[sybe07]

Thanks Johnny_Lim. Based upon what Akvan says and you too, i tend to forget what Nagasena says.

The general question is still: could bodily pain due to other causes than kamma vipaka.

Based upon the sutta’s i still tend to a “Yes”.

Anyone who runs a marathon to collect money for cancer treatment will feel heavy pains. In spite of what Lal says, knowing one will cause pain and still deciding to do action, does not mean that decision is immoral. At least i do not call that immoral.

It is a moral decision to run this marathon and collect money despite the pain that will arise. Is the pain some repayment of a bad deed? Who can tell?

Life comes with pain, discomfort, and choosing for comfort, that is mostly immoral, egoistic. The Buddha did not choose for comfort! He did abandon comfort.

If i decide to stop breathing, like the Buddha, i also will feel pains, but do i repay any kammic debt? Ach…

siebe

[sybe07]

The sutta says clearly that for a person of wrong view, whatever bodily kamma, verbal kamma, mental kamma he instigates upon that wrong view…(so even when this kamma is moral ), whatever his volitional activity is, (so even moral helpful intentions)….all lead to suffering. Why? because the view is wrong.

One with a materialistic view can live a moral life, doing good to others. Mostly intent on giving, on sharing, helping, doing good. He can be a doctor. Most doctors have probably a materialistic view and not belief in rebirth. Does this mean their intentions and behaviour are immoral? No, ofcourse not.
Just like believing in rebirth does not mean one lives moral. Maybe this view makes that one is Always greedy, only doing good to create good rebirth. Maybe the doctor, while not believing in rebirth, is more altruistisch doing good.

I belief, it is not true that a wrong view Always goes together with bad intentions or kamma. No, most of the time people have good intentions but behind those are bad views. Then the sutta says… the result will be bad because the view is bad.

So, in the end, which result will arise from intentions and deed, depends in the end on the quality of the view, is it wrong or right, and NOT on the quality of intentions.
Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Akvan,

Above you say “These 8 causes are mentioned in SN36.21 (Sivaka Sutta), but I could not find them in AN10.60 (Girimananda Sutta)”

Here is a reference to AN10.60 and the relevant text copied from that:
https://suttacentral.net/en/an10.60

(4) “And what, Ānanda, is the perception of danger? Here, having gone to the forest, to the foot of a tree, or to an empty hut, a bhikkhu reflects thus: ‘This body is the source of much pain and danger; for all sorts of afflictions arise in this body, that is, eye-disease, disease of the inner ear, nose-disease, tongue-disease, body-disease, head-disease, disease of the external ear, mouth-disease, tooth-disease, cough, asthma, catarrh, pyrexia, fever, stomach ache, fainting, dysentery, gripes, cholera, leprosy, boils, eczema, tuberculosis, epilepsy, ringworm, itch, scab, chickenpox, scabies, hemorrhage, diabetes, hemorrhoids, cancer, fistula; illnesses originating from bile, phlegm, wind, or their combination; illnesses produced by change of climate; illnesses produced by careless behavior; illnesses produced by assault; or illnesses produced as the result of kamma; and cold, heat, hunger, thirst, defecation, and urination.’ Thus he dwells contemplating danger in this body. This is called the perception of danger.

So, here you see again that kamma is mentioned as a separate cause for the arising of illnesses. The first three causes, disturbance in bile, phlegm, wind and their combination can be seen, i belief, as medical causes for illnesses.

In Milindapanha it is said that wind can be disturbed also due to kamma. So, then you see, for disturbance of wind, kamma can be an underlying cause. But this is not mentioned for the other 7 causes.

Kamma is mentioned as 1 of 8 seperate causes for pains, bad feelings, illnesses, discomfort and i also belief as a possible cause for death. Death is not Always caused by kamma, i read somewhere, but if it caused by kamma then it seen as death at the right moment, not premature death.

kind regards
Siebe

[sybe07]

Interesting Akvan!! Good work you found this.
Do you maybe have a link to Pubbakamma Pilotika Therapadana (THA AP392)? Is this a text in apadana? I do not have an English version of it. Never read it.

Still, Nagasena in Milindapanha makes clear that the wounding of the foot by that rock was not due to kamma of the Budddha. So that seems to be inconsistent.

Anyway, at the moment i still belief the Buddha-Dhamma does not teach that any bodily suffering we experience is some kind of repayment of our own evil intentions and deeds in this and former lives.

siebe

[sybe07]

Reflecting on this the thought arose in me that for me it is better not to talk to much about moral and immoral. Intentions and deeds mixed with greed, hate and delusion are especially unskilfull.

But behind these intentions and deeds there is most of the time the view that those greedy, hateful, deluded deeds are in our own interest and protect something, our happiness, that of our familie, country etc. Is this immoral?

We do not have to become moralist, preachers who now what is moral and immoral. The Buddha has given us the knowledge by which we can see that this greed, hate and delusion is not really to our own advantage or of that of others.

Intentions. Obama will probably also think it was a good intention to kill Osama Bin Laden. Trump, in his own way, will also have good intentions. If we would talk to Hitler we would even see his good intentions. It is so simple to belief he had only bad intentions. In his own deluded way he had good intentions. At least that is what i belief.

So what especially counts is the view behind these intentions. That’s what de sutta makes clear. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. It is the view that counts. Therefor, in the end it not about being moral or immoral but having right or wrong view. Amen:-)

[sybe07]

Again the sutta:

“Bhikkhus, for a person of wrong view, whatever bodily kamma, verbal kamma, and mental kamma he instigates and undertakes in accordance with that view, and whatever his volition, yearning, inclination, and volitional activities, all lead to what is unwished for, undesired, and disagreeable, to harm and suffering. For what reason? Because the view is bad”

From Lal’s reply i understand this sutta actually does not make any sense. Why? Because Lal says that kamma based on wrong view cannot be good and is bad or immoral.

“If a kamma is done with micca ditthi, that is a bad or immoral kamma, and WILL bring in bad results”(Lal)

So this sutta makes no sense at all when it suggests that a person of wrong view can have positive kamma.

Again, here is something not oke.

I belief one can be sincere and have moral thoughts, wanting to assist, to help others (or animals), and still have wrong view, for example, wrong view of what actually is helpful or is wholesome in the end.

One cannot say those thoughts are immoral just because one has a wrong view on what is really helpful in the end.

Are the thoughts of a materialist perse immoral because he has a wrong view?

I think it is not true that wrong view Always means immoral thoughts or deeds.

[sybe07]

Apart from what i think the sutta’s transmitt, i belief- no i know- volitional activities, what we are intend upon, where we are inclined to, our plans, tendencies, intentions and the deeds following upon that, shapen, for a great deal our future.

For example, if one is intend on enjoyment of the senses, or on intoxication and eat to much or drink to much or use drugs, one cannot be surprised, illnesses, both bodily and mentally, can arise. Future suffering is, more or less, guarenteed. Ofcourse, these results cannot be seen separate from the decisions and deeds made.

This is not meant to blame people, as lot of people experience it. It just describes how our own intentions or volitional activities and deeds are shaping a future. It is like the weather. Even when a storm is not there, all the ingredients that it will arise in two days are there. After two days it arises.

Also situations in which one gets involved do not manifest by chance. Often they are strongly related to kamma, intentional actions and deeds. For example, if one enjoys being in company of bad friends who steal etc. one cannot be surprised one day one will be in prison, or maybe be shot. One cannot say that this results have nothing to do with ones intentions, tendencies and own deeds.

But we are not alone too and results are influenced by so many factors then our own intentions and deeds alone. Think about the weather, the sun and the moon. They influence our voltional activities and deeds too. There is external influence.

From studying the sutta’s i have concluded that the difference between people in good health and being sickly, live long and live short, being ugly and beautiful, say the clear differences, those can be understood as due to kamma.

But if one would zoom in and look for a cause for a certain illness or pain or suffering one must be careful to immediately think that must be due to kamma. It seems like the sutta’s teach there can be more causes for sufferings then kamma alone.

Is is our kamma when we die when a big rock would hit the earth or when so many vulcano’s would burst out and this would cause a small ice-age? Or is it our kamma when the sun ends it life-cycle and we will have no more energy and heat from the sun?

[sybe07]

I think the sutta is truthful. It does not matter which intentions one has, the view behind it determines the results, not the intentions.

If you want to help animals or people good intentions alone will not necassary lead to good results. One must also have knowledge. Good intention alone can create more suffering and even death of the animals or people which you are trying to help.

Relying on ones good intentions, thinking: ‘ach, i am doing good, because i have such good intentions, and i am safe because i have good intentions’, while not really concerned with results and with acquiring right view, i think that is a kind of akusala, immoral.

I belief, anyone who is really concerned with doing good, will inevitably question, ‘but really what is doing good’? What do i have to do to do good?

Doing good is not the same as ‘acting with good intentions’. Good or bad, it is inevitable related to view. That view determines the result, that’s what the sutta says.

[sybe07]

Thanks Akvan,

Yes, that example of wounding Angulimala, i knew, that is attributed to his bad kamma. I belief he killed 999 people. I think this number means ‘a lot of people’.

Milindapanha, Book IV, Chapter 1, §62-66 deals specifically with the pains and discomfort of the Buddha.

How are they caused? Nagasena in short:
(§65): …”the Blessed One never suffered pain which was the result of his own Karma, or brought about the avoidance of dissimilarity, yet he suffered pain from each of the other six causes”.

The wounding of a splinter in his foot by an attempt of Devadatta to murder the Budddha is not due to Buddha’s bad kamma, but due to 1 of 7 other causes, due to external agency.

This part of Milindapanha also transmitts that the Buddha was totally free of bad kamma or sinn. All the evil within was burnt. That is why any pain or discomfort of the Budddha cannot be seen as kamma-vipaka or due to his own bad kamma. At least, that is the reasoning of Nagasena.

At the moment, i belief, a reasonble attitude is that if one does not know if kamma plays a role, it useless to speculate.

I also think it is not supported by the sutta’s to belief that kamma is always a primary cause for sufferings or some kind of deeper underlying mechanism. For this i do not see support in the sutta’s, because kamma is really mentioned as 1 of 8 separate causes for pains, illness, bad feelings, discomfort. It is not presented as an underlying deeper cause for these manifestations. If the Bueddha taught this, then it would be very easy to list 7 causes for sufferings and to teach that kamma is Always an underlying cause. But this is not done. Kamma is presented as 1 of 8 possible causes for sufferings.

I do not know for sure if the Budddha taught …”that one cannot and does not need to repay all one’s kammic (sansarik) debt to attain nibbana”.

See for example this lines:
“Bhikkhus, I do not say that there is a termination of volitional kamma that has been done and accumulated so long as one has not experienced its results, and that may be in this very life, or in the next rebirth, or on some subsequent occasion. But I do not say that there is making an end of suffering so long as one has not experienced the results of volitional kamma that has been done and accumulated“.
https://suttacentral.net/en/an10.217
https://suttacentral.net/en/an10.218

Regarding the suffering the Budddha talks about. He also talks about ending the bodily suffering. Maybe not in this live but in future lives by not grasping a new body again and ending the proces of rebirth.

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

For me, the possibility of external influence on behaviour, means that we must be careful to conclude that tjhe reactions we see within ourselves or happening to others are always results of gati. Maybe this is mostly true, it may not be true in a particular situation.

I think i experienced something external at least one time, when i felt a strong urge to harm myself very badly. It felt strange, as it was not gati. It felt alien. I became cold that moment. I survived this ‘attack’.

It would not surprise me if a lot of people are influenced externally.

I have heard that paranimmita-vasavatti deva’s can take control over and, for example, stimulate people to act sexually, so they as deva’s can enjoy that.

Also creation proces can be very obsessive, forceful. Writers, poets, painters, artist, know this. It can be like one is possesed. Maybe this is not far from being true.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Yes, good point Akvan, i have to be more specific.

Milindapanha, Book IV, §62-66 deals with the dilemma that Gautama, after becoming a Buddha, still suffered pains or certain discomfort.

Which pains and discomfort?

-“At Râgagaha a splinter of rock pierced his foot, and once he suffered from dysentery, and once when the humours of his body were disturbed a purge was administered to him, and once when he was troubled with wind the Elder who waited on him (that is Ânanda) gave him hot water” (§62)

These examples are given at the beginning of the §§.

King Milinda position is that these facts shows that the Buddha was not free of sin, or free of bad kamma. The kings view is:, …”all pains has its root in kamma”, so it is Obvious that the King believed that the cause for these pains and discomfort was bad kamma.

Nagesana makes clear this is not the case. A (small) part of pains and discomfort is due to kamma. Nagesana mentiones 7 other causes.
These can also be found elsehwere in the Sutta-pitaka. These are mentioned earlier in this serie posts.

Nagesana concludes at the end of the sutta:

“So, O king, it is not all pain that is the result of Karma. And you should
accept as a fact that when the Blessed One became a Buddha he had burnt out all evil from within him.”

The King accepts.

So, it deals with the cause of the pains and discomfort after the Blessed One became a Budddha.

I would appreciate when you give some sutta references for what you have heard.

I would appreciate it too when Lal gives his opinion. If abhidhamma really teaches that all bodily pain is due to (bad) kamma that seems not consistent with sutta. Maybe Lal can give some comment on this.

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

Dagpo Rinpoche wrote a book on kamma, called Karma.

He describes in this book that cognition is caused by kamma, in the sense that kamma is the mental activity (cetana) which leads the mind towards a certain object. Without this mental activity (Tib. sems pa, cetana in Pali), i.e. without kamma, there will not occur awareness of an object or cognition (page 26, in the Dutch translation). (I am not sure ‘leads the mind to the object’ is a good translation of the Dutch ‘doet de geest uitgaan naar een bepaald object)’.

This kamma or cetana is Always present when there is sense-cognition. It causes sense-cognition (awareness of Visuals, sounds etc.) and is not a kind of kamma which is bad or good kamma. We do not accumulate kamma in this way. It is just some kind of neutral mental activity, not moral nor immoral. So, sense-cognitions are due to kamma/cetana, but not due to moral or immoral kamma. That is what he seems to write.

My impression is, in this way it can be understood that the vinnana that sees, hears, smells etc. is a kamma-vipaka. This vipaka is just neutral, not moral or immoral.

What do you think Lal (or others)?

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

I am struggling a little bit. I feel the people who use Abhidhamma systematics tend to see it this way: “All that we are experiencing now are just vipaka of kamma performed deep in our past or in this very lifetime”.
These are the words of Johnny_Lim in his last reply.

My reference is the sutta’s. In some sutta’s (i know four) kamma is listed as just 1 of the 8 possible causes for pains (milindapanha), illnesses, discomfort and bad feelings.

In Milindapanha is it said in this way:

-“There are eight causes by which sufferings arise, by which many beings suffer pain. And what are the eight? Superabundance of wind, and of bile, and of phlegm, the union of these humours, variations in temperature,
the avoiding of dissimilarities, external agency, and Karma.

These list can be found in other sutta’s too. So it is not incidental. I mentioned these other sutta’s earlier in this discussion.

Nagasena in Milindapanha is also quit clear; “And therein whosoever maintains that it is Karma that injures beings, and besides it there is no other reason for pain, his proposition is false.’

So, from these words, there seems no reason to belief that all pain (or sufferings) is imparted bad kamma.

Nagasena also says: “So what arises as the fruit of Karma is much less than that which arises from other causes. And the ignorant go too far when they say that every pain is produced as the fruit of Karma.

Nagasena also denies that the pains of the Buddha were kamma-vipaka.

So, in sutta’s it is effectively denied that all pains, illnesses, bad feelings, distress (experiences) is due to (or fruit of) kamma. Apparantly the Buddha did not want us to belief that all we experience is due to our kamma. At least 7 other causes are transmitted.

I know i repeat a lot, but that is mainly because i feel you do not reflect upon the above information from the sutta’s.

At the moment (maybe i have to change my opinion in the future) i sense there is something wrong in the Abhidhamma systematics that every experience comes to us as a kamma-vipaka. The sutta’s do not seem to use this systematics.

I understand, when one uses this systematics, ofcourse_THEN_i understand Johnny_Lin words, but i feel this is not supported in the sutta-pitaka, at least not in those above mentioned.

I would apreciate it when you both (of others) comment on the information from the sutta’s.

kind regards,
Siebe

[sybe07]

Hallo Johnny,

In treatings on kamma (buddhist kamma) the existence of such a thing as ‘collective kamma’ i have seen being denied, for example, by Dagpo Rinpoche in his book named Karma.

I do not know what is the theravada doctrine. Is that massacre been explained as collective kamma? of the Sakyans?

That individual choices or intentional actions in body, speech and mind, in some way or the other, can become collective, and spread, as it were, over other people too, that does not look as a buddhist doctrine, but maybe i am wrong.

Siebe

[sybe07]

Hi Lal,

I am struggling:-)

You wrote: “Kamma is action (by the mind, speech, and bodily actions). Kamma vipaka is what happens as a result of that action”…

I have another example:

A lot of Dutch people decided to go on holiday or for other reasons to make a trip abroad. They took a plane. This plane was shot down above Ukraine. There was a war going on. A fighting party probably thought this plane was an enemy plane. This really happened.

The death of those people can be seen as a result of their decision to make a trip and their action to take that plane. Ofcourse, because when they did not decide that and did not took that plane, they would probably live.
But that seems at the same time to be too simplistic. Their death was not really due to their decision and actions alone. There is a third party involved.

Anyway a lot happenend after their decision to go on holiday and to take that plane, but is this result, their death, kamma-vipaka, ie. due to their own decision and actions? How do you look upon this case?

Siebe

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