Karma in Buddhism

For the use of this term in other Indian religions, see Karma.

Translations of karma
English	karma
Pali	kamma
Sanskrit	karma (Dev: कर्मन्)
Bengali	কর্ম kôrmô
Burmese	ကံ (IPA: [kàɴ])
Chinese	業 (pinyin: yè)
Japanese	業 or ごう (rōmaji: gou)
Khmer	កម្ម
Korean	업 (uhb)
Sinhala	කර්ම (karma)
Tibetan	ལས། (Wylie: las; THL: lé;)
Thai	กรรม (gam)
Vietnamese	nghiệp
Glossary of Buddhism

Karma (Sanskrit, also karman, Pāli: kamma) is a Sanskrit term that literally means "action" or "doing". In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to action driven by intention (cetanā) which leads to future consequences. Those intentions are considered to be the determining factor in the kind of rebirth in samsara, the cycle of rebirth.

Etymology

Karma (Sanskrit, also karman, Pāli: kamma, Tib. las) is a Sanskrit term that literally means "action" or "doing". The word karma derives from the verbal root kṛ, which means "do, make, perform, accomplish."

Karmaphala (Tib. rgyu 'bras) is the "fruit", "effect" or "result" of karma. A similar term is karmavipaka, the "maturation" or "cooking" of karma:

The remote effects of karmic choices are referred to as the 'maturation' (vipāka) or 'fruit' (phala) of the karmic act."

The metaphor is derived from agriculture:

One sows a seed, there is a time lag during which some mysterious invisible process takes place, and then the plant pops up and can be harvested.

Buddhist understanding of karma

Tibetan Bhavacakra or "Wheel of Life" in Sera, Lhasa.

Karma and karmaphala are fundamental concepts in Buddhism. The concepts of karma and karmaphala explain how our intentional actions keep us tied to rebirth in samsara, whereas the Buddhist path, as exemplified in the Noble Eightfold Path, shows us the way out of samsara.

Rebirth

Rebirth, also called transmigration and reincarnation, is a common belief in all Buddhist traditions. It says that birth and death in the six realms occur in successive cycles driven by ignorance (avidyā), desire (trsnā), and hatred (dvesa). The cycle of rebirth is called samsarā. It is a beginningless and ever-ongoing process. Liberation from samsarā can be attained by following the Buddhist Path. This path leads to vidyā, and the stilling of trsnā and dvesa. Hereby the ongoing process of rebirth is stopped.

Karma

The cycle of rebirth is determined by karma, literally "action". In the Buddhist tradition, karma refers to actions driven by intention (cetanā), a deed done deliberately through body, speech or mind, which leads to future consequences. The Nibbedhika Sutta, Anguttara Nikaya 6.63:

Intention (cetana) I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect.

According to Peter Harvey,

It is the psychological impulse behind an action that is 'karma', that which sets going a chain of causes culminating in karmic fruit. Actions, then, must be intentional if they are to generate karmic fruits.

And according to Gombrich,

The Buddha defined karma as intention; whether the intention manifested itself in physical, vocal or mental form, it was the intention alone which had a moral character: good, bad or neutral [...] The focus of interest shifted from physical action, involving people and objects in the real world, to psychological process.

According to Gombrich, this was a great innovation, which overturns brahmanical, caste-bound ethics. It's a rejection of caste-bound differences, giving the same possibility to reach liberation to all people, not just Brahmanins:

Not by birth is one a brahmin or an outcaste, but by deeds (kamma).

How this emphasis on intention was to be interpreted became a matter of debate in and between the various Buddhist schools.

Karmaphala

Karma leads to future consequences, karma-phala, "fruit of action". Any given action may cause all sorts of results, but the karmic results are only those results which are a consequence of both the moral quality of the action, and of the intention behind the action. According to Reichenbach,

[T]he consequences envisioned by the law of karma encompass more (as well as less) than the observed natural or physical results which follow upon the performance of an action.

The "law of karma" applies

...specifically to the moral sphere [It is] not concerned with the general relation between actions and their consequences, but rather with the moral quality of actions and their consequences, such as the pain and pleasure and good or bad experiences for the doer of the act.

Good moral actions lead to wholesome rebirths, and bad moral actions lead to unwholesome rebirths. The main factor is how they contribute to the well-being of others in a positive or negative sense. Especially dāna, giving to the buddhist order, became an increasingly important source of positive karma.

How these intentional actions lead to rebirth, and how the idea of rebirth is to be reconciled with the doctrines of impermanence and no-self, is a matter of philosophical inquiry in the Buddhist traditions, for which several solutions have been proposed. In early Buddhism no explicit theory of rebirth and karma is worked out, and "the karma doctrine may have been incidental to early Buddhist soteriology." In early Buddhism, rebirth is ascribed to craving or ignorance.

In later Buddhism, the basic ideas is that intentional actions, driven by kleshas ("disturbing emotions"), cetanā ("volition"), or taṇhā ("thirst", "craving") create impressions, tendencies or "seeds" in the mind. These impressions, or "seeds", will ripen into a future result or fruition. If we can overcome our kleshas, then we break the chain of causal effects that leads to rebirth in the six realms. The twelve links of dependent origination provides a theoretical framework, explaining how the disturbing emotions lead to rebirth in samsara.

Complex process

The Buddha's teaching of karma is not strictly deterministic, but incorporated circumstantial factors, unlike that of the Jains. It is not a rigid and mechanical process, but a flexible, fluid and dynamic process, and not all present conditions can be ascribed to karma. There is no set linear relationship between a particular action and its results. The karmic effect of a deed is not determined solely by the deed itself, but also by the nature of the person who commits the deed, and by the circumstances in which it is committed.

Karma is also not the same as "fate" or "destiny". Karmic results are not a "judgement" imposed by a God or other all-powerful being, but rather the results of a natural process. Certain experiences in life are the results of previous actions, but our responses to those experiences are not predetermined, although they bear their own fruit in the future. Unjust behaviour may lead to unfavorable circumstances which make it easier to commit more unjust behavior, but nevertheless the freedom not to commit unjust behavior remains.

Liberation from samsara

See also: Right view and Parable of the Poisoned Arrow

The real importance of the doctrine of karma and its fruits lies in the recognition of the urgency to put a stop to the whole process. The Acintita Sutta warns that "the results of kamma" is one of the four incomprehensible subjects, subjects that are beyond all conceptualization and cannot be understood with logical thought or reason.

According to Gombrich, this sutra may have been a warning against the tendency, "probably from the Buddha's day until now", to understand the doctrine of karma "backwards", to explain unfavorable conditions in this life when no other explanations are available. Gaining a better rebirth may have been, and still is, the central goal for many people. The adoption, by laity, of Buddhist beliefs and practices is seen as a good thing, which brings merit and good rebirth, but does not result in Nirvana, and liberation from samsara, the ultimate goal of the Buddha.

Within the Pali suttas

See also: Anatta and moral responsibility

According to the Buddhist tradition, the Buddha gained full and complete insight into the workings of karma at the time of his enlightenment. According to Bronkhorst, these knowledges are later additions to the story, just like the notion of "liberating insight" itself.

In AN 5.292, the Buddha asserted that it is not possible to avoid experiencing the result of a karmic deed once it's been committed.

In the Anguttara Nikaya, it is stated that karmic results are experienced either in this life (P. diṭṭadhammika) or in a future lives (P. samparāyika). The former may involve a readily observable connection between action and karmic consequence, such as when a thief is captured and tortured by the authorities, but the connection need not necessarily be that obvious and in fact usually is not observable.

The Sammyutta Nikaya makes a basic distinction between past karma (P. purānakamma) which has already been incurred, and karma being created in the present (P. navakamma). Therefore in the present one both creates new karma (P. navakamma) and encounters the result of past karma (P. kammavipāka). Karma in the early canon is also threefold: Mental action (S. manaḥkarman), bodily action (S. kāyakarman) and vocal action (S. vākkarman).

Within Buddhist traditions

See also: Development of Karma in Buddhism

Various Buddhist philosophical schools developed within Buddhism, giving various interpretations regarding more refined points of karma. A major problem is the relation between the doctrine of no-self, and the "storage" of the traces of one's deeds, for which various solutions have been offered.

Early Indian Buddhism

Origins

The concept of karma originated in the Vedic religion, where it was related to the performance of rituals or the investment in good deeds to ensure the entrance to heaven after death, while other persons go to the underworld.

Pre-sectarian Buddhism

Main article: Pre-sectarian Buddhism

The concept of karma may have been of minor importance in early Buddhism. Schmithausen has questioned whether karma already played a role in the theory of rebirth of earliest Buddhism, noting that "the karma doctrine may have been incidental to early Buddhist soteriology." Langer notes that originally karma may have been only one of several concepts connected with rebirth. Tillman Vetter notes that in early Buddhism rebirth is ascribed to craving or ignorance. Buswell too notes that "Early Buddhism does not identify bodily and mental motion, but desire (or thirst, trsna), as the cause of karmic consequences." Matthews notes that "there is no single major systematic exposition" on the subject of karma and "an account has to be put together from the dozens of places where karma is mentioned in the texts," which may mean that the doctrine was incidental to the main perspective of early Buddhist soteriology.

According to Vetter, "the Buddha at first sought, and realized, "the deathless" (amata/amrta), which is concerned with the here and now. Only after this realization did he become acquainted with the doctrine of rebirth." Bronkhorst disagrees, and concludes that the Buddha "introduced a concept of karma that differed considerably from the commonly held views of his time." According to Bronkhorst, not physical and mental activities as such were seen as responsible for rebirth, but intentions and desire.

The doctrine of karma may have been especially important for common people, for whom it was more important to cope with life's immediate demands, such as the problems of pain, injustice, and death. The doctrine of karma met these exigencies, and in time it became an important soteriological aim in its own right.

Vaibhāṣika-Sarvāstivādin tradition

See also: Vaibhāṣika and Sarvastivada

The Vaibhāśika-Sarvāstivāda was widely influential in India and beyond. Their understanding of karma in the Sarvāstivāda became normative for Buddhism in India and other countries. According to Dennis Hirota,

Sarvastivadins argued that there exists a dharma of "possession" (prapti), which functions with all karmic acts, so that each act or thought, though immediately passing away, creates the "possession" of that act in the continuum of instants we experience as a person. This possession itself is momentary, but continually reproduces a similar possession in the succeeding instant, even though the original act lies in the past. Through such continual regeneration, the act is "possessed" until the actualization of the result.

The Abhidharmahṛdaya by Dharmaśrī was the first systematic exposition of Vaibhāśika-Sarvāstivāda doctrine, and the third chapter, the Karma-varga, deals with the concept of karma systematically.

Another important exposition, the Mahāvibhāṣa, gives three definitions of karma:

1. action; karma is here supplanted in the text by the synonyms kriya or karitra, both of which mean "activity";
2. formal vinaya conduct;
3. human action as the agent of various effects; karma as that which links certain actions with certain effects, is the primary concern of the exposition.

The 4th century philosopher Vasubandhu compiled the Abhidharma-kośa, an extensive compendium which elaborated the positions of the Vaibhāṣika-Sarvāstivādin school on a wide range of issues raised by the early sutras. Chapter four the Kośa is devoted to a study of karma, and chapters two and five contain formulation as to the mechanism of fruition and retribution. This became the main source of understanding of the perspective of early Buddhism for later Mahāyāna philosophers.

Dārṣṭāntika-Sautrāntika

The Dārṣṭāntika-Sautrāntika school pioneered the idea of karmic seeds (S. bija) and "the special modification of the psycho-physical series" (S. saṃtatipaṇāmaviśeṣa) to explain the workings of karma. According to Dennis Hirota,

[T]he Sautrantikas [...] insisted that each act exists only in the present instant and perishes immediately. To explain causation, they taught that with each karmic act a "perfuming" occurs which, though not a dharma or existent factor itself, leaves a residual impression in the succeeding series of mental instants, causing it to undergo a process of subtle evolution eventually leading to the act’s result. Good and bad deeds performed are thus said to leave "seeds" or traces of disposition that will come to fruition.

Theravādin tradition

Canonical texts

In the Theravāda Abhidhamma and commentarial traditions, karma is taken up at length. The Abhidhamma Sangaha of Anuruddhācariya offers a treatment of the topic, with an exhaustive treatment in book five (5.3.7).

The Kathāvatthu, which discusses a number of controverted points related either directly or indirectly to the notion of kamma." This involved debate with the Pudgalavādin school, which postulated the provisional existence of the person (S. pudgala, P. puggala) to account for the ripening of karmic effects over time. The Kathāvatthu also records debate by the Theravādins with the Andhakas (who may have been Mahāsāṃghikas) regarding whether or not old age and death are the result (vipāka) of karma. The Theravāda maintained that they are not—not, apparently because there is no causal relation between the two, but because they wished to reserve the term vipāka strictly for mental results--"subjective phenomena arising through the effects of kamma."

In the canonical Theravāda view of kamma, "the belief that deeds done or ideas seized at the moment of death are particularly significant."

Transfer of merit

The Milindapañha, a paracanonical Theravāda text, offers some interpretations of karma theory at variance with the orthodox position. In particular, Nāgasena allows for the possibility of the transfer of merit to humans and one of the four classes of petas, perhaps in deference to folk belief (see below, The transfer or dedication of merit). Nāgasena makes it clear that demerit cannot be transferred. One scholar asserts that the sharing of merit "can be linked to the Vedic śrāddha, for it was Buddhist practice not to upset existing traditions when well-established custom was not antithetic to Buddhist teaching."

The Petavatthu, which is fully canonical, endorses the transfer of merit even more widely, including the possibility of sharing merit with all petas.

Mahayana tradition

Indian Yogācāra tradition

In the Yogācāra philosophical tradition, one of the two principal Mahāyāna schools, the principle of karma was extended considerably. In the Yogācāra formulation, all experience without exception is said to result from the ripening of karma. Karmic seeds (S. bija) are said to be stored in the "storehouse consciousness" (S. ālayavijñāna) until such time as they ripen into experience. The term vāsāna ("perfuming") is also used, and Yogācārins debated whether vāsāna and bija were essentially the same, the seeds were the effect of the perfuming, or whether the perfuming simply affected the seeds. The seemingly external world is merely a "by-product" (adhipati-phala) of karma. The conditioning of the mind resulting from karma is called saṃskāra.

The Treatise on Action (Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa), also by Vasubandhu, treats the subject of karma in detail from the Yogācāra perspective. According to scholar Dan Lusthaus,

Vasubandhu's Viṃśatikā (Twenty Verses) repeatedly emphasizes in a variety of ways that karma is intersubjective and that the course of each and every stream of consciousness (vijñāna-santāna, i.e., the changing individual) is profoundly influenced by its relations with other consciousness streams.

According to Bronkhorst, whereas in earlier systems it "was not clear how a series of completely mental events (the deed and its traces) could give rise to non-mental, material effects," with the (purported) idealism of the Yogācāra system this is not an issue.

In Mahāyāna traditions, karma is not the sole basis of rebirth. The rebirths of bodhisattvas after the seventh stage (S. bhūmi) are said to be consciously directed for the benefit of others still trapped in saṃsāra. Thus, theirs are not uncontrolled rebirths.

Mādhyamaka philosophy

Nāgārjuna articulated the difficulty in forming a karma theory in his most prominent work, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way):

If (the act) lasted till the time of ripening, (the act) would be eternal. If (the act) were terminated, how could the terminated produce a fruit?

The Mūlamadhyamakavṛtty-Akutobhayā, also generally attributed to Nāgārjuna, concludes that it is impossible both for the act to persist somehow and also for it to perish immediately and still have efficacy at a later time.

Tibetan Buddhism

Tsongkhapa (Gelugpa)

Tsongkhapa, the founder of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, argued that the Prāsaṅgika position allowed for the postulation of something called an "act's cessation" (las zhig pal) which persists and is in fact a substance (rdzas or dngos po, S. vastu), and which explains the connection between cause and result. Gorampa, an important philosopher of the Sakya school of Tibetan Buddhism, accused Tsongkhapa of a doctrinal innovation not legitimately grounded in Candrakīrti's work, and one which amounted to little more than a (non-Buddhist) Vaiśeṣika concept. Gelugpa scholars offered defenses of the idea.

Purification of karma

In the Vajrayana tradition, negative past karma may be "purified" through such practices as meditation on Vajrasattva because they both are the mind's psychological phenomenon. The performer of the action, after having purified the karma, does not experience the negative results he or she otherwise would have. Engaging in the ten negative actions out of selfishness and delusions hurts all involved. The other way around, loving others, receives love; whereas; people with closed hearts may be prevented from happiness. One good thing about karma is that it can be purified through confession, if the thoughts become positive. Within Guru Yoga seven branch offerings practice, confession is the antidote to aversion.

Thubten Zopa Rinpoche

Thubten Zopa Rinpoche explains that purification entails applying the four powers, where each action has four aspects that determine if the action is complete or incomplete. These aspects are: motivation, object, performance and completion. If an action is complete in all four aspects, this is throwing karma and can determine throwing rebirth into the six realms; or, if beneficial with good karma to better rebirth. A missing aspect becomes completed karma, thus determining future life quality and a completed negative action keeps suffering ongoing. The first of the four purification powers is taking refuge and generating bodhicitta, the second is release to counteract the results similar to the cause, the third is remedy with applying antidotes to throwing karma and the fourth is indestructible determination by overcoming tendency to habitually create negativities over and over again. This logic is common to all Vajrayana practices. Realizing emptiness is the ultimate purification. The four powers are confessional and are different than Christian confessionals; however parallels exist. Each action leaves an imprint to ripen as positive for happiness or negative for suffering. Proper application requires a qualified lama to guide the process with view, reading the method alone may be insufficient.

Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Tibetan Book of the Dead contains elaborate karma purification practices to naturally liberate cyclic rebirth action. This includes natural liberation practice with the mind; with the spiritual teacher; with naked perception; with homage to sacred enlighten families for habitual tendencies; with confessional acts, with death signs visual recognition; with death ritual deception for fear; with recollection for consciousness transference; fundamentally with hearing great liberation; and with wearing through the psycho-physical aggregates. Confessional acts in this context is important for purification (without renunciation) where the four powers are 1)reliance with one hundred peaceful and wrathful deities visualization, 2)actual antidote with elaborate confessional acts natural liberation practice and Vajrasattva mantra, 3)remorse, negative acts genuine recollection, and 4) resolving to never commit such negative actions again.

Nyingma

In the Nyingma school, the teaching of karma is the third of four thoughts that turn the mind to dharma in the outer preliminaries. It is taught within the pre-liminary practices of the Longchen Nyingthig, "The Heart-essence of the Vast Expanse". This is a terma or "spiritual discovery", a hidden teaching from Padmasambhava which was revealed by Jigme Lingpa (1729-1798). It is one of the most widely practiced teachings in the Nyingmapa school. The Heart-essence of the Vast Expanse teaching cycle has the following structure:

• Pre-liminary practices (sngon 'gro):
  • Outer or external pre-liminaries: i)the freedoms and advantages of precious human rebirth; ii) the truth of impermanence and change; iii) the workings of karma; iv) the suffering of living beings within samsara
  • Inner pre-liminaries: taking refuge, arousing bodhicitta, Vajrasattva, mandala offering, and Guru Yoga
• Main practice (dngos gzhi): generation phase, perfection phase, and the Great Perfection

Jigme Lingpa

In Jigme Lingpa's Mindfulness Application: Unique Great Perfection Preliminary Instructions, karma arises to produce samsara, which should be abandoned. All the ten virtues and non-virtues will give results similar to the cause and can proliferate. With this understand, cultivating a stable mind can avoid non-virtuous acts and appreciation for virtuous acts.

Patrul Rinpoche

Patrul Rinpoche wrote down Jigme Lingpa's pre-liminary practices from his teacher Jikmé Gyalwé Nyugu. These were translated into a book called The Words of My Perfect Teacher. It describes ten negative actions which are to be avoided, and positive actions to be adopted. According to Patrul Rinpoche, each negative act produces four kinds of karmic effects:

1. The fully ripened effect: rebirth in one of the lower realms of samsara;
2. The effect similar to the cause: rebirth in a human form, in which we have a predisposition for the same negative actions, or undergo the same negative actions being afflicted on us;
3. The conditioning effect: the negative act shapes our environment;
4. The proliferating effect: a continuous repetition of former negative actions, which keeps us wandering endlessly in samsara. Positive actions comprise the vow never to commit any of the negative actions. According to Patrul Rinpoche, the quality of our actions determine all the pleasures and miseries that an individual experiences.

Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang

Khenpo Ngawang Pelzang, a qualified Longchen Nyingthig commentator, explained harmful karma’s remedy is to first meet the spiritual friend, then listen to teachings and reflect on them. When karmic obstacles arise, the student may generate confidence in karmic laws; regret past actions and the student may apply other appropriate remedies. Continuing harmful karma may lead to lower rebirth. Lessening past results with meritorious activity results in higher rebirths. Students achieving pure karma will be welcomed to go directly to liberation in any instant. Since harmful actions are rooted in negative emotions and these are rooted in the self belief, some realize no-self to believe and then end both karma and the emotions. Students may then attain the Arhat’s nirvana result, with and without residue, similar to the no more learning path. Bodhisattvas may pray for all karma to ripen upon them to purify its effect most beneficially for the student.

Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche

Chagdud Tulku Rinpoche’s student Jane Tromge complied his Dudjom Tersar Ngondro teachings from Dudjom Lingpa’s terma revelation. Karma weaves experienced patterns as the inevitable results from out flowing causes. Understanding karma and purifications can establish a spiritual compass to direct conduct in positive accord until enlightenment’s threshold. An enlightened Buddha has passed beyond karmic dualism to an infinite reflecting radiance awakening. Karma is created in the mind source, with speech and body following the mind’s lead. Buddhist ten non-virtues and ten virtues delineate what to abandon and accept. Proliferating virtuous actions carries repetitions forward into future lifetimes.

Dzonsar Jamyag Khentse

Dzonsar Jamyag Khentse’s Longchen Nyingthig commentary explains that forgetting about death and karma is shown when we complain about everyone else. The sutras say Mara's third arrow is directed to those with wrong views, such as not believing in cause condition and effect (karma). Protection may be achieved with discipline, meditation and wisdom. Exhausting karma leads to enlightenment and it's impossible to be independent and in control of anything having so many causes. Scientific people may believe in karma and not in reincarnation as its effects from virtute and non-virtue. This may corrode the ultimate truth beliefs in an interdependent reality, shunyata, and the triple gem, which request Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to not pass into Parinirvana. Karma is synonymous with reincarnation. Karmic debts pass from each lifetime. Merit produces good karma.

Khenpo Tenzin Norgay

Khenpo Tenzin Norgay's Nam Cho Ngöndro (preliminary practice) teachings emphasise karma purification importance in relation to proceeding to Dzogchen practices. There are 10 Steps in Ngöndro to quick enlightenment and karma is at Step 3. Karma follows the minds wandering in samsara and may propel to the six realms. Only the student can purge and manage conduct and outcomes. Advancing to Dzogchen and skipping Ngöndro practices could lead to wrong karma views, where avoiding karma causes dangerous nihilistic (bodhicitta voided) views, the antidotes may become poisons. For example the Heart Sutra, which explains no suffering, no cause of suffering, no path and no fruition could lead to a paradox asking why even practice. Understanding karma in the Ngöndro context helps answer the paradox. Karma is in the foundation for all buddhist practices and requires both logic and faith for acceptance. Karma necessitates accepting beyond what the senses can materially perceive. Karmic law is not legislated, it is buddha nature and unavoidable. It is a way of expressing how the mind functions and can be trained. The Abhidharma explains karma in detail as karma is seen in the four noble truths. Dharma works out in nondiscrimination for everyone when there are shared karmic beliefs.

East Asian traditions

Zen

Dōgen Kigen argued in his Shobogenzo that karmic latencies are emphatically not empty, going so far as to claim that belief in the emptiness of karma should be characterized as "non-Buddhist," although he also states that the "law of karman has no concrete existence."

Zen's most famous koan about karma is called Baizhang's Wild Fox (百丈野狐). The story of the koan is about an ancient Zen teacher whose answer to a question presents a wrong view about karma by saying that the person who has a foundation in cultivating the great practice "does not fall into cause and effect." Because of his unskillful answer the teacher reaps the result of living 500 lives as a wild fox. He is then able to appear as a human and ask the same question to Zen teacher Baizhang, who answers, "He is not in the dark about cause and effect." Hearing this answer the old teacher is freed from the life of a wild fox. The Zen perspective avoids the duality of asserting that an enlightened person is either subject to or free from the law of karma and that the key is not being ignorant about karma.

Tendai

The Japanese Tendai/Pure Land teacher Genshin taught a series of ten reflections for a dying person that emphasized reflecting on the Amida Buddha as a means to purify vast amounts of karma.

Modern interpretations and controversies

Social conditioning

Buddhist modernists often prefer to equate karma with social conditioning, in contradistinction with, as one scholar puts it, "early texts [which] give us little reason to interpret 'conditioning' as the infusion into the psyche of external social norms, or of awakening as simply transcending all psychological conditioning and social roles. Karmic conditioning drifts semantically toward 'cultural conditioning' under the influence of western discourses that elevate the individual over the social, cultural, and institutional. The traditional import of the karmic conditioning process, however, is primarily ethical and soteriological—actions condition circumstances in this and future lives."

Essentially, this understanding limits the scope of the traditional understanding of karmic effects so that it encompasses only saṃskāras—habits, dispositions and tendencies—and not external effects, while at the same time expanding the scope to include social conditioning that does not particularly involve volitional action.

Karma theory & social justice

Some western commentators and Buddhists have taken exception to aspects of karma theory, and have proposed revisions of various kinds. These proposals fall under the rubric of Buddhist modernism.

The "primary critique" of the Buddhist doctrine of karma is that some feel "karma may be socially and politically disempowering in its cultural effect, that without intending to do this, karma may in fact support social passivity or acquiescence in the face of oppression of various kinds." Dale S. Wright, a scholar specializing in Zen Buddhism, has proposed that the doctrine be reformulated for modern people, "separated from elements of supernatural thinking," so that karma is asserted to condition only personal qualities and dispositions rather than rebirth and external occurrences.

Loy argues that the idea of accumulating merit too easily becomes "spirtitual materialism," a view echoed by other Buddhist modernists, and further that karma has been used to rationalize racism, caste, economic oppression, birth handicaps and everything else.

Loy goes on to argue that the view that suffering such as that undergone by Holocaust victims could be attributed in part to the karmic ripenings of those victims is "fundamentalism, which blames the victims and rationalizes their horrific fate," and that this is "something no longer to be tolerated quietly. It is time for modern Buddhists and modern Buddhism to outgrow it" by revising or discarding the teachings on karma.

Other scholars have argued, however, that the teachings on karma do not encourage judgment and blame, given that the victims were not the same people who committed the acts, but rather were just part of the same mindstream-continuum with the past actors, and that the teachings on karma instead provide "a thoroughly satisfying explanation for suffering and loss" in which believers take comfort.

See also

• Anantarika-karma
• Consciousness (Buddhism)
• Karma in Hinduism
• Karma in Jainism
• Karma
• Merit (Buddhism)
• Pratitya-samutpada (Dependent Origination)
• Samsara (Buddhism)
• Twelve Nidanas

Quotes

Subnotes

Sources

Printed sources

Sutta Pitaka

Buddhist teachers

Scholarly sources

Further reading

Scholarly sources

• Gethin, Rupert (1998). Foundations of Buddhism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-289223-1.

Journal

• The Buddha's Bad Karma: A Problem in the History of Theravada Buddhism Jonathan S. Walters, Numen, Vol. 37, No. 1 (June 1990), pp. 70–95

Primary sources

• Dalai Lama (1992). The Meaning of Life, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins. Wisdom.
• Geshe Sonam Rinchen (2006). How Karma Works: The Twelve Links of Dependent Arising. Snow Lion
• Khandro Rinpoche (2003). This Precious Life. Shambala
• Ringu Tulku (2005). Daring Steps Toward Fearlessness: The Three Vehicles of Tibetan Buddhism. Snow Lion.

External links

General

• What is Karma?, by Ken McLeod
• Essential Points on Karma, by Jeffrey Kotyk
• Basic Questions on Karma and Rebirth, by Alexander Berzin
• Understanding Karma, by Reginald Ray

Sarvastivada

• Alexis sanderson, The Sarvastivada and its critics: Anatmavada and the Theory of Karma

Theravada

• Karma by Thanissaro Bhikkhu
• Misunderstandings of the Law of Kamma by Prayudh Payutto
• Dhammapada Verse 128 Suppabuddhasakya Vatthu Story about the Buddha and Suppabuddha, father of the Buddha's former wife Yashodhara

Yogacara

• Richard King (1998), Vijnaptimatrata and the Abhidharma context of early Yogacara, Asian Philosophy, Vol. 8 No. 1 Mar.1998.