@Embodied:
OK. I see that I have failed to communicate something that is VERY important.
One is born a dog MOST LIKELY because one had cultivated “dog gati” as a HUMAN. In fact, most animals and other beings were born as humans (with very fine bodies) at the beginning of a “world cycle”. It is a very long, but interesting account.
I actually did not want to get into this discussion yet, because it involves some deep Dhamma. The key is that javana power of a citta of a human is MUCH STRONGER than that of a being in any of the lower realms. Therefore, the kammic power generated in a human mind is FAR HIGHER compared to the javana power of a citta of such being.
We can look at it this way. When a human does bad deeds suitable for a dog (say, by sexually misbehaving), that can lead to a “dog bhava”, where one can be born a dog for thousands of years (that means thousands of dog births). Whatever bad kamma that dog does during that time is not that powerful. But still they do accumulate, and that is why it is hard to get another “human birth” easily.
This is a deep subject. But in a way, this is the kind of thinking that gets one to seriously think about the dangers of the rebirth process, and to realize the “anicca nature”.
Embodied said: “What about highly trained dogs? Or dolphins…? Are they accumulating good kamma ?”
They can accumulate good kamma to some extent too. But again, those kammic powers are very low.
I had indeed stated in a post, “But not all animals are the same. Those “higher up” animals like monkeys can accumulate kamma than “lower ones” such as worms, and cats and dogs are somewhere in between”.
Here are some key factors:
– Any animal’s javana power is MUCH LOWER compared to a human.
– Javana power decreases even more from monkeys to dogs to worms to amoeba (to give some examples). Their ability to express emotions also go down in that order.
– That is why amoeba show hardly any sign of being conscious.
– As I said, this is a deep subject that requires lot of contemplation AND some knowledge of Abhidhamma can be helpful too.
