CHAPTER 19
WHAT IS KAMMA?
"Volition is Kamma."
-- ANGUTTARA NIKĀYA
Kamma
The Pāli term Kamma, literally, means
action or doing. Any kind of intentional action whether mental, verbal, or
physical is regarded as Kamma. It covers all that is included in the
phrase: "Thought, word and deed". Generally speaking, all good and bad
actions constitute Kamma. In its ultimate sense Kamma means all moral and
immoral volition (kusala akusala cetanā). Involuntary,
unintentional or unconscious actions, though technically deeds, do not
constitute Kamma, because volition, the most important factor in
determining Kamma, is absent.
[1]
The Buddha says: -- "I declare, O Bhikkhus,
that volition (cetanā) is Kamma. Having willed one acts by body, speech
and thought."
Every volitional action of persons, except
those of Buddhas and Arahants, is called Kamma. An exception is made in
their case because they are delivered from both good and evil. They have
eradicated both ignorance and craving, the roots of Kamma. "Destroyed are
their (germinal) seeds (khīna-bijā), selfish desires no longer
grow," states the Ratana Sutta. This does not mean that the Buddhas and
Arahants are passive. They are tirelessly active in working for the real
well-being and happiness of all. Their deeds, ordinarily accepted as good
or moral, lack creative power as regards themselves. Understanding things
as they truly are, they have finally shattered their cosmic fetters -- the
chain of cause and effect.
Some religions attribute this unevenness to
Kamma, but they differ from Buddhism when they state that even
unintentional actions should be regarded as Kamma.
According to them, "the unintentional murderer
of his mother is a hideous criminal. The man who kills or who harasses in
any way a living being without intent, is none the less guilty, just as a
man who touches fire is burnt.
[2]"
"This astounding theory undoubtedly leads to
palpable absurdities.
"The embryo and the mother would both be guilty
of making each other suffer. Further the analogy of the fire is logically
fallacious. For instance, a man would not be guilty if he got another
person to commit the murder, for one is not burnt if one gets another to
put his hand into the fire. Moreover unintentional actions would be much
worse than intentional wrong actions, for, according to the comparison, a
man who touches fire without knowing that it would burn is likely to be
more deeply burnt than the man who knows.
In the working of Kamma its most important
feature is mind. All our words and deeds are coloured by the mind or
consciousness we experience at such particular moments. "When the mind
is unguarded, bodily action is unguarded; speech also is unguarded;
thought also is unguarded. When the mind is guarded, bodily action is
guarded; speech also is guarded; and thought also is guarded.
[3]"'
"By mind the world is led, by mind is drawn:
And all men own the sovereignty of mind."
"If one speaks or acts with a wicked mind, pain
follows one as the wheel, the hoof of the draught-ox.
[4]"
"If one speaks or acts with a pure mind,
happiness follows one as the shadow that never departs.
[5]"
Immaterial mind conditions all Kammic
activities.
Kamma does not necessarily mean past actions.
It embraces both past and present deeds. Hence, in one sense, we are the
result of what we were, we will be the result of what we are. In another
sense, it should be added, we are not totally the result of what we were,
we will not absolutely be the result of what we are. The present is no
doubt the offspring of the past and is the parent of the future, but the
present is not always a true index of either the past or the future -- so
complex is the working of Kamma. For instance, a criminal today may be a
saint tomorrow, a good person yesterday may be a vicious one today.
It is this doctrine of Kamma that the mother
teaches her child when she says: "Be good and you will be happy and we
will love you. But if you are bad, you will be unhappy and we will not
love you."
Like attracts like. Good begets good. Evil
begets evil. This is the law of Kamma.
In short Kamma is the law of cause and effect
in the ethical realm, or as some Westerners prefer to say, "action
influence."
Kamma and Vipāka
Kamma is
action, and Vipāka, fruit or result, is its reaction. Just as every
object is accompanied by a shadow, even so every volitional activity is
inevitably accompanied by its due effect. Like potential seed is Kamma.
Fruit, arising from the tree, is the Vipāka, effect or result. As Kamma
may be good or bad, so may Vipāka, fruit, be good or bad. As Kamma is
mental, so Vipāka too is mental; it is experienced as happiness or bliss,
unhappiness or misery according to the nature of the Kamma seed.
Ānisamsa are the concomitant advantageous material conditions, such as
prosperity, health and longevity.
When Vipāka's concomitant material
conditions are disadvantageous, they are known as ādinava (evil
consequences), and appear as poverty, ugliness, disease, short life span
and the like.
By Kamma are meant the Moral and Immoral types
of mundane consciousness (kusala akusala lokiya citta), and
by Vipāka, the resultant types of mundane consciousness (lokiya
vipākacitta).
According to Abhidhamma,
[6] Kamma
constitutes the twelve types of immoral consciousness, eight types of
moral consciousness pertaining to the Sentient Realm (kāmāvacara),
five types of moral consciousness pertaining to the Realms of Forms (rūpāvacara),
and four types of moral consciousness pertaining to the Formless
Realms (arūpāvacara).
The eight types of supramundane (lokuttara)
consciousness are not regarded as Kamma, because they tend to
eradicate the roots of Kamma. In them the predominant factor is
wisdom (paññā) while in the mundane it is volition (cetanā).
The nine types of moral consciousness
pertaining to the Realms of Form and the Formless Realms are the five
Rūpāvacara and four Arūpāvacara Jhānas (Ecstasies) which are
purely mental.
Words and deeds are caused by the first twenty
types of mundane consciousness. Verbal actions are done by the mind by
means of speech. Bodily actions are done by the mind through the
instrument of the body. Purely mental actions have no other instrument
than the mind.
These twenty-nine
[7] types of
consciousness are called Kamma because they have the power to produce
their due effects quite automatically, independent of any external agency.
Those types of consciousness which one
experiences as inevitable consequences of one's moral and immoral thoughts
are called resultant consciousness pertaining to the Sentient Realm. The
five types of resultant consciousness pertaining to the Realms of Form and
the four types of resultant consciousness pertaining to the Formless
Realms are called Vipāka or fruition of Kamma.
As we sow, so we reap somewhere and sometime,
in this life or in a future birth. What we reap today is what we have sown
either in the present or in the past.
The Samyutta Nikāya
[8] states:
"According to the seed that's sown,
So is the fruit ye reap therefrom
Doer of good (will gather) good.
Doer of evil, evil (reaps).
Sown is the seed, and planted well.
Thou shalt enjoy the fruit thereof."
Kamma is a law in itself which operates in its
own field without the intervention of any external, independent ruling
agency.
Inherent in Kamma is the potentiality of
producing its due effect. The cause produces the effect, the effect
explains the cause. The seed produces the fruit, the fruit explains the
seed, such is their relationship. Even so are Kamma and its effect.
"The effect already blooms in the cause."
Happiness and misery, which are the common lot
of humanity, are the inevitable effects of causes. From a Buddhist
standpoint they are not rewards and punishments, assigned by a
supernatural, omniscient ruling power to a soul that has done good or
evil. Theists who attempt to explain everything by this one temporal life
and an eternal future life, ignoring a past, may believe in a post-mortem
justice, and may regard present happiness and misery as blessings and
curses conferred on his creation by an omniscient and omnipotent Divine
Ruler, who sits in heaven above controlling the destinies of the human
race. Buddhism that emphatically denies an arbitrarily created immortal
soul, believes in natural law and justice which cannot be suspended by
either an Almighty God, or an All-compassionate Buddha. According to this
natural law, acts bring their own rewards and punishments to the
individual doer whether human justice finds him or not.
Some there are, who cavil thus: So you
Buddhists too administer the opium of Kammic doctrine to the poor, saying:
"You are born poor in this life on acount of
your past evil Kamma. He is born rich on account of his past good Kamma.
So be satisfied with your humble lot, but do good to be rich in your next
life.
"You are being oppressed now because of your
past evil Kamma. That is your destiny. Be humble and bear your sufferings
patiently. Do good now. You can be certain of a better and happier life
after death."
The Buddhist doctrine of Kamma does not expound
such fatalistic views. Nor does it vindicate a post-mortem justice. The
All-merciful Buddha, who had no ulterior selfish motives, did not teach
this law of Kamma to protect the rich and comfort the poor by promising
illusory happiness in an after-life.
According to the Buddhist doctrine of Kamma,
one is not always compelled by an iron necessity, for Kamma is neither
fate nor predestination imposed upon us by some mysterious unknown power
to which we must helplessly submit ourselves. It is one's own doing
reacting on oneself, and so one has the power to divert the course of
Kamma to some extent. How far one diverts it, depends on oneself.
The Cause of Kamma
Ignorance (avijjā) or not knowing things
as they truly are, is the chief cause of Kamma. Dependent on ignorance
arise Kammic activities (avijjā paccaya samkhārā), states the
Buddha in the Paticca Samuppāda (Dependent Origination).
Associated with ignorance is its ally craving
(tanhā), the other root of Kamma. Evil actions are conditioned by
these two causes.
All good deeds of a worldling (puthujjana),
though associated with the three wholesome roots of generosity (alobha),
goodwill (adosa) and knowledge (amoha), are nevertheless
regarded as Kamma because the two roots of ignorance and craving are
dormant in him. The moral types of supramundane Path consciousness (maggacitta)
are not regarded as Kamma because they tend to eradicate the two root
causes.
The Doer of Kamma
Who is the doer of Kamma? Who reaps the fruit
of Kamma? "Is it a sort of accretion about a soul?"
In answering these subtle questions, Venerable
Buddhaghosa writes in the Visuddhi Magga:
"No Doer is there who does the deed,
Nor is there one who feels the fruit,
Constituent parts alone roll on,
This indeed is right discernment.
[9]
According to Buddhism there are two realities
-- apparent and ultimate. Apparent reality is ordinary conventional truth
(sammuti sacca). Ultimate reality is abstract truth (paramattha
sacca).
For instance, the table we see is apparent
reality. In an ultimate sense the so-called table consists of forces and
qualities.
For ordinary purposes a scientist would use the
term water, but in the laboratory he would say H2O.
In the same way, for conventional purposes such
terms as man, woman, being, self and so forth are used. The so-called
fleeting forms consist of psycho-physical phenomena which are constantly
changing, not remaining for two consecutive moments the same.
Buddhists therefore do not believe in an
unchanging entity, in an actor apart from action, in a perceiver apart
from perception, in a conscious subject behind consciousness.
Who then is the doer of Kamma? Who experiences
the effect?
Volition or will (cetanā) is itself the
doer. Feeling (vedanā) is itself the reaper of the fruits of
action. Apart from these pure mental states (suddhadhammā) there is
none to sow and none to reap.
Just as, says the Venerable Buddhaghosa, in the
case of those elements of matter that go under the name of tree, as soon
as at any point the fruit springs up, it is then said the tree bears fruit
or "thus the tree has fructified," so also in the case of "aggregates"
(khandhas) which go under the name of Deva or man, when a fruition of
happiness or misery springs up at any point, then it is said "that Deva or
man is happy or miserable."
In this respect Buddhists agree with Prof.
William James when, unlike Descartes, he asserts: "Thoughts themselves are
the thinkers.
[10]"
Where is Kamma?
"Stored within the psyche," writes a certain
psychoanalyst, "but usually inaccessible and to be reached only by some,
is the whole record, without exception, of every experience the individual
has passed through, every influence felt, every impression received. The
subconscious mind is not only an indelible record of individual
experiences but also retains the impress of primeval impulses and
tendencies, which so far from being outgrown as we fondly deem them in
civilized man, are subconsciously active and apt to break out in
disconcerting strength at unexpected moments."
A Buddhist would make the same assertion with a
vital modification. Not stored within any postulatory "psyche", for there
is no proof of any such receptacle or store-house in this ever-changing
complex machinery of man, but dependent on the individual psycho-physical
continuity or flux is every experience the so-called being has passed
through, every influence felt, every impression received, every
characteristic -- divine, human, or brutal-- developed. In short the
entire Kammic force is dependent on the dynamic mental flux (citta
santati) ever ready to manifest itself in multifarious phenomena as
occasion arises.
"Where, Venerable Sir, is Kamma?" King Milinda
questioned the Venerable Nāgasena.
'"O Mahārāja," replied the Venerable Nāgasena,
"Kamma is not said to be stored somewhere in this fleeting consciousness
or in any other part of the body. But dependent on mind and matter it
rests manifesting itself at the opportune moment, just as mangoes are not
said to be stored somewhere in the mango tree, but dependent on the mango
tree they lie, springing up in due season.
[11]"
Neither wind nor fire is stored in any
particular place, nor is Kamma stored anywhere within or without the body.
Kamma is an individual force, and is
transmitted from one existence to another. It plays the chief part in the
moulding of character and explains the marvellous phenomena of genius,
infant prodigies, and so forth. The clear understanding of this doctrine
is essential for the welfare of the world.
[1]
Anguttara Nikāya iii, p. 415, The Expositor, part I, 117;
Atthasālini, p. 88.
[2] See Poussin.
The Way to Nirvana, p. 68.
[3] Atthasālini
p. 68. The Expositor, part I, p. 91
[4] Dhammapada,
V. 1.
[5] Ibid, V.
2.
[6] See
Compendium of Philosophy - Abhidhammattha Sangaha, Chapter 1;
Manual of Abhidhamma, ch. 1.
[7] 20 + 5 + 4 = 29
[8] Vol. 1, p. 227;
Kindred Sayings, part 1, p. 293.
[9] Vol. ii, p. 602.
See Warren, Buddhism in Translation, p. 248 The Path of Purity,
iii, p 728.
Kammassa
kārako natthi -- vipākassa ca vedako
Suddhadhammā pavattanti -- evetam samma dassanam.
[10]
Psychology, p. 216.
[11] See Visuddhi
Magga, ch XVII.
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