THIS NOTE IS BEING PENNED about animal cruelty. In the present day, a great abundance of people commit animal cruelty as an occupation, a business, or even as a fashion. Some high-class dog owners, once the dog has puppies and when they are hardly a week old, bring the litter to the vet and have their tails clipped. This is done as a fashion. In poultry farms, not too long after the brood has hatched, their beaks are truncated. In pig farms, once the sow farrows, the piglets’ teeth are pulled out lest their mother’s teats get infected. These are acts of animal cruelty taking place on a massive scale. Here, it is animals of a tender age that suffer cruelty. Why these animals suffer cruelty at a young age itself is also due to a karma-result (vipāka) of theirs. As one suffers karma-results of unwholesome karma, another engenders unwholesome karma. This is the economics of Māra. Supply and demand are in good equilibrium. 

If those inflicting cruelty on animals of such a young age happened to take rebirth as a human upon their death, they’d become sick at the early age itself. Congenitally, their infant bodies would be either missing or having deformed limbs and bodily organs. Just as wholesome deeds give results in a most fair and just manner, so do unwholesome deeds. So perfectly fair is the law of nature that one needn’t appeal against it, claiming it’s unfair. Yet you always see these verdicts as unjust, for you know not what the Dhamma is. “Gods don’t favour us” or “We get no refuge in the Dhamma” is how you see it. 

What is the Dhamma? ―The characteristic of impermanence (anicca), of suffering (dukkha) and of the absence of a ‘self’ with any sort of dominion (anattā). Can these characteristics protect you? Is there a permanence, a pleasure, or an authority-wielding entity here? The Dhamma cannot provide you protection. Rather, you must take refuge in the Dhamma. How do you take refuge in the Dhamma? ―Enter the path of moral conduct (sīla), mental concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā) to insightfully realize the impermanent, suffering and not-self nature, the nature of the Dhamma. Only then would beings catch a glimpse, through the faculty of wisdom, of the entire Four Noble Truths, which bring freedom from birth, decay, sickness and death. The one who glimpses thus, with the faculty of wisdom, will never curse the suffering, or blame the gods, or heap scorn on the Dhamma. Seeking to transcend the suffering, the cause of suffering and the extinction of suffering, they will make the Noble Eightfold Path their only path. They will insightfully realize that neither the elephant nor the puppy nor the sickly child but craving (tanhā) is the sole reason for the suffering.

Speaking of animal cruelty, domesticated animals like cattle, dogs, cats or birds dwelling around the household constantly suffer harm at the hands of humans; as do animals living inside the household, such as insects. An animal is a member of the fourfold hell. That means, one living under the heel of Māra. It is these animals that Māra uses to plant the roots of unwholesomeness―greed, hatred and delusion―in you. The animal means Māra’s pet; the bait placed on Māra’s fish hook to lure you into the fourfold hell. Therefore, just as careful as you would be with fire, so too you must be far warier of animals. Get burned from fire and it’ll be just the pain from the burn. But inflict cruelties on animals and you’ll inherit suffering spanning the fourfold hell. Even if you took rebirth as a human being, you’d be plagued by illness. 

If you practise the path of Dhamma set out by the Buddha, if you become an individual consummate in faith and confidence (saddhā), moral conduct (sīla) and loving-kindness (metta), then, using the very animal, you can steer your life to a state where the roots of wholesomeness develop in you.[1] Suppose a dog came to your doorstep. Parents would tell the child, “Chase that dog away, dear, without hurting it.” At that moment, a mind of loving-kindness too has formed in you. Or you would say, “Give that dog something to eat, dear, and once it finishes, shoo it away without hurting it.” In that instance, just as much as a mind of loving-kindness arose, as did a mind of generosity. Before you act on anything to do with animals, be circumspect to cultivate moral-shame and moral-dread (hiri-ottappa) of animal cruelty.

The phenomenon called animal cruelty is something far subtler than you think. It is only because humans fail to comprehend this subtleness that a person free of illness can scarcely be found in the contemporary world. There are, to be sure, folks in society who are in good health. What they experience is karma-results of wholesome karma they have committed in the round of rebirths. For your edification, Bhikkhu will now relate a story that vividly illustrates the subtleness of the karma-results beings would have to suffer due to animal cruelty. After reading this story, you be the judge of how insidiously animal cruelty could occur at your hands, and in what subtle, mysterious ways their unwholesome karma-results would arise to give effect. Having read this story, clearly recognizing the consequences of unwholesome karma you’d have to bear when you commit animal cruelty, henceforth if you raise animals, do so in a way that would cause them no maltreatment nor abuse. Make a living using animals; Derive income from animals; But do so while feeding them well and showing loving-kindness and compassion for them. 

There lives a middle-aged couple who has much affinity towards the Dhamma. Being childless, this couple leads a most untrammelled life. Earns a living by running a business outfit in a main city. It is the wife who manages this business premises. That the husband gets involved in business matters only when it’s really necessary bears testament to her innate knack for business. There remains, however, a particular problem besetting this revered-woman’s life; one that is of an uncanny, eerie nature. At times she appears horror-struck. She says sometimes she’s being hounded by a nonhuman force. She’s tormented because of this. Admirably though she acquits herself when managing the business, she gets angry from the minute she comes home. When the husband makes to leave for a monastery or visit a monk, quailing at it, she recoils. Knowing all too well this disposition of his wife, the husband shows much understanding when dealing with her. 

She thinks her late father, out of love for her, hovers behind her; And this causes her great distress. On occasion she would evince a horrified, inscrutable expression. Still, she does have faith and confidence in the Triple Gem, tries to hew to moral precepts, and is well acquainted with the Dhamma by reading books. Despite possessing these qualities, she’s ever bedevilled by the aforesaid problem. 

This couple also hopes to dispose of their businesses and property in times to come and, abandoning worldly possessions, enter a lay life of renunciation. When these background events are carefully considered, they come across as a most devout couple. Yet there’s abiding tension within her that she can’t fathom. Due to this anxiety she sometimes suffers mental anguish. 

Neither because a nonhuman force lurks behind her nor because her person is possessed by a nonhuman force is she tormented like this. Rather, it is only because of her weak, insecure mentality that she is harrowed this way. She’s not adroit enough to view herself as someone who has taken refuge in the Triple Gem, who abides by moral precepts and who regularly gives alms, much less parlay that view into self-assurance. The moment she developed a robust frame of mind through such confidence, she could overcome this weakness. What precludes her from developing this right frame of mind is a karma-result of an unwholesome karma she had committed in the previous life.

A particular bhikkhu aims to see this woman’s past life with the samādhi. In the noble samādhi, the bhikkhu brings to vision her previous life as well as the karma committed then that pertains to the present karma-result. What the bhikkhu visions is some buffaloes and a woman. The woman is heard saying, “Give me my money for the work done,” and there the vision ends.

Now Bhikkhu is going to relate this vision to her previous life to ascertain who she had been in that life and what the unwholesome karma she committed was. This very explication will be more than useful to you to be oft-reminiscent, with faith and confidence, of the teaching “You are heir to karma,” which the Buddha set out with great compassion.

In the previous life, too, she had been a woman. Renting out buffaloes for paddy cultivation had been her means of livelihood. It was the fee for the buffaloes put to work in the paddy fields that she demanded from the field owner. Now let’s consider this incident from several angles.

The first point is in her previous life, too, she had been a businesswoman. Previous life means some 50 years ago. Unlike in the present day, a wide range of businesses were not there half a century ago. The complexities of today’s society were yet to be had. The main business or source of income was agriculture. A most respectable occupation it was in the past. This woman had earned a living by renting buffaloes out for agricultural work. Simply out of past habit, even in this life she has retained the ability to manage on her own a business selling modern tech gadgetry. Some women who comport themselves ably in the field of business you may have seen in society. This is but force of habit emanating from the round of rebirths past. Those without such force of habit would be shy to even go to the store and make a purchase. You should relate these things to your life’s activities. 

The second point is the nature of the unwholesome karma that resulted from the business she carried on in her previous life. She derived income by putting buffaloes to use in paddy cultivation, to be sure, but she hadn’t engaged in animal slaughter. Thus was the compassion for animals in people of those days. Rare as it may be to use buffaloes for rice cultivation in the present day, the buffalo was the main source of power in agriculture in society of fifty years ago. From the point of tilling until the threshing of crops in the threshing field, it was the buffalo that served in farming. People worked these animals in a very unkind manner. Yoked to the plough from morning till evening, the workload a pair of oxen would put in was no less gruelling, than does a machine! Only when the farmer would pause for lunch did the buffalo get a respite. Still, the animal wasn’t turned loose. It would take a rest, shouldering the yoke the whole time. How hard the plough must be pulled to break the ground and furrow the field! For the slightest slip, gets stricken with a switch. The sound of such a strike resonates with Bhikkhu even at the moment of writing this. However much the buffalo wants to, can it make excuses like “Oh I’m sick; My knees hurt; My head hurts; The heat of the scorching sun is too intense; I’m hungry; I’m thirsty; …”? Having drawn the plough with its strength, turning the soil the whole day, after grazing in the meadow as the shadows lengthened, it goes to sleep, only to resume the regular duty the next morning.

The buffalo-owner receives income. 

Righteous though we think this occupation is, just imagine if two humans were lashed to a plough and put in a paddy field to turn the soil, how ineffable a physical and mental cruelty those two would suffer! Using this analogy, you be the judge of the extent of the cruelty the buffalo suffers. The more the plough yoked to the buffalo’s neck trailed behind it and the greater the physical and mental cruelty inflicted on the animal was, the more bountiful the income the cattle-owning woman had due to this animal cruelty. She merrily received the income derived from that animal cruelty. As its karma-result, in the present life where she has taken rebirth as a woman, the spurious perception she has of a nonhuman haunts her, leaving her to suffer the result of the unwholesome karma. Look how fair the law of nature is. Just as the plough fastened across the buffalo’s neck trailed behind that animal, causing it so great a physical and mental cruelty, so too does a spectral perception this woman’s imagination has conjured up follow her as its karma-result, causing her physical and mental distress in this human life.

In what subtle ways the unwholesome karma known as animal cruelty could occur at your hands you would understand now; as well as that it is only in a manner that corresponds exactly with the nature of the cruelty inflicted that the unwholesome karma-result of such animal cruelty takes effect.

[1] The three roots of wholesomeness are: alobha – ‘greedless’ (or generosity); adosa – ‘devoid of hate’ (or loving-kindness); amoha – ‘undeluded’ (or having wisdom―paññā)).