OK, "what gives you the right to interfere with anyone's Kamma?" I don't know that anyone gave you the right. But there is a certain kind of moral responsibility that we have, or that we may create within this practice, and that is the wish to stop harm, to stop cruelty, and so on. So, that is a motivating factor, that is our intention. It encourages us to stop somebody who might be about to steal from a shop. We see them and say, "Hey, you know you shouldn't do that. That's not right." We stop them from making bad Kamma. It's our compassion for that person, so they won't suffer more in the future. With animals, specifically dogs and cats in these examples, it will stop them doing an action but it won't stop their intention. But with a human we talk to, we might be able to stop their intention as well. We might be able to stop the action today, and if they listen to us pretty good they might think, "Oh well, I guess I should never do this ever again." And it may stop them forever and that would be great. Stop a cat once from playing with a mouse and you may not stop it the next time, however you might have just saved that mouse's life, and that's nice. If the mouse could say "Thank you", would it? Yeah, it probably would. Did you harm the cat? Probably not.
More of a classic, that we get asked here quite often, deals with the black ants we have here, which are about half an inch or a centimeter long. Invariably during the season when we have lots of millipedes, the black ants will attack a millipede. Seemingly they can defeat it and they will end up carting it away and chopping it up, whatever they do, and eat it. OK, the millipede's only defense is that it rolls itself up into a little ball and springs, it has no other defense. Now imagine you're coming along and you're watching this happening and the millipede is springing and the ants are all around it. We encourage all of our students to blow the ants (that way you don't harm them). Blow, keep blowing, keep blowing, and eventually they all run. One or two hang on to a leg of a millipede but eventually they go too; keep blowing. Pick up the millipede and put it somewhere else. The millipede is going to thank you, the ants are going to hate you. However, the ants have only missed out on one meal, the millipede's life has been saved. Which is more important? The Kamma you do is your Kamma. You've got the so called "right" to try to make your Kamma OK. You've just helped the millipede and if Buddhism is true you might get helped in a future life from that millipede. But at any rate: our intention. How do we want to live by our intention, how is our truthfulness?
Now a question you can ask yourself: Imagine you are walking down the path and you see those ants and that millipede, or you see the cat and the mouse, or more common here is the cat with geckos and lizards. And imagine you see that and you think to yourself, "Oh the cat is just going to play with that lizard until it kills it. Maybe I should do something? Oh, no...I'll just stay with equanimity and I'll go away." OK, now you ask yourself, "How am I going to feel later?" Maybe that will help you with your intention.