Ajahn Sucitto

[Excerpts from Kamma and the end of Kamma, Chapter 1: “Action that Leads to Liberation” by Ajahn Sucitto]

If with an impure mind a person speaks or acts,
suffering follows them like the cart-wheel
that follows the ox’s hoof …
If with a pure mind a person speaks or acts,
happiness follows them like
their never-departing shadow.
Dhammapada: ‘The Pairs’, 1 & 2

What is ‘kamma’, and what does it have to do with liberation? Well, as a word, ‘kamma’ is the Pali language version of the Sanskrit term ‘karma’, which has slipped into colloquial English as meaning something like a person’s fate or destiny. The problem with this interpretation is that it supports a passive acceptance of circumstances: if something goes wrong, one can say: ‘It was my karma’ – meaning that it had to happen, perhaps because of what one had done in a previous life. That’s not a very liberating notion. Where the idea really goes astray is when it is used to condone actions, as in ‘it’s my karma to be a thief (or to be abused).’ If kamma meant this, it would rob us of responsibility and self-respect. Furthermore, there would be no way in which we could guide ourselves out of our circumstances, habits or past history: and that’s a dismal prospect. However, kamma, in the way the Buddha taught it, means skilful or unskilful action – in terms of body, speech or mind – that we can exercise choice over. Making good use of this potential is what liberation, or ‘awakening’, is about.

Also, not everything that we experience is because of what we’ve done anyway. If you’re sick or caught up in an earthquake, it’s not necessarily because you’ve done bad things. If that were the case, considering the number of reckless human beings there have been, the Earth would never stop quaking! Instead, kamma centres on your current intention, inclination, or impulse (cetanā) – and it has a result (vipāka), either fortunate or unfortunate. This is the case even if why or how you acted was influenced by other people. So the Buddha’s encouragement was to know what you’re doing and why. One simple guideline is that acting towards others in a way that you wouldn’t want them to act towards you can’t give good results for yourself or others. Liberation is about getting free of tendencies such as self-centeredness or abusiveness.

Seen in this light, the teachings on kamma encourage a sense of responsibility for how you direct yourself in general, and for the many conscious and half-conscious choices you make throughout a day. Whether you feel at ease with yourself, or anxious and depressed; whether you’re easily led astray or whether you set a good example – all this rests on your clarity and integrity.

The Four Kinds of Kamma

Kamma means ‘action’ in a more than physical sense: it also includes verbal action, such as whether we insult and yell at people or say truthful and reliable things – and that action includes the ‘internal speech’ of thinking. But just as the body does neither good nor evil – these ethical qualities being rooted in the mind that initiates the physical deed – it’s the same with speech and thought. Language is neutral – it’s the kindness or the malice of the mind that’s creating the concepts and using the language that brings fortunate or unfortunate results. So, of the three bases of action – body, speech or mind – the kamma of our mental responses is therefore the most crucial in terms of living a wholesome life.

The Buddha spoke of four kinds of kamma. There is bad or ‘dark’ kamma – actions such as murder, theft, falsehood and sexual abuse that lead to harmful results. Avoid this, definitely. There is good or ‘bright’ kamma – actions such as kindness, generosity and honesty that have beneficial effects and enhance integrity and wisdom. This kind of kamma is to be thoroughly understood, cultivated and enjoyed. It’s not difficult: even refraining from dark kamma is bright in that it offers freedom from regret and supports clarity.

The third kind of kamma is a mixture of bright and dark kamma – actions which have some good intentions in them, but are carried out unskilfully. An example of this would be having the aim to protect and care for one’s family but carrying that out in a way that negatively impacts one’s neighbours. And the fourth? It’s the actions that lead to liberation – which I’ll get to later.

Kamma has consequences – vipaka. Now take the case of dark kamma: if I speak harshly or abusively to someone, one effect of that is that they get hurt – and that means that they’re probably going to be unpleasant towards me in the future. It’s also likely that that action will have immediate effects in terms of my own mind: I get agitated. At this point habitual psychological programs get going. I may shrug off scruples, say that they deserved it, or that I was having a bad day, etc. – but the results still remain. I may even get accustomed to acting in that way because it relieves my emotional tension or makes me feel I’m on top – but my mind will become insensitive, and I will lose friends. On the other hand, if I think about my actions, I may feel stricken with guilt and hate myself.

Effects therefore accrue in terms of states of mind – such as insensitivity or guilt – and also in terms of behaviour: in this example, I either become loud-mouthed or intensely self-critical. Then there are results in the wider social sphere: I get isolated or only associate with shallow, insensitive people. All of this can lead on to substance abuse and other self-destructive patterns.

All kamma rolls out in terms of behaviour patterns, psychological programs and strategies – saṇkhārā – of which intention (or impulse) is the prime agent. And if there is no clarity around kamma, even negative and uncomfortable programs – such as justification, blaming, distracting and switching off – can define how I operate and how I’m seen. Tendencies to be a compulsive do-er, a busy and over-responsible one who doesn’t take care of themselves, or defensive or somehow unworthy – are programs that become part of my identity. And as these programs become familiar, they bind the mind into ongoing habitual action – psychological, verbal and physical. The identity that they thus create is like a ball bouncing on a trampoline. Bouncing and being bounced: ‘saṃsāra’, ‘the wandering on’, is what it’s called. Liberation is about not being bounced; and the fourth kind of kamma is the mental action that brings that around.

So, if we want to get free, we have to get a hold on how saṃsāra works. We have to pause and approach our saṇkhārā from a different mind-set than the one they jumped out of: getting defensive about the tendency for denial, for example, is just a continuation of the same program. However, a different approach is possible – because the mind is not completely bonded to its programs. We can experience the results of unskilful actions, and with the support of our own trained attention and/or that of reliable friends, learn to do better. We can change our ways. We can also realize the awareness that makes that possible, and that stands apart from kamma. Liberation from the feedback loop of action and result (kamma-vipaka) is therefore possible; it all comes down to training the mind.

Bodily, Verbal and Mental Kamma: The Causal Field

Mind mediates within our multi-faceted experience of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ realms. What I’m referring to as ‘external’ is the range of sense-data that provides details of where we are; whereas the ‘internal’ consists of our inclinations, moods, memories and attitudes. Similarly, mind has an external aspect, manas, that scans the senses and through its focus shapes experience into discrete objects; and it also has as an internal, or subjective, aspect, citta (pronounced ‘chitta’), that adds how we are affected by these objects. For the sake of clarity, I’ll call citta the ‘heart’ of the mental process.

Citta isn’t rational; it’s an affective-responsive awareness that is attuned to respond to its environment – physical or psychological – at a gut and heart level, with ‘fight-flight-freeze ‘drives that can kick in at a moment’s notice. Basically, it’s attracted to pleasure and tries to get away from pain – and those impulses, along with the thoughts that they stimulate, make experience very dynamic. Indeed: dealing with the changing state of the world around us – and the ‘world’ within us – keeps us pretty busy.

Taken as a whole, these external and internal realms make up a causal field. This field is the sum total of experience that’s caused by our living context of sensory life, society and family; and it also causes – that is, it’s sensitive and responsive to that context. Consciousness acts as the one-moment-at-a time link between these two realms, with mental consciousness (mano-viññāṇa) adding its interpretations to sights and sounds and the rest. That is, this mental activity tags input from the external senses with perceptions (saññā) that affect the heart, such as: ‘tastes good’; ‘this carpet smells like an old dog’; ‘she looks irritated.’ These impressions and interpretations begin with the external mind, but get settled in the heart through the agreeable or disagreeable feeling (vedanā) or the prior association it evokes. In other words, citta doesn’t receive sights, sounds, smells and tastes; it receives the perceptions that mind-consciousness brings in.

Continued next week 1 August 2024   

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   Photo images in this post source: unsplash.com: Pedestrian crossing, Shinjuku, Tokyo