I'm relatively new to studying Secular Buddhism, although I'd say I kind of got the understanding of what Karma is I'm still a little bit confused. Even though in Secular Buddhism it's not necessary to believe in Karma, I somewhat understand the wisdom in it. However I'm confused with certain aspects of the idea of Karma. I've read that some Buddhists choose to be vegetarian because they want to cause as little suffering to animals as much as possible. I understand the idea behind this. But what about other animals? Say when a lion eats a gazelle. There's two ways of looking at it, either the gazelle killed in a past life and is now reaping the bad karma it gave out in past life times, or the lion is giving out bad karma by killing the gazelle. Either way I find this way of thinking problematic. The lion needs to eat, it's not the lion's fault that it's a carnivore. So in killing the gazelle I would consider it unfair to believe that it's acquiring bad karma. Likewise I find it problematic to believe that the gazelle is dying because of something it did in a past life. (Which I don't personally buy into) To me it's just the way the animal kingdom works. Carnivores need to eat other animals, simple as that. When it comes to Karma I have no problem with the idea as long as it remains within one lifetime (assuming rebirth is real) but when it comes to affecting future lives or past lives affecting the current life I kind of have to disagree. The whole idea of the reason why someone is poor for example is because they were greedy and rich in a previous life is problematic to me. What are your thoughts on the matter?