Quoted By:
“There are three degrees of killings: the lower, middle, and upper degrees. The lower degree constitutes the killing of any humble being, from an ant to any of the various kinds of animals. But the killing of any being that a bodhisattva has chosen to be born as [to help other living beings] is excluded.
As a result of a killing of the lower degree, one will fall into the realms of hell, hungry spirits, and animals, and will suffer all the pains appropriate to a killing of the lower degree.
Why should this be? Because even animals and other humble beings possess the roots of goodness, insignificant though those roots may be. That is why a person who kills such a being must suffer full retribution for his offense.
“Killing any person from an ordinary mortal to an anāgāmin constitutes what is termed the middle degree. As a consequence of such an act of killing, one will fall into the realms of hell, hungry spirits, and animals, and will suffer all the pains appropriate to a killing of the middle degree.
The upper degree of killing refers to the killing of a parent, an arhat, a pratyekabuddha, or a bodhisattva who has reached the stage of non-retrogression. For such a crime one will fall into the great Avīchi hell. Good men, if someone were to kill an icchantika, that killing would not fall into any of the three categories just mentioned.
Good men, the various brahmins that I have said were put to death—all of them were in fact icchantikas."
