Expert: Laurie McLauglin - 11/26/2009

Question
Hi, quick question, if one  dies and one has negative karma and is therefore reborn into lets say a boar or some vicous animal, how then can one ever rid oneself of the negaive karma?  As a person, you can, as an aggressive animal, you can't?

Answer
Hello Marc -

Thank you for letting me answer your question.

You are correct.  If one is reborn in the animal realm, especially if one is born as a carnivorous animal, one is going to acquire more negative karma.  The one good side to this is that the negative karma the that animal, for example the boar will get when it kills is usually not as bad as what humans acquire because when a human kills something intentionally, there is usually much anger and negative intention. This makes the karma greater. When an animal kills for food, his intention is just to eat, or to protect itself or its home.  There is no malicious intention.  From what I understand the intentions one has when one kills can increase the negativity of the karma that one receives from the action. Does that make sense?

I am by no means an expert on karma, but from what I understand at this moment, just by the fact that a person is born in the animal realm, they are burning off negative karma and even though they are committing negative actions as an animal,  eventually the negative karma for living as an animal will burn off and one will take a higher rebirth.

But before one takes a higher rebirth, one can have many lives in the lower realms like the animal realm.  And it is true that the only realm where one can break this terrible cycle of birth, life, suffering, death and rebirth is in the human realm. Plus in the animal realm one cannot participate in purifications practices to purify massive amounts of negative karma like one can in the human realm.

So the trick is to work as hard as one can since one currently has a precious human rebirth to let go of negative actions of body, speech and mind and instead plant as many positive karmic seeds by doing positive actions with one's body, speech and mind as one can so that the chances of taking a lower rebirth become lessened.

I hope that makes sense.

Don't hesitate to ask any further questions about this or other topics.

Namaste - Laurie