Old kamma doesn’t burn. One of the great ironies in the history of Buddhism is that some of the teachings the Buddha explicitly attacked are nowadays attributed to the Buddha himself.

"As we sit here meditating, we’re engaged in a type of kamma. It’s called the kamma that puts an end to kamma. But this doesn’t mean that it burns away old kamma. Old kamma doesn’t burn. One of the great ironies in the history of Buddhism is that some of the teachings the Buddha explicitly attacked are nowadays attributed to the Buddha himself. One of these is the idea that simply by learning how not to react to anything in the present moment, you’re not just refraining from creating any new sankharas, you’re also burning away old sankharas, old kamma.

But there’s a passage where the Buddha actually attacks the idea that you can burn off old kamma. In fact he gets quite satirical about it. He goes to see some Jains who believed that they could burn off old kamma by submitting themselves to different kinds of austerities, that the pain in the austerity was the burning of old kamma. He said, “Can you measure how much kamma you burned today? How much kamma you burned yesterday? Do you actually see the kamma burning?” Of course the answer is No. “And what about the pain caused by your austerities? What’s that?” They replied, “This is just the old kamma burning up.” He said, “Have you noticed that when you don’t do your austerities, there’s no pain?”

Here he’s making the point that when you experience the results of kamma, it’s not just the results of past kamma. It’s also the results of your present decisions. If the Jains didn’t practice austerities here and now, they wouldn’t be experiencing those pains here and now.

In fact, your present actions are the most important part of the kammic mix. This is the lesson of the kamma of meditation. Our present decisions, what we’re going to do with the mind, what we’re going to focus on, how we develop it: That’s the kamma we witness as we meditate. So you want to focus on doing things that help you understand what’s going on in the mind right now. What is this process of intention? How does the mind create an experience of pleasure, how does it create an experience of pain, out of the raw material of old kamma?"

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Equanimity Isn’t Nibbana" (Meditations5)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Question habits and intentions. However, faith in karma should be maintained as a working hypothesis all the way to Nibbana.

"When the Buddha described his quest for awakening as a series of responses to questions of the form, “Why am I doing this?” he was indicating the point at which the search for a way out of stress turns inward: the realization that stress may be caused by one’s own actions. He was also indicating that an important part of the path consists of the realization that one’s habits — and in particular, one’s intentions — are not to be blindly accepted or taken for granted. They should be called into question and subjected to honest scrutiny. However, he also was indicating that not everything is to be questioned — in particular, conviction in the efficacy of action should be maintained as a working hypothesis all the way to release." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Skill in Questions: How the Buddha Taught"
Read more

There are lots of things about karma that are not fair, the Buddha didn't design it

"Some people say Buddhism is selfish or harsh with its teachings on karma, selfish in the fact that each person is looking out after his or her own well-being, harsh in that people are being held responsible for their own suffering. If the Buddha could have saved us all, he would have. He had an enormous immeasurable heart, but he saw that this is the way that karma is. There are lots of things about karma that are not fair. Look at Ven. Angulimala: He had killed almost a thousand people and yet he was able to become an arahant without having to undergo a thousand deaths to pay off that karmic debt. By training his mind, he was able to mitigate a lot of the suffering he would have otherwise undergone. A lot of people were unhappy about that. They felt it wasn’t fair. The Buddha didn’t design the teaching on karma to make things fair or to be consoling. He didn’t design it at all. He just pointed out that this is the way things are, this is how they work." ~ Thani
Read more

Have some positive feelings toward this teaching on kamma. It’s not there just to punish you. It’s there to offer you opportunities. It’s there to remind you that your actions are important.

"Have some positive feelings toward this teaching on kamma. It’s not there just to punish you. It’s there to offer you opportunities. It’s there to remind you that your actions are important. And even though you’ve done unskillful things in the past, you’ve got a new opportunity right now to do something skillful. And then again right now. Each right now. So if you do find yourself in the middle of having made some unfortunate choices, you can say, “Well, I’ll stop.” And the fact that you stopped becomes positive kamma right there. Part of the mind may say, “You’ve been doing unskillful things in the past, you’re going to give in to unskillful impulses in the future, so why bother resisting now?” Fight that. You’ve got to fight it. And you have the freedom to fight it. That’s the important part of our kamma: that element of freedom." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Good Side of Kamma"
Read more