bile, phlegm and wind are nowadays still seen as causes for illnesses in, for example, Tibetan Healthcare system. On the internet this can be found.
It is for me quite clear that sutta’s do not teach that every bodily pain is due to own past kamma or kamma vipaka. When one, for example, decides to stand on one leg for a day, one will surely feel very painful feelings. This pain is not some kamma-debt repayed but is quite natural, everybody will feel intense pains. We are not build to stand on one leg a whole day.
When i would tomorrow sport very fanaticly, i would surely have very painful feelings tomorrow because my body is not used anymore (once it was and i would not feel any pain) to this kind of activity. Is this kamma repayed? I think it is not sensible to decide this way.
Kamma is in sutta’s seen as one of eight possible causes for illnesses (AN10.60), discomfort (AN5.104) and actual feelings (SN36.21).
From SN36.21:
‘Whatever a person experiences, whether it be pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant, all that is caused by what was done in the past,’ they overshoot what one knows by oneself and they overshoot what is considered to be true in the world. Therefore I say that this is wrong on the part of those ascetics and brahmins’.
This seems very different to the Abhidhamma system. From studying Nina van Gorkom i understood that Abhidhamma teaches that whatever one experiences and is, for example, painful, not pleasant, that is Always kamma-vipaka (repayed bad kamma) because that’s the way experiences (seeing, hearing, tactile feeling etc) come to us, as kamma-vipaka. But, i feel, the sutta’s teach something different (see SN36.21 above).
For me, it makes no sense that only hearing a painful sound (a train passing by which makes those high screaming sounds) is kamma-vipaka and the experience of a painful sound is due to my own bad kamma? That makes no sense to me. When one would make use of this line of thinking, then everything we experience and is painful of pleasant would be related to our own past deeds. Everything would be kamma. This is clearly not what the sutta’s teach. At least, i do not see that.
Nagasena in Milindapanha makes even clear the pain (backpain for example or the Budddha’s problems with his bowels) may not be seen as kamma-vipaka. ‘And you should accept as a fact that when the Blessed One became a Buddha he had burnt out all evil from within him.’ He explaines to King Milinda how it must be seen.
Carelessness as a cause. When one is careless one can meet all kind of intense pain. When one is careless when crossing a street, or careless when going on a ladder, careless when using a Phone in a car etc. one can meet with intense bodily pains or even death. The arisen pain can be seen caused due to carelessness. Must it be seen due to kamma, kamma vipaka?
Change of climate. For example, i always get bodily pains (aphthas, pain in longs, in muscles etc) when temperature drops, from autumn to winter. Many people get the flu and get bodily pains. Change of climate. Kamma?
Still, sutta’s (MN135) also explain that the differences we see among people; their appearance (beauty/uglyness) their healths (healthy or often ill, their living conditions (rich or poor), their lifespan (short or long), their influence (important or unimportant) must be understood as differences due to kamma.
kind regards,
Siebe