Karma: Intention vs knowing result of an action This is something I have been wondering about karma for quite some time. I have been told that intention is what matters when one does an action but what about when I know that a side effect of my intention will cause harm. For example when I intend to drive my car to work and I hit many insects along the way- I am aware that I will kill insects but this is not my intention, yet in a way I do intend to kill insects now that I know it is a side effect of driving.

The insect thing would seem similar to intending to feed myself and so I kill an animal. Of course there are other ways to feed myself but there are also safer options for transport.
The difference is that it is possible to drive a car without the intention of killing the bugs you will hit, but it's not possible to kill an animal for a particular purpose without intending to kill it. You can't do something for a specific purpose without somehow forming the intention to do what you are doing.

For example if a farmer decides to kill a chicken in order to cook it and then actually kills it, then at the very least when he is preforming the act of killing he has the intention of killing. If he didn't have the intention of killing it then the physical act itself couldn't happen.