Kamma and children

[Annapurna]

Children are curious. So sometimes they cut a rainworm into pieces or torture animals and don't know what they are doing.

That's why our laws give them a time frame in which their actions have no legal consequences.

But I guess it's a different story with kamma.

Or no?

A

[clw_uk]

Kamma doesnt have a grace period so to speak. Whenever there is intentional action there is kamma.

[Peter]

Children are curious. So sometimes they cut a rainworm into pieces or torture animals and don't know what they are doing.

That's why our laws give them a time frame in which their actions have no legal consequences.

But I guess it's a different story with kamma.

Or no?

Some of the factors that must be present for the kamma of killing to arise is:
- there must be knowledge of a living being,
- there must be the intention to deprive that living being of life.
I think it is possible that a child could cut a rainworm in half without either of those two factors being present. If that were the case, then there would be no killing-kamma from that act.

Unlike the legal system, this isn't based on an arbitrarily picked age, but rather it is based on the mental factors present in the person when they commit the act. So I guess that makes it more fair than the legal system?

[Annapurna]

Yes. Thank you.

What would happen if a relatively small child kills a small animal out of curiosity to see how "dying goes". But it has no idea what death means for the animal...nor, that killing critters is wrong. Parents do it all the time.

[Jechbi]

I bet that child would grow up and think about it later in life. When I was 14 I was forced to dissect a live frog in science class. The teacher convinced us that the frogs had been "pithed" and thus could feel no pain, but I remember the frogs seeming to wince in reaction to the scalpal piercing the belly. I killed that frog, but not before I saw its beating heart. I think about it sometimes.

[thecap]

Kamma doesnt have a grace period so to speak. Whenever there is intentional action there is kamma.

Indeed. Not all intentions are the same though.

[thecap]

Yes. Thank you.

What would happen if a relatively small child kills a small animal out of curiosity to see how "dying goes". But it has no idea what death means for the animal...nor, that killing critters is wrong. Parents do it all the time.

Probably nothing would happen at all. I believe that mentally healthy children until seven years of age know non-harming intuitively, that is before their mind begins to form a conventional self. Splitting rainworms seems to be the exception. We used to be curious about hearsay that "when you split a rainworm, he doesn't die but become two rainworms", so at least, in this case it was more about proliferation than death.

Intention (cetana), I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect. - AN 6.63.5

[clw_uk]

Your right not all intentions are the same.

There is unwholesome intention motivated by greed, hatred and delusion

There is wholesome intention motivated by non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion

[Annapurna]

I bet that child would grow up and think about it later in life. When I was 14 I was forced to dissect a live frog in science class. The teacher convinced us that the frogs had been "pithed" and thus could feel no pain, but I remember the frogs seeming to wince in reaction to the scalpal piercing the belly. I killed that frog, but not before I saw its beating heart. I think about it sometimes.

Jechbi, wow. I understand how you feel.

I heard, that those tests were abolished, because all students refused to participate.

Their suggestion to videotape the experiment once and for all was seen as a rightful demand and so frogs have it better now.

A

[Annapurna]

Your right not all intentions are the same.

There is unwholesome intention motivated by greed, hatred and delusion

There is wholesome intention motivated by non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion

I agree.

Damn, we sure had a heated discussion over at e sangha once, about mercy killing a dying animal Brrr.....

[clw_uk]

there was a similar thread here i started about euthanasia.

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=426&p=4756&hilit=euthanasia#p4756