August 28, 2024 at 5:47 pm
#51680
Keymaster
Everything happens due to causes and conditions.
- We all have done innumerable good and bad kamma in our previous lives.
- Kammic energies associated with them “wear out” over very long times, over many maha kappas or eons.
- They can bring their vipaka when appropriate conditions materialize. Thus, we can avoid some vipaka by avoiding “bad conditions.” In your example, the probability of getting raped increases if a girl goes out at night alone to a “bad neighborhood.”
- Some kamma (anantarika kamma) will definitely bring vipaka, without exception.
- Some kamma materialize simply because one is born with a physical body (due to a past kamma) and is subjected to natural processes. For example, most people living in an area affected by a flood or an earthquake may be killed.
- The subject of kamma vipaka is one of the four “incomprehensible things” (capabilities of a Buddha, subject of jhana, kamma vipāka, and details of the world): “Acinteyya Sutta (AN 4.77).”
P.S. Also, see “What is Kamma? – Is Everything Determined by Kamma?”