Namaste Ryuuko,
thank you for the post.
Ryuuko said:
Namaste Vajradhara,
Thank you for your post. If I understand correctly, if my intention for killing the grasshoppers will generate positive karma for me, since I'm acting out of compassion of the plant?
whilst this seems to be correct, it is not. this is due to my inability to properly explain this concept, not to a lack of your ability to understand.
plants, being non-sentient beings, do not have karma. the karmic seeds from engaging in actions like cutting down a tree, produce neutral karma. of course, the various creatures that live in said tree are another matter altogether
the main thing to keep in mind, at this point, is that it is your intentional acts towards other sentient beings which produce positive or negative karma, though it's possible to produce neutral karma in these cases, this is not something that normal beings are able to do.
Also, you mentioned that me being a non-Buddhist has an effect on the ripening of Karma. How can that be? Could you explain that?
hmm... actually, this is rather particular to my schools view of things. basically, its like someone that is unaware of the rules and breaks them vs. someone that knows the rules and chooses to break them anyway. whilst the rules have been broken in both cases, the person to whom the rules were well known is typically the person that is reprimanded more severly for breeching the rules.
now.. it is true enough that, even without any understanding of the Buddhadharma, from our view at least, these things happen anyway, as such, even as a non-Buddhist one can experience positive or negative karma and these things will influence the beings rebirth.
if i can use another poor analogy. it's rather like this, if i may. a voodoo doll. let's say you are a child and for some reason, you get a voodoo doll. for you, as a child, it's just a dollie and you'll play with it as the situation warrants. you may even make the doll swim or jump over things or lay in a pool of water or light it on fire. all of which are fun things for kids to do and have no bearing on the doll or the kid playing with it.
the same scenario, however, the child knows what a voodoo doll is and believes that by doing those things, i.e. laying it in water, burning it etc. that those things are happening to someone in a physically real way.
the action of burning the doll is the same in both cases. however, the level of understanding of the two children is vastly different and thus, in our Buddhist discussion, those two beings would reap different karma for that same event predicated on their intention behind the act.
I'm sorry to hear about your experience with an outdoor/indoor plant. I was especially careful this fall when it came time for me to bring the plant back inside. I had given it a good soap bath, which usually does the trick with pests, but I was obviously unable to catch them all.
who knew that soap baths would work well? not i.. at least not until the next season
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it does work very well with diseases though i've not seen as much positive result for dealing with actual crawlies tho.
I don't know... that would make me a bit too antsy (pardon the pun)
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!
believe me.. this is news
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as it turns out... Peonies are what are known as "ant flowers". seems that the ants climb into the buds and, as they are trying to get the nectar, cause the bud to open and bloom. i was unaware of this prior to planting a big group of them... you can imagine my surprise when i came out this spring and the entire bed was overrun with ants! i was already trying to figure out what to do about them when my neighbor polietly informed me of the ants.. and that i needed to leave them for the flowers to properly bloom!
as it stands now... there are probably two nests in the Peonie bed.. one in Mollys Garden, one in the Cherry Garden, one in the Russian Sage garden and another one that is either under the driveway or in the timbers that i've used to line the driveway.
now... as it turns out... since all the landscaping has been done.. there are actually quite a few birds and other creatures which are calling the place "home". in particular, there is a hutch of rabbits that lives underneath my neighbors wooden shed. they play havoc on the lillies in the spring time but they are so cute that i'm planting the lillies now just to feed the rabbits! i don't expect any of them to actually bloom again
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LOL.