Bhikkhu Bodhi via The Buddhist, March 12, 2016; Dhr. Seven, Ellie Askew, Wisdom Quarterly
The Lesser Exposition on the Workings of Karma
Culakammavibhanga Sutra "Karma (deeds) and their Results" from the "Middle-Length Discourses" (Majjhima Nikaya) as explained by the American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi, Part 16 MP3. This segment is from the Dharma talk CD collection "Exploring the Word of the Buddha, Majjhima Nikaya, M0015 MN-135, Cula-kamma-vibhanga Sutta, "Kamma and its Results Discourse."
The underlying motive or intention behind an act is what determines the kind of results, such as rebirths in samsara, one will get.
Usually when people say, "This is my karma" (lit., This is my deed), they actually mean, "This is my karmic fruit." This is to confuse cause with results.
They often mean the "effects" or "results" of their deed (karma-phala) and the "maturation" or "ripening" (karma-vipaka) of it:
"The remote effects of karmic choices are referred to as the 'maturation' (vipāka) or 'fruit' (phala) of the karmic act" (Keown 2000, pp. 36-37). More
Alex Sparks (June 7, 2018); Editors, Wisdom Quarterly
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Karma has a very wide meaning with a great deal of detail explained by the Buddha. But in American English, "karma" means something like retribution, poetic justice, tit for tat, getting something in return just like the thing given.
The key is the underlying motivation or directed-intention (cetana) behind an act. Karma means directed "action." When the mind/heart directs the body and/or speech faculty to act -- when it wills and carries something out -- we store up the potential (latent karma) for that act to fruit.
It will not likely fruit in the same way, but whatever way it finds to produce its result, it will be pleasant if it is motivated by either nonclinging, nonaversion, or nondelusion and unpleasant if motivated by greed, aversion, or wrong view.
What is "greed"? A better translation for lobha might be craving, clinging, grasping, or the deluded urge to get, possess, hoard things that are inherently impermanent/hurtling toward destruction as if they could produce satisfaction when they areinherently disappointing by nature. It is one of the three unwholesome roots and a synonym of lust (rāga) and thrist/craving (tanhā).
That is a simple and general way of saying something all-encompassing about a topic that is very complicated.
He firmly believes laughter is best medicine.
Our karma is our choices, our acts (of will, speech, or body), our doings. What we get in return is NOT our karma but our vipaka and phala, "mental-results" and "fruits."
One act produces much fruit because (as explained in the Abhidharma) one act is not really just one act but countless acts of volition, impulsions, mental directions.
How? "Mind" is not a thing but a process. That process is composed of countless mind-moments or "consciousnesses" (cittas and related mental factors), the discrete elements in a stream of impulsions or acts-of-will or something akin to subroutines in software.
Lying to world in self-serving bid for power
Just uttering a word or raising one's arm, for instance, requires many tiny acts. Thinking a thought, or planning something out, is overflowing with processes. These mind-moments go by at tremendous, almost unimaginable speed. They can be viewed in meditation augmented by absorption, then reviewed in a slowed down and methodical way, like reviewing a reel of film in slow motion.
Then we can see that what the Abhidharma ("Higher or Ultimate Teaching" of the Buddha) is talking about. It's not a commentary, as some people insist, but the Dharma when explained in ultimate rather than "conventional" terms. The sutras (discourses) are in conventional language.
(TwisterNederland) Instant-Karma Fail Compilation July 2015-February 2016
"Karma" defined Ven. Nyanatiloka (Buddhist Dictionary,palikanon.com)
Thus the Buddhist term "karma" by no means signifies the result of actions and quite certainly not the fate of a person or perhaps even of whole nations (the so called mass, wholesale, or group-karma*), misconceptions which, through the influence of Theosophy, have become widely spread in the West.
"Volition (cetanā), O meditators, is what I call action, for [it is] through volition [that] one performs the action by body, speech or mind.
"There is karma [action], O meditators, that ripens in hellish worlds... karma that ripens in the animal worlds... karma that ripens in human worlds [there are many more than one]... karma that ripens in heavenly worlds [there are many]...
"Threefold, however, is the FRUIT of karma: acts ripening during this life time, ripening in the very next birth, ripening in subsequent births..." (A.VI.63).
The three conditions or roots (mūla) of unwholesome karma are greed (lobha), hatred (dosa), and delusion (moha); wholesome karmic roots are: unselfishness, hatelessness(adosa=mettā, friendliness, goodwill, kindness), undeludedness (amoha = paññā, wisdom, right understanding, knowledge).
"Greed [clinging], O meditators, is a condition for the arising of karma; hatred [aversion] is a condition for the arising of karma; delusion [wrong view] is a condition for the arising of karma..." (A.III.112, A.III.34, A.III.147).
"Unwholesome actions are of three kinds, conditioned by greed, or hate, or delusion [or a combination because all acts of greed or hate are always conditioned by delusion].
"(1) Killing... (2) stealing... (3) sexual misconduct [intercourse with the ten off-limits partners]... (4) perjury... slander... harsh speech... foolish chit-chat [these four are together called "false speech" with (5) consuming intoxicants that lead to performing heedless actions one later regrets], if practiced, carried out, and frequently cultivated leads to rebirth in hellish worlds, or among animals, or among ghosts" (A.VIII.40).
*[There is a kind of "group karma" as evidenced by what befell the Shakyas who had in past lives poisoned a river. See also the women who together tried to set fire toan arshat (who unbeknownst to them was protected by jhana) to conceal an accident. It is individual because everyone who participates in an act later experiences the results of that act, and as individuals tend to be reborn in again and again in groups or clusters, they will from time to time experience results, pleasant and unpleasant, together to the degree of their participation and gravity of their action.]
Seth Auberon and Amber Dorrian and Seven, "Karma Class," Wisdom Quarterly
"Take that, #$%@%!" "Sticks and stones, @#$%-&)(@r!, sticks and stones!" (cpa.psu.edu)
Ever notice that, judging by the Ten Courses of Unwholesome Karma (Action), the most dangerous part of a person is his or her tongue?
The mind as the source of intention, and therefore karma, is capable of many misleading deeds. (Intention means what we will to do, not what we wish would happen as a result of doing). The body misbehaves, too. But it is the tongue that we really need to watch out for.
"How can I say this more skillfully?"
Intentional actions merely constitute "karma" (action with the capacity to bring about results in the future). The Buddha singled out these ten as "courses." That is, they are conduct capable of guiding one to an unfortunate rebirth all by themselves.
How? If they come to fruition around the time of passing from one existence to the next, they may serve as the basis of rebirth-linking-consciousness. They act as a corridor, a course, a fairway, a path, a set of wardens dragging one along to some unwished for destination.
"I was worried for a moment," we may say, "but thank goodness I don't actually believe in rebirth in any literal sense." We have three choices: Annihilationism, Eternalism, or the Middle Way that avoids both of these extremes in view. Are we only physical and therefore die utterly at death? Then we can do whatever we want and expect no result. Are we eternal with both physical and beyond-physical components? Then we should plant seeds of future experience we want growing and avoid those unwished for ones. The Buddha actually rejected both points of view, science vs. religion. Beings are not technically eternal but the stream-of-being will go on and on without no foreseeable end until it is brought to an end as unsatisfactoriness comes to an end. The view that there is nothing before and nothing to follow is patently mistaken and a very dangerous view to hold, one that in and of itself can lead to catastrophic results. That is, however, where most Westerners rest their bets, relying on professors and unseen scientists as their authorities. (Fortunately, try as we might, few of us actually believe that we came from nothing only to go to nothing.) Few have insight into the liberating Middle Way the historical Buddha taught.
Of the ten three are bodily, three are mental, whereas four are verbal. We can hardly help the way we think, our patterns having become so ingrained that we feel helpless against them. Even our bodies seem to react by instinct, by genetics, by physiology, and the habitual patterns we have trained them in. But the mouth and the deadly weapon in it! They are all ways of expressing intention (the will to carry out some act aiming for a desired end):
taking life
taking what is not given
misconduct with regard to sensual pleasures
false speech
slanderous speech
harsh speech
idle speech
covetousness
ill will
wrong view
The questions to ask, then, regard practical definitions for these ten. They are not self-explanatory. The Buddha had something very specific in mind. As with other lists, that information is packed away. Only when the information is unpacked do the lists suddenly seem useful. What is the Path?
Venerable
Robina Courtin gives the essence of the Buddha's teaching of karma (actions with the ability to yield results when, like seeds, they come to fruition).
This teaching is great for beginners to get a taste of the meaning of karma in simple terms as well as for long time students to remember the
essence of this complex subject.
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It will not likely fruit in the same way, but whatever way it finds to produce its result, it will be pleasant if it is motivated by either nonclinging, nonaversion, or nondelusion and unpleasant if motivated by greed, aversion, or wrong view.
Ever notice that, judging by the Ten Courses of Unwholesome Karma (Action), the most dangerous part of a person is his or her tongue?
