Exploring The Dhamma

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Exploring The Dhamma Kamma
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KAMMA
All living beings have Kamma as their own. -
MAJJHIMA NIKAYA
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KAMMA
Kamma is the law of moral causation. Rebirth is
its corollary. Kamma and rebirth are
inter-related, fundamental doctrines in Buddhism.
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Explaining the Inequalities
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Explaining the Inequalities
Majority of mankind attribute the inequalities to
a single cause such as the will of a Creator.
The modern scientists attribute them to
chemico-physical causes, heredity and environment.
Theory of Heredity however cannot explain the
complex and subtle mental, intellectual, and
moral behaviours.
For example, it cannot explain the temperamental,
intellectual and moral differences in identical
twins who are physically alike and enjoying the
same previleges of upbringing.
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Explaining the Inequalities
Buddhism attibutes the inequalities not only to
heredity, environment, nature and nurture, but
also to the operation of the Law of Kamma.
In other words, it is due to the result of our
own inherited past actions and our present doings.
We ourselves are responsible for our own
happiness and misery. We are the architects of
our own fate.
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The Cause of Inequality
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The Cause of Inequality
One day, a young truth-seeker named Subha
approached and asked the Buddha
What is the reason, what is the cause, O Lord,
that we find amongst mankind the short-lived and
the long-lived, the diseased and the healthy, the
ugly and the beautiful, the powerless and the
powerful, the poor and the rich, the low-born and
the high-born, the ignorant and the wise.
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The Cause of Inequality
The Buddha replied
All living beings have actions (Kamma) as their
own, their inheritance, their congenital cause,
their kinsman, their refuge. It is Kamma that
differentiates beings into low and high states.
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The Cause of Inequality
The Buddha further explained the law of cause and
effect
he,when born amongst mankind
If a person
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The Cause of Inequality
he,when born amongst mankind
If a person
Note The above is an excerpt of a Sutta given
by the Buddha.
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The Cause of Inequality
Certainly, we are born with hereditary
characteristics.
But the accumulated Kammic tendencies inherited
from previous lives play a far greater role than
the hereditary parental cells and genes in the
formation of both physical and mental
characteristics.
From a Buddhist standpoint, our present mental,
moral, intellectual, and temperamental
differences are preponderantly due to our own
actions and tendencies, both past and present.
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Not Everything Is Due To Kamma
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Everything is not due to Kamma
Buddhism does not assert that everything is due
to Kamma.
The Law of Kamma is only one of the twenty-four
casual conditions (paccaya) described in Buddhist
Philosophy.
The Buddha refuted that everything is due to
Kamma and said
So, then, owing to previous action, men will
become murderers, thieves, unchaste, liars,
slanderers, babblers, covetous, malicious, and
perverse in view. 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
that deed.
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Everything is not due to Kamma
This important text contradicts the belief that
all physical circumstances and mental attitudes
spring solely from past Kamma.
If everything is totally conditioned by past
Kamma, then Kamma is tantamount to fatalism or
pre-determination.
Then one will not be free to mould ones present
and future. Life would be purely mechanical but
much different from a machine.
If this is true, freewill would be an absurdity.
Such a fatalistic doctrine is not the Buddhist
Law of Kamma.
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The Five Niyamas
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The Five Niyamas
According to Buddhism, there are five orders or
processes (Niyamas) which operate in the physical
and mental realms.
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The Five Niyamas
Utu Niyama physical inorganic order
Deals with seasonal phenomena of winds and rains,
the unerring order of seasons, characteristic
seasonal changes and events, causes of winds and
rains, nature of heat, etc.
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The Five Niyamas
Bija Niyama order of germs and seeds
Deals with physical organic order eg. apple
produced from apple seed, sugary taste from sugar
cane or honey, and peculiar characteristics of
certain fruits.
The scientific theory of cells and genes and the
physical similarity of twins may be ascribed to
this order.
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The Five Niyamas
Kamma Niyama order of act and result
Desirable and undesirable acts produce
corresponding good and bad results.
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The Five Niyamas
Dhamma Niyama order of the norm
The natural phenomena occuring at the birth of a
Bodhisatta in His last birth.
Gravity
Gravity and other similar laws of nature, the
reason for being good, etc, may be included in
this group.
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The Five Niyamas
Citta Niyama order of the mind or psychic law
Processes of consciousness, constituents of
consciousness, power of mind, including
telepathy, telesthesia, retro-cognition,
premonition, clairvoyance, clair-audience,
thought-reading, and such other psychic
phenomenon, which are inexplicable to modern
science.
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The Five Niyamas
Every mental or physical phenomenon could be
explained by these all-embracing five orders or
processes which are laws in themselves.
Kamma is only one of these five orders. Like all
other natural laws, they demand no lawgiver.
Kamma is an intricate law whose working is fully
comprehended only by a Buddha.
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The gift of Dhamma excels all gifts
the taste of Dhamma excels all taste,
the delight in dhamma excels all delights, The
Craving-Freed vanquishes all suffering. -
Dhammapada verse 354
End of Lesson