Johnny quoted from someone else: ““I dont understand how cravings or desires are evil..”
This is why it is important to learn and UNDERSTAND the meaning of Pali words and not just use English words.
The word “craving” is used inappropriately to translate Pali words like tanha, chanda, and kamaccanda.
What is bad is tanha: To get “attached” something bad via lobha, dosa, and moha.
On the other hand, chanda (which translated as craving and sometimes liking) is one of the satara iddhipada: chanda, citta, viriya, vimansa. In order to seek Nibbana, one needs to have chanda (liking or desire) for it. Again, one must see that this “desire” for Nibana is without lobha, dosa, moha.
Kamaccanda is “kama” + “icca” “anda” or becoming blind due to desire for sense pleasures (and thus tempted to do immoral things). The word “desire” is used commonly to translate kamaccanda and that could be problematic. “Defiled desire” is a better translation, but it may be awkward to use.
This is why it is better to just use the Pali word, especially if there is a possibility of ambiguity. The key is to see whether asobhana cetasika (bad mental factors) are involved, especially lobha, dosa, moha.
So, one must be able to know the meaning of the Pali word, and not just use apparent meaning of English words that are being used indiscriminately today.
@y not: “Lal said: ‘The mental pain that you talk about in the fourth paragraph is “samphassa ja vedana”. That is not due to previous causes’.”
I was talking in the context of kamma vipaka, meaning kamma done in previous lives. In particular, the physical body that arises due to kamma vipaka from previous lives.
Nothing happens without a cause. “Samphassa ja vedana” arises due to one’s defiled gati, and that did not just materialize at that moment. But if one can get rid of all defilements (i.e., become an Arahant), those “samphassa ja vedana” will stop arising from that moment. But an Arahant cannot get rid of the physical suffering due to one’s body until the death of the physical body. That is what I meant.
Y not said: “Why should someone suffer for so long, millions of years, and in intense, unimaginable agony for just one act, however odious, and however many and full of hatred in the mind the days that led to the crime.”
This is an important point: Kamma vipaka that can be experienced once born in a certain realm, is almost never due to just one act, even though one act is likely to act as the primary cause at the cuti-patisandhi moment.
When one is born in a certain realm due to a given primary kamma, that body can now receive many more kamma vipaka appropriate for that body.
We get this human body due to a good kamma done in a previous life. But once born a human, this human body is able to receive many other good and bad kamma vipaka that this physical body can “cope with” (. For example, a human body cannot experience good kamma vipaka that can be experienced with a finer deva body. It also cannot experience the harsh vipaka that can only be experienced with a body of a “hell being”. We may have both those kinds form the past. Unless one attains a magga phala all those can bring vipaka in the future when born in the appropriate realm. This is what is important to understand.
For those who like to dig deeper: samanantara determines what vipaka can be extracted from anantara: “Annantara and Samanantara Paccaya“.
P.S. Another important point: It is true that the kamma beeja grasped at the cuti-patisandhi moment determines the DURATION of the particular bhava. But we need to realize that a kamma beeja is almost never due to just one act, even though one act could act as the primary cause, for example an anantariya kamma. Usually, a kamma beeja has contributions from many similar kamma. One does an exceptionally bad act because, in general, one has such gati that have been cultivated over many lives. Kamma is complex. The Buddha said not to try analyze it in detail, because other than a Buddha cannot.