(Prologue: I’ve got first-hand experience that a real understanding of the laws of karma can substantially change our lives for the better. I created this weblog to share information and personal experience with others. May it be of benefit!)

Eight-year-old Victoria (Tori)  Stafford went missing on or about April 08, 2009. On May 19, 2009 two people — Michael Thomas C.S. Rafferty, 29, and Terri-Lynne McClintic, 18 — were arrested for the abduction and murder of Tori.

Rex Murphy, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation  (CBC)-TV, on “The National,” May 21, 2009, eloquently gave his point of view about the murder.

We all wonder “what kind of people would abduct and then murder a child? How do people come to this point?”

This is where the 12 factors that create and maintain our karma may help us gain some insight.

In previous posts we have looked at the 12 factors in terms of past lives and how they influence our present one.

In this post, we’ll look at the factors in terms of one particular action.  Killing.

1. Ignorance — Killer doesn’t realize how bad this type of action is, or understand the karmic results that flow from such a negative action.
2. Karmic creation — Because of this ignorance, the killer performs the actual act of killing.
3. Consciouness — This factor includes the killer’s motivation, how strongly he feels about what he wants to do, his vizualization of the act step-by-step.His feelings, and imagining the act, “nourish” the mind of the killer. Seeds of negative karma are now sown in killer’s mind and they will come to fruition at some point in the future.
   
4. Name and Form— The act of killing confirms the killer’s (ego) identity.
   
5. Six Senses — During the act of killing the killer’s senses are active – seeing, hearing, touching etc.
   
6. Contact — takes place when victim is actually killed by the weapon.
7. Feeling — how the killer feels – upset, pleased, neutral etc.
8. Craving or Adoption — Emotional indulgence is now full-blown. Mind is fixated on the act and killer carries it out to the end.
9. Grasping or involvement — Killer becomes involved in the act because he wants something, or wants to avoid something. In other words, a self-indulgent reaction to his feelings takes place.
10. Becoming — Now that the killing has been committed, karma has been created.
11. Birth — Killer has given birth to consequences that will affect his future in a negative way.
12. Aging and Death — End of the act of killing.

<source: Thrangu Rinpoche>

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