Commander Selvam Siddhar
Karma is the law of moral causation. The theory of Karma is
a fundamental doctrine in Buddhism. This belief was prevalent in India before
the advent of the Buddha. Nevertheless, it was the Buddha who explained and
formulated this doctrine in the complete form in which we have it today. What
is the cause of the inequality that exists among mankind? Why should one person
be brought up in the lap of luxury, endowed with fine mental, moral and
physical qualities, and another in absolute poverty, steeped in misery? Why
should one person be a mental prodigy, and another an idiot? Why should one
person be born with saintly characteristics and another with criminal
tendencies? Why should some be linguistic, artistic, mathematically inclined,
or musical from the very cradle? Why should others be congenitally blind, deaf,
or deformed? Why should some be blessed, and others cursed from their births?
Either this inequality of mankind has a cause, or it is purely accidental.
“What is the cause, what is the reason, O Lord,” questioned
he, “that we find amongst mankind the short-lived and long-lived, the healthy
and the diseased, the ugly and beautiful, those lacking influence and the
powerful, the poor and the rich, the low-born and the high-born, and the
ignorant and the wise?”
The Buddha, for instance, inherited, like every other
person, the reproductive cells and genes from his parents. But physically,
morally and intellectually there was none comparable to him in his long line of
Royal ancestors. In the Buddha’s own words, he belonged not to the Royal
lineage, but to that of the Aryan Buddhas. He was certainly a superman, an
extraordinary creation of his own Karma. According to the Lakkhana Sutta of
Digha Nikaya, the Buddha inherited exceptional features, such as the 32 major
marks, as the result of his past meritorious deeds. The ethical reason for
acquiring each physical feature is clearly explained in the Sutta. It is
obvious from this unique case that karmic tendencies could not only influence
our physical organism, but also nullify the potentiality of the parental cells
and genes – hence the significance of the Buddha’s enigmatic statement, – “We
are the heirs of our own actions.” Dealing with this problem of variation, the
Atthasalini, being a commentary on the Abhidharma, states:
Karma appears the difference in the individual features of
beings as beautiful and ugly, high-born or low born, well-built or deformed.
Depending on the difference in Karma appears the difference in worldly
conditions of beings, such as gain and loss, and disgrace, blame and praise,
happiness and misery.” Thus, from a Buddhist point of view, our present mental,
moral intellectual and temperamental differences are, for the most part, due to
our own actions and tendencies, both past and present. Although Buddhism
attributes this variation to Karma, as being the chief cause among a variety,
it does not, however, assert that everything is due to Karma. The law of Karma,
important as it is, is only one of the twenty-four conditions described in
Buddhist Philosophy. Refuting the erroneous view that “whatsoever fortune or
misfortune experienced is all due to some previous action”, the Buddha said:
”So, then, according to this view, owing to previous action men will become
murderers, thieves, unchaste, liars, slanderers, covetous, malicious and perverts.
Thus, for those who fall back on the former deeds as the essential reason,
there is neither the desire to do, nor effort to do, nor necessity to do this
deed, or abstain from this deed.” It was this important text, which states the
belief that all physical circumstances and mental attitudes spring solely from
past Karma that Buddha contradicted. If the present life is totally conditioned
or wholly controlled by our past actions, then certainly Karma is tantamount to
fatalism or determinism or predestination.
order or mind or psychic law, e.g., processes of
consciousness, arising and perishing of consciousness, constituents of
consciousness, power of mind, etc., including telepathy, telaesthesia,
retro-cognition, premonition, clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought-reading and
such other psychic phenomena which are inexplicable to modern science. Every
mental or physical phenomenon could be explained by these all-embracing five
orders or processes which are laws in themselves. Karma as such is only one of
these five orders. Like all other natural laws they demand no lawgiver.
The Pali term Karma literally means action or doing. Any
kind of intentional action whether mental, verbal, or physical, is regarded as
Karma. It covers all that is included in the phrase “thought, word and deed”.
Generally speaking, all good and bad action constitutes Karma. In its ultimate
sense Karma means all moral and immoral volition. Involuntary, unintentional or
unconscious actions, though technically deeds, do not constitute Karma, because
volition, the most important factor in determining Karma, is absent.
As Karma is mental so Vipaka is mental (of the mind). It is
experienced as happiness, bliss, unhappiness or misery, according to the nature
of the Karma seed. Anisamsa are the concomitant advantages – material things
such as prosperity, health and longevity. When Vipaka’s concomitant material
things are disadvantageous, they are known as Adinaya, full of wretchedness,
and appear as poverty, ugliness, disease, short life-span and so forth. As we
sow, we reap somewhere and sometime, in his life or in a future birth. What we
reap today is what we have sown either in the present or in the past.
Karma is a law in itself, which operates in its own field
without the intervention of any external, independent ruling agency. Happiness
and misery, which are the common lot of humanity, are the inevitable effects of
causes. From a Buddhist point of view, they are not rewards and punishments,
assigned by a supernatural, omniscient ruling power to a soul that has done
good or evil. Theists, who attempt to explain everything in this and temporal
life and in the eternal future life, ignoring a past, believe in a ‘postmortem’
justice, and may regard present happiness and misery as blessings and curses
conferred on His creation by an omniscient and omnipotent Divine Ruler who sits
in heaven above controlling the destinies of the human race. Buddhism, which
emphatically denies such an Almighty, All merciful God-Creator and an
arbitrarily created immortal soul, believes in natural law and justice which
cannot be suspended by either an Almighty God or an All-compassionate Buddha.
According to this natural law, acts bear their own rewards and punishments to
the individual doer whether human justice finds out or not. There are some who
criticize thus: “So, you Buddhists, too, administer capitalistic opium to the people,
saying: “You are born poor in this life on account of your past evil karma. He
is born rich on account of his good Karma.
The Buddhist doctrine of Karma does not expound such
ridiculous fatalistic views. Nor does it vindicate a postmortem justice. The
All-Merciful Buddha, who had no ulterior selfish motives, did not teach this
law of Karma to protect the rich and comfort the poor by promising illusory
happiness in an after-life. While we are born to a state created by ourselves,
yet by our own self-directed efforts there is every possibility for us to
create new, favorable environments even here and now. Not only individually,
but also, collectively, we are at liberty to create fresh Karma that leads
either towards our progress or downfall in this very life. According to the
Buddhist doctrine of Karma, one is not always compelled by an ‘iron necessity’,
for Karma is neither fate, nor predestination imposed upon us by some
mysterious unknown power to which we must helplessly submit ourselves. It is
one’s own doing reacting on oneself, and so one has the possibility to divert
the course of one’s Karma to some extent. How far one diverts it depends on
oneself. Is one bound to reap all that one has sown in just proportion?
Every birth is conditioned by a past good or bad karma,
which predominated at the moment of death. Karma that conditions the future
birth is called Reproductive Karma. The death of a person is merely ‘a
temporary end of a temporary phenomenon’. Though the present form perishes,
another form which is neither the same nor absolutely different takes its
place, according to the potential thought-vibration generated at the death
moment, because the Karmic force which propels the life-flux still survives. It
is this last thought, which is technically called Reproductive(janaka) Karma,
that determines the state of a person in his subsequent birth. This may be
either a good or bad Karma. According to the Commentary, Reproductive Karma is
that which produces mental aggregates and material aggregates at the moment of
conception. The initial consciousness, which is termed the patisandhi rebirth
consciousness, is conditioned by this Reproductive (janaka) Karma. Simultaneous
with the arising of the rebirth-consciousness, there arise the ‘body-decad’,
‘sex-decad’ and ‘base-decad’ (kaya-bhavavatthu dasakas). (decad = 10 factors).
Which, unlike the former, tends to weaken, interrupt and
retard the fruition of the Reproductive Karma. For instance, a person born with
a good Reproductive Karma may be subject to various ailments etc., thus
preventing him from enjoying the blissful results of his good actions. An
animal, on the other hand, who is born with a bad Reproductive Karma may lead a
comfortable life by getting good food, lodging, etc., as a result of his good
counteractive or obstructive (upabidaka) Karma preventing the fruition of the
evil Reproductive Karma.
Answer: Where a
child inherits such a disease it is due to the force of the parents’
characteristics because of the force of the latter’s Utu (conditions favorable
to germination). Take, for example, two seeds from a sapling; plant one in
inferior, dry soil; and the other in rich, moist soil. The result is that the
first seed will sprout into a sickly sapling and soon show symptoms of disease
and decay; while the other seed will thrive and flourish and grow up to be a
tall and healthy tree. It will be observed that the pair of seeds taken from
the same stock grows up differently according to the soil into which they are
put. A child’s past Karma may be compared to the seed: the physical disposition
of the mother to the soil; and that of the father to the moisture, which fertilized
the soil. Roughly speaking, to illustrate our subject, we will say that,
representing the sapling’s germination, growth, and existence as a unit, the
seed is responsible for one-tenth of them, the soil for six-tenths, and the
moisture for the remainder, three-tenths.
Thus, although the power of germination exists potentially
in the seed (the child), its growth is powerfully determined and quickened by
the soil (the mother) and the moisture (the father). Therefore, even as the
conditions of the soil and moisture must be taken as largely responsible
factors in the growth and condition of the tree. So must the influences of the
parents (or progenitors, as in the case of the animal world) be taken into
account in respect to the conception and growth of their offspring? The
parents’ share in the Karma determining the physical factors of their issue is
as follows: If they are human beings, then their offspring will be a human
being. If they are cattle then their issue must be of their species. If the
human being is Chinese, then their offspring must be of their race. Thus, the
offspring are invariably of the same genera and species, etc., as those of the
progenitors. It will be seen from the above that, although a child’s Karma is
very powerful in itself, if cannot remain wholly uninfluenced by those of it
parents. It is apt to inherit the physical characteristic of its parents. Yet,
it may occur that the child’s Karma, being superlatively powerful, the
influence of the parent’s joint Karma cannot overshadow it. Of course, it need
hardly be pointed out that the evil influences of parents can also be
counteracted by the application of medical science.
The idea of an entity or soul or spirit ‘going’, ‘coming’,
‘changing’ or ‘transmigrating’ from one existence to another is an idea
entertained by the ignorance and materialistic, and is certainly not justified
by the Dhammas that there is no such thing as ‘going’, ‘coming’, ‘changing’,
etc., as between existences. The conception, which is in accordance with the
Dhamma, may perhaps be illustrated by the picture thrown out by a cinema
projector, or the sound of emitted by the gramophone, and their relation to the
film or the sound-box and records respectively. For example, a human being dies
and is reborn in the land
of Devas.
Though these two existences are different, yet the link or
continuity between the two at death is unbroken in point of time. The same is
true in the case of a man whose further existence is to be in hell. The
distance between Hell and the abode of man appears to be great. Yet, in point
of time, the continuity of ‘passage’ from the one existence to the other is
unbroken, and no intervening matter or space can interrupt the trend of a man’s
Karma from the world of human beings to the regions of Hell. The ‘passage’ from
one existence to another is instantaneous, and the transition is infinitely
quicker than the blink of an eyelid or a lightening-flash. Karma determines the
realm of rebirth and the state of existence in that realm of all transient
being (in the cycle of existences, which have to be traversed till the
attainment, at last, of Nibbana). The results of Karma are manifold, and may be
affected in many ways. Religious offerings (dana) may obtain for a man the
privilege of rebirth as a human being, or as a deva, in one of the six deva
worlds according to the degree of the merit of the deeds performed, and so with
the observance of religious duties (sila).
The jhanas or states of absorption, are found in the Brahma
world or Brahmalokas up to the summit, the twentieth Brahma world: And so with
bad deeds, the perpetrators of which are to be found, grade by grade, down to
the lowest depths of Hell. Thus are Karma, past, present and future were, are,
and will ever be the sum total of our deeds, good, indifferent or bad. As was
seen from the foregoing, our Karma determines the changes of our existences.
”Evil spirits” are, therefore, not beings in an intermediate or transitional
stages of existence, but are really very inferior beings, and they belong to
one of the following five realms of existence:
The following (who form, an overwhelming majority of human
beings) are generally unable to remember there past existences when reborn as
human beings: Children who die young. Those who die old and senile. Those who
are addicted to the drug or drink habit. Those whose mothers, during their
conception, have been sickly or have had to toil laboriously, or have been
reckless or imprudent during pregnancy. The children in the womb, being stunned
and started, lose all knowledge of their past existence. The following are
possessed of a knowledge of their past existences, viz: Those who are not
reborn (in the human world) but proceed to the world of the devas, of Brahmas,
or to the regions of Hell, remember their past existences. Those who die suddenly
deaths from accidents, while in sound health, may also be possessed of this
faculty in the next existence, provided that their mothers, in whose womb they
are conceived, are healthy. Again, those who live steady, meritorious lives and
who in their past existences have striven to attain, often attain it. Lastly
the Buddha, the Arahantas and Ariyas attain this gift which is known as
pubbenivasa abhnna(Supernatural Power remembering previous existences).
Though we are neither the absolutely the servants nor the
masters of our Karma, it is evident from these counteractive and supportive
factors that the fruition of Karma is influenced to some extent by external
circumstances, surroundings, personality, individual striving, and so forth. It
is this doctrine of Karma that gives consolation, hope, reliance and moral
courage to a Buddhist. When the unexpected happens, and he meets with
difficulties, failures, and misfortune, the Buddhist realises that he is
reaping what he has sown, and he is wiping off a past debt. Instead of
resigning himself, leaving everything to Karma, he makes a strenuous effort to
pull the weeds and sow useful seeds in their place, for the future is in his
own hands.
He who believes in Karma does not condemn even the most
corrupt, for they, too, have their chance to reform themselves at any moment.
Though bound to suffer in woeful states, they have hope of attaining eternal
Peace. By their own doings they have created their own Hells, and by their own
doings they can create their own Heavens, too. A Buddhist who is fully
convinced of the law of Karma does not pray to another to be saved but
confidently relies on him for his own emancipation. Instead of making any
self-surrender, or calling on any supernatural agency, he relies on his own
will power, and works incessantly for the well-being and happiness of all. This
belief in Karma validates his effort and kindles his enthusiasm, because it
teaches individual responsibility. To the ordinary Buddhist, Karma serves as a
deterrent, while to an intellectual, it serves as in incentive to do good. He
or she becomes kind, tolerant, and considerate. This law of Karma explains the
problem of suffering, the mastery of so-called fate and predestination of other
religions and about all the inequality of mankind.
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