This refers to Majjhima Nikāya 101. Fragments are from MN translation Bodhi.
It seems that the Nigantha’s were a sect who believed that …”Whatever
this person feels, whether pleasure or pain or neither-pain nor-pleasure, all that is caused by what was done in the past”…
…and they believed that extreme exertion with al lot of pain would annihilate that past bad kamma.
I feel the Buddha rejects this view. He makes clear that when they are involved in intense exertion (like the Buddha himself once was) they felt a lot of pain, but when they ended that intense exertion the pain left. So is the pain caused by bad kamma of the past?
I think the Buddha with this example makes clear it is not wise to think that all pain is due to past bad kamma. Pain can also arise (as Bodhi says in note 922 of MN)…”as a concomitant of present action…” According Bodhi Buddha also admits feeling that is neither kammically active nor kammic result”.
Ofcourse one can say that a concomitant painful feeling (accompaning intense exertion) is also due to an intentions, due to present actions, but does that mean that that concomitant painful feeling is also a repaid immoral act? Is it due to a evil act?
I still think one cannot call running a marathon an evil act while one knows there is concomitant pain. One cannot say that all actions which will lead to some pain are immoral and therefor the pain is due to bad kamma.
This makes, for me, no sense at all.
Most people, like paviours, plumbers will feel pain because of their actions.
For many professions this is true. Are those immoral professions or immoral deeds?
Siebe