Chapter 4
KAMMA
The world is influenced by five
natural orders or laws and kamma is one of them. The others are
physical phenomena, organic phenomena, mental phenomena and Dhammic
phenomena. (See Chart
17a).
Physical phenomena concern
seasonal changes; organic phenomena concern germinal heredity;
mental phenomena concern psychic force and Dhammic phenomena
concern the extraordinary occurrences e.g. the phenomena when the
Buddha was born, was enlightened and when he passed away.
Kamma is an extension of the
principle of Dependent Origination, and is considered as the cause.
Its result is called Vipaka. Together they are called cause and
effect.
The principle of kamma is good
begets good; bad begets bad. The time of effect depends on the
substance and weight of the action performed; some are immediate;
some appear in subsequent life and some are indefinite i.e. delayed
to one of the future existence.
Kamma are of eleven types. In
respect of time effective, there are three types viz. immediate,
effective subsequent life, and indefinite. (Ineffective one is not
counted). In respect of function, there are four types viz.
reproductive, supportive, counteractive and destructive, In respect
of priority of effect, there are also four types viz. weighty, last
thought, habitual and cumulative. (SeeChart
17b).
Cumulative kamma can be further
divided into the following types:
1. Evil to sense-sphere (Animal,
asura, peta or hell)
2. Good to sense-sphere (Human
plane)
3. Good to realm of forms (Deva
planes)
4. Good to formless realms
(Brahma planes)
The last thought (i.e.
reproductive kamma) of an ordinary person usually decides to which
plane he is going, but it may be influenced by the supportive,
counteractive or destructive kamma.
Kammic results may also be aided
or hindered by (a) birth, (b) time or conditions, (c) personality
or appearance and (d) effort.
Bad kamma can be reduced by right
understanding, making firm resolution not to repeat bad actions but
do more and more good actions to help one along the path of
deliverance. Chart 18 shows a simple illustration of the kammas of
a person on the Noble Path. It indicates that from the life of the
Noble Path, there are more and more good actions while less and
less bad actions are committed.
In Chart
18, the following presumptions are made:
It takes 3 life-spans starting
from the Noble Path to attain Sotapatti and another 7 life-spans to
reach Arahatship.
Only 10 kammic actions in each of
lives 1 - 5 and thereafter each of lives 6 & 7, 8 & 9 and
10 & 11.
(c) Numerous existences before
life 1.
Kamma is created in Javana
moments in the thought process (to be explained later) and stored
as a resultant consciousness, which will reappear any time in
future to influence future determining moment. Some kammic results
appear in same life (e.g. Vipaka 6), some appear in subsequent life
(e.g. Vipaka 16), some appear after enlightenment (e.g. bad Vapaka
14) and some never appear (e.g. bad Vipaka 41). However, free will
does exist at determining moment, and a person, with right mental
training, can mindfully change a bad reaction to a good one.
Unfortunately, the following bad kammas will make one suffer in
woeful states for a long time before coming back to human life:
Injuring a Buddha,
Killing a saint.
Creating a schism in the
Sangha,
Killing father.
Killing mother.
THOUGHT
PROCESS
The mind, awake or asleep,
continues to have thoughts. The thought processes are very fast,
with millions of thought processes in a minute. The end of a
thought conditions the birth of another thought, never ending
during the life time of a person and even continuing in another
life. Each thought consists of seventeen moments as indicated in
the accompanying Chart
19.
The first and the second thought
moments are inactive or sleeping moments, because they exist mostly
during sleeping time. The third is the moment when attention is
arrested. The fourth to sixth thought moments are active in using
the sense organs and the seventh is investigating the signals
received. The eighth is the determining consciousness (i.e.
deciding to do action good or bad). The ninth to fifteenth thought
moments are the working moments as eating, fighting or giving danas
(alms) and the sixteenth and seventeenth thought moments are the
registering moments i.e. actions registered.
For example, a person resting at
the side of the road, sees an enemy. He scolds the enemy using
abusive words, and a fight starts. On hearing the coming of the
police, he runs away.
While resting, the mind of the
person is in the first and the second thought moments. On seeing
the person, his mind is in the third thought moment. On
investigating the person using his six sense organs, his mind is in
the fourth to seventh thought moments. When he recognizes his enemy
and makes decision for good or bad action, his mind is in the
eighth thought moment. When he is scolding, fighting and running,
he is in the ninth to fifteenth thought moment. The actions done
are stored in the sixteenth and seventeenth thought moments.
The kamma for the first and the
seventh Javana (action) moments are weak. The kamma for all the
other Javana moments is indefinite effective, causing a person to
wander in Samsara. The last Javana moment is the Reproductive
Kamma, producing the next thought. A dying person has only five
Javana moments and ten other thought moments.Each thought
moment has its birth, existence and death and therefore a person
actually lives by thought processes.
Thought processes will never end
until enlightenment. However, one can direct a bad thought to a
good one, or a neutral one at Votthapana (free will determining)
moment to enable one to break the Cycle of Birth and Death in
Samsara (to be explained later).
The mind or thought process is
neither self nor soul, for if it is, one can decide not to get
sickness, old age and death.
Consciousness or thought is not
self, because it is not permanent, always changing and its arising
always depends on other condition or conditions.
Sati, one of the disciples of the
Buddha, having heard the Jataka stories about the past lives of the
Buddha, mistook consciousness as permanent, transmigrating from
existence to existence and that was what he understood from the
Buddha’s teaching. This was reported to the Buddha. The Buddha
called him to repeat what he understood, but he still repeated the
same wrong view. Then the Buddha remonstrated with him saying: "To
whomever, have you heard me expounding the doctrine in this manner?
I have explained consciousness as arising out of conditions; that
there is no arising of consciousness without conditions. In spite
of that you have already wrongly interpreted my teaching, and
attribute that wrong view to me. You have caused the arising of
many bad deeds; holding this wrong interpretation of my teaching
and committing the wrong deed of talking about it will cause
distress and suffering to you for a long time to come."
REBIRTH
Rebirth from one life to another
can be explained in the accompanying Chart
20, the Eighteen Elements &
Rebirth.
The mind, having been conditioned
by past kamma, is activated by external objects, viz. colour,
sound, smell, taste, touch and internal mind objects (e.g. A in the
chart) through the six sense organs, viz. eye, ear, nose, tongue,
body and mind (i.e. B), arising Feeling or aware consciousness
(i.e. C), and then Perception, discriminating good or bad (i.e. D)
and producing good and bad kamma as Sankhara or mental states (i.e.
E), which are then registered in a receptacle of consciousness
(i.e. F). In the chart, B, C, D and F are the four mental
aggregates.
During the lifetime of a person,
many good and bad kammas are added to Sankhara or deleted if a
person is practising the Noble Eightfold Path. The Sankhara of an
ordinary person may contain many of the total 52 types of mental
states. This is stored in the receptacle of consciousness.
At the end of each thought
process, all the available mental states in the receptacle of
consciousness are reflected with the life force (jivitindriya) to
the next thought at the Past Bhavanga level. At death of a person,
all the kamma, good and bad, are reflected as mental states through
the last Javana moment to the first thought process of the next
birth of the same realm of existence or to any of the higher or
lower realms dependent on the amount of kamma, the substance or
weight of his kamma. If there is no more kamma, particularly
clinging, there is no more birth in Samsara and Nibbana is
attained.
Referring to the same chart, note
that:
The line between sense organs (B)
and feeling (C) may be called the Samatha Meditation line where
external objects are not affecting the alerted mind when the mind
is said to be in concentration (jhana).
The line between feeling (C) and
perception (D) may be called the Vipassana Meditation line, when
the mind is practicing mindfulness and developing insight
(Vipassana).
The line between perception (D)
and Sankhara (E) is the one differentiating an ordinary person from
a saint. An ordinary person is having Sankhara with increasing
kamma, but a saint is not adding but reducing kamma.
The thought process in Chart 19
is comparable to the 4 aggregates C, D, E & F in Chart
22.
THE WHEEL OF
LIFE
The twelve links of Dependent
Origination is also termed the wheel of life, because it describes
the cycle of birth and death. The wheel of life is an extension of
Dependent Origination, which explains cause and effect.
Referring to Chart
21, the wheel of life is briefly described in the
following formula:
Thus does the entire aggregates
of suffering arise.
It is helpful, if one can read it
also in the following manners:
(A) The complete cessation of
Ignorance leads to the cessation of Conditioned Activities and so
on.
(B) The reversed order i.e. the
cessation of Decay and Death depends on the cessation of Birth and
so on.
Though ignorance is the original
cause, for explanation one can start from any of the twelve
links.
To an ordinary person, this cycle
of birth and death has no beginning and no end. It continues until
it is broken at the 8th link, Tanha.
From the same chart, one can
notice the following features:
(1) Three Connections:
(i) Past causes with present
effects (between 2 & 3)
(ii) Present effects with present
causes (between 7 & 8)
(iii) Present causes with future
effects (between 10 & 11)
(2) Three Rounds:
Round of defilements: 1, 8 &
9.
(ii) Round of Kamma: 2 & 10
(part).
(iii) Round of Results: 3 - 7, 10
(part), 11 & 12
(3) Two Roots:
(i) Ignorance: From past to
present.
(ii) Craving: From present to
future.
(4) Twenty Modes:
(i) Past causes: 1, 2 & 8 -
10=5 modes
(ii) Present effects: 3 - 7=5
modes
(iii) Present causes: 8 - 10, 1
& 2=5 modes
(iv) Future effects: 3 - 7=5
modes
It is interesting to understand
Chart
22, The Comparison of 4 Aggregates, Thought
Process and the Wheel of Life. The 4 Aggregates and the Thought
Process are same. However, they are not same as the Wheel of Life.
As thought process has free view at the 8th moment, the future life
of a person can be improved or deteriorated at the 8th link of the
Wheel of Life. It takes millions and millions of thought process to
complete a wheel of life.
If the present life is totally
conditioned by our past actions, then Kamma is certainly tantamount
to fatalism or pre-determination or pre-destination. One will not
be free to mould one’s present and future, and life would be purely
mechanical not much different from a machine. Such a fatalistic
doctrine is not the Buddhist law of Kamma.
Buddhist are not fatalists.
Though a person is conditioned by his past actions, he can exert
free will and change a bad thought to a good or a neutral one in
the Votthapana moment of a thought process. He can mould his
present and future character and destiny. However, to attain
Nibbana, he has to walk the noble Eight-fold Path.
Life is in a state of flux. In
the minute form, a unit of mind is constantly spinning with birth,
existence and death with the speed of about 3,000,000,000,000 times
in a flash of lightning. In gross sense, a living being is going
through birth, existence and death in a span of life accordingly to
its kind under the influence of kamma. Any period of time, say 100
years for a human being, is short compared to the infinity of time
in the cosmos.
A unit of mind, in the
state of neither suffering, nor ignorance nor clinging to
materials, is a bright and pure one. It is omniscient, omnipotent
and omnipresent. It is Nibbana.