Ajahn Sucitto

[From last week… “If you use pūja on a regular basis, it aligns you to the ‘Triple Gem’ – Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha – by presenting content in terms of images, ideas and themes, and values and practices that guide the heart. It also occasions acts of steering and composing attention. So pūja works both on what the mind is dealing with, and how it operates.”]

Obviously, there’s a lot more to anyone’s life than doing pūja, but such ritual does support training in attention – the what and the how of experience – as well as in mindfulness and full knowing (sampajañña); they provide a skilful container and stable reference to the ongoing flow of experience. With these, we have some say over where our minds are running and how.

The what and the how of attention are co-dependent. Any kind of attention selects certain data from a wide range. It seeks content. But if, for example, you review your visual experience, you’ll note that although there is a wide field of seeing, the mind selects only a small portion of that to focus the eyes on. Then whatever attention has focused on leads the mind and affects the heart. How we attend selects what we notice, and what we notice affects how we attend – and that determines where the mind will go and what action will ensue. In detail: an underlying intention steers what attention selects, and through the twofold process of contact, a mind-state is born that sends out a train of thought.[16]

For example, an architect sees a house and notices the design and structure; a burglar sees it and notices the windows and doors. Even if the architect and the burglar don’t follow through with physical action, their hearts will have been aroused in certain ways and their minds will have considered and calculated. This mental process conditions their behaviour and even who they experience themselves as being. In abstract: underlying intention steers attention, attention gives rise to contact, and contact generates meaning and intention. Intention, attention and contact are all saṇkhārā; they lay down or “strengthen a track of mental kamma – and with that, the sense of ‘I am’ is born.

So, deep attention arises with the intention to consider how a perception of the scenario is affecting the citta. Rather than just reacting to sense-contact (including that of thought), you listen more deeply and sift through the flood of interpretations or digressions with an attention that looks into whether the sight, sound or thought (and so on) is useful or relevant, what the arousing or threatening feature of it is, and whether that sign is to be followed or not. Whereas untrained attention is like a bird that rapidly picks up any crumb and hastily moves onto the next crumb, deep attention is like a baleen whale that, while steering towards food, allows the ocean to pass through its mouth, catching edible krill in its baleen and letting everything else pass. This kind of attention is not judgemental, but it filters and gets “to the point, and thus moderates the psychologies that direct your life.[17]

This process reveals underlying biases – such as gratification impulses or impressions of being threatened – and it may also reveal unquestioned assumptions that program how we think and what we think about. So, if deep attention is strong, we can put analysis and further action on hold; we don’t try to fix things; we don’t go spasming into an opinion about ourselves based on that survey. And the simple beauty of this process is that when we suspend the reactions of what we assume we should and shouldn’t be feeling, there is clarity and spaciousness. That gives room for compassion or dispassion to arise.

Deep attention gets strengthened by mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to bear a theme, mood, thought or sensation in mind; it is defined in the discourses as ‘[one] bears in mind and recollects what was done and said long ago.’ When it is based on right view, ‘right’ mindfulness can linger on what deep attention locates in a way that corresponds to that view of cause and effect. For example, as it meets unskilful qualities like anger or greed, right mindfulness will bring around restraint and relinquishment; and as it meets skilful qualities such as generosity or truthfulness, the right view behind right mindfulness will support appreciation and lingering.

The steadying effect of mindfulness also allows for a fuller kind of knowing. This full knowing is of knowing qualities (dhammā) just as they are – void of the inference of ‘me, mine and myself’. Through freeing thoughts and moods from the reactive process of taking them personally, full knowing allows them to arise and pass. It’s also holistic and knows how the heart is being affected.

So, if the mind is getting overwhelmed or strained, full knowing may determine a shift of attention or of attitude. Guided by this, we may turn our minds to a more useful topic, or shift our attitude away from the notion of ‘making progress’ towards the practice of patience, inquiry and receptivity.

Without the filtering of deep attention, the mind loses direction and authority; without the lingering effect of mindfulness, there can be no steadying and moderating; and without full knowing, there would be no liberating insight. Instead, felt senses, meanings and mental feeling will tend to flood the citta, and become ‘What can I do? I’m stuck. I always will be …’ and thereby block a skilful response. But with the wisdom that trained attention brings, the first response we make is not to say or do something, but rather to firm up skilful qualities in the mind – and let go of reactions or hurtful responses. Consider the alternative: if I focus on my mental impressions and states through unprepared, insecure or biased attention, or view the world and others from the same basis, the more potent and firmly established afflictive meanings get. If I listen with an unsympathetic ear, or look with a critical stare, pre-judge, or fixate on what others do and say – all that will lead to suffering and stress. This is because such attention notices what it’s become accustomed to notice: her gracious demeanour (so much better than mine!), his irritating mannerisms (why can’t he be normal, like me?), my frustration at her inability to listen to me (just like my mother!), etc. It’s all about me; and it’s particularly sensitive to what I find uncomfortable. But if that’s all I notice, I get fixated on it, and these fixations psychologically locate me. I feel that ‘he’s always this way’ or I ‘see’ you in a certain way; or I only notice my bad habits. Careless, untrained attention is set to look out for old impressions, and is particularly attuned to any perception that fits the biases and wounds in the heart. It’s as if our wounds are looking for arrows to fill them. Thus, when we grab hold of wounded meanings, mental kamma is laid down, and the old perception is affirmed. Or even intensified. But if you want to get to the end of this cycle of kamma-vipāka, you have to cultivate skilful attention within the heart. [Continued next week 29 August 2024]

Link to the original: “Kamma and the End of Kamma” by Ajahn Sucitto. [Note, this is a Dhamma publication and you can download free of charge]:

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

Ajahn Sucitto

Excerpts from: “Kamma and the end of Kamma”, Chapter 1: “Action that Leads to Liberation” (continued from last week) “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.”

Consequently, the pairing of the objective mind and subjective heart builds meaning. The spiritual quest is based on the understanding that there is ageing, sickness and death; and with that the experience of separation from the loved, and being disagreeably affected by these facts of life – while at the same time being powerless to do much about it. Even on the level of daily life, what we think about, and how we conceive of people and things, washes over the heart with pleasant or unpleasant feeling, arouses gladness or disappointment, and may lead us into action. This is how the world of sights and sounds and people and events gets into us and gets us going (even when the event happened long ago). The inheritance, the vipāka or ‘old kamma’ of being born, is that whether the mind interprets things accurately or not, the heart stores its interpretations. And it bases intentions, responses and reactions – kamma – on those stored-up meanings. It’s a questionable basis.

The basis is as much psychological as sensorial. We need to, and do, seek to understand and otherwise manage our circumstances. Therefore, one of our most continual mental actions is that of interpreting and filing away experience to derive meaning and purpose. And, as with other creatures, part of that meaning and purpose has to do with getting support from, or participating within, a group. In our case, this ‘belonging’ also entails participation in a complex weave of social programs, customs and attitudes. “that tell us how to operate in order to be accepted. This also affects our kamma, because although some advice is wise, we may also act upon socially-derived prejudices that cause us to contribute to hurting others – so we become arrogant or insensitive. Some social customs are about bypassing uncomfortable truths (such as mortality), or not giving deep attention to the heart: a life of golf and parties fails to come to terms with the facts of life. Another big effect comes from the views and opinions of others: being praised or blamed, valued or neglected, lingers as perceptions by which we sense ourselves. This self-reference then becomes an identity. As a general principle then, how we have been (and are being) affected by others solidifies into who we are.

This psychological program of being affected and responding is called the ‘mental (or heart) formation’ (citta-saṇkhāra). Installed at birth, at any given moment this ‘master program’ responds to present experience in terms of what it has learnt that experience is like. It is informed through a library of perceptions, or ‘felt meanings’, that the manas aspect has encoded, even though these perceptions are all only representations of an object, an event, or of course a person. And also, saññā adds subjective tints to any object-definition, such as: ‘Will she like me?’, ‘He looks threatening’ – and so on. These tinted perceptions become the basis of many spur-of-the-moment responses in our lives.

Meanwhile, the mind has responded on many fronts: we may be involved with business, but are challenged by the result of hearing of a relative’s death an hour ago. Even as we struggle with this, other long-term aims or social obligations apply their pressure. Bodily health and energy also have their effects. In addition to this, our attention span fluctuates, particularly if we’re tired – so we can be running on automatic, attending in a habitual or blurred way, and acting on outdated or biased programs. Rather like the tides of an ocean that can lift us up, engulf us, or sweep us in any direction, this kammic process is then a dynamic field of the interplay between established aims, former or current input, and responses to any of these. The mind-sets, attitudes and interpretations that have become established in our hearts carry the potential to shape our present actions; and the future will arise according to whichever mixture of these effects we act upon.

Steering Through the Causal Field

From the above, you’ll see that kamma is potent and multi-dimensional. Steering through its causal field is possible, but it does require a reliable and trained mind; training is then an imperative. Dark kamma weakens the mind and destroys people; bright kamma is a source of strength and nourishment. On account of bright kamma, such as ethical integrity and goodwill, we can establish the calm and clarity that supports training manas and citta. Together, these two aspects of mind can then handle, understand and release the causal tangle.

Look after yourself!

‘And for the sake of what benefit should a woman or a man, a householder or one gone forth, often reflect thus: “I am the owner of my kamma, the heir of my kamma; I have kamma as my origin, kamma as my relative, kamma as my resort; I will be the heir of whatever kamma, good or bad, that I do”? People engage in misconduct by body, speech, and mind. But when one often reflects upon this theme, such misconduct is either completely abandoned or diminished.’

(A.5:57; B. Bodhi, Trans.)

So kamma is not an imprisonment, but a matter to be mastered. Firstly, if we must generate kamma, we can at least determine whether it will be bright or dark. Remember, there’s a choice: kamma depends on impulse or intention – but ‘intention’ is not just a deliberate plan; in fact, we’re not always that clear about what we’re doing and why. Many of our troubles come from just being preoccupied, or getting stuck in habits, or from inattention or misunderstanding; then intention is not guided by clarity. “Complacency or, on the other hand, pessimistic fatalism may also weaken the clarity and firmness of intention.

We might wonder why we are who we are and what made us like this, but such speculation just activates the mind to no good end. The details of kamma are too complex to understand – it would be like trying to figure out which river or rain-cloud gave rise to which drop of water in the ocean.[4]

 The most direct and helpful way to steer kamma begins with ‘right view’ (sammā-diṭṭhi). Right view is the view that there is the bad and it can be steered away from, and there is the good and it can be cultivated. And cultivation entails training one’s attention. An attention that’s firm, clear and not flustered by moods and sensations can enter the underlying currents of the mind and turn a tide of heedlessness and self-obsession that would otherwise steer intention. In this way, right view leads into ‘right attitude’ (sammā-saṇkappā), which is the aim to set one’s attention on a skilful footing. With these two steps, the Eightfold Path out of suffering and stress gets established.[5]

The first responsible and accessible action on this Path is to pause on an emotional response and ask yourself whether this response is reliable and aims in a wholesome direction. Even this brief breaking of the reactive link that engages fresh intention with an old habit, if done repeatedly, can dissolve that link and cause that mental habit to cease. You find that you don’t have to retort, that you don’t have to rush to the deadline, and you don’t have to binge. Then different responses can arise – such as patience, forgiveness and tolerance. In ways like this, you can get out of the gridlock of ‘I’m stuck in this habit; I am this’, and make meaningful choices in your life. The “basis of any such choices is gaining the capacity to choose. And this heedfulness (appamāda) is what pausing and considering offers: I can pause, come out of a mind-state, give it due consideration, and decide to act on it – or let its accompanying impulse pass. I don’t have to be compulsive or reactive. Just taking this step, that of disengagement (viveka), opens the possibility for the fourth type of kamma, the kamma that leads to the end of kamma.

 This is what ‘liberation’ and ‘awakening’ refer to.

[Please find the last part of this chapter in the original, (see the link below), under the subhead: ‘Liberation Begins with Mindfulness,’ which can be found in the Contents listing. I decided not to continue with it here because it is of interest to a limited readership, in my opinion, and it’s best to move on to another aspect of this subject.]

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

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   

                     Click on the link below to download the original:  

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma

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

Ajahn Sucitto

[Excerpts from “Kamma and the End of Kamma,” by Ajahn Sucitto, Chapter 5: “Regarding the World.” Note: The book is available as a free Dhamma publication. Look for the link at the end of this post.]

Regarding the World
Having directly known all the world –
all in the world just as it is –
he is detached from all the world,
disengaged from all the world.
He is the vanquisher of all,
the wise one who has untied all knots.
He has reached the supreme peace,
nibbāna, inaccessible to fear.
A.4:23 – ‘The World’

When I visited a monastery in China recently, I met an old monk who presented me with a treasured piece of his own calligraphy, a piece that summed up the view of Dhamma as he understood it. It comprised two ideograms on a scroll: one meaning ‘still’ and the other meaning ‘bright reflection’. The translator interpreted the overall sense to mean something like: ‘the quiet, reflective mind that regards the world.’ ‘Regards the world’: there’s attention there, but non-involvement – dispassion. Yet that mind keeps regarding the world, not ignoring it: that implies compassion.

Interdependence

What is this world anyway? Socially, psychologically and environmentally, it’s a web in which different forces, energies and beings support and condition each other’s existence. It’s both caused and causative. In ecological terms, this interdependence calls for balance. The Buddha’s understanding was that our psychological balance and ethical integrity are essential for a climate that sustains life.

 Hence his deep commitment to harmlessness and frugality. However, in referring to ‘the world’, the Buddha was generally focusing on the personal ‘internal’ world: the web of causes and conditions which arises dependent on the consciousness that participates in bodily life. This world is experienced as a series of shifting forms (rūpa) that arise dependent on seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching – moment-by-moment data which are tacked together by our minds to form a solid three-dimensional realm. To the casual observer, this reality persists through time.

 But when it’s more deeply and directly known, this world is not experienced as a fixed and stable entity, but as arising a moment at a time.

Furthermore, it is dependently arisen. That is, form becomes present for us dependent on consciousness; and consciousness arises dependent on some form to be conscious of. In detail: mind-consciousness arises as the interpreter and organizer of sense-data and heart-impressions. Without that input, mind-consciousness does not arise. It makes contact, thus generating perceptions that evoke feeling. Feeling and perception arise with contact, and with contact comes more heart-impressions and patterns – as well as programs involved with interpreting, organizing and responding to the impressions that mind has placed in the heart. And so, our world rolls on.

All this interpreting and organizing and feeling is summarized as ‘name’ (nāma), although ‘interpretation’ might give you a better handle on it.

 It is through the linking of ‘name’ to ‘form’ that an apparently ‘outer world’ and an ‘inner world’ co-dependently arise in the dynamic experience of consciousness, name and form.

To illustrate this: in the act of seeing, a visual object is first detected, then lingered over as the mind recognizes it, and designates it with an impression, perception or felt sense, such as ‘friend’ or ‘stranger’. Dependent on that and the current mood or intent, a response arises. One can then linger further and develop possibilities and plans. Regarding all this, we may feel uplifted, overwhelmed or bored by all the saṇkhārā – the energies and emotions that come up. Accordingly, ‘the world’ may seem exciting, dreadful or hum-drum. But it is conditioned, created and creative. And like the ever-changing design of the Mandelbrot set, it can keep going on and on: as the Buddha observed, you don’t get to the end of the personal upheavals until you have got to the end of your world.

Moreover, this doesn’t happen through moving around the world, running away from it or creating another world, but through contemplating the causal field, and penetrating the basis on which your world arises.[35]

Regarding the world this way leaves open the possibility that each of us, through purifying our ‘naming’ processes, can affect how the world seems and how we respond to it. Some responses feel balanced; others more compulsive. How are my attitudes colouring what arises? Is some fixed mind-set creating my world and myself as someone embedded in it? We train to acknowledge this so that we can see what needs to be cleared in order to get free. Therefore the Buddha taught where the world arises and where it stops, and the way to that.

To this end, many of the Buddha’s teachings are based on generating bright kamma in daily life. He taught the Eightfold Path to establish purity of intent. If you work with this with regard to people, duties and events, you can live with self-respect, gladness and equanimity. You don’t get caught up in the judgements of success/failure, praise/blame; instead, you establish your Path, linger in and savour the good, and work with what arises.

As long as one hasn’t developed such skill, the success/failure assessment gets internalized and craving keeps the mind driving on: ‘How long is it going to take me to achieve my goals?’ That’s the world arising, right there; it’s a race that can never be won, because the thirst to achieve creates the goal and the self who hasn’t achieved it. You climb one mountain, then you need to climb a higher or more risky one. What’s driving you? This process will always create stress. Stress can end, however, in accordance with the degree with which one can relinquish that thirst, that goal-orientation, that self. This is what is meant by purifying the intent. It means letting go of the search for fulfilment in terms of ‘world’.

Kamma should be known. The cause of kamma should be known. The diversity in kamma should be known. The result of kamma should be known. The cessation of kamma should be known. The path of practice for the cessation of kamma should be known.’ Thus, it has been said. In reference to what was it said?

‘Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect.’

‘And what is the cause of kamma? Contact is the cause of kamma.’

‘And what is the diversity in kamma? There is kamma to be experienced in hell, kamma to be experienced in the realm of common animals, kamma to be experienced in the realm of the hungry shades, kamma to be experienced in the human world, kamma to be experienced in the world of the devas. This is called the diversity in kamma.’

‘And what is the result of kamma? The result of kamma is of three sorts, I tell you: that which arises right here & now, that which arises later [in this lifetime], and that which arises following that. This is called the result of kamma.’

‘And what is the cessation of kamma? From the cessation of contact is the cessation of kamma; and just this noble eightfold path – right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration – is the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma.’

“A.6:63 (Thanissaro, trans.)

Click on the link below to get your free copy:

https://www.abhayagiri.org/books/458-kamma-and-the-end-of-kamma