Killing

Most people consider murder the greatest of all crimes, which is why the death penalty is the highest of all punishments. This is quite right. To be called a living being in the true sense, a creature must have the instinct to survive. The survival instinct is a hidden urge that makes a being always want to preserve its own life. Watching a colony of ants toil in search of food, or an earthworm crawl through the soil, we see that every creature longs to live. Watching poor people with no roof over their heads drifting along the pavements, we feel even more deeply that everyone loves life. Life is something infinitely precious. That is why taking a human life is regarded as a grave crime.

In terms of fairness, if someone kills another person, the retribution that awaits him is certainly to be killed in return. Sometimes the law of society only imposes a prison sentence of ten to twenty years, but the law of karma does not forgive so easily.

However, it is not always the case that the victim of this life will personally take revenge in the next. If, while being killed, the victim conceives hatred and a wish for vengeance, that thought will turn into action, and the victim of this life will surely become the perpetrator in the next.

There was once a puzzling story in America. Two friends, one black and one white, lived together and were very close. One day the black friend picked up a knife and killed his friend, then went to the police and gave himself up. Asked why he had killed his friend, he answered in anguish that he did not know, because he had no motive at all.

In truth, the two of them had carried a deep grudge from a previous life. The black friend had once conceived the thought of revenge and then let it go. He supposed that if a thought was conceived but not acted upon, it would have no effect. But that thought turned into action in a later life, at a moment when no one expected it.

Let us be careful with our thoughts, and not suppose that our ideas and desires will simply pass away. They will not! They will turn into action in a later life, when the conditions are complete.

In the case where the victim, when killed, has no thought of revenge, because they are preoccupied with worrying about their loved ones, their possessions and so on, or because they have attained a high degree of forbearance, then in the next life the killer will be killed by someone else, or will suffer an accident such as a car overturning, a plane crashing, a lightning strike, or a dry branch falling on him.

If someone has killed many people, the retribution for him is to be killed repeatedly over many lives to come. He may even be scraped out and aborted many times before he leaves his mother's womb.

And that is not all. When a husband is killed, his wife and children are left forlorn, orphaned and poor. The retribution stored up for the killer is to be born, life after life, abandoned, poor, wandering and poorly educated.

And that is not all. In killing a person, one destroys the work that person was cherishing and building. The retribution for the killer is to meet with failure again and again in later lives.

And that is not all. When a person is killed, many of their loved ones suffer. The retribution for the killer is to fall again and again into a state of despair and anguish, like a delusional mental illness.

We can see that one main karmic cause always creates many secondary karmic causes around it. The law of karma will arrange for the wrongdoer to pay in full for every one of his wrongs. Of course, paying for those wrongs is not at all pleasant.

However, not every killing is equal in wrongdoing. The wrong of the killer is greater or lesser according to the worth of the person killed. If the person killed was an honest citizen who did much good for the world, then killing such a person is a very grave wrong. If your presence was a joy to many people, your absence is a great sorrow. For the killing of such a person, the killer can hardly measure the consequences he must bear in later lives.

If the person killed was a holy and great figure who brought immense benefit to humanity, his departure is a huge loss to the world. The retribution the culprit must pay is extremely painful. He will be tormented for countless lives, sometimes as an animal beaten and killed, sometimes as a destitute and wretched human being put to death. The sufferings of all those people must be added together to arrive at the amount of suffering he must repay over many lives. That is a fairness that nothing can replace.

By contrast, take a member of a team hunting down bandits who shoots dead a dangerous robber in the middle of a crime. The robber had killed and robbed people and terrified everyone. His death lets everyone breathe a sigh of relief and rejoice. In killing this robber, the officer's wrong is negligible; on the contrary, when all the joy of those people is added up, he gains a fair amount of merit. This is a fairness that cannot be put any other way.

Then there is the soldier fighting on the front line to protect the peace of the people behind it so that they can live in safety. In the course of fighting to hold back the enemy, shooting and killing cannot be avoided. But that wrong can be offset by the service of keeping so many people safe behind the lines. Only when the soldier belongs to an army that is plainly invading does his wrong become great.

So whether the killing brings merit or wrongdoing to the killer depends on the worth of the person killed; it is not fixed in one direction.

Below human beings are animals. Killing an animal is also taking a life, so first of all it too is a wrong. However, according to the worth of the animal, the wrongdoing and the merit will be distinguished in particular terms.

For example, someone kills a dog to serve its meat to friends. The merit here is giving friends a delicious meal (though if they drink and make trouble, that will be accounted for later); the wrong is killing a loyal and intelligent animal. That merit cannot make up for this wrong. And the suffering of the animal killed will become the killer's own suffering in the future.

Where people raise livestock such as cattle, pigs and chickens specifically for meat, the merit is producing food for people. The wrong is taking the animals' lives and causing them suffering when they are slaughtered; moreover, the meat of livestock easily causes illness in those who eat it, such as heart disease, cancer and taking on animalistic tendencies. That merit cannot make up for this wrong. Scientists have successfully developed artificial meat, and many factories already produce it and supply it to restaurants. This is to be encouraged. Economists have also calculated that, to obtain one kilogram of meat, an animal has to be fed an amount of grain that would keep many African people alive for several days. So it is clear that using livestock meat as food does not benefit humanity much.

Some people say that vegetarians also kill living things, because plants, vegetables and fruit are alive too.

That is true! Cutting a sprig of greens also infringes on the life of a living thing. We already know that plants too have a survival instinct, are surrounded by a field of spiritual space, and show simple spiritual reactions when in danger; in general, plants seem to have a mind of their own. However, the spiritual structure of plants is simple. When pruned, a plant "knows" it is being pruned and reacts, but it feels no pain. So when we cut a tree, trim a branch or pick vegetables, we do commit a wrong, but not a great one, since plants do not feel pain. Still, a person who eats vegetarian food all their life and consumes a great deal of vegetables and fruit accumulates a fair amount of karma from it. But such a person usually practises, does meritorious deeds and teaches morality, so this merit is more than enough to offset that wrong.

Woodcutters who go into the forest to fell trees do have the merit of producing timber and fuel for society, but they cause deforestation, which disturbs the ecology of the Earth, and they take the lives of large trees, so the wrongdoing they accumulate is also heavy. The older a tree is, the stronger its spiritual power. There are old sao trees, hundreds of years old, growing beside village halls and pagodas, with very strong spiritual power. When someone comes to fell one, the tree's spiritual reaction is enough to make that person ill and then die. Not understanding this, villagers ascribe it to a spirit living in the tree. Our ancestors had a saying:

"First, destroying the mountain forests;

Second, stabbing at the river god."

People in these two trades never become well-off. Those who work in them toil hard all their lives and never have anything left over. It may be due to the retribution for killing so many living things. The spiritual reaction of a tree differs according to its kind and its age. With Backster's leaf, the reaction was only enough to make the needle of the measuring instrument jump. But the spiritual reaction of an ancient tree can kill a person instantly when that person wants to cut it down.

So, if felling trees is a grave wrong, then planting trees and protecting forests is a great merit. Each tree planted can be regarded as a lung cell for our whole planet. All the planted trees and forest trees together form a lung for the whole world. Trees filter the air, absorb some of the heat, keep the soil moist for a long time, hold water in the springs in the dry season, check floods in the rainy season, provide food for bees and wild animals, balance the ecology of the entire globe...

However, because of the need for timber and fuel, human beings are destroying the forests without mercy. Although nations call for the development of forest planting, planting forests does not meet people's urgent economic needs; planted forests also cannot compare with natural forests that are a thousand years old; and moreover, most of those who plant forests are already preparing to harvest them after ten or twenty years.

The forest: a problem that is hard to solve!