ISBN 955-24-0120-8
Originally published by
Bauddha Sahitya Sabha: 1949, 1956, 1968
Wheel Publication no. 394/396
Copyright 1994 by the Buddhist Publication Society
BUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY
KANDY, Sri Lanka
* * *
DharmaNet Edition 1995
Transcribed directly from BPS Pagemaker files
Formatting: John Bullitt
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IN THE WAY OF ENLIGHTENMENT:
The Ten Fetters of Buddhism
* * * * * * * *
CONTENTS
I. The Essence of Buddhism (Radio Lecture, Colombo, 1933)
II. Kamma & Rebirth (Lecture, Ceylon University, 1947)
NOTE: Chapters I and II Only. See below.
* * * * * * * *
I
THE ESSENCE OF BUDDHISM
I shall give a short exposition of the essence of the genuine teaching
of the Buddha, such as we still find it in the Buddhist scriptures
handed down to us in the Pali language.
There are many among the listeners who are not Buddhists, and to
whom therefore, in many cases, the original teaching of the Buddha is
a thing almost unknown. It goes without saying that it will not be
possible for these, within the limits of the time allowed to my talk,
to gain a thorough and full understanding of such a profound and wide
subject. Yet some of you may pick up and take hold of certain ideas
that appear important; and these may prove an inducement to further
inquiry into this immensely profound world of thought. Even should
these words have no other effect than to remove at least some of the
many prejudices and false ideas about the Buddha's doctrine, it would
be ample reward.
Does it not, for instance, appear ironical that this most sober of
all the religious doctrines is still considered by many Westerners as
some sort of idolatry or mysticism? Did not the German philosopher
Friedrich Nietzsche, already long years ago, understand and lay stress
upon this //absolute soberness// and clearness of Buddhism when he
said:
Buddhism is a hundred times more realistic than Christianity. It
has entered upon the inheritance of objectively and coolly
putting problems. It came to life after several hundred years of
philosophical development. The notion of "God" is done away with
as soon as it appears. Prayer is out of the question. So is
asceticism. No categorical imperative. No coercion at all, not
even within the monastic community. Hence it also does not
challenge to fight against those of a different faith. Its
teaching turns against nothing so impressively as against the
feeling of revengefulness, animosity and resentment.
Now, before beginning with the exposition of the Buddha's teaching,
we should get acquainted in a few words with the personality of the
Buddha. The term "Buddha" literally means the "Enlightened One." It is
a name won by the Indian sage Gotama on his enlightenment under the
Bodhi-tree at Buddhagaya in India. He was born as the son of an Indian
king on the borders of modern Nepal, about 600 years before Christ. In
his 29th year he renounced the worldly life and exchanged his princely
career for that of a homeless mendicant. After six years of hard
striving he at last attained his goal: deliverance from the round of
rebirths, or Samsara. The Buddha describes this time in his own words
as follows:
Bhikkhus, before I had attained to full enlightenment, myself
being still subject to birth, decay, disease, death, sorrow and
impurity, I too was seeking after that which is subject to birth,
decay, disease, death, sorrow and impurity. And so, bhikkhus,
after a time, while still young, a black-haired lad, in my
youthful prime, just come to budding manhood's years, against the
wishes of father and mother weeping and lamenting, I cut off hair
and beard and, clad in the yellow robe, went forth from home to
homelessness. Thus vowed to homelessness, I was striving after
the highest good, the incomparable path to supreme peace.
At first the future Buddha learnt under two great yogis who had
attained to a high state of supernormal psychical powers and
faculties. But neither of them could satisfy him, as their teachings
did not lead to real everlasting peace and deliverance of mind. So he
left them again after having fully realized their teaching. Thereafter
he met five ascetics, who were practising the severest forms of
self-torture and mortification of the flesh, with the hope of gaining
deliverance in this way. The future Buddha became one of their party.
He subjected himself with utmost perseverance to extreme fasting and
self-torture, till at last he looked like a mere skeleton. And utterly
exhausted, he broke down and collapsed. He now came to understand that
bodily mortification is vain and useless, and will never lead to peace
of heart and to deliverance. He henceforth gave up fasting and bodily
mortification and sought refuge in moral and mental development. And
with calm and serene mind he began to look into the true nature of
existence.
Wherever he turned his eyes, he found only one great reality: the
law of suffering, the unsatisfactoriness of all forms of existence. He
understood that the destiny of beings is not the outcome of mere blind
chance, nor does it depend upon the arbitrary action of an imaginary
creator, but that our destiny is to be traced back to our own former
actions, or kamma. He beheld the sick and the leper, and he saw in
their misery and suffering only the result of actions, or kamma, done
in former lives. He beheld the blind and the lame, and he saw in their
debility and helplessness only the painful harvest of seeds sown by
themselves in former lives. He beheld the rich and the poor, the happy
and the unhappy; and wherever he turned his eyes, there he saw this
law of retribution, the moral law of cause and effect, the Dhamma.
FOUR NOBLE TRUTHS:
This Dhamma, or universal moral law discovered by the Buddha, is
summed up in the Four Noble Truths: the truths about the universal
sway of suffering, about its origin, its extinction, and the path
leading to its extinction.
(I) The First Truth, about the universality of //suffering//,
teaches, in short, that all forms of existence are of necessity
subject to suffering.
(II) The Second Truth, about the //origin of suffering//, teaches
that all suffering is rooted in selfish //craving// and //ignorance//,
in //tanha// and //avijja//. It further explains the cause of this
seeming injustice in nature, by teaching that nothing in the world can
come into existence without reason or cause; and that not only all our
latent tendencies, but our whole destiny, all weal and woe, results
from causes which we have to seek partly in this life, partly in
former states of existence.
The second truth further teaches us that the future life, with all
its weal and woe, must result from the seeds sown in this and former
lives.
(III) The Third Truth, or the truth about the //extinction of
suffering//, shows how, through the extinction of craving and
ignorance, all suffering will vanish and liberation from this Samsara
be attained.
(IV) The Fourth Truth shows the way, or the means by which this
goal is reached. It is the Noble Eightfold Path of right
understanding, right thought, right speech, right bodily action, right
livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration of
mind.
From these Four Noble Truths we shall pick out and clear up such
points as are essential for a general knowledge of the Dhamma. In
doing so, we shall at the same time refute a number of widespread
prejudices concerning the Buddha's teaching.
EIGHTFOLD NOBLE PATH:
Let us, however, first outline the Noble Eightfold Path, for it is
this path of righteousness and wisdom that really constitutes the
//essence of Buddhist practice// -- the mode of living and thinking to
be followed by any true follower of the Buddha.
(1) The first stage of the Eightfold Path is, as already stated,
Right Understanding, i.e. understanding the true nature of
existence, and the moral laws governing the same. In other words, it
is the right understanding of the Dhamma, i.e. of the Four Noble
Truths.
(2) The second stage of the Eightfold Path is Right Thought,
i.e. a pure state of mind, free from sensual lust, from ill-will, and
from cruelty; in other words, thoughts of self-renunciation, of
goodness, and of mercy.
(3) The third stage is Right Speech. It consists of words which
are not false, not harsh, not scandalous, not frivolous, i.e. truthful
words, mild words, pacifying words, and wise words.
(4) The fourth stage is Right Bodily Action, i.e. abstaining
from intentional killing or harming of any living creature, abstaining
from dishonest taking of others' property, abstaining from adultery.
(5) The fifth stage is Right Livelihood, i.e. such a livelihood
as does not bring harm and suffering to other beings.
(6) The sixth stage is Right Effort. It is the fourfold effort
which we make in //overcoming// old and //avoiding// fresh bad actions
by body, speech and mind; and the effort which we make in
//developing// fresh actions of righteousness, inner peace and wisdom,
and in //cultivating// them to perfection.
(7) The seventh stage is Right Mindfulness, or alertness of
mind. It is the ever-ready mental clarity whatever we are doing,
speaking, or thinking and in keeping before our mind the realities of
existence, i.e. the impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and phenomenality
(//anicca//, //dukkha//, //anatta//) of all forms of existence.
(8) The eighth stage is Right Concentration of mind. Such a
kind of mental concentration is meant, as is directed towards a
morally wholesome object, and always bound up with right thought,
right effort and right mindfulness.
Thus the Eightfold Path is a path of morality (Sila), of mental
training (Samadhi), and of wisdom (Panna).
//Morality// therein is indicated by right speech, right bodily
action, and right livelihood. //Mental training// is indicated by
right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration of mind. And
//wisdom// is indicated by right understanding and right thought.
Thus this liberating Eightfold Path is a path of inner culture, of
inner progress. By merely external worship, mere ceremonies and
selfish prayers, one can never make any real progress in righteousness
and insight. The Buddha says: "Be your own isle of refuge, be your own
shelter, seek not for any other protection! Let the truth be your isle
of refuge, let the truth be your shelter, seek not after any other
protection!" To be of real effect, to ensure an absolute inner
progress, all our efforts must be based upon our own understanding and
insight. All absolute inward progress is rooted in right
understanding, and without right understanding there is no attainment
of perfection and of the unshakable peace of Nibbana.
Belief in the moral efficacy of mere external rite and ritual
(//silabbata-paramasa//) constitutes, according to the Buddha's
teaching, //a mighty obstacle to inner progress//. One who takes
refuge in mere external practices is on the wrong path. For, in order
to gain real inner progress, all our efforts must necessarily be based
on our own understanding and insight. Any real progress is rooted in
right understanding, and without right understanding there will be no
attainment of unshakable peace and holiness. Moreover, this blind
belief in mere external practices is the cause of much misery and
wretchedness in the world. It leads to mental stagnation, to
fanaticism and intolerance, to self-exaltation and contempt for
others, to contention, discord, war, strife and bloodshed, as the
history of the Middle Ages quite sufficiently testifies. This belief
in mere externals dulls and deadens one's power of thought, stifles
every higher emotion in man. It makes him a mental slave, and favours
the growth of all kinds of hypocrisy.
The Buddha has clearly and positively expressed himself on this
point. He says:
"The man enmeshed in delusion will never be purified through the mere study of holy books, or sacrifices to gods, or through fasts, or sleeping on the ground, or difficult and strenuous vigils, or the repetition of prayers. Neither gifts to priests, nor self-castigation, nor performance of rites and ceremonies can work purification in him who is filled with craving.
[The Buddha said that neither the repetition of holy scriptures, nor self-torture, nor sleeping on the ground, nor the repetition of prayers, penances, hymns, charms, mantras, incantations and invocations can bring us the real happiness of Nirvana.]
It is not through the partaking of meat or fish that man becomes impure, but through drunkenness, obstinacy, bigotry, deceit, envy, self-exaltation, disparagement of others and evil intentions -- through these things man becomes impure."
SEE ALSO:
DHAMMAPADA Chapter X, Verse 141
"There are two extremes: addiction to sensual enjoyment, and
addiction to bodily mortification. These two extremes the Perfect One
has rejected, and discovered the //Middle Path// which makes one both
to see and to know, which leads to peace, to penetration,
enlightenment and liberation. It is that Noble Eightfold Path leading
to the end of suffering, namely right understanding, right thought,
right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right
mindfulness, and right concentration of mind."
Inasmuch as the Buddha teaches that all genuine progress on the
path of virtue is necessarily dependent upon one's own understanding
and insight, all //dogmatism is excluded// from the Buddha's teaching.
//Blind faith// in authority is //rejected// by the Buddha, and is
entirely opposed to the spirit of his teaching. In the Kalama Sutta
the Buddha says:
Do not go merely by hearsay or tradition, by what has been handed
down from olden time, by rumours, by mere reasoning and logical
deductions, by outward appearances, by cherished opinions and
speculations, by mere possibilities, and do not believe merely
because I am your master. But when you yourselves have seen that
a thing is evil and leads to harm and suffering, then you should
reject it. And when you see that a thing is good and blameless,
and leads to blessing and welfare, then you should do such a
thing.
One who merely believes or repeats what others have found out, such
a one the Buddha compares with a blind man. One who desires to make
progress upon the path of deliverance must experience and understand
the truth for himself. Lacking one's own understanding, no absolute
progress is possible.
The teaching of the Buddha is perhaps the only religious teaching
that requires //no belief in traditions//, or in certain historical
events. It appeals solely to the understanding of each individual. For
wherever there are beings capable of thinking, there the truths
proclaimed by the Buddha may be understood and realized, without
regard to race, country, nationality or station in life. These truths
are universal, not bound up with any particular country, or any
particular epoch. And in everyone, even in the lowest, there lies
latent the capacity for seeing and realizing these truths, and
attaining to the Highest Perfection. And whosoever lives a noble life,
such a one has already tasted of the truth and, in greater or lesser
degree, travels on the Eightfold Path of Peace which all noble and
holy ones have trod, are treading now, and shall in future tread. The
universal laws of morality hold good without variation everywhere and
at all times, whether one may call oneself a Buddhist, Hindu,
Christian or Muslim, or by any other name.
It is the //inward condition// of a person and his deeds that
count, not a mere name. The true disciple of the Buddha is far removed
from all dogmatism. He is //a free thinker in the noblest sense of the
word//. He falls neither into positive nor negative dogmas, for he
knows: both are mere opinions, mere views, rooted in blindness and
self-deception. Therefore the Buddha has said of himself. "The Perfect
One is //free from any theory//, for the Perfect One //has seen//:
Thus is //corporeality//, thus it arises, thus it passes away; thus is
//feeling//, thus it arises, thus it passes away; thus is
//perception//, thus it arises, thus it passes away; thus are the
//mental formations//, thus they arise, thus they pass away; thus is
//consciousness//, thus it arises thus it passes away."
I. This important truth of the //phenomenality// and emptiness of
all existence can be, and ought to be, understood by everyone for
oneself.
According to the Buddha's teaching, our so-called individual
existence is in reality nothing but //a mere process of physical and
mental phenomena//, a process which since time immemorial was already
going on before one's apparent birth, and which also after death will
continue for immemorial periods of time. In the following we shall see
that the above five //khandhas//, or //groups of existence//, in no
way constitute any real ego-entity, or //atta//, and that no
ego-entity exists apart from them, and hence that //the belief in an
ego-entity is merely an illusion//.
That which we call our physical body is merely a name for a
combination of manifold component parts, and in reality constitutes no
entity, no personality. This is clear to everyone without further
argument. Everybody knows that the body is changing from moment to
moment, that old cells are continually breaking down and new ones
arising; in brief, that the body will be quite another body after a
few years, that nothing will have remained of the former flesh, bones,
blood, etc. Consequently, the body of the baby is not the body of the
school boy, and the body of the young man is not the body of the
grey-haired old man. Hence the body is not a persisting something, but
rather a continually changing process of arising and passing away,
consisting of a perpetual dying out and arising anew of cells. That,
however, which we call our mental life is a continually changing
process of feeling, perceptions, mental formations and states of
consciousness. At this moment a pleasant feeling arises, the next
moment a painful feeling; this moment one state of consciousness, the
next moment another. That which we call a being, an individual, a
person does not in itself, as such, possess any independent abiding
reality. In the absolute sense (//paramattha//) no individual, no
person, is there to be found, but merely perpetually changing
combinations of physical states, of feelings, volitions and states of
consciousness.
What we call "chariot" has no existence apart from and independent
of axle, wheels, shaft, etc. What we call "house" is merely a
convenient name for stone, wood, iron, etc., put together after a
certain fashion, so as to enclose a portion of space, but there is no
separate house-entity as such in existence.
In exactly the same way, that which we call a "being," or an
"individual," or "person," or by the name "I" or "he," etc., is
//nothing but a changing combination of physical and mental
phenomena//, and has no real existence in itself.
The words "I," "you," "he," etc., are merely terms found useful in
conventional or current (//vohara//) speech, but do not designate
realities (//paramattha-dhamma//). For neither do these physical and
mental phenomena constitute an absolute ego-entity, nor yet does there
exist, outside these phenomena, any ego-entity, self, or soul, who is
the possessor or owner of the same. Thus, when the Buddhist scriptures
speak of persons, or even of the rebirth of persons, this is done only
for the sake of easier understanding, and is not to be taken in the
sense of ultimate truth. This so-called "being," or "I," is in the
absolute sense nothing but a perpetually changing process. Therefore
also, to speak of the suffering of a "person," or "being," is in the
absolute sense incorrect. For it is //not a "person," but a
physico-mental process// that is subject to transiency and suffering.
In the absolute sense there are only numberless processes,
countless life-waves, in this vast ever-surging ocean of bodily
states, of feelings, perceptions, volitions and states of
consciousness. Within these phenomena there exists nothing that is
persistent, not even for the brief span of two consecutive moments.
These phenomena have merely momentary duration. They die every
moment, and every moment new phenomena are born; a perpetual dying and
coming to birth, a ceaseless heaving of waves up and down. All is in a
state of perpetual flux; "//panta rhei//" -- //all things are
flowing// -- says the Greek philosopher Heraclitus. The old forms fall
to pieces, and new ones are born. One feeling disappears, another
appears in its place. One state of consciousness exists this moment,
another the following moment. Everywhere is found a perpetual change
of material and mental phenomena. In this way, moment follows upon
moment, day upon day, year upon year, life upon life. And so this
ceaselessly changing process goes on for thousands, even aeons of
years. An eternally surging sea of feelings, perceptions, volitions
and states of consciousness: such is existence, such is Samsara, the
world of arising and passing away, of growing and decaying, a world of
sorrow, misery, lamentation and despair.
Without a real insight into this phenomenality, or //egolessness//
(//anatta//) or //impersonality// of all existence, it will be
impossible to understand the Four Noble Truths rightly.
II. In this connection let us come back to the second noble truth,
the origin of suffering, rooted in selfish craving and ignorance
(//tanha// and //avijja//). In order to understand this truth better,
it will be necessary to speak of a doctrine which so often is wrongly
interpreted and misunderstood. It is the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth
(see Chapter II). With regard to this teaching, Buddhism is often
accused of self-contradiction. Thus it is said that Buddhism on the
one hand denies the existence of the soul, while on the other hand it
teaches the transmigration of the soul. Nothing could be more mistaken
than this. For //Buddhism teaches no transmigration at all//. The
Buddhist doctrine of rebirth -- which is really the same as the //law
of causality// extended to the mental and moral domain -- has nothing
whatever to do with the brahmin doctrine of reincarnation, or
transmigration. There exists a fundamental difference between these
two doctrines.
According to the brahmanical teaching, there exists a soul
independently of the body which, after death, leaves its physical
envelope and passes over into a new body, exactly as one might throw
off an old garment and put on a new one. Quite otherwise, however, is
it with the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth. Buddhism does not recognize
in this world any existence of mind apart from matter. //All mental
phenomena are conditioned// through the six organs of sense, and
without these they cannot exist. According to Buddhism, //mind without
matter is an impossibility//. And, as we have seen, the mental
phenomena, just as all bodily phenomena, are subject to change, and no
persisting element, no ego-entity, no soul, is there to be found. But
where there is no real unchanging entity, no soul, there one cannot
speak of the transmigration of such a thing.
How then is rebirth possible without something to be reborn,
without an ego, or soul? Here I have to point out that even the word
"rebirth," in this connection, is really not quite correct, but used
as a mere makeshift. What the Buddha teaches is, correctly speaking,
the //law of cause and effect// working in the moral domain. For just
as everything in the physical world happens in accordance with law, as
the arising of any physical state is dependent on some preceding state
as its cause, in just the same way must this law have universal
application in the mental and moral domain too. If every physical
state is preceded by another state as its cause, so also must //this
present physico-mental life be dependent upon causes anterior to its
birth//. Thus, according to Buddhism, the present life-process is the
result of the craving for life in a former birth, and the craving for
life in this birth is the cause of the life-process that continues
after death.
But, as there is nothing that persists from one moment of
consciousness to the next, so also no abiding element exists in this
ever changing life-process that can pass over from one life to
another.
//Nothing transmigrates// from this moment to the next, nothing
from one life to another life. This process of continually producing
and being produced may best be compared with a wave on the ocean. In
the case of a wave there is not the smallest quantity of water that
actually travels over the surface of the sea. The wave-structure that
seems to hasten over the surface of the water, though creating the
appearance of one and the same mass of water, is in reality nothing
but a continued rising and falling of ever new masses of water. And
the rising and falling is produced by the transmission of force
originally generated by wind. Just so the Buddha did not teach that it
is an ego-entity, or a soul, that hastens through the ocean of
rebirth, but that it is in reality merely a life-wave which, according
to its nature and activities, appears here as man, there as animal,
and elsewhere as invisible being.
III. There is another teaching of the Buddha which often gives rise
to serious misunderstanding. It is the teaching of //Nibbana, or the
extinction of suffering//. This third noble truth points out that,
through the cessation of all selfish craving and all ignorance, of
necessity all suffering comes to an end, to extinction, and no new
rebirth will take place. For if the seed is destroyed, it can never
sprout again. If the selfish craving that clutches convulsively at
life is destroyed, then, after death, there can never again take place
a fresh shooting up, a continuation of this process of existence, a
so-called rebirth. Where, however, there is no birth, there can be no
death. Where there is no arising, there can be no passing away. Where
no life exists, no suffering can exist. Now, because with the
extinction of all selfish craving, all its concurrent phenomena, such
as conceit, self-seeking, greed, hate, anger and cruelty, come to
extinction, this freedom from selfish craving signifies //the highest
state of selflessness, wisdom and holiness//.
Now this fact -- that after the death of the Holy One, the Arahat,
this physico-mental life-process no longer continues -- is erroneously
believed by many to be identical with annihilation of self,
annihilation of a real being, and it is therefore maintained that the
goal of Buddhism is simply annihilation. Against such a misleading
statement one must enter an emphatic protest. How is it ever possible
to speak of the annihilation of a self, or soul, or ego, where no such
thing is to be found? We have seen that in reality there does not
exist any ego-entity, or soul, and therefore also no "transmigration"
of such a thing into a new mother's womb.
That bodily process starting anew in the mother's womb is in no way
a continuation of a former bodily process, but merely a result, or
effect, caused by selfish craving and clinging to life of the
so-called dying individual. Thus one who says that the non-producing
of any new life-process is identical with annihilation of a self,
should also say that abstention from sexual intercourse is identical
with annihilation of a child -- which, of course, is absurd.
Here, once more, we may expressly emphasize that without a clear
perception of the phenomenality or egolessness (//anatta//) of all
existence, it will be impossible to obtain a real understanding of the
Buddha's teaching, especially that of rebirth and Nibbana. This
teaching of //anatta// is in fact //the only characteristic Buddhist
doctrine//, with which the entire teaching stands or falls.
IV. A further reproach, so often heard against Buddhism, that it is
a gloomy and "pessimistic" teaching, proves entirely unfounded by the
statements already made. For, as we have seen, the Buddha not only
discloses and explains the fact of misery, but he also shows the way
to find total release from it. In view of this fact, one is rather
entitled to call //the Buddha's teaching the boldest optimism ever
proclaimed to the world.//
Truly, Buddhism is a teaching that //assures hope, comfort and
happiness//, even to the most unfortunate. It is a teaching that
offers, even to the most wretched of criminals, prospects of final
perfection and peace, and this, not through blind belief, or prayers,
or asceticism, or outward ceremonies, rites and rituals, but through
walking and earnestly persevering on that Noble Eightfold Path of
inward perfection, purity and emancipation of heart, consisting in
right understanding, right thought, right speech, right bodily action,
right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right
concentration and peace of mind.
The Noble Eightfold Path
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-+
1. Right Understanding | ---- Wisdom
2. Right Thought |
-+
-+
3. Right Speech |
4. Right Bodily Action | ---- Morality
5. Right Livelihood |
-+
-+
6. Right Effort |
7. Right Mindfulness | ---- Concentration
8. Right Concentration |
-+
* * * * * * * *
II
KAMMA AND REBIRTH
When beholding this world and thinking about the destinies of beings,
it will appear to most people as if everything in nature was unjust.
Why, they will say, is one person rich and powerful, but another
person poor and distressed? Why is one person all his life well and
healthy, but another person from his very birth sickly or infirm? Why
is one person endowed with attractive appearance, intelligence and
perfect senses, while another person is repulsive and ugly, an idiot,
blind, or deaf and dumb? Why is one child born amid utter misery and
among wretched people, and brought up as a criminal, while another
child is born in the midst of plenty and comfort, of noble-minded
parents, and enjoys all the advantages of kindly treatment and the
best mental and moral education, and sees nothing but good things all
around? Why does one person, often without the slightest effort,
succeed in all his enterprises, while to another person all his plans
fail? Why do some live in luxury, while others have to live in poverty
and distress? Why is one person happy, but another person unhappy? Why
does one person enjoy long life, while another person in the prime of
life is carried away by death? Why is this so? Why do such differences
exist in nature?
Christianity does not provide us with any reasonable answer to
these questions, nor does it try to find an explanation for them.
Quite to the contrary! Take, for example, the poor, wretched child,
born in misery and among criminals, and actually trained to become a
criminal. Under such circumstances, and without the slightest moral
advice, will such a being ever be able to distinguish between moral
and immoral, between crime and virtue? No, under such conditions the
only way open for him is to become a criminal. And of such a poor and
pitiable being Christianity says -- apart from his present misery and
suffering -- that it is destined after death to eternal punishment in
hell. Could there be found in this world anything more unjust and
cruel than this kind of thinking? It is really the worst form of
fatalism and injustice! For how could a being under those conditions
ever be made responsible for his deeds? Now, as to the question why
such differences exist in the destiny of beings, this question is
satisfactorily answered solely by Buddhism.
Of all those circumstances and conditions constituting the destiny
of a being, none, according to the Buddha's Teaching, can come into
existence without a previous cause and the presence of a number of
necessary conditions. Just as, for example, from a rotten mango seed a
healthy mango tree with healthy and sweet fruits never will come, just
so the evil volitional actions, or evil kamma, produced in former
births, are the seeds, or root-causes, of an evil destiny in a later
birth. It is a necessary postulate of thinking that the good and bad
destiny of a being, as well as its latent character, cannot be the
product of mere chance, but must of necessity have its causes in a
previous birth.
According to Buddhism, no organic entity, physical or psychical,
can come into existence without a previous cause, i.e. without a
preceding congenial state out of which it has developed. Also, no
living organic entity can ever be produced by something altogether
outside of it. It can originate only out of itself, i.e. it must have
already existed in the bud, or germ, as it were. To be sure, besides
this cause, or root-condition, or seed, there are still many minor
conditions required for its actual arising and its development, just
as the mango tree besides its main cause, the seed, requires for its
germinating, growth and development such further conditions as earth,
water, light, heat, etc. Thus the true cause of the birth of a being,
together with its character and destiny, goes back to the
kamma-volitions produced in a former birth.
According to Buddhism, there are three factors necessary for the
rebirth of a human being, that is, for the formation of the embryo in
the mother's womb. They are: the female ovum, the male sperm, and the
karma-energy (//kamma-vega//), which in the Suttas is metaphorically
called "//gandhabba//," i.e. "ghost," or "soul." This kamma-energy is
sent forth by a dying individual at the moment of his death. The
father and mother only provide the necessary physical material for the
formation of the embryonic body. With regard to the characteristic
features, the tendencies and faculties lying latent in the embryo, the
Buddha's teaching may be explained in the following way: The dying
individual, with his whole being convulsively clinging to life, at the
very moment of his death sends forth kammic energies which, like a
flash of lightning, hit at a new mother's womb ready for conception.
Thus, through the impinging of the kamma-energies on ovum and sperm,
there appears just as a precipitate the so-called primary cell.
This process may be compared with the functioning of the
air-vibrations produced through speech, which, by impinging on the
acoustic organ of another man, produce a sound, which is a purely
subjective sensation. On this occasion no transmigration of a
sound-sensation takes place, but simply a transference of energy,
called the air vibrations. In a similar way, the kamma-energies, sent
out by the dying individual, produce from the material furnished by
the parents the new embryonic being. But no transmigration of a real
being, or a soul-entity, takes place on that occasion, but simply the
transmission of kamma-energy.
Hence we may say that the present life-process (//upapatti-bhava//)
is the objectification of the corresponding pre-natal kamma-process
(//kamma-bhava//), and that the future life-process is the
objectification of the corresponding present kamma-process. Thus
nothing transmigrates from one life to the next. And what we call our
ego is in reality only this process of continual change, of continual
arising and passing away. Thus follows moment after moment, day after
day, year after year, life after life. Just as the wave that
apparently hastens over the surface of the pond is in reality nothing
but a continuous rising and falling of ever new masses of water, each
time called forth through the transmission of energy, even so, closely
considered, in the ultimate sense there is no permanent ego-entity
that passes through the ocean of Samsara, but merely a process of
physical and psychical phenomena takes place, ever and again being
whipped up by the impulse and will for life.
It is undoubtedly true that the mental condition of the parents at
the moment of conception has a considerable influence upon the
character of the embryonic being, and that the nature of the mother
may make a deep impression on the character of the child she bears in
her womb. The indivisible unity of the psychic individuality of the
child, however, can in no way be produced by the parents. One must
here never confound the actual cause -- the preceding state out of
which the later state arises -- with the influences and conditions
from without. If it were really the case that the new individual, as
an inseparable whole, was begotten by its parents, twins could never
exhibit totally opposite tendencies. In such a case, children,
especially twins, would, with positively no exception, always be found
to possess the same character as the parents.
At all times, and in probably all the countries on earth, the
belief in rebirth has been held by many people; and this belief seems
to be due to an intuitional instinct that lies dormant in all beings.
At all times many great thinkers too have taught a continuation of
life after death. Already from time immemorial there was taught some
form of metempsychosis, i.e. "transformation of soul," or
metamorphosis, i.e. "transformation of body," etc., thus by the
esoteric doctrines of old Egypt, by Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato,
Plotinus, Pindaros, Vergil, also by the African negroes. Many modern
thinkers too teach a continuation of the life-process after death.
The great German scientist Edgar Dacque, in his book //The Primeval
World, Saga and Mankind//, speaking about the widespread belief shared
by all peoples of the world in a transmigration after death, gives the
following warning:
Peoples with culture and acquaintance with science, such as the
old Egyptians and wise Indians, acted and lived in accordance
with this belief. They lost this belief only after the rise of
the naively realistic and rationalistic Hellenism and Judaism.
For this reason it would be better, concerning this problem, not
to assume the bloodless attitude of modern sham-civilization, but
rather adopt a reverential attitude in trying to solve this
problem and grasp it in its profundity.
This law of rebirth can be made comprehensible only by the
subconscious life-stream (in Pali, //bhavanga-sota//), which is
mentioned in the Abhidhamma Pitaka and further explained in the
commentaries, especially the //Visuddhimagga//. The fundamental import
of //bhavanga-sota//, or the subconscious life-stream, as a working
hypothesis for the explanation of the various Buddhist doctrines, such
as rebirth, kamma, remembrance of former births, etc., has up to now
not yet sufficiently been recognized, or understood, by Western
scholars. The term //bhavanga-sota//, is identical with what the
modern psychologists, such as Jung, etc., call the soul, or the
unconscious, thereby not meaning, of course, the eternal soul-entity
of Christian teaching but an ever-changing subconscious process. This
subconscious life-stream is the necessary condition of all life. In
it, all impressions and experiences are stored up, or better said,
appear as a multiple process of past images, or memory pictures, which
however, as such, are hidden to full consciousness, but which,
especially in dreams, cross the threshold of consciousness and make
themselves fully conscious.
Professor James (whose words I here retranslate from the German
version) says: "Many achievements of genius have here their beginning.
In conversion, mystical experience, and as prayer, it co-operates with
religious life. It contains all momentarily inactive reminiscences and
sources of all our dimly motivated passions, impulses, intuitions,
hypotheses, fancies, superstitions; in short, all our non-rational
operations result therefrom. It is the source of dreams, etc."
Jung, in his //Soul Problems of the Present Day//, says: "From the
living source of instinct springs forth everything creative." And in
another place: "Whatever has been created by the human mind, results
from contents which were really unconscious (or subconscious) germs."
And: "The term 'instinct' is of course nothing but a collective term
for all possible organic and psychic factors, whose nature is for the
greater part unknown to us."
The existence of the subconscious life-stream, or
//bhavanga-sota//, is a necessary postulate of our thinking. If
whatever we have seen, heard, felt, perceived, thought, experienced
and done were not, without exception, registered somewhere and in some
way, either in the extremely complex nervous system (comparable to a
phonograph record or photographic plate) or in the subconscious or
unconscious, we would not even be able to remember what we were
thinking at the preceding moment; we would not know anything of the
existence of other beings and things; we would not know our parents,
teachers, friends, and so on; we would not even be able to think at
all, as thinking is conditioned by the remembrance of former
experiences; and our mind would be a complete //tabula rasa// and
emptier than the actual mind of an infant just born, nay even of the
embryo in the mother's womb.
Thus this subconscious life-stream, or //bhavanga-sota//, can be
called the precipitate of all our former actions and experiences,
which must have been going on since time immemorial and must continue
for still immeasurable periods of time to come. Therefore what
constitutes the true and innermost nature of man, or any other being,
is this subconscious life-stream, of which we do not know whence it
came and whither it will go. As Heraclitus says: "We never enter the
same stream. We are identical with it, and we are not." Just so it is
said in the //Milindapanha//: "//na ca so, na ca anno//; neither is it
the same, nor is it another (that is reborn)." All life, be it
corporeal, conscious or subconscious, is a flowing, a continual
process of becoming, change and transformation. No persistent element
is there to be discovered in this process. Hence there is no permanent
ego, or personality, to be found, but merely these transitory
phenomena.
About this unreality of the ego, the Hungarian psychologist
Volgyesi in his //Message to the Nervous World// says:
Under the influence of the newest knowledge the psychologists
already begin to realize the truth about the delusive nature of
the ego-entity, the mere relative value of the ego-feeling, the
great dependency of this tiny man on the inexhaustible and
complex working factors of the whole world. ... The idea of an
independent ego, and of a self-reliant free will: these ideas we
should give up and reconcile ourselves to the truth that there
does not exist any real ego at all. What we take for our
ego-feeling, is in reality nothing but one of the most wonderful
//fata-morgana// plays of nature.
In the ultimate sense, there do not even exist such things as
mental states, i.e. stationary things. Feeling, perception,
consciousness, etc., are in reality mere passing processes of feeling,
perceiving, becoming conscious, etc., within which and outside of
which no separate or permanent entity lies hidden.
Thus a real understanding of the Buddha's doctrine of kamma and
rebirth is possible only to one who has caught a glimpse of the
egoless nature, or //anattata//, and of the conditionality, or
//idappaccayata//, of all phenomena of existence. Therefore it is said
in the //Visuddhimagga// (Chap. XIX):
Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple
sees only mental and corporeal phenomena kept going through the
concatenation of causes and effects. No producer of the
volitional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma, no
recipient of the kamma-result apart from the result. And he is
well aware that wise men are using merely conventional language,
when, with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or
with regard to a kamma-result, they speak of the recipient of the
result.
No doer of the deeds is found,
No one who ever reaps their fruits;
Empty phenomena roll on:
This only is the correct view.
And while the deeds and their results
Roll on and on, conditioned all,
There is no first beginning found,
Just as it is with seed and tree. ...
No god, no Brahma, can be called
The maker of this wheel of life:
Empty phenomena roll on,
Dependent on conditions all.
In the //Milindapanha// the King asks Nagasena:
"What is it, Venerable Sir, that will be reborn?"
"A psycho-physical combination (//nama-rupa//), O King."
"But how, Venerable Sir? Is it the same psycho-physical
combination as this present one?"
"No, O King. But the present psycho-physical combination produces
kammically wholesome and unwholesome volitional activities, and
through such kamma a new psycho-physical combination will be
born."
As in the ultimate sense (//paramatthavasena//) there is no such
thing as a real ego-entity, or personality, one cannot properly speak
of the rebirth of such a one. What we are here concerned with is this
psycho-physical process, which is cut off at death, in order to
continue immediately thereafter somewhere else.
Similarly we read in the //Milindapanha//:
"Does, Venerable Sir, rebirth take place without transmigration?"
"Yes, O King."
"But how, Venerable Sir, can rebirth take place without the
passing over of anything? Please, illustrate this matter for me."
"If, O King, a man should light a lamp with the help of another
lamp, does the light of the one lamp pass over to the other
lamp?"
"No, Venerable Sir."
"Just so, O King, does rebirth take place without
transmigration."
Further, in the //Visuddhimagga// (Chap. XVII) it is said:
Whosoever has no clear idea about death and does not know that
death consists in the dissolution of the five groups of existence
(i.e. corporeality, feeling, perception, mental formations,
consciousness), he thinks that it is a person, or being, that
dies and transmigrates to a new body, etc. And whosoever has no
clear idea about rebirth, and does not know that rebirth consists
in the arising of the five groups of existence, he thinks that it
is a person, or being, that is reborn, or that the person
reappears in a new body. And whosoever has no clear idea about
Samsara, the round of rebirths, he thinks that a real person
wanders from this world to another world, comes from that world
to this world, etc. And whosoever has no clear idea about the
phenomena of existence, he thinks that the phenomena are his ego
or something appertaining to the ego, or something permanent,
joyful, or pleasant. And whosoever has no clear idea about the
conditional arising of the phenomena of existence, and about the
arising of kammic volitions conditioned through ignorance, he
thinks that it is the ego that understands or fails to
understand, that acts or causes to act, that enters into a new
existence at rebirth. Or he thinks that the atoms or the Creator,
etc., with the help of the embryonic process, shape the body,
provide it with various faculties; that it is the ego that
receives the sensuous impression, that feels, that desires, that
becomes attached, that enters into existence again in another
world. Or he thinks that all beings come to life through fate or
chance.
A mere phenomenon it is, a thing conditioned,
That rises in the following existence.
But not from a previous life does it transmigrate there,
And yet it cannot rise without a previous cause.
When this conditionally arisen bodily-mental phenomenon (the
fetus) arises, one says that it has entered into (the next)
existence. However, no being (//satta//), or life-principle
(//jiva//), has transmigrated from the previous existence into
this existence, and yet this embryo could not have come into
existence without a previous cause.
This fact may be compared with the reflection of one's face in the
mirror, or with the calling forth of an echo by one's voice. Now, just
as the image in the mirror or the echo are produced by one's face or
voice without any passing over of face or voice, just so it is with
the arising of rebirth-consciousness. Should there exist a full
identity or sameness between the earlier and the later birth, in that
case milk could never turn into curd; and should there exist an entire
otherness, curd could never be conditioned through milk. Therefore one
should admit neither a full identity, nor an entire otherness of the
different stages of existence. Hence //na ca so, na ca anno//:
"neither is it the same, nor is it another one." As already said
above: all life, be it corporeal, conscious or subconscious, is a
flowing, a continual process of becoming, change and transformation.
To sum up the foregoing, we may say: There are in the ultimate
sense no real beings or things, neither creators nor created; there is
but this process of corporeal and mental phenomena. This whole process
of existence has an active side and a passive side. The active or
causal side of existence consists of the kamma-process
(//kamma-bhava//), i.e. of wholesome and unwholesome kamma-activity,
while the passive or caused side consists of kamma-results, or
//vipaka//, the so-called rebirth-process (//upapatti-bhava//), i.e.
the arising, growing, decaying and passing away of all these
kammically neutral phenomena of existence.
Thus, in the absolute sense, there exists no real being that
wanders through this round of rebirths, but merely this ever-changing
twofold process of kamma-activities and kamma-results takes place. The
present life is, as it were, the reflection of the past one, and the
future life the reflection of the present one. The present life is the
result of the past kammic activity, and the future life the result of
the present kammic activity. Therefore, nowhere is there to be found
an ego-entity that could be the performer of the kammic activity or
the recipient of the kamma-result. Hence Buddhism does not teach any
real transmigration, as in the highest sense there is no such thing as
a being, or ego-entity, much less the transmigration of such a one.
In every person, as already mentioned, there seems to lie dormant
the dim instinctive feeling that death cannot be the end of all
things, but that somehow continuation must follow. In which way this
may be, however, is not immediately clear.
It is perhaps quite true that a direct proof for rebirth cannot be
given. We have, however, the authentic reports about children in Burma
and elsewhere, who sometimes are able to remember quite distinctly
(probably in dreams) events of their previous life. By the way, what
we see in dreams are mostly distorted reflexes of real things and
happenings experienced in this or a previous life. And how could we
ever explain the birth of such prodigies as Jeremy Bentham, who
already in his fourth year could read and write Latin and Greek; or
John Stuart Mill, who at the age of three read Greek and at the age of
six wrote a history of Rome; or Babington Macaulay, who in his sixth
year wrote a compendium of world history; or Beethoven, who gave
public concerts when he was seven; or Mozart, who already before his
sixth year had written musical compositions; or Voltaire, who read the
fables of Lafontaine when he was three years old. Should all these
prodigies and geniuses, who for the most part came from illiterate
parents, not already in previous births have laid the foundations to
their extraordinary faculties? "//Natura non facit saltus//: nature
makes no leaps."
How could we further explain that a child of righteous and bodily
and mentally healthy parents and ancestors, sometimes already
immediately after birth, shows signs of the criminal type, of criminal
tendencies, perceptible by the shape of the skull, by facial
expression, by attitude, movement, etc., recognizable to
phrenologists, physiognomists, etc.?
In any case, we may rightly state that the Buddhist doctrine of
kamma and rebirth offers the only plausible explanation for all the
variations and dissimilarities in nature. From the apple seed only an
apple tree may come, no mango tree; from a mango seed only a mango
tree, no apple tree. Just so, all animate things, as man, animal,
etc., probably even plants, nay even crystals, must of necessity be
manifestations or objectifications of some specific kind of
subconscious impulse or will for life. Buddhism says nothing on the
last-mentioned points; it simply states that all vegetable life
belongs to the germinal order, or //bija-niyama//.
Buddhism teaches that if in previous births the bodily, verbal and
mental kamma, or volitional activities, have been evil and low and
thus have unfavourably influenced the subconscious life-stream
(//bhavanga-sota//), then also the results, manifested in the present
life, must be disagreeable and evil; and so must be the character and
the new actions induced or conditioned through the evil pictures and
images of the subconscious life-stream. If the beings, however, have
in former lives sown good seeds, then they will reap good fruits in
the present life.
In Majjhima Nikaya 135 a brahmin raises the problem:
There are found people who are short-lived, and those that are
long-lived; there are found people who are very sick, and those
that are healthy; there are found people who are hideous, and
those that are beautiful; there are found people who are
powerless, and those that are powerful; there are found people
who are poor, and those that are rich; there are found people who
are of low family, and those that are of high family; there are
found people who are stupid, and those that are intelligent. What
then, Master Gotama, is the reason that among human beings such
inferiority and superiority are found?
The Blessed One gave the reply:
Beings are owners of their kamma, heirs of their kamma; kamma is
the womb from which they have sprung, kamma is their friend and
refuge. Thus kamma divides beings into the high and low.
In Anguttara Nikaya III,40 it is said: "Killing, stealing,
adultery, lying, backbiting, harsh speech and empty prattling,
practised, cultivated and frequently engaged in, will lead to hell,
the animal world or the realm of ghosts." Further: "Whoso kills and is
cruel, will either go to hell, or if reborn as a human, will be
short-lived. Whoso tortures other beings, will be afflicted with
disease. The hater will be hideous, the envious will be without
influence, the stubborn will be of low rank, the indolent will be
ignorant." In the reverse case, a person will be reborn in a heavenly
world; or, if reborn as a human being, will be endowed with health,
beauty, influence, riches, noble rank and intelligence.
George Grimm, in his book //The Doctrine of the Buddha//, tries to
show how the law of affinity may at the moment of death regulate the
grasping of the new germ. He says:
Whoso, devoid of compassion can kill men, or even animals,
carries deep within himself the inclination to shorten life. He
finds satisfaction, or even pleasure, in the short-livedness of
other creatures. Short-lived germs have therefore some affinity
for him, an affinity which makes itself known after his death in
the grasping of another germ, which then takes place to his own
detriment. Even so, germs bearing within themselves the power of
developing into a deformed body, have an affinity for one who
finds pleasure in ill-treating and disfiguring other.
Any angry person begets within himself an affinity for ugly
bodies and their respective germs, since it is the characteristic
mark of anger to disfigure the face.
Whoever is jealous, niggardly, haughty, carries within himself
the tendency to grudge everything to others, and to despise them.
Accordingly, germs that are destined to develop in poor outward
circumstances, possess affinity for him.
Here I should like to rectify several wrong applications of the
term "kamma" prevailing in the West, and to state once for all: Pali
//kamma//, comes from the root //kar//, to do, to make, to act, and
thus means "deed, action," etc. As a Buddhist technical term, kamma is
a name for wholesome and unwholesome volition or will (//kusala//- and
//akusala//-cetana//) and the consciousness and mental factors
associated therewith, manifested as bodily, verbal or mere mental
action. Already in the Suttas it is said: "Volition (//cetana//),
monks, do I call kamma. Through volition one does the kamma by means
of body, speech or mind" (//cetanaham bhikkhave kammam vadami;
cetayitva kammam karoti kayena vacaya manasa//). Thus kamma is
volitional action, nothing more, nothing less.
From this fact result the following three statements:
1. The term "kamma" never comprises the result of action, as most
people in the West, misled by Theosophy, wish this term to be
understood. Kamma is wholesome or unwholesome volitional action and
//kamma-vipaka// is the result of action.
2. There are some who consider every happening, even our new
wholesome and unwholesome actions, as the result of our prenatal
kamma. In other words, they believe that the results again become the
causes of new results, and so //ad infinitum//. Thus they are stamping
Buddhism as fatalism; and they will have to come to the conclusion
that, in this case, our destiny can never be influenced or changed,
and no deliverance ever be attained.
3. There is a third wrong application of the term "kamma," being an
amplification of the first view, i.e. that the term "kamma" comprises
also the result of action. It is the assumption of a so-called joint
kamma, mass-kamma, or group-kamma, or collective kamma. According to
this view, a group of people, e.g. a nation, should be responsible for
the bad deeds formerly done by this so-called "same" people. In
reality, however, this present people may not consist at all of the
same individuals who did these bad deeds. According to Buddhism it is
of course quite true that anybody who suffers bodily, suffers for his
past or present bad deeds. Thus also each of those individuals born
within that suffering nation must, if actually suffering bodily, have
done evil somewhere, here or in one of the innumerable spheres of
existence, but he may not have had anything to do with the bad deeds
of the so-called nation. We might say that through his evil kamma he
was attracted to the hellish condition befitting him. In short, the
term "kamma" applies, in each instance, only to wholesome and
unwholesome volitional activity of the single individual. Kamma thus
forms the cause, or seed, from which the results will accrue to the
individual, be it in this life or hereafter. [1]
Hence man has it in his power to shape his future destiny by means
of his will and actions. It depends on his actions, or kamma, whether
his destiny will lead him up or down, either to happiness or to
misery. Moreover, kamma is the cause and seed not only for the
continuation of the life-process after death, i.e. for the so-called
rebirth, but already in this present life-process our actions, or
kamma, may produce good and bad results, and exercise a decisive
influence on our present character and destiny. Thus, for instance, if
day by day we are practising kindness towards all living beings,
humans as well as animals, we will grow in goodness, while hatred, and
all evil actions done through hatred, as well as all the evil and
agonizing mental states produced thereby, will not so easily rise
again in us; and our nature and character will become firm, happy,
peaceful and calm.
If we practise unselfishness and liberality, greed and avarice will
become less. If we practise love and kindness, anger and hatred will
vanish. If we develop wisdom and knowledge, ignorance and delusion
will more and more disappear. The less greed, hatred and ignorance
(//lobha//, //dosa//, //moha//) dwell in our hearts, the less will we
commit evil and unwholesome actions of body, speech and mind. For all
evil things, and all evil destiny, are really rooted in greed, hate
and ignorance; and of these three things ignorance or delusion
(//moha, avijja//) is the chief root and the primary cause of all evil
and misery in the world. If there is no more ignorance, there will be
no more greed and hatred, no more rebirth, no more suffering.
This goal, however, in the ultimate sense, will be realized only by
the Holy Ones (Arahats), i.e. by those who, forever and all time, are
freed from these three roots; and this is accomplished through the
penetrating insight, or //vipassana//, into the impermanency,
unsatisfactoriness and egolessness of this whole life-process, and
through the detachment from all forms of existence resulting
therefrom. As soon as greed, hate and ignorance have become fully and
forever extinguished, and thereby the will for life, convulsively
clinging to existence, and the thirsting for life have come to an end,
then there will be no more rebirth, and there will have been realized
the goal shown by the Enlightened One, namely: extinction of all
rebirth and suffering. Thus, the Arahat performs no more kamma, i.e.
no more kammically wholesome or unwholesome volitional actions. He is
freed from this life-affirming will expressed in bodily actions, words
or thoughts, freed from this seed, or cause, of all existence and
life.
Now what is called character is in reality the sum of these
subconscious tendencies produced partly by the prenatal, partly by the
present volitional activity, or kamma. And these tendencies may,
during life, become an inducement to wholesome or unwholesome
volitional activity by body, speech or mind. If, however, this thirst
for life rooted in ignorance is fully extinguished, then there will be
no new entering again into existence. Once the root of a coconut tree
has been fully destroyed, the tree will die off. In exactly the same
way, there will be no entering again into a new existence once the
life-affirming three evil roots -- greed, hate and ignorance -- have
been forever destroyed. Here one should not forget that all such
personal expressions as "I," "He," "Holy One," etc., are merely
conventional names for this really impersonal life-process.
In this connection I have to state that, according to Buddhism, it
is merely the last kammical volition just before death, the so-called
death-proximate kamma, that decides the immediately following rebirth.
In Buddhist countries it is therefore the custom to recall to the
dying man's memory the good actions performed by him, in order to
rouse in him a happy and pure kammical state of mind, as a preparation
for a favourable rebirth. Or his relations let him see beautiful
things which they, for his good and benefit, wish to offer to the
Buddha, saying: "This, my dear, we shall offer to the Buddha for your
good and welfare." Or they let him hear a religious sermon, or let him
smell the odour of flowers, or give him sweets to taste, or let him
touch precious cloth, saying: "This we shall offer to the Buddha for
your own good and welfare."
In the //Visuddhimagga// (Chap. XVII) it is said that, at the
moment before death, as a rule, there will appear to the memory of the
evil-doer the mental image of any evil deed, //kamma//, formerly done;
or that there will appear before his mental eyes an attendant
circumstance, or object, called //kamma-nimitta//, connected with that
bad deed, such as blood or a blood-stained dagger, etc.; or he may see
before his mind an indication of his imminent miserable rebirth,
//gati-nimitta//, such as fiery flames, etc. To another dying man
there may appear before his mind the image of a voluptuous object
inciting his sensual lust.
To a good man there may appear before his mind any noble deed,
//kamma//, formerly done by him; or an object that was present at that
time, the so-called //kamma-nimitta//; or he may see in his mind an
indication of his imminent rebirth, //gati-nimitta//, such as heavenly
palaces, etc.
Already in the Suttas there are distinguished three kinds of kamma,
or volitional actions, with regard to the time of their bearing fruit,
namely: (1) kamma bearing fruit in this life-time
(//ditthadhamma-vedaniya-kamma//); (2) kamma bearing fruit in the next
life (//upapajja-vedaniya-kamma//); (3) kamma bearing fruit in later
lives (//aparapariya-vedaniya-kamma//). The explanations of this
subject are somewhat too technical for the general reader. They imply
the following: The kamma-volitional stage of the process in mind
consists of a number of impulsive thought moments, or
//javana-citta//, which flash up, one after the other, in rapid
succession. Now, of these impulsive moments, the first one will bear
fruit in this life-time, the last one in the next birth, and those
between these two moments will bear fruit in later lives. The two
kinds of kamma bearing fruit in this life-time and in the next birth
may sometimes become ineffective (//ahosi-kamma//). Kamma, however,
that bears fruit in later lives will, whenever and wherever there is
an opportunity, be productive of kamma-result; and as long as this
life-process continues, this kamma will never become ineffective.
The //Visuddhimagga// divides kamma, according to its functions,
into four kinds: generative kamma, supportive kamma, counteractive
kamma and destructive kamma, which all may be either wholesome or
unwholesome.
Amongst these four kinds, the "generative" (//janaka-kamma//)
generates at rebirth, and during the succeeding life-continuity,
corporeal and neutral mental phenomena, such as the five kinds of
sense-consciousness and the mental factors associated therewith, such
as feeling, perception, sense-impression, etc.
The "supportive" (//upatthambhaka-kamma//), however, does not
generate any kamma-result; but as soon as any other kamma-volition has
effected rebirth and a kamma-result been produced, then it
//supports//, according to its nature, the agreeable or disagreeable
phenomena and keeps them going.
The "counteractive" (//upapilaka-kamma//) also does not generate
any kamma-result; but as soon as any other kamma-volition has effected
rebirth and a kamma-result been produced, then it //counteracts//,
according to its nature, the agreeable or disagreeable phenomena and
does not allow them to keep going on.
Again, the "destructive" (//upaghataka-kamma//) does not generate
any kamma-result; but as soon as any other kamma-volition has effected
rebirth and a kamma-result been produced, then it destroys the weaker
kamma and admits only its own agreeable or disagreeable kamma-results.
In the Commentary to Majjhima Nikaya 135, generative kamma is
compared with a farmer sowing the seeds; supportive kamma, with
irrigating, manuring, and watching the field, etc.; counteractive
kamma,with the drought that causes a poor harvest; destructive kamma,
with a fire that destroys the whole harvest.
Another illustration is this: The rebirth of Devadatta in a royal
family was due to his good generative kamma. His becoming a monk and
attaining high spiritual powers was a good supportive kamma. His
intention of killing the Buddha was a counteractive kamma, while his
causing a split in the Order of monks was destructive kamma, owing to
which he was born in a world of misery. It lies outside the scope of
this short exposition to give detailed descriptions of all the
manifold divisions of kamma found in the Commentaries. What I chiefly
wanted to make clear by this lecture is: that the Buddhist doctrine of
rebirth has nothing to do with the transmigration of any soul or
ego-entity, as in the ultimate sense there does not exist any such ego
or I, but merely a continually changing process of psychic and
corporeal phenomena. And further I wanted to point out that the
kamma-process and rebirth-process may both be made comprehensible only
by the assumption of a subconscious stream of life underlying
everything in living nature.
* * *
Notes to Chapter II
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[1] Here I should add that the Pali term //vipaka//, which I generally
translate by "effect," or "result," is not really identical with
these two English terms. According to the //Kathavatthu//, it
refers only to the kamma-produced "mental" results, such as
pleasurable and painful bodily feeling and all other primary
mental phenomena, while all the corporeal phenomena, such as the
five physical sense-organs, etc., are not called //vipaka//, but
"//kammaja//" or "//kamma-samutthana//," i.e. "kamma-born" or
"kamma-produced."
DHAMMAPADA Chapter X, Verse 141 141. Not nakedness, not platted hair, not dirt, not fasting, or lying on the earth, not rubbing with dust,
Walking naked and the other things mentioned in verse are outward signs of a saintly life, and these Buddha rejects because they do not calm the passions. Nakedness he seems to have rejected on other grounds too, if we may judge from the Sumâgadhâ-avadâna: 'A number of naked friars were assembled in the house of the daughter of Anâtha-pindika. She called ber daughter-in-law, Sumâgadhâ, and said, "Go and see those highly respectable persons." Sumâgadhâ, expecting to see some of the saints, like Sâriputra, Maudgalyâyana, and others, ran out full of joy. But when she saw these friars with their hair like pigeon wings, covered by nothing but dirt, offensive, and looking like demons, she became sad. "Why are you sad?" said her mother-in-law. Sumâgadhâ replied, "O mother, if these are saints, what must sinners be like?"
Burnouf supposed that the Gainas only, and not the Buddhists, allowed nakedness. But the Gainas, too, do not allow it universally. They are divided into two parties, the Svetambaras and Digambaras. The Svetambaras, clad in white, are the followers of Parsvanâtha, and wear clothes. The Digambaras, i.e. sky-clad, disrobed, are followers of Mahâvîra, resident chiefly in Southern India. At present they, too, wear clothing, but not when eating. See Sâstram Aiyar, p. xxi.
The gatâ, or the hair platted and gathered up in a knot, was a sign of a Saiva ascetic. The sitting motionless is one of the postures assumed by ascetics. Clough explains ukkutika as 'the act of sitting on the heels;' Wilson gives for utkatukâsana, 'sitting on the hams.'
KALAMA SUTRA Underscoring in essence What The Buddha Said, the first Buddhist monk ever to hold a professorship in America, at Northwestern University, Walpola Rahula, writes in his book "What the Buddha Taught" (pp. 2-3), extrapolating from the Kalama Sutra how far the Buddha went: "He told the bhikkhus that a disciple should examine even the Tathagata (Buddha) himself, so that he (the disciple) might be fully convinced of the true value of the teacher whom he followed."
Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing; nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning; nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over; nor upon another's seeming ability; nor upon the consideration that 'The monk is your teacher.' (Kalama Sutra) * * * * * * * *
Chapters III and IV Can Be Found by Clicking HERE
III. Paticca-Samuppada: Dependent Origination (Second Lecture
under the Dona Alphina Ratnayaka Trust, University College,
Colombo, 1938)
IV. Mental Culture (Based on a lecture delivered in Tokyo, 1920)
Anguttara Nikaya, Tika Nipata, Mahavagga, Sutta No. 65, Verse 15