For people concerned about their karma but also infested with any of the numerous pests (rats, cocker-roaches, mothers-in-law) in their homes/apartments, I would like to suggest the establishment of a Buddhist pest removal service.
This will require individuals with VERY specific and rare skills. But you can never be too safe. I mean what if you were exterminating those nasty little buggers and one of them turns out to be your aunt? Wouldn't this knowledge be welcome? You can humanely ask the offending pests to remove themselves from your place of residence and you can invite your re-incarnated friends and relatives to stay on.-- 1MilesWest2, Oct 30 2001 Killing the Buddha Within http://www.ordinary...m/koan_killing.htmlA lengthy explanation of the "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him." koan. It turns out not to be meant literally. [jutta, Jan 19 2002] cocker-roach? We had a cocker spaniel once.-- pussygalore, Oct 30 2001 My brother's fiance and my sister-in-law are best friends; when they were girls, they were next-door neighbors. My sister-in-law's parents kept an immaculate house, but her friend's parents didn't much care about housework. Both houses had occasional problems with mice.
The man of the messy house went over to the neat house, one day, to borrow a thing called a "Have-A-Heart Mousetrap". The trap was a little box with adhesive inside but no springlock catch; the mouse would go inside, but not be killed. A person could then take the trap outside and liberate the mouse, thus preserving his own soul for whatever future incarnations Lord Buddha might have in store for him.
The man of the neat house gave the trap to his friend, and the man of the messy house happily installed it in his basement.
Months later, the man of the neat house went next door to borrow his Have-A-Heart Trap back. Once he got it home, he opened the trap ... to find the skeletal body of a mouse inside. His neighbor had caught a mouse, all right; but by then, he'd forgotten the trap was even there. The mouse he'd caught had starved to death.
Humane pest removal, like everything else, is relative.-- 1percent, Oct 31 2001 I think my sister-in-law did say something about rodent sounds from the basement, but I don't think it was important. It was just a noise, of course; they come and go, they come and go ...-- 1percent, Oct 31 2001 I can't help but think of the classic Hitchhiker's Guide scene where the person whose every incarnation has been inadvertently terminated by Arthur Dent catches up to him.-- DrBob, Oct 31 2001 Ohhh, I thought this was gonna take that song outta my head. Oh well... "kama-kama-kama kama-kama-chameleon...you come & go-oH, you come and go oh-OH-Oh!"-- Inestein, Nov 03 2001 Isn't there a buddhist saying that if you meet buddha on the road, you should kill him? I know buddhists aren't meant to kill *any* living thing, so just killing the animals that weren't Jim Morrison or Joey Ramone in a past life wouldn't do much for your karma, but if you met an animal that was buddha would you be allowed to kill it?
Which reminds me, what happens if the Dalai Lama gets reincarnated as a cockroach? Is there a Zen theologian in the house? And would I understand his replies? (Or his reptiles?)-- pottedstu, Nov 03 2001 Hm. You know, I don't think Buddhists believe that Buddhas get reincarnated at all, at least not in the normal sense. Buddhist reincarnation doesn't go on infinitely, it ends once you're perfect (like Buddha) and get to rest in the timeless, spaceless Nirvana.
At least according to some strands of Buddhism, Buddhas can deliberately reincarnate themselves; but they get to control as what. At least some people who think the Dalai Lama is more than a guy in a costume think that he's just such a deliberately reincarnated Buddha.
So, if the Buddha that's been reincarnating himself as the Dalai Lama wants to be a roach, he gets to be a roach. I don't know what the karmic implications of killing buddha-roach are (I suspect they don't really depend on who that roach was before - it's not like in "Highlander"), but for buddha-roach himself, it just means back to Nirvana.-- jutta, Jan 19 2002 I believe the use of a hand-cranked Gatling to remove pests is exempted from karma.-- AlanS, Aug 29 2004 random, halfbakery