user21800: Of course one of the 4 imponderables is the results of karma.
I am just asking if there is any sutta explanation on the effect of killing with malice compared to mercy killing?
Difference between mercy killing and assisted suicide:
Assisted suicide is what it is, killing someone after they ask you to assist their suicide. Mercy killing is killing others out of mercy. For eg if you see an animal in extreme pain who is dying of whatever illness or blood loss, they cannot actually ask you to kill them for themselves so one is killing the other person out of mercy to alleviate their suffering. Or if you were on a battlefield and an enemies legs and limbs are blown to pieces so they cannot harm you any more and are no longer a threat but are in vast amount of suffering and pain so you kill them out of mercy.

user16635: A parable I heard recently (somewhere on this site, perhaps..?):

Two monks walking in the woods ran across a deer lying on the ground,
pierced by an arrow. They stood there, listening to the labored
breathing of the animal, debating whether the cycle of reincarnation
would begin at the beast's last breath, when the last light of life
left its eye, or at some other significant point. But just then the
Buddha walked past, pulled the arrow from the deer's side, and continued
on his way.

Now in the parable the deer survives and goes back to life in the forest. But would the parable have a different moral sense if the deer had died instead? The Buddha didn't pull out the arrow to save the deer's life or to kill the deer; the Buddha pulled out the arrow to ease the beast's suffering. Or perhaps (if we want to take the parable a step deeper), the Buddha pulled out the arrow to ease the monks' suffering.
It's worth remembering that 'suffering' is not the same as physical pain. Suffering is a mental phenomenon: a tension between the way the world is and the way the world should be that causes distress. The arrow did not cause the deer suffering. The arrow caused the deer pain, and the deer suffered to the extent that it expected a world without such pain. The arrow did not cause the monks any pain at all, but nonetheless they suffered, caught in the trap of intellect as they tried to work out the deeper meanings of the moment. Only the Buddha was free from suffering: he saw, he responded, he let go.
The difficulty with the idea of mercy killing is that it is too easily tangled in intellect and ego. It smacks of rationalization, of the egoic thought: "I have the power to end this person's suffering by my own conscious act, and thus prove what a good and wise being I am." It's a metaphysically dangerous path to tread. But inaction is also metaphysically dangerous, leading one to the cold, callous view that the suffering of others is a mere intellectual curiosity. It's difficult...
A buddha would do what needs to be done in any given situation, but a buddha wouldn't try to know what to do in every situation. The idea that there is one ironclad moral rule that covers all cases is a Tolkien-esque fantasy/illusion.

21800: <p>Of course one of the 4 imponderables is the results of karma.
I am just asking if there is any sutta explanation on the effect of killing with malice compared to mercy killing?</p>
<p>Difference between mercy killing and assisted suicide:</p>
<p>Assisted suicide is what it is, killing someone after they ask you to assist their suicide. Mercy killing is killing others out of mercy. For eg if you see an animal in extreme pain who is dying of whatever illness or blood loss, they cannot actually ask you to kill them for themselves so one is killing the other person out of mercy to alleviate their suffering. Or if you were on a battlefield and an enemies legs and limbs are blown to pieces so they cannot harm you any more and are no longer a threat but are in vast amount of suffering and pain so you kill them out of mercy.</p>
 16635: <p>A parable I heard recently (somewhere on this site, perhaps..?):</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Two monks walking in the woods ran across a deer lying on the ground,
pierced by an arrow. They stood there, listening to the labored
breathing of the animal, debating whether the cycle of reincarnation
would begin at the beast's last breath, when the last light of life
left its eye, or at some other significant point. But just then the
Buddha walked past, pulled the arrow from the deer's side, and continued
on his way.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now in the parable the deer survives and goes back to life in the forest. But would the parable have a different moral sense if the deer had died instead? The Buddha didn't pull out the arrow to save the deer's life or to kill the deer; the Buddha pulled out the arrow to ease the beast's suffering. Or perhaps (if we want to take the parable a step deeper), the Buddha pulled out the arrow to ease the <em>monks'</em> suffering.</p>
<p>It's worth remembering that 'suffering' is not the same as physical pain. Suffering is a mental phenomenon: a tension between the way the world <em>is</em> and the way the world <em>should be</em> that causes distress. The arrow did not cause the deer suffering. The arrow caused the deer pain, and the deer suffered to the extent that it expected a world without such pain. The arrow did not cause the monks any pain at all, but nonetheless they suffered, caught in the trap of intellect as they tried to work out the deeper meanings of the moment. Only the Buddha was free from suffering: he saw, he responded, he let go.</p>
<p>The difficulty with the idea of mercy killing is that it is too easily tangled in intellect and ego. It smacks of rationalization, of the egoic thought: &quot;I have the power to end this person's suffering by my own conscious act, and thus prove what a good and wise being I am.&quot; It's a metaphysically dangerous path to tread. But inaction is also metaphysically dangerous, leading one to the cold, callous view that the suffering of others is a mere intellectual curiosity. It's difficult...</p>
<p>A buddha would do what needs to be done in any given situation, but a buddha wouldn't try to know what to do in <em>every</em> situation. The idea that there is one ironclad moral rule that covers all cases is a Tolkien-esque fantasy/illusion.</p>
