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Animal Rebirth
Since animals go by instinct, and obviously aren't very mindful, how would an animal other than a human create the good karma to have a human rebirth?
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Some people will pick up insects and circumambulate a stupa with them.
"There is an account in the Jataka Tales of seven insects living on a leaf of a tree next to a lake at the bottom of which was a stupa. When winter came the tree shed its leaves. The wind carried the bugs' leaf seven times around the lake, and then it fell in the water and the bugs drowned. Following the Buddha Shakyamuni there were seven generations, known as the first seven generations of buddhas, who were incarnations of these seven insects. Now that's benefit! The bugs had no idea the stupa was there. They didn't know what was going on. They were just carried by the wind."
Some animals are very intelligent, and bond with their owners, and have feelings, they have psychologies. We don't know to what extent they might be mindful, if any, but they're certainly capable of acts of compassion and even bravery. Some animals.
If an animal does not possess the capability to understand that everything experienced is not-self and impermanent, it does not have the capability to rise above conditioned existence. Its nature is still Buddha-nature, but its ability to realize this is quite limited. Therefore the dissolution of its aggregates and re-formation as something else, perhaps a human, may lead to this realization.
If we posit there is something which is reborn, then karma will eventually lead to that something being part of a human or other "being" that can understand. To try and figure karma out is something that can lead to madness though. So...
By risking their lives to save a human, they're rising above conditioned existence. Everyone is conditioned to survive. So on exceptional occasions (heck, what do we know, this may happen more often than we think), animals rise above conditioned existence.
P.S. You're cute when you shrug.
:mullet:
Nor do they create negative karma.
They will be reborn as humans when their past good
karma ripens.
The different 'realms' rather than being literal places we can go to after death, can also be interpreted as mental states and an 'animal' mental state is generally considered to be a delusional one.
Ajahn Buddhadasa said :
"Now to the realm of beasts (tiracchana). Birth as a beast means in everyday language actual physical birth as a pig, a dog, or some other actual animal. Rebirth after death as some kind of lower animal is the everyday meaning of rebirth into the realm of the beasts.
In Dhamma language, it has a different meaning. When one is stupid, just like a dumb animal, then at that moment one is born into the realm of beasts. It happens right here and now. One may be born as a beast many times over in a single day. So in Dhamma language, birth as a beast means stupidity."
http://www.buddhadasa.com/naturaltruth/twolanguage3.html
also:
"Within the Buddhist teachings the six realms of existence are seen as six mind-states which are effectively six particular styles of imprisonment. As human beings we experience all these mind-states daily, although we may have a stronger tendency towards one than the others, depending on our habitual patterns."
http://www.samyeling.org/index/samyeling-course-action?id=142&course_title=The+Six+Realms+of+Experience
Do anyone here think animals want to be reborn as humans? Why will they? I take a walk in my city, I see lots of people - some sad, some worried, some tired, some depressed, but vary few happy people. At the same time, I see plenty of happy birds chirping away, happy and content dogs, peaceful cats - some watching the chirping birds
a person not an animal. lol.
just kidding.
I wonder if salmons suffer as they swim
upstream to spawn & die.
The fact that Tibetans believe animals and insects could have been their parents in an earlier lifetime indicates the realms are taken literally. Whether or not the Buddha taught that the realms could be interpreted as mental states is a good question. My impression is that it is later commentators and interpreters who came up with this idea, as even HHDL has spoken about it.(Even the previous Pope began to publicly interpret Heaven and Hell this way.) But is there support for this in the suttras?
http://newbuddhist.com/discussion/10176/mercy-killing
with regards to your statement above, I don't think it is a clear cut as you make out. There are some animals that may not be restricted to just act out of instinct, indeed there is evidence that some animals have empathy. Nobody really knows how the minds of animals truly work or what motivates them to do some of the actions they are observed to do. All we can do until some ground breaking evidence arises that can answer the question "Do animals only act out of instinct ?", is observe and make our own conclusions from our observations. So for me the answer to this question is far from certain.
With Metta
They are spoken by one person in a way according to his truth and interpreted by others according to their truth.
Why an animal could be reborn as a human being, I don't know. But some humans are the living proof of reborn animals, hehe.
Do you agree with DD?
humans were aniamls.
An obvious difference is how humans have shaped or
some say destroyed their environment.
Humans ARE animals.
To think there is something fundamentally different I think is just a form of arrogance or ignorance. Even DNA wise monkeys are like 90% the same (don't know the exact number).
exactly) identical to bananas.
so, dna is not a good measure.
I dont think its arrogance, its just true.
Isnt it amazing that we can use pig organs in
humans yet our brain is totally different?
Don't think you can be reborn a banana indeed.
we are told to be like a rock or a tree(banana if u like)
to be enlightened.
From the monkey mind to the banana mind..
Sorry. No answers, only questions. That's all I got.
Are you sure???
:buck: