The law of karma and the principle of causation
By Bruce R. Reichenbach
Philosophy East and West
Volume 38, no.4
1988 October
P.399-410
(C) by University of Hawaii Press
P.399
The law of karma functions as a central motif in
Hindu, Jaina, and Buddhist thought. Simply
formulated, it states that all actions have
consequences which will affect the doer of the
action at some future time. So stated, it might seem
that the law of karma is nothing other than the law
of universal causation, according to which every
action, event, or contingent being is caused.
Clearly the two laws are related, though the precise
nature of their relation is frequently left
unclarified. The law of karma is variously described
by different authors as identical with, parallel to,
or an application of the law of universal causation.
The relationship is not strict identity. First,
whereas the causal law is concerned with results
regardless of whom they affect, the law of karma is
concerned with the effects of the action insofar as
they impinge on the doer of the action. Secondly,
whereas according to the law of universal causation
the production of effects does not depend on the
intentions of the agent (except as they are causally
related to actions) but on his action, the karmic
relation depends upon both. It is held that actions
which are not performed out of desire for the fruits
have no karmic consequences, even though they have
causal consequences. Though one can find statements
to the effect that all actions for which humans can
be held morally accountable have consequences,(1) in
fact the formulation of the law of karma is much
more subtle. It is actions which are performed with
an interest in achieving some result or which arise
from desire and passion which bring about karmic
effects. Actions which are performed in a
disinterested way, which stem from no desire for the
fruits of the action, or which are offered to
II`svara, have no fruits.
This description of the scope of the law of
karma is reflected in the teaching of the
Bhagavad-Giitaa, according to which actions are to
be done in such a way that the doer manifests no
personal concern for the results or outcome of the
action.(2) Only if an individual performs his duty
in a nonattached or disinterested fashion can he
cultivate the requisite attitude of desirelessness
and equanimity. Such actions do not result in any
effects, either in this life or in the next.(3)
A similar view regarding actions not performed
out of desire is present in Buddhism.
When a man's deeds, O priests, are performed without
covetousness [hatred, infatuation], arise without
covetousness [hatred, infatuation], are occasioned
without covetousness [hatred, infatuation],
originate without covetousness [hatred,
infatuation], then. inasmuch as covetousness
[hatred, infatuation] is gone, those deeds are
abandoned, uprooted, pulled out of the ground like a
palmyra-tree, and become non-existent and not liable
to spring up again in the future.(4)
P.400
According to the law of karma, then, whether of
not our actions have consequences of a karmic sort
is not simply a product of the action itself but of
our attitude, If we have certain passions or desires
for the object or the fruit of the action, the
action has karmic consequences: failure to have
desires for the fruits obstructs the formation of
karmic consequences. This means that the law of
karma differs from the causal account of human
action, according to which an action has
consequences simply because some action has been
performed, irrespective of the particular attitude
of the doer. This, of course, is not surprising,
considering the fact that the Law of karma is rooted
in ethical considerations, whereas the causal
relation obtains regardless of ethical
considerations. In ethics, our intentions and
desires matter in the ultimate evaluation of the
action. Where the outcome was unintended, the moral
responsibility for it is lessened, thoufh of course
the causal responsibility remains.(5)
Thirdly, according to the law of karma, like
causes produce like effects. Right actions produce
good consequences, wrong actions bad consequences.
However, it is not obvious that like producing like
is a characteristic of all causation. Fourthly,
whereas the causal law holds irrespective of moral
judgments, the causal feature which is central to
the law of karma is a moral one. That is, it is not
concerned with the general relation between actions
and their consequences, but with a specific aspect
of certain actions, namely, the moral, and its
consequences for human happiness and unhappiness.
Fifthly, the law of causation applies to two events
or things that are temporally conjoined, whereas the
law of karma states that the effects are manifested
sometime in the distant future, either in the next
life or in more temporally remote lives. Thus the
immediacy of the temporal relation found in the
causal law is absent in the law of karma.
In short. there is good reason to think that,
though the law of karma is a causal law, it is not
identical with the law of universal causation. But
neither is it merely parallel, for insofar as its
operative principles are causal, the law of karma
cannot be understood except causally. This means
that it is best understood as an application of the
law of universal causation to moral causation But if
we understand it in this way, how can we account for
the differences between the law of karma and the
causal law? Is any kind of reconciliation possible?
One possibility is to make a distinction between
two kinds of effects, which we might term phalas and
sa.mskaaras. Phalas include all the immediate
effects, visible and invisible, which actions
produce or bring about. They are often referred to
as the fruits or results of an action. Sa.mskaaras
are the invisible dispositions or tendencies to act.
think, experience, or interpret experiences in ways
which are conducive to one's happiness or
unhappiness, produced in the agent as a result of
the action.(6) They constitute, in effect, special
modifications of the agent.
P.401
Using this distinction, one can argue that the
laws are consistent. The law of universal causation
speaks to the production of phalas: every act
produces phalas (results) in the world. The law of
karma, on the other hand, speaks to the production
of sa.mskaaras: every karmic act produces
sa.mskaaras in the agent. The two laws are related
in that the law of karma is the application of the
law of universal causation, which deals in general
with the relation between the act and its effects,
to a specific aspect of certain kinds of actions. It
concerns the disposition- or sa.mskaara-producing
aspect of dispositionproducing actions. The law of
karma, then, is the more limited law.
This distinction between phalas and sa.mskaaras
holds promise for resolving the differences between
the laws just noted. First, it accounts for the
specificity, found in the law of karma. of who is
affected by the results. Since the law of karma
focuses on the formation of sa.mskaaras, its concern
is with the agent's sa.mskaaras and not consequences
in general.
Secondly, it accounts for the fact that in
karmic causation the arising of the effect depends
on the intention of the agent, for the formation of
the disposition follows properly on the original
intention. All actions have phalus, but only actions
produced from desire recoil on the doer of the
action. Only when action is performed out of some
desire to realize a worldly end is the corresponding
disposition or tendency to repeat the same kind of
action in future lives produced. This seems
reasonable, for dispositions are formed or
reinforced consistent with the attitude out of which
the original act was performed. If the action was
performed out of greed, this would have the causal
tendency to produce or reinforce a greedy
disposition; but were the action performed out of no
desire for personal gain, but to please others or
for the good of the work, this would have a tendency
to produce or reinforce a disposition of wanting to
please others or to work skillfully. And it might be
reasonable to hold that actions produced from
complete equanimity produce no dispositions at all.
Thirdly, it accounts for the fact that. in
karmic causation, like produces like, for actions of
one sort. for example, done spitefully, will produce
or reinforce like dispositions, for example, to act
spitefully. This, in turn, accounts for the fourth
difference, that is, for the relevance of the moral
feature in karmic causation. Intentions are
particularly important for determining the moral
quality, not only of the action, but of the agent
who performed the action. A person who performs an
action which results in bringing about good but
which was done to bring harm is immoral because he
engaged in it for that reason. In karmic actions,
since the resulting disposition correlates in kind
with the intentions which the agent had in
performing the action, the moral quality (in the
form of a potency) is passed on and preserved. Acts
performed with right intentions lead to dispositions
to perform like acts: acts performed with the wrong
intent produce corresponding dispositions.
Finally, this distinction also solves the
problem of immediate versus de-
P.402
layed results. All effects. including sa.mskaaras,
are immediately produced. But though produced
immediately, sa.mskaaras (as tendencies or
potencies) are not actualized until some future time
when the proper actualizing conditions are present.
This interpretation is confirmed by frequent
references likening karmic fruits to seeds which,
though produced at a particular time, lie dormant
until the appropriate conditions for germination
occur.
Unhappily, though. promising as it is, this
resolution is not without its difficulties. Two of
these difficulties deserve consideration.
1. Are phalas in general relevant to rebirth?
(a) On the one hand. the distinction between phalms
and sa.mskaaras and the resultant restriction of
karmic considerations to matters of sa.mskaaras
suggest not. In this interpretation, what is
important in karmic considerations is what forms
dispositions. Dispositions or tendencies arise not
from the results of the act, but from the
dispositions or intentions out of which we acted. If
so, what matter are the attitudes, desires,
passions, dispositions, and general character with
which we perform the action and not the actions per
se and their general results. That is, the karma of
an action is determined largely by the intentions,
dispositions, desires, character, and moral virtue
of the agent.
This emphasis on formative dispositions,
desires, and intentions accords well with the
Buddhist emphasis on will or intentional impulse
(cetanaa). In early Buddhism "kamma is virtually
defined as cetanaa: `I say, monks, that cetanaa is
kamma: having intended, one does a deed by body,
word, or thought.'"(7) Actions performed without
intention produce no karma, whereas intention alone
is capable of producing it. That is, intention is
not only a necessary condition for considering an
act to be moral or immoral. it is sometimes held to
be sufficient.(8)
However, such an emphasis on originating
dispositions and intentions as determinative of
moral quality implies that it matters little what we
do. Consequently, with respect to our accumulation
of karma it would mean we could do the most
despicable acts, so long as our attitude and
dispositions were correct. Even though consequences
might be partially determinative of the morality of
an act, they are irrelevant or minimally relevant to
karmic considerations. This begins to drive a wedge
between the law of karma and the moral law governing
actions that it is sworn to uphold.
Further, it is inconsistent with the fourfold
classification of karma in terms of
consequences--white, black. black and white, neither
black nor white--found in both Hinduism and
Buddhism. For example, acts which have good
intentions but which also have bad consequences,
intentional or unintentional, are classified not as
white karma (which would be the case if only the
intention mattered) but as black and white karma.
One might reply that we cannot so easily
separate intentions from action. In Buddhism, for
example, though some like Vasubandhu make cetanaa a
P.403
mental act and distinguish it from the physical and
vocal acts which follow from it, others interpret
cetanaa more broadly to include both the intention
and the resultant actions. "Mental acts are pure
intentional impulse, while acts of body and voice
are intentional impulses which put the body and
voice in motion, not simply the actions ensuant upon
such impulses."(9) The vocal or physical act is, as
it were, the thought or intention incarnate.
Buddhism refuses to make the clear-cut distinction
between mental act and the bodily and vocal acts
found in Western action theory. Thus, even where
intention is determinative, the intrinsic connection
between intention and act, where act is intention
made manifest, makes it impossible that a good
intention is knowingly and willingly followed by an
evil act.(10)
Put more broadly in a different framework,
though it is true that right intentions are
necessary for building character, they are not
sufficient. Frequent reference is made to a stage of
the path to liberation where the person has the
right knowledge and intention, but lacks sufficient
spiritual strength to carry out the intention. If
the intention is not implemented sufficiently, this
will affect the intentions of the agent, for he will
begin to question whether he should bother to form
the intention since he regularly fails to act on it.
Persistant right intentions without implementation
lead to regression; it is not a stage at which one
can remain. It is like the traditional making of New
Year's resolutions. After a while, if there is no
serious attempt to keep the resolutions, the making
of the resolutions is either forgone, or it becomes
a ritualistic game with no moral significance for
the maker. Rather, it is the brunt of a bad joke.
A second objection to the restriction of karmic
efficacy to sa.mskaaras might be formulated on the
grounds that this denial of karmic efficacy to
phalas in general separates two things which are
functionally inseparable in the doctrine of karma,
namely, the visible or physical and the invisible
and moral. It is precisely the strength of the
doctrine of karma that it links the pain and
pleasure that we experience with cosmic or
environmental conditions, and these conditions in
turn with the moral quality of actions performed.
But this distinction between phalas and sa.mskaaras
severs that connection. Phalas now seem to function
in their own sphere, immediate, short-lived,
affecting the agent as one among, others and other
things, whereas sa.mskaaras, which are the proper
concern of the law of karma, are the seeds sown to
bear fruit in future experiences. But our human
predicament is not merely the product of our
dispositions and tendencies; it is also the product
of our environment.
Two responses are possible. First. it might be
argued that pain and pleasure are not objective but
subjective. We feel pain and pleasure because that
is the way in which we interpret our experiences,
and this interpretative perspective arises from our
dispositions, which are caused by our karma.
Accordingly, if we can control the way we view our
experiences, we can control and eventually eliminate
pain and pleasure from our existence. In effect,
then, phalas in
P.404
themselves are irrelevant to our future,
karmically-caused experiences. What really matters
is internal to us, that is, the dispositions and
tendencies we create within ourselves which affect
our interpretation and understanding of our
experiences.
This view is consistent with the Buddhist
emphasis upon adopting the proper inner attitude and
spirit and with certain important Buddhist
teachings,(11) including the doctrine of Dependent
Origination. According to this, we have contact with
the environment, and this causes us to crave or
desire things, which in turn causes grasping or
clinging to things, which finally brings rebirth,
misery, and sorrow. If we can eliminate the
cravings, we can eliminate both the search for
satisfaction and the frustrations of
dissatisfaction, and this in turn will mean the
elimination of pain and misery. And cravings are
eliminated through terminating the sa.mskaaras--the
drives, impulses, and dispositions karmically
produced in us--and this through overcoming
ignorance about our true nature and condition and
following the Eightfold Path. Note that in all this,
the primary source of pain and pleasure is not
objective or external (though of course the external
or environmental is a condition or occasion for it),
but subjective or internal. That is, pain and
pleasure are created by us as we react to our
circumstances. We are disposed to interpret our
experiences in this way. Thus, by controlling our
reactions and the desires from which they stem, we
can control our responses of pain and pleasure and
ultimately eliminate both. This goal is achieved in
adopting the attitude of equanimity toward all
events.
Yoga also might be interpreted as offering, at
least in part, a subjective view of pleasure and
pain, though in a different vein. Yoga, too, has a
cycle or "six-spoked wheel" driven by ignorance.
From virtue and vice come pleasure and pain; from
these come, respectively, the samskaras of
attachment and aversion. From these sa.mskaaras come
effort, and from effort action by mind, body, and
speech. This action favors or injures others,
creating virtue and vice, and the cycle begins
anew.(12) Here the experiences of pleasure and pain
are causes of the dispositions, and not their
results. Hence, pleasure and pain are not attitudes
but experiences which result from our actions.
Exactly how pain and pleasure arise from virtue and
vice is unclear, though what is clear is the
presupposition that virtue is rewarded with pleasure
and vice with pain.
Where then is the subjective flavor? It arises
in the discussion, not concerning the causes of
pleasure and paint but concerning how to eliminate
them. In the Yoga account the sa.mskaaras, along
with the other named afffictions (ignorance in
taking the noneternal. impure, painful. and nonself
to be the eternal, pure, pleasurable, and the self;
egoism, and love of life), are responsible for our
accumulation of merit and demerit (called the
vehicle of actions). This accumulation determines;
our subsequent birth(s), the length of our lives,
and our experiences of pleasure and pain. Insofar as
ignorance is the breeding ground or field for the
afflictions, and these bear fruit in pain and
P.405
pleasure, the latter can be ended through proper
"cultivation" of that field. That is, pleasure and
pain can be eliminated by the separation of the
knower from that which is knowable, the cognizer or
self from the field of its experience, and this can
be done by meditation.(13) Pain and pleasure, then,
are subjective, not in the sense that they are
attitudes which we adopt, but in that they can be
eliminated though gaining control over the mind
(detachment, becoming one-pointed) and restraining
and ultimately ceasing its modifications.
That karma works only subjectively is an
important possibility, for it means that our painful
and pleasant experiences are our own responsibility.
Pain and pleasure, though in one sense resulting
from our experiences. are in another and most real
sense created by us out of our dispositions and
tendencies both to have desires and to view the
world as pleasurable or painful. Our environment
provides only a setting, a backdrop against which we
react. Thus there is both individual responsibility
for interpreting the world in a certain way and the
promise of being able to alter that interpretation
by removing those dispositions through the removal
of ignorance and desire, or by separating the self
from the world entirely.
However, even supposing that pain and pleasure
are subjective, it is difficult to separate the pain
and pleasure from the environmental instruments of
pain and pleasure or whatever may occasion our
subjective experience of them. Indeed, it is
generally held that karma affects these as well.
Length of life, health and sickness, handsomeness or
beauty and ugliness, social position, wealth and
poverty, the kind of body and intellectual ability
gotten at birth, fortune and misfortune--all are
believed caused by karma.(14) In Jainism, in
addition to the subjectively operative obscuring
karma, there is the objectively operative
nonobscuring karma, which is responsible for the
mechanisms and objective features of rebirth, while
in the Yoga-suutra the karmic residues (vehicle of
action) ripen into a determination of our quantity
of existence.(15)
There are, in effect. two stories, the
subjective and the objective. According to the
first, karma works through us, creating dispositions
and tendencies, merit and demerit, which in turn
affect our desires, passions and perspective on the
world. So seen, karma disposes us to interpret our
experiences and to act in ways which bring us pain
and pleasure. Here the appeal to sa.mskaaras (or
something similar) provides a reasonable basis for
constructing a naturalistic account of the causal
operations of karma. According to the second, our
karmic acts affect the instruments of our
experiences, from our own bodies to the world around
us. They help determine. among other things, the
kinds of bodies with which we are reborn, our social
status, and how other persons and things in the
environment act on us. These instruments mediate
properly determined karma to us, so that one can say
that we deserve what happens to us. Here the
sa.mskaaric account by itself is inadequate. Since
both
P.406
accounts are part of the tradition, an explanation of
how karma affects objective as well as subjective
conditions is necessary.
In order to reestablish the linkage between the
environment and the moral or dispositional, some
traditions suggest that karma is propagated through
the dispositions until it bears fruit when the
person with a given set of dispositions creates (in
part) his environment. A person's environmental
conditions are a product, in part, of his current
actions and dispositions. This environment will in
turn affect the person. in both forming the context
for his karma-producing actions and being the
instrument for the appropriate recompense for his
past deeds. The adequacy, then, of this
reconciliation of the two laws by the distinction
between phalas and sa.mskaaras rests on the adequacy
of the account which brings the dispositional and
envi ronmental-phpsical back together.(16)
(b) If phalas in general are relevant to rebirth,
then karmic consideration must be paid to the
general consequences of the act as well as to the
specific sa.mskaaric consequences which are produced
in the agent.
This, however, is also not without difficulty.
For one thing, since according to the principle of
universal causation all acts have phalas or
consequences, the very actions one performs in order
to live will have results. Will another rebirth be
necessary to fulfill the consequences of these acts?
If so, the question arises whether escape from
sa.msaara, even for those well on their way to
enlightenment or nirvaa.na, is possible.
One possible solution is simply to deny the
universality of the principle of causation. That is,
if one affirms that some acts have no effects or
phalas, the acts of the saint about to be liberated
could be of this sort and thus create no karma.
However, many advocates of the law of karma wish to
maintain the principle of universal causation,
especially since a denial of this principle could in
turn be used against the universality of the law of
karma.
A different resolution is suggested by the
Jainas. They argue that the perfect state is
realized in the cessation of all activity, when no
more karma is accumulated. And we cease activity
when we liberate the soul from the passions which
delude it and obscure and distort its capacities.
The passionless saint on the verge of emancipation
still acts, but these acts create only momentary
karma, which is quickly and immediately exhausted.
The final acts, if not much of the life, of such a
person would be of minimal moment, producing as
little as possible of what can he immediately used
up. Indeed, he largely would be engaged in
meditation. As the one about to be liberated
gradually approaches inactivity, he uses up the
remaining karma, as passionless he creates no new
significant karma. and in his acts produces results
with only momentary karma, until finally activity
itself ceases.(17)
One can find a similar view in Yoga. The yogin
in his final stage, who has rooted out the
afflictions and renounced all actions, and whose
present life
P.407
will be his last, performs no actions which depend
upon external means. By meditation alone he destroys
the last vestiges of karma while accumulating no new
karma, since the fruits of his mental actions are
offered to II`svara.(18)
A third reply would be that the final rebirth
would be one where the individual suffers--and thus
completes the karmic debt--but where the individual
does not act--and thus fails to accrue further
karmic debt. Since it is impossible for an
individual to live as a person and not act, the
final reincarnation would be in a lower form of life
which would suffer the final karmic debt. In this
state it would not accumulate further debt, since
only conscious actions or actions for which the
individual can be held morally accountable create
karma. The story of the Emperor ASoka, who was
incarnated briefly as a maggot before being
transformed into a deity, illustrates the point,
though hardly makes it more believable. This
response suggests, however, that reincarnation in
lower forms of life may play a more significant role
in karmic systems than generally allowed.
There is a more serious problem with this view.
however. How do the karmic aspects of the general
effects impinge on the agent? In particular, how are
the appropriate and just deserts meted out through
insentient nature? Some kind of conscious agent
seems necessary to administer the unconscious law of
karma, that is, both to be aware of these phalas and
to apportion out their effects.
2. Can karmic concerns be restricted to sa.mskaaras?
A second difficulty faces our attempted
reconciliation of the laws of karma and causation.
The restriction of karmic concerns to sa.mskaaras
proves unsatisfactory in cases where the action
bears fruit in ways which have no obvious connection
with the action, or where the happiness or
unhappiness experienced and its causes have nothing
to do with dispositions or tendencies. Let us
consider two illustrations.
Suppose we contract malaria. As an unpleasant
experience, this must be the just recompense for
some previous misdeed(s). On the account of the law
of karma just given, our contracting malaria might
be explained in terms of some sa.mskaara--for
example, our susceptibility to the disease. This
susceptibility, resulting from some action(s) done
in this or previous lives, has remained dormant
until we encountered malaria-carrying mosquitoes in
our environment. There is a continuous causal chain
from our action(s) to our disease: they are
connected causally by the susceptibility which
resides in us. But what is the causal connection
between the original act(s) and our susceptibility
to malaria? What is there about what we have done
which brings about this susceptibility rather than
another? And what is there causally to justify the
thesis that this susceptibility rather than another
is morally justified in terms of the demerit
accruing to our action(s)? The causal connection be-
P.408
tween the original action(s) and the susceptibility
which arises is unaccounted for.
Consider a second case. Our house burns to the
ground in a raging forest fire ignited by lightning.
Since this is a misfortune, the karmic theorist
would appeal to some previous action(s) of ours to
explain why it burned. But in this case, what
causally links our previous action(s) and the
burning of our house? That is, why did the house
burn rather than another calamity strike, and what
caused it to strike not only me but with the
particular intensity it did? How am I a cause of the
fire and/or of its burning my house? Since the
lightning, forest fire. and burning of the house
have nothing to do with my dispositions, the causal
link here is not in the realm of the sa.mskaaras but
the phalas, visible or invisible.
One possible response to both cases is to expand
the concept of sa.mskaara to include special
modifications of the agent other than simply
dispositions and tendencies. There are various
interpretations as to how karmic residues are stored
in the agent. This includes, in addition to
dispositions and tendencies, the storing of special,
invisible moral potencies or forces (ad.r.s.ta) or
the accumulation of invisible karmic matter which
our passions and actions attract to us and which
forms a subtle body that accompanies the soul. Using
this broadened notidn of special modifications to
the agent, one could argue that the contracting of
malaria or the burning of the house was caused by
the special moral quality which existed in us. Yet
the problems remain. Why do our action(s) occasion
malaria or the burning of our house rather than
another calamity? Further, how does this moral or
physical quality connect with establishing this as
the appropriate and just recompense? That is, what
is the connection between a so-called moral quality
and the justness of an event which it causes? In
ordinary causation, the mere fact that the cause has
a property does not entail that the effect will
possess it as well. For example, that the hammer is
made of gray, hardened metal tells us nothing about
the color or composition of the things it affects.
And finally, what is the causal connection between
these special modifications and the environment
which caused the fire? Here we return again to the
issue raised above, for it is not obvious how, for
example, moral qualities existing in the agent can
cause forest fires or houses to burn or remove
impediments to such.
In sum, it seems reasonable to contend that the
law of karma is a special application of the
principle of universal causation. In particular, it
refers to some special modification of the agent
which includes, among other things, dispositions and
tendencies which have an important connection with
moral actions. But what remains to be explained is
the relation between these special modifications and
the environmental effects which cause in us good or
bad experiences.
P.409
NOTES
1. For example, Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan writes,
"[A]ll deeds have their fruits in the world and
effects on the mind" (Indian Philosophy, vol. 1
(London: George Allen and Unwin, 1923), p. 247).
2. "...[W]ork alone is your proper business,
never the fruits [it may produce]; let not your
motive be the fruit of works nor your attachmenr to
[mere] worklessness" (The Bhagavad-Giitaa, trans. by
R. C. Zaehner (New York: Oxford University Press,
1973), 2.47). "But even these works (sacrifice,
giving alms, penance) should be done [in a spirit of
self-surrender], for [all] attachment [to what you
do] and [all] the fruits [of what you do] must be
surrendered" (Ibid., 18.6).
3. "To those who have not vet renounced the ego
and its desires, action bears three kinds of
fruit--pleasant, unpleasant. and a mixture of both.
They will be reaped in due season. But those who
have renounced ego and desire will reap no fruit at
all, either in this world or in the next"
(Bhagavad-Giitaa, 18.12).
4. A^nguttara-Nikaaya, 3.4.33. Translation from
Henry Clarke Warren. Buddhism in Translations (New
York: Atheneum Pub., 1962), pp. 216-217.
5. As with much else, one can find exceptions to
this. For example, Naagasena puzzles King Milinda
with his assertion that the person who sins
unconsciously acquires greater demerit than he who
sins consciously. The reason, he argues, is that the
one who does not know what he is doing and is
unaware of the resulting effects can inadvertently
sin more greviously and thus experience more severe
karmic effects (Milindapa~nha, 3.7.8).
6. Actions have "a double effect--one physical
and visible and another moral and invisible......
The physical effect follows the law of instantaneous
succession, but the moral effect (which is often
compared to a seed) may remain in abeyance and
fructify at a much later time when maturing
conditions are present. Again, while the physical
effect is mainly, if not wholly, produced on others,
the moral effect comes to rest upon the head of the
doer himself...." (H. D. Bhattacharyya, "The
Doctrine of Karma," The Philosophical Quarterly
(Amalner) 3 (1927): 239). Mysore Hiriyanna, treating
phala somewhat differently, makes a similar
distinction: "...[E]very deed that we do leads to a
double result. It not only produces what may be
termed its direct result--the pain or pleasure
following from it according to the karma theory, but
it also establishes in us a tendency to repeat the
same deed in the future. This tendency is termed
sa.mskaara; and the direct fruit of the karma is
known as its phala. Every deed is bound to yield its
phala; even the gods cannot prevent it from doing
so.... As regards the sa.mskaaras, on the other
hand, we have within us the full power of control,
so that we may regulate them as they tend to express
themselves in action" (Outlines of Indian Philosophy
(London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1932), pp.
129-130).
7. A^nguttara-Nikaaya. 6.6.63. See James P.
McDermott, "Karma and Rebirth in Early Buddhism, in
Wendy D. O'Flaherty, ed., Karma and Rebirth in
Classical Indian Traditions (Berkeley, California:
University of California Press, 1980), p. 181.
8. For example, "Superficial appearances to the
contrary notwithstanding, Buddhist ethics is
essentially an ethics of intention. Actions
themselves are neither good nor bad: for the
Buddhist even more than for Shakespeare, 'thinking
makes them so.' Ku`sala and aku`sala, literally
skill and unskill. the more precise Buddhist
expressions for what is morally good and moraly bad,
are terms applicable only! to karma-producing
volitions and their associated mental phenomena. By
the figure of speech according to which qualities
belonging to the cause are attributed to the effect,
an action is termed immoral when it springs from a
mental state...dominated by the three unskillful or
'unwholesome' roots of greed, hatred, and delusion,
and moral when it proceeds from mental states
characterized by the opposites of these'' (Bhikshu
Sangharakshita, A Survey of Buddhism (Bangalore:
Indian Institute of World Culture, 1959) , pp.
142-133).
9. McDermott, "Karma and Rebirth." p. 182.
10. Again we can illustrate this through
Sangharakshita: "It is not possible to commit murder
with a good heart because the deliberate taking of
life is simply the outward expression of a state of
mind dominated by hate. Deeds are condensations of
thought just as water is a condensation of
P.410
air. They are thoughts made manifest, and proclaim
from the housetops of action only what has already
been committed in the silent and secret chambers of
the heart. One who commits an act of immorality
thereby declares that he is not free from
unwholesome states of mind" (p. 143).
11. For a discussion of this perspective with
respect to the question whether old age and death
are the result of karma, see James McDermott, "The
Kathaavatthu Kamma Debates," Journal of the American
Oriental Society 95 (1975): 426-427.
12. Vyaasa, Yoga-bhaa.sya, on Yoga-suutra, 4.11.
13. Pata~njali, Yoga-suutra, 2.3-17.
14. A^nguttara-Nikaaya, 4.20.197; Milindapa~nha,
3.4.2. That karma conditions our rebirth bodies and
our environment is also clearly asserted in
Hinduism. Chaandogya Upani.sad, 5.7-9;
`Svetaa`svatara Upani.sad, 5.11-12. Manu, 11.49-52,
lists actions of various sorts and their correlative
diseases, while 12.74-80 not only emphasizes the
state of rebirth, but also lists such things as the
heat of scorching sand, afffictions of heat and
cold, imprisonment, separations from loved ones,
being enslaved, gaining wealth and its loss, old
age, and death.
15. Pata~njali, 2.13.
16. This will be the subject of a forthcoming
article, entitled "Karma, Causation and Divine
Intervention."
17. Jainism has an extensive explanation of what
happens in the fourteen stages of spiritual
development leading to liberation. In the seventh
stage the soul gains self-control and freedom from
spiritual inertia to continue its progress. In the
eleventh stage the passions (deluding karma) are
suppressed, while in the twelfth they are
eliminated, though the karmas resulting from
activity remain. In the thirteenth stage the
threefold activity of the body, the sense-organ of
speech, and mind remains, though this activity does
not create any further bondage (its bondage does not
last longer than an instant and hence is technically
nonaffecting) . In preparation for entering the
fourteenth stage, the soul ends this activity. Thus
both sources of karmic attraction--passions and
activity--are eliminated. However, the karma which
determines the body formation, social status, and
production of feelings is longer than that which
determines length of life. Hence, the soul in eight
instants expands to the size of the universe, and
then contracts again. This equalizes the length of
all the other karma with that which determines the
length of life in any incarnation (aayu.h karma).
That is, it assures premature fruition and complete
exhaustion of all karmas which are of longer length
than the ayuh karma and would require a longer
existence. The fourteenth stage is an extremely
brief period ("the period of time required to
pronounce five short syllables at the ordinary
speed") of nonactivity, immediately followed by
liberation. For a detailed description of this
process, see Nathmal Tatia, Studies in Jaina
Philosophy (Banaras: Jain Cultural Research Society,
1951), pp. 276-280.
18. "There the meditation-born mind is devoid of
the vehicle" Pata~njali, 4.6.