Cubibobi said: “has anyone found a way to make cockroaches go away?”
And “When I see one in my home, I use a container to catch and release it. However, my gati of wanting to kill them is strong”.
There are several aspects to this issue.
- Part of the answer to the first question is in the second statement. Even if you have not killed those cockroaches, you have the intention to kill them. So, you are constantly generating vaci sankhara (conscious thoughts about killing them), and more bad kamma vipaka for future. This is an important point that many people do not understand: “Correct Meaning of Vacī Sankhāra“.
- Nothing happens without one or more causes. Problems with cockroaches is not that different from problems due to ailments or getting injured. They have the causes in past kamma, and some of them (like getting cancer) are hard to avoid.
- Sometimes, if the situation has really gotten worse, one may need to take drastic one-time action to remove those bad conditions, because leaving them “as is” could lead to even more bad consequences. In this case, it could lead to bad health effects for the people who live in the house. Each person to needs to weigh out the consequences of possible actions and make decisions on how to handle the particular situation.
– So, you are aggravating the problem by not looking at the root causes for the problem.
– On the other hand, even if CAUSES are there, for something to happen, suitable CONDITIONS must be there too. Therefore, by understanding these causes (past kamma), and by not making the suitable conditions for them to bring their vipaka, one can avoid/get rid of some of these problems.
– For example, if one keeps the house not clean, that makes the environment suitable for insects to thrive. Just think about leaving the dishes unwashed in a sink for a couple of days. Things will start to grow, and you may even notice insects/flies starting to breed.
– The importance of suitable conditions to bring kamma vipaka is discussed at, “Annantara and Samanantara Paccaya“.
– Once our Gotama Buddha, when he was a Bodhisattva, was a captain of a ship. While in the middle of the ocean, one crew member persuaded half of the crew to kill the captain and his half of the crew and to take over the ship. The Bodhisattva came to know about the plot. He thought through the consequences and killed the rebel leader. The rebellion stopped and the journey was completed without anymore incidents. If he had not done that many more lives would have been lost. Of course, the Bodhisattva accrued a strong bad kamma vipaka for the killing. But the alternative could have been for many more people to lose their lives.