The Karmic Retribution of Selling Pork

Question: I do marketing for a company that sells black pork. You said I have the karma of polluting people's minds and the karma of inducement. Are these two kinds of karmic offenses serious or minor offenses? Will I fall into hell?

Answer: Selling pork is itself the karma of killing, and marketing constitutes assisting in killing and indirect killing, making one equally guilty with the company's boss. Moreover, selling black pork involves deceiving customers, passing off inferior goods as quality products, and muddling through by trickery, which constitutes false speech and assisting false speech—one is equally guilty with the company's boss. However, if one was forced or deceived into having to sell black pork, then there is no offense.

This kind of evil karma is not directly killing living beings, nor is it killing people, so one will not fall into hell. But by assisting the company's boss in committing much killing karma, this evil karma is not minor either; many evil karmic bonds have been formed, and the future retribution will be quite bad. One will naturally go to the three evil destinies to receive retribution, and especially the animal destiny is a certainty. After being born in the animal destiny, one will have to repay the life-debt owed to the pigs. The evil karma that leads to hell should be that committed with severe hatred and anger, mainly karmic actions aimed at killing in revenge, with a mind of great or extreme anger; whereas marketing aimed solely at making money is greed, without anger, so what is created is not hell-karma. The more pigs die, the heavier this person's killing karma becomes. In future lives, the retribution will be, first, much illness, and second, being killed by others as well; when the karmic conditions ripen in the future, one will also be killed by pigs.

In this world, quite a few marketing activities constitute defiling karma, which can defile oneself and others with the afflictions of greed, anger, and delusion, and increase sentient beings' greed. Using false and untruthful advertising to induce sentient beings into unreasonable consumption and excessive consumption, profiting from it, and increasing sentient beings' greed—this karmic offense is not small. If as a result one and the company make more money, is this not merit-making karma but rather karma that depletes merit? If the marketing is done extremely well, to the point that pork sales are booming and more and more pigs die, what kind of karmic offense should this marketer have? It is subsidiary evil karma—assisting others in doing evil also brings evil retribution. Quite a few industries in this world belong to evil karma; for example, the usury industry is also evil karma: others suffer losses in their money and interests, while one loses corresponding merit in return; when conditions ripen, one will naturally repay a thousandfold what one gained.