Release or sin?
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i have this question which i dare not ask around, fearing to be scolded. i hope to be able to find some answers. i know that it is our humanity to protect all living things. but sometimes i see insects, like ants, i will think that will it be better if i kill them so that they will reincarnated earlier?
and then, if a person knew that her baby in her stomach is to be born with defects, she decided to abort him. Is she considered committing a sin? Or will she be pardoned because she is releasing the baby's pain of having to live in this world? -
All these are from your own point of view. Try looking at the same situation from some other perspective. -
It's ok to ask. Actually we should never kill even the tiniest insect because it plants the seeds of killing into our 8th consciousness. These seeds can be very dangerous and in a later time or even next life it may develope into something more dangerous - killing large animals, then eventually killing human beings will be increasingly easy. So we should never plant seeds of violence in our 8th consciousness.Originally posted by jacqn:i have this question which i dare not ask around, fearing to be scolded. i hope to be able to find some answers. i know that it is our humanity to protect all living things. but sometimes i see insects, like ants, i will think that will it be better if i kill them so that they will reincarnated earlier?
and then, if a person knew that her baby in her stomach is to be born with defects, she decided to abort him. Is she considered committing a sin? Or will she be pardoned because she is releasing the baby's pain of having to live in this world?
Compassion should come with wisdom, and although we may think we are compassionate to the animals we must think again. The animal has been reborn in the animal realm due to his karma. It is very very unlikely that the insect will become reborn in a virtuous realm just because you killed it. In fact insects will usually stay in that realm for millions of lifetimes because it is very hard for them to ascend out of that realm. The best thing you can do is to chant for that insect, dedicating merits to it, it will be a much wiser thing and much more useful to do because the merit u dedicate to the anima will help the animal to ascend out of the animal realm sooner, and furthermore, we are creating bad karma for ourselves by killing.
In Buddhism, abortion is killing. Aborting children for whatever reasons will have karma, and one must consider the situation wisely before making any descision. Even if you made the descision to abort because the circumstance you must understand there is still karm. In such a case, those who had abortions, there are a few suggestions by Buddhist Venerables for karmic clearance: Do daily repentance* (see the URL at the bottom), help promote anti-killing, anti-abortion, through any means, and transference of merits (accumulated throughout one's entire life) to the deceased foetus. \ We must try our best to avoid abortion. For me, if the baby can still live, even if the baby has some defects, or even low IQ, etc, we must shower even more love for the child. Christians have a good point we should learn from. That is, even if their baby has defects etc, they will not stop loving the child because of that. Because they submit to God, whatever God gives him is the best for them. Whatever child that is born, we must give our love and care to the fullest for him. In Buddhism we do not have a God theory, but whatever that comes is our karma, and the child's karma, and we must do our best to take care of the child.
Another point is children are born into a family for a few reasons.See http://www.jenchen.org.sg/vol7no1c.htm
Excerpt:
5 types of offspring
It is normal to expect kinship between parents and their children. Loving parents and filial children are the basis for a warm and harmonious relationship. However, there are exceptions to this norm. According to Buddhist sutras, there are five types of conditions under which people are born to their parents:
1. They are reborn into the family to pay back their indebtedness to the parents. For example, the child is filial, obedient and diligent in his studies or at work. Regardless of the financial situation, he would provide for the needs of his parents.
2. They are here to seek the return of what their parents owed them in the past. This might be due to the parents owing unsettled matters or debts to the child incurred in their past lives. Thus, not only does the child not bring fortune to the family this life, but the parents have to spend a lot of money on him. For example, the child may be sick very often thereby causing the parents to incur a huge amount of medical expenses, or other situations where the parents have to spend a lot of money on him and driving them to financial difficulties. Some of them may even cause the family to break-up or the death of family members. Some may become incapacitated and cause the family to run into huge debts or even bankruptcy. These types of children are reborn to their parents to seek the return of their dues.
3. A child may be born into a family to return the benevolence that his parents had accorded him in his past lives. In this lifetime, everything is smooth sailing for the child and he is successful in his studies and career to bring honour and pride to the family. Hence, he is here to repay kindness of his parents.
4. They are here to seek revenge on their parents. Perhaps there might be hostility between the two parties in their past lives. The parents might have hit the person; insulted him, ill-treated him, or treated him unfairly. He could not forgive and forget. For example, he would beat up his parents, ill-treat them, or even to take their lives in return for what they owed him in the past lives. Hence, he is reborn into the family to seek revenge.
5. They merely borrow the mother's womb to be born into this world. The great sages and virtuous men, monks and nuns, the Bodhisattva path cultivators and the Buddha belong to this category.
If there is hostility between parents and their children, the parents have to sincerely repent and perform meritorious deeds in the name of the children. Parents should not bear hatred and anger but to treat them with compassion and loving-kindness. Then, the situation would slowly improve and the animosity would soon dissolve. -
(continued from previous post - post segmented to prevent expiring)
Some children may be born into a family with defects, or with illnesses that cause the family to fork out a huge sum of money for hospital bills and other medical bills and cause other unhapiness in the parents' life. In many cases it could be that the child has intention of seeking revenge in some form due to past hatred. In such a case we should not stop the child from being born into the world because it is our karma and the child's karma. He is here because of his and our karma, and by allowing him to be born, and taking care and giving him love, the karma will be dissolved in this lifetime and we will no longer have the 'Yuan1 Qing1' relationship with the child. We must have confidence in the Buddhadharma and practise it in every moment of our lives, and not let our external situation affect our inner well being. Let this be a test of our cultivation. After all we must know the ultimate and inner purpose of our lives should be to attain wisdom, bliss, enlightenment through dharma cultivation. Human life is too precious.
But I do not know what kind of situation that you or your friend is having, so I would advise you to see a wise Buddhist venerable to discuss this matter.
Pls also see a topic I wrote more than a year ago, Abortion
There is another thing I have to add to the article I wrote a year ago. As I said if we have already aborted a child, we must practise repentance every single day, and also every day we must dedicate all the merits we have accumulated through our lives to the child. We must practise that even to a child who has defects, and is still unborn. Or even when the child is already born. Sometimes certain situations may change for the better.
My dharma teacher gave an example of her own. Before she became a Buddhist, she always wished to have a child. And she couldnt have a child. So she went to a temple to pray to a spirit deity (that belongs to the spirit realm) for a child. I cant remember what she was told, but very very soon she became pregnant. But not soon later she had a miscarriage. She was quite sad and when she met my master (that was when my master first came to Singapore), she asked my master why she had a miscarriage. My master only replied four words to her, "Lai2 Zhe3 Bu4 Shan4" (the one who comes is not virtuous). It was only years later that she realised that the child that was to be born came for the lower realm, the spirit realm, however the child could not resonate with her consciousness and then left. If we have 'brightness' in our mind, non-virtuous entities may not necessarily have to come. So during pregnancy one should chant and practise repentance and dedicate merits for the child. But whatever the outcome, we must accept it and do our best for the child and shower our love for him/her. -
From buddhism point of view, we should avoid killing as much as possible. What AEN said is very true.Originally posted by jacqn:i have this question which i dare not ask around, fearing to be scolded. i hope to be able to find some answers. i know that it is our humanity to protect all living things. but sometimes i see insects, like ants, i will think that will it be better if i kill them so that they will reincarnated earlier?
and then, if a person knew that her baby in her stomach is to be born with defects, she decided to abort him. Is she considered committing a sin? Or will she be pardoned because she is releasing the baby's pain of having to live in this world?
Parents who give birth to a defect child is due to their bad karma. When this kind of problem happen, it is already too late to talk about what to do. As a buddhist, we solve the problem before it happen.
We should make sure we don't sow the seed of bad karma. To make it more effective, curb the desire of creating bad seed by eliminating the 3 poisons.
People who don't believe karma only blame their luck when they encounter things like accident, illness, jobless, marriage failure, ugly looking. After they complaint, still carry on with their unwholesome acts.
So they are like keep on doing bad deed while facing the misery that they deserve till one day in the future when they wake up. -
One should recite the Name of Khseetigarbha Bodhisattva name to help the child seek favourable rebirthsOriginally posted by jacqn:i have this question which i dare not ask around, fearing to be scolded. i hope to be able to find some answers. i know that it is our humanity to protect all living things. but sometimes i see insects, like ants, i will think that will it be better if i kill them so that they will reincarnated earlier?
and then, if a person knew that her baby in her stomach is to be born with defects, she decided to abort him. Is she considered committing a sin? Or will she be pardoned because she is releasing the baby's pain of having to live in this world?
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Thanks all for your enlightment. made me realize many things. the questions i asked is out of curosity, didnt happen to me. When young, i thought it was ok to kill small ants, but now i try not to step on any living things when i am walking down the roads. some of you here may think it is basic sense that we should do, but i once saw a lady trying to step on all the ants on her way back home.
most of us, when young, copy or practise what our parents did, we still need enlightment and own compassion sense to guide the right way. -
In Buddhism, we must be filial to our parents, we must do our part to support our parents in spirit and also in money (when they grow old or when we start working). But we do not necessarily need to follow them if what they do or tell you to do is contradictory to morality, etc. So we need to 'Xiao4', but not necessarily need to 'Shun4'.Originally posted by jacqn:Thanks all for your enlightment. made me realize many things. the questions i asked is out of curosity, didnt happen to me. When young, i thought it was ok to kill small ants, but now i try not to step on any living things when i am walking down the roads. some of you here may think it is basic sense that we should do, but i once saw a lady trying to step on all the ants on her way back home.
most of us, when young, copy or practise what our parents did, we still need enlightment and own compassion sense to guide the right way. -
When we were small, we will follow what our parents tell us, because they are the elders, and they have all the experiences that we could learn. As times goes by, we realise alot, and we've learnt alot. Then we realised what we were told when we were young weren't necessary true. However, to the parents, you will always be the small kid of the family. If you don't Shun, or follow what they say, you'll be seen as unfilial by many. It's not you are wrong, but rather it's because this is the way they were brought up, which they projected their upbringing method on you.Originally posted by An Eternal Now:In Buddhism, we must be filial to our parents, we must do our part to support our parents in spirit and also in money (when they grow old or when we start working). But we do not necessarily need to follow them if what they do or tell you to do is contradictory to morality, etc. So we need to 'Xiao4', but not necessarily need to 'Shun4'.
There are alot of ways to finetune the art of living with parents, and yet following the precepts of Buddhism. Example is to organise trips to dharma talks and bring them along. In a way, you are introducing them the right way of living, and that could be one of the family outing which your parents will cherish. You could introduce them to vegetarian meals, by cooking for them, and they'll appreciate your effort, and if your cookery skill isn't too bad, they might ended up loving vegetarian food. If they are superstitious, you could tell them that if they want better luck, they abstain from commit any bad deeds (this part works for my family).
Sometimes, if you handle it the other way, you could achieve a win win situation. -
if the animal's mind didnt change it will still get reborn into the same animal again until his karma wears off am i right?
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Only the affinity with dharma will save the animal.Originally posted by Cenarious:if the animal's mind didnt change it will still get reborn into the same animal again until his karma wears off am i right? -
Yes until the karma is finished (for being reborn in that realm)Originally posted by Cenarious:if the animal's mind didnt change it will still get reborn into the same animal again until his karma wears off am i right? -
Why not? Learning Buddhism is about asking and questioningOriginally posted by jacqn:i have this question which i dare not ask around, fearing to be scolded. -
hanor, i have bugged AEN with questions for almost 3-4 years i thinkOriginally posted by neutral_onliner:Why not? Learning Buddhism is about asking and questioning