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Random act of karma
I killed a bird today. It was flying low, carrying prey on the highway and my options were to hit it or get in an accident. As I was going about 70 mph at the time I was forced to hit it. I'm about 95% sure it is dead.
My question is this: what do I do to make up for it?
My question is this: what do I do to make up for it?
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Comments
Palzang
I ran over a skunk a few years ago. It's 'squeak' still haunts me. I killed it, but it was pure accident. I wasn't speeding, I wasn't drunk. I just had no control over the situation. I agonized for about an hour until I gave myself a shake and asked myself "How long, exactly, are you going to force yourself to suffer over this?" In the end, I had to let it go. Which was a good thing because I was the only one holding on to it.
Welcome to the board, by the way!
don't I recall a story of the Buddha Shakyamuni identifying a positive karmic action in a past rebirth to explain some prewsent good karma? Wasn't it by an animal or bird? Can it have had volition?
Our experiences with animals can be so dear. When I lived in South Florida there were quite a few small lizards in the house. I had just eased my creaking bones into the bath tub. A small lizard misjudged his distance and ploped into the bath. With bath brush in hand it was easy to pluck him/her out.The lizard remained in the bathroom for about six months behind the shampoo bottle. Every time I came to bathe it would come out and simply look at me. Could I be saviour or perhaps the Bodhisatta of drowning lizards?
Grackle
Simon,
I do think some animals have volition sometimes. I'm sure dogs, for example, choose to do certain things that are not purely selfish or simply for their own survival. When HH the Dalai Lama was asked if a dog could attain liberation he laughed and shrugged his shoulders and said "Well, if he was a very good doggie... ".
A female humpback whale had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines.
She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.
A fisherman spotted her just east of the Faralon Islands (outside the Golden Gate ) and radioed for help.
Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her---a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.
They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her.
When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles.
She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, nudged them, and pushed gently, thanking them.
Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.
The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same.
I have a picture, but I forget how to upload it. I never understand the 'manage attachments' crud..... silly, I know. As a Mod, I should, but I need walking through it.....
I think you know that I extend volition far beyond the human sphere. It would trouble many of my friends how far I see it reach, but tyhey have trouble with my notion of long, very slo-o-o-ow conversations with hills and trees. And they think my conversations with my cats just silly, whilst I know that it is often in the course of such post-meditation exchanges (they come and tell me when an hour is up) that clarity dawn.
But, then, I know I'm barmy!
Chesterton said something useful for agnostics along the lines that, if you wweren't sure if there were fairies, isn't it better to live as if there might be rather than if there weren't.
I should to tell you about a common raven that seems to interacting with my walking companion and myself. We know this raven well for it takes flight in a wobbly fashion. Once a week for the past month the raven shows up at my house. I hear the bird outside. When I show myself he travels 2 miles north to my friends mobile home. When he sees friend is up, he travels to the park where we walk. He will be waiting for us. Once we arrive he flies away.
grackle
Do you remember Charles Dickens's raven, Grip, whom he included in Barnaby Rudge? I treat ravens, rooks and crows with respect - these are mysterious and mysteriously intelligent birds. There are few more 'noumenous' moments than a sunset with corvids.
grackle
All-Father Odin is a wonderfully complex archetype: gives up an eye in exchange for wisdom and is attended by his ravens "Thought" (Huginn) and "Memory" (Muninn). I've found a thought-provoking verse from the Edda:
Old Norse:
Huginn ok Muninn fliúga hverian dagiörmungrund yfir;óomk ek of Huginn, at hann aptr ne komit,þó siámk meirr um Muninn. English:
The whole world wide, every day,fly Huginn and Muninn;I worry lest Huginn should fall in flight,yet more I fear for Muninn.I had forgotten this snippet in my commonplace book. It has particular resonance for those of us noticing increasing cognitive deficits.
And speaking of long, slow conversations with hills and trees, when I used to get brutally homesick for Wales I would imagine going back and throwing myself face down on the side of a hill so I could smell, touch, hear, and feel Wales again. I loved the people I met while I was there but it wasn't them that I missed most. It was the whispers of the land and the caresses of its weather. Britain really spoke my language (or I understood its language).
My father is the bird person of the family and he taught us to have a deep respect for all the corvids. They're just as Simon described, arent' they? "...mysterious and mysteriously intelligent birds."
My father planted trees, and lots of them, specifically to entice birds to our farm. And it worked. We have some amazing stories about birds. Their behaviour can be SO weird and so wonderful. And sometimes really unpredictable, if we're lucky.
I'm going to miss the birds here terribly when we move. All these long winter months I've waited to hear their sweet voices again and now that they're back I can't get enough of them. So many different kinds. I used to hate the sound of birds in the morning. It meant just another sleepless night. But now...how I adore them and their singing. There will be birds in town but not as many as out here.
I appreciate your post. Yes the ravens do seem mysterious. At least I like to think them so. Birds here seem remarkably unwary of the dangers posed by humans.
I have been blessed to have a facility with birds and nature in general. Perhaps that is a special way of being lucky.
Heres hoping that moving to town will not be too onerous.
grackle
Palzang
How else would we pick up such wonderfully fascinating snippets....?
(*there are limits, of course.....!
Jack's crows are loud in the morning
They're critical of other birds
Farmers don't appreciate 'em
Though they don't say it in so many words
Jack's crows have a bad reputation
Some of them are known as thieves
They're involved in strange celebrations
And magic on All Hallow's Eve
Jack's crows are all very ancient
No relation to the crows of Jim
Jim was driven to the shadows
But now you're seeing more of him
Jack's crows are in for a murder
A murder is a gathering
Some watch some go a little further
Some eat what the others bring
That doesn't relate to anything, just a further recognition of how wonderful the big black birds are.