Buddhist Rebirth – The Dead Mouse

My cat is a “mouser.” She is an expert at hunting down rodents and tormenting them before she eventually kills and eats them. This is what cats do, like it or not. One particular morning I went out for a smoke and found my cat on the hunt, batting around a helpless mouse like a toy. The mouse pitifully tried to stand tall and intimidate my cat, but there was not much else the mouse could do to fend off its inevitable death. After proudly showing me the trophy in her jaws, my cat dropped the mouse for one more deadly game of chase. The mouse finally died and my cat went about making it her meal.

And when the mouse died, I spoke the words “Namo Amituofo” (Chinese for “I take refuge in Amitabha Buddha”).

Why did I do this? I spoke a prayer for the mouse’s hopeful auspicious rebirth. You see, animals are apart of the cycle of reincarnation in Chinese Pure Land Buddhism (in addition to other branches of Buddhism as well). There are six realms into which one can be reborn in the cycle: the god realm, the asura realm (quarrelsome demigods), the human realm, the animal realm, the hungry ghost realm, and the hells realm. Depending on one’s karma in previous lives and, most importantly, in this life, one is reborn into one of these six realms. That is, unless one seeks rebirth in Amitabha Buddha’s Pure Land, which transcends the six realms and frees one from the cycle of suffering.

The animal realm is considered one of the three lower realms of existence along with the hungry ghost and hell realm. The animal realm is full of suffering. You might be listening to your cat purr itself to sleep right now or thinking of your dog playing in the park, but even these privileged animals suffer. They live relatively short lives and must die of disease, old age or misfortune. Other animals are held in captivity and slaughtered for human consumption. Still other animals are capture by other animals for food, like the mouse that my cat so gleefully killed. But what about animals at the top of the food chain, animals with no natural enemies like raptors or sharks? They too must live relatively short existences, and must suffer, always on the search for the next prey to sustain life just a little longer.

I, for example, have always had an affinity for owls, owls of all kinds, and I have assumed that, if I had been an animal in an unknown past life, I must have been an owl. As wonderful as that might seem to me, being the wise old grey owl eerily hooting in the forest night, these animals are constantly one meal away from starvation, always on the hunt trying to feed their offspring. The owl lives a life of suffering.

How can animals obtain a better rebirth? Is a better rebirth dependent upon their behaviour as animals? If this were true, only vegetation eaters like cows or gorillas could seek a higher rebirth, for the rest of the animals routinely kill other animals as is their nature. But even for predatory animals, it is possible to seek a higher rebirth, and this depends on karma. Bad karma or good karma bespeaks the law of cause and effect, that for every action there is a resultant reaction. When we “pay it forward” as the colloquial phrase goes, we send forth good karma into the world by reacting to good karma received. We will be repaid with bad karma if bad karma is what we send out into the world. The karma that we create does not limit itself to our current lifetime, but extends out from previous lifetimes into the future. Someone who is wealthy and powerful in a current lifetime had good karma from a past lifetime, which doesn’t necessarily mean that person is making good karma now (just think of corrupt politicians or bratty celebrities in this current life). It could be that the karma of a rich person dooms them to the hungry ghost or hell realms in the next life, while the karma of a poor person will lift them up to the asura or god realm in the next life.

Thus if humans are reborn as animals in their next life, they must have created some bad karma. We all create bad karma, this is unavoidable, but those who create an inordinate amount of bad karma, murderers or rapists, and are unrepentant of it will have to follow their karma down to the three realms. And they will be trapped in these realms until that bad karma dissipates, until the bad karma runs its course. This means, one will not be trapped in the animal realm forever. One will not remain a hungry ghost for eternity. One will not even remain in the many levels of hell forever, for unlike the Christian hell, Buddhist hell is not eternal. In the six realms of existence, there is mobility. While the human realm is considered the best realm for encountering the Buddhist teachings and seeking enlightenment, even beings in the hell realms can go directly from hell into the god realm or even into Amitabha Buddha’s Pure Land if their karmic conditions are just right (the Ksitigarbha Sutra attests to this in great detail).

For these reasons, Buddhists often have an affinity for animals. Chinese Pure Land Buddhism encourages, but does not require, its followers to practice vegetarianism. There are many stories of the old Chinese Pure Land patriarchs, in which they bankrupt themselves by buying live animals from the markets and setting them free. Some Buddhists try to refrain from killing any living being, including insects like flies or mosquitos. This is because we never know if that mosquito isn’t a friend or relative from a previous life. If we continue to unrepentantly create bad karma, we could end up being reborn as that mosquito.

I don’t know what the next life of my poor little mouse will be. No one does, just as no one has any concrete ideas what their previous lives were. If the mouse was fortunate, its bad karma had run its course, paving the way for an auspicious rebirth. And that is why I said: “Namo Amituofo.” To help this mouse’s consciousness find the right path, to call upon Amitabha Buddha to assist the “soul” (alaya consciousness) of this poor creature. I said a prayer for a small creature, recognizing its value as a sentient being in the realm of suffering. And in that moment, I sincerely did hope that the mouse would reborn auspiciously, just as I hope my family members and friends will be reborn auspiciously. I hope that this mouse can be reborn into the human realm and encounter the Dharma, learn about the Buddhist teachings, create good karma, and aspire to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings.

Who knows, this mouse could become the next incarnation of a buddha in the world? This mouse could be a bodhisattva, an enlightened being who stays in the world to save all sentient beings from their suffering. For the mouse and I are the same in our sentience and in our buddha nature – the potential inherent in all beings to achieve enlightenment. It is the birthright of this mouse to also seek and achieve enlightenment, just like I seek enlightenment. Our potential to achieve this is the same, the exact same. Thus I must treat this mouse with reverence and humility. This mouse could become the next enlightened being in the world. And so I say again: Namo Amituofo.