusses this situation in detail.
I hope this helps
There have also been many discussions about the effects of kamma in circumstances like these. Again use the search facility to explore them in depth.
In a nutshell though, one can dilute dark kamma by consciously creating more bright kamma. It’s the simmilie of a tea-spoon of salt in a glass - very salty versus a tea-spoon of salt in a lake - only a trace As such this is a practical approach to deal with the issue. For more details, please search through the existing replies
I’m going to close this topic now, as any discussion would be a straight duplication (which makes the archive and search functions more clumsy to use). Please continue on existing topics, or if there is something that you wish to discuss that isn’t there, then start a new more targetted topic.
It is a topic that has been discussed quite a few times. Have a look using the search function, regarding 1st precept, killing of insects, etc.