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Regarding volitional activity (kamma) and results, i think AN1.314 and AN1.315 provide the bigger picture:
From AN1.314 (translation Bodhi):
“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”
AN1.315 says the opposite.
This immediately makes clear the importance of right and wrong view.
It also makes clear, i find, that Buddha-Dhamma does not teach that good intentions have Always good results. i belief this is in accordance with reality.
If we are committed to doing good we can not rely on our good intentions alone. Our view must be right too.
Anyway, i find the sutta’s interesting.
Siebe
Thanks Lal.
I do not know. I still feel something is not oke, but i do not know i am able to express this. I try.
Two scenario’s:
1. early in the morning i decide that after work i will sunbathe at the beach. After work i go to the beach. In the late afternoon i lie at the beach. I do not smear myself with suncream. The sun is still bright. In the evening i have sunburns all over my body. I have a painful time in the evening.
2. early in the morning i decide that after work i will sunbathe at the beach. After work i go to the beach. In the late afternoon i lie at the beach. I do not smear myself with suncream. A short time after i lie at the beach it becomes clowded. At the evening i have no sunburns at all. I have a good time in the evening.
I make exactly the same decisions and actions but the results are opposite. Al lot of pain versus no pain at all. .
If so, can those results really be seen as due to my own decicions and actions? Is this not important to speak of kamma-vipaka?
That my decisions and actions have results that is sure, but what is not sure is that those results are really due to my decicions and actions.
I belief, then it is also not sure that those results are kamma-vipaka.
Is this wrong?
Siebe
It seems like ‘kamma-vipaka’ is used in two different ways. Please correct me if i am wrong:
1. kamma-vipaka refers to the ripening or active manifestation of a kamma-beeja, a wholesome/good or onwholesome/bad kamma-seed. This how i use it.
This kamma-beeja is a kind of energy that is with us, in our mindstream. Strong moral actions/intentions lead to ‘good’ kamma-beeja. Strong immoral actions lead to ‘bad’ kamma-beeja. The first can ripen as happiness, as health, as things we normally call ‘good; . The last, the bad kamma-beeja can ripen as pain, discomfort, illnesses, bad births etc. When those things are due to ripening kamma-beeja, those results are called ‘kamma-vipaka’. So, bad feelings, bad health etc can be due to bad kamma-beeja’s ripening.2. kamma-vipaka refers to what happens as a result or consequence of an intentional act. So, when i decide to take a shower, the nice feelings of the warm water are kamma-vipaka because they are a result of my decision to take a shower. The feelings do not arise from a good-kamma beeja, but they arise as a result of contact with nice warm water.
I have doubts with two. Is that nice feeling really kamma-vipaka?
Siebe
“Many people tend to focus on lobha and dosa as immoral. But moha is immoral too. The decision to carry out an act that one KNOWS will lead to suffering for oneself or others is immoral”. (Lal)
I do not belief this is true.
A lot of medical treatment, for example, comes with sufferings. The doctor or parents who know the treatment will come with pain and trouble do not act immoral.
A drug-adict knows that his detoxification will come with a lot of sufferings. But his decision is not immoral.
A Buddha discplines his discipels and teaches that his practise can come with much trouble and pain. He is not acting immoral and also not the practioners who feel a lot of pain and go to much trouble while practising.
https://suttacentral.net/en/an4.162Siebe
What i have seen, by studying the sutta’s, is that kamma is listed as 1 of 8 possible causes for sufferings.
When kamma is listed as 1 of the 8 possible causes for suffering what is meant by kamma-as-a-possible-cause?
I belief this refers to the specific mechanism that a bad kamma beeja that one has accumulated due to bad intentional actions in mind, speech and body, can ripen at a certain moment and experienced as sufferings.
This aspect of a ripening kamma-beeja is essential, i belief, when kamma in the sutta’s is mentioned as 1 of 8 causes for sufferings.
So, the sutta’s teach, i belief, this specific ripening mechanism of a kamma beeja, that can (sometimes) explain someones unpleasant feelings, discomfort and illnesses. And in that case one can say ‘it is due to kamma’.
Pain arising from standing on one leg, although one decides to do that, although intentional, i belief it is better not to say this is due to kamma.
Siebe
Hi Lal,
From your reply 25 december:
“Siebe said, “. When one, for example, decides to stand on one leg for a day, one will surely feel very painful feelings.”
Your answer was; “That is definitely a kamma vipaka. It is NOT a vipaka of a kamma done in the past, but is due to a vipaka of a kamma done AT THAT TIME.
So i understand your view is: the pain caused by standing on one leg is kamma-vipaka…because… it is result of my decision.
is this a good representation of your view?
Siebe
Thanks Akvan. I know that at the moment i am not sure anymore about what kamma-vipaka means:-)
Is it really meant by the Budddha that any consequence or result of a decision, or intentional act, or volitional activity, is kamma-vipaka?
(is speech and bodily activity in itself kamma-vipaka?)Or, does kamma-vipaka refer to that specific kind of result that arises due to the presence and ripening of a kamma-beeja?
Anyway, Kamma is mentioned as 1 of the 8 possible causes due to which sufferings arise (milindapanha). In other sutta’s those causes are mentioned too and are listed as causes for unpleasant feeling, discomfort and illnesses.
When it is listed in those sutta’s that kamma is a cause for suffering, what does this mean?
I belief it means that suffering can arise due to a kamma-beeja present within our mindstream. That beeja found an oppertunity to ripen. This is a very specific kind of cause and effect relationship. It is about something we accumulated, which is with us in someway and can ripen.
Next to this cause for suffering which is related to ripening of a bad kamma-beeja there are 7 other causes. The arahant Nagasena says in Milindapanha (Book IV, chapter I, §63, Rhys Davids):
“So what arises as the fruit of Karma is much less than that which arises from other causes”.
In other words, a lot of sufferings arise due to other mechanism than the ripening of a kamma-beeja.
I belief this is what the sutta’s transfer.
Siebe
Hmmm…
At the moment i belief, a certain result can only be named ‘kamma-vipaka’ when that specific result arises or is due to a kamma-beeja. Am i wrong?
When we try to answer whether a certain caused pain is kamma-vipaka, i
belief, we must see if this caused pain is due to a bad kamma beeja that is ripening. If that is not the case, is it kamma-vipaka? At the moment i would say it is not.When i decide to stand on one leg, and as a result feel pain, is this pain due to a bad kamma-beeja ripening, or has it just a physiological cause.
I tend to the last.
Siebe
What i have understood is that just the initial seeing, hearing, smelling…sensing comes to us due to kamma-vipaka. Impulses as like and dislike are not yet involved at that moment.
My question is, why does the inititial sensing come about due to kamma vipaka? In other words, why is this initial sensing, this solely seeing, hearing etc. a ripening result of my previous intentional moral and immoral acts? What do my former kusala and akusala deeds (or mixed deeds) have to do with just hearing a train passing by or seeing a tree?
I tend to see this as things that just happen, ofcourse due to causes and conditions, but if i wake up and there are immediately images, sounds, smells, was has kamma to do with this sensing of ‘the world’?
kind regards,
SiebeI learned that when there arises pain as kamma-vipaka or pleasure than is must be due to one’s own bad/immoral/akusala kamma/action and good/moral/kusala kamma or action, respectively. This is the law. From a black/immoral kamma beeja there cannot arise a white result. etc.
But is this the case when one decides to stand on one leg? Is that an immoral decision, is it kammically evil or black deed? Is it akusala? Maybe in the sense of ‘not-skillful’ but i would not say in the sense of immoral or evil.
Maybe one decides to stand on one leg to raise money for people with cancer.
The motives are very good but one suffers immense pains. I belief this cannot be seen as pain that is due to bad kamma. It is just physiological caused pain. Everybody will feel it, because that is how our bodies function.The Nigrantha’s did belief that by such austere practise like standing on one leg they would burn there evil deeds/kamma. Their intention to do those intense painful practises was good, but there decision to do this practises came with very much pain. The Buddha taught this was not the way to purify evil deeds. But i have not seen the Buddha’s teaches that the pain those Nigrantha’s suffere due their decisions to do these practises, was kamma-vipaka.
Remember the Budddha. He also decided to get involved in all kinds of austere practises like not breathing. He suffered immense pains as consequence. His intentions were very good. He wanted to find the truth. Was this pain kamma-vipaka, i.e. a consequence of an immoral decision, intention or immoral act? I do not think so. It is just a consequence oof his decision but not an immoral one i would say.
Suppose i see a house burning and i start rescuing a child inside. As a consequence i get burnt. Ofcourse this pain can be seen as due to my own decision but is it due to an immoral deed, action or decision? Is it kamma-vipaka? I do not think so.
As far as i know the Buddha taught in the sutta’s there are unpleasant feelings, there is discomfort, there are illnesses, which are not due to kamma.
Siebe
Siebe
Johnny-Lim asked: “Isn’t hereditary good genes kamma vipaka?”
i do not know but i feel kamma-vipaka refers to our own good and bad ripening deeds. It must come from our past?
Suppose, one would be born in a family with hereditary Alzheimer genes and one would develop this disease. Is this kamma-vipaka, does this arise from own deeds, a dept to be payed? I do not know what is the right answer but i feel that when certain characterstics of ourselves are hereditary, that decreases the change that our own kamma is cause.
kind regards,
SiebeIn Milindapanha it is said (Book IV, Chapter 1, §63)
Nagasena says:
‘If, O king, all diseases were really derived from Karma then there would be no characteristic marks by which they could be distinguished one
from the other. When the wind is disturbed, it is so in one or other of ten ways–by cold, or by heat, or by hunger, or by thirst, or by over eating,
or by standing too long, or by over exertion, or by walking too fast, or by medical treatment, or as the result of Karma. Of these ten, nine do not
act in a past life or in a future life, but in one’s present existence. Therefore it is not right to say that all pain is due to Karma. When the bile, O king, is deranged it is so in one or other of three ways–by cold, or by heat, or by improper food. When the phlegm is disturbed it is so by cold, or by heat, or by food and drink. When either of these three humours are disturbed or mixed, it brings about its own special, distinctive pain. Then
there are the special pains arising from variations in temperature, avoidance of dissimilarities, and external agency. And there is the act that has
Karma as its fruit, and the pain so brought about arising from the act done. 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. No one without a Buddha’s insight can fix the extent of the action of Karma.’kind regards,
Siebebile, 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
