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Kamma and the End of Kamma’ Is a Useful Summary of What the Buddha Had to Offer As a Path to Well-Being and to Awakening

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Kamma and the End of Kamma’ Is a Useful Summary of What the Buddha Had to Offer As a Path to Well-Being and to Awakening THIS BOOK HAS BEEN SPONSORED OUT OF GRATITUDE TO THE FOREST SANGHA ‘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.) CONTENTS PREFACE. 8 THE BUDDHA’S THREE KNOWLEDGES . .8 . REBIRTH AND KAMMA . 12 THE KAMMA BEHIND THIS BOOK . 14 NOTES ON THE TEXT . 17. ENDNOTES . 17 SUTTA ABBREVIATIONS . .18 . 1. ACTION THAT LEADS TO LIBERATION . 19 THE FOUR KINDS OF KAMMA . 21. BODILY, VERBAL AND MENTAL KAMMA: THE CAUSAL FIELD . .24 STEERING THROUGH THE CAUSAL FIELD . .27 . LIBERATION BEGINS WITH MUTUALITY . 30. LIBERATION DEEPENS WITH MINDFULNESS . .34 . STOPPING KAMMA . 38. MEDITATION: SETTLING IN PLACE . .40 . 2. BRIGHT KAMMA . 42 . BRIGHT AND DARK KAMMA ARISE FROM THE HEART . .43 . SENSE AND MEANING: THE PERCEPTUAL PROCESS . .45 . PUJA: RITUAL THAT BRIGHTENS THE HEART . .49 . THE SKILLS OF ATTENTION . 52. RECOLLECTION: DHAMMA VALUES BECOME STRENGTHS . 56. IT’S ALWAYS POSSIBLE. 61 MEDITATION: RECOLLECTION . 63. 3. THE KAMMA OF MEDITATION . 65 INTERCONNECTION OF BODY, THOUGHT AND HEART . 67. THE WORK OF NOT-WORKING . 70. CONSOLIDATION THROUGH BREATHING . .76 . ENDING KAMMA THROUGH INSIGHT . 81. MEDITATION: EMBODYING THE MIND . 86. 4. KAMMA AND MEMORY . 90 OLD KAMMA DOESN’T DIE. 91 CITTA AND KAYA: THE AFFECTED FIELD . 94 CLEARING RESULTS FROM THE PAST: AN OUTLINE . 101. PRACTISING THE GREAT HEART. 105 UNSEATING PERFECTIONISM AND LIVING IN BALANCE . .108 . MEDITATION: GOODWILL . 111. 5. REGARDING THE WORLD . .114 . INTERDEPENDENCE . .115 . FIRM FEET, FIRM GROUND: PARAMI . 118 LATENT TENDENCIES: STUFF RISES UP . 120 FOUR BASES OF CLINGING. 124 FACTORS OF AWAKENING: THE WORK OF RELEASE . 129. KNOWLEDGE AND ACTION. 132 MEDITATION: MEETING YOUR WORLD . .134 . 6. THE KAMMA OF RELATIONSHIP . 137 THE COMMUNITY OF VALUE . 138 THE RELATIONAL VORTEX: BECOMING, CONCEIT AND PROLIFERATION . 141 KALYANAMITTA AS A PRACTICE . 148. A MUTUAL LIFE. 151 EXPLORATION AND THE INNER FRIEND . 155. MEDITATION: MEETING SPACE (STANDING) . 158. 7. IS THERE AN END?. 162 EXIT FROM SAMSARA: TURNING OFF THE OUTFLOWS. 164 DISTORTIONS AND CLEAR SEEING . .167 . LIVING THE NOBLE TRUTHS . .173 . WHOLE-LIFE PATH . .174 . MEDITATION: UNCONTRACTED AWARENESS . 183 ENDNOTES . 188. ACTION THAT LEADS TO LIBERATION . 188 BRIGHT KAMMA . 190. THE KAMMA OF MEDITATION . 191. KAMMA AND MEMORY . 192. REGARDING THE WORLD. 192 THE KAMMA OF RELATIONSHIP . 194. IS THERE AN END? . .195 . GLOSSARY . 197 PREFACE This book evolved out of some talks I had given in the space of a few years, mostly at Cittaviveka Monastery. In these talks, I had been exploring the relevance of the Buddha’s teachings on kamma to the practice of meditation. At first glance, the two topics may not seem that closely related: kamma is a teaching on behaviour, and meditation is apparently about doing nothing, isn’t it? Or we might have the idea that ‘Kamma is all about who I was in a previous life, what I’m stuck with now, and what I’ll get reborn as. Kamma is about being somebody, whilst meditation is about not being anybody.’ Not so. I hope that the ensuing texts, which have evolved from talks into essays, help make it clear that the principles of kamma link ‘external’ behaviour to the ‘internal’ practice of meditation. And that meditation is one kind of kamma – the kamma that leads to the end of kamma. In fact, ‘kamma and the end of kamma’ is a useful summary of what the Buddha had to offer as a path to well-being and to awakening. THE BUDDHA’S THREE KNOWLEDGES The foundational experience of the Buddha’s Dhamma is in the ‘three knowledges’: realizations that are said to have occurred to the Buddha in a sequence, on one night. Despite practising formless, disembodied meditation and asceticism with intense PREFACE resolve, he felt that they had not borne fruit in terms of his quest for ‘the Deathless’. It was eventually through shifting his approach to one of peaceful and reflective inquiry that three realizations arose; and with these his aim was achieved. The first of these realizations was the awareness of previous lives. This knowledge transcended the most fundamental definition of our identity – as measured within the time-span of the birth and death of a body. The realization arose that what is consequently experienced as a ‘person’ is one manifestation in an ongoing mental process, rather than an isolated one-off self. That ‘self’ that he could observe forming and responding in the present was like a wave formation on a tidal ocean; it had been through many births and deaths – and if unchecked would continue to do so. This vision was alarming: it stretched the dilemma of birth, sickness, death and separation from the loved beyond the span of a single life to an existential purgatory of endlessly ‘wandering on’ (saṃsāra). And yet on the other hand, in seeing this, his awareness had moved to a transpersonal overview, one not limited to material existence. The door to the Deathless had begun to open. The second realization was that the direction of the wandering-on was not haphazard, that it moved in accordance with the ethical quality of the deeds that the person carried out. This knowledge showed that there are energies that are disruptive or abusive and do not sustain clarity or health; and there are energies that are harmonious, nourishing or clearly attuned. ‘Bad’ and ‘good’ (or ‘unskilful/unwholesome/ 9 KAMMA AND THE END OF KAMMA dark’, and ‘skilful/wholesome/bright’ in Buddhist terms) are consequently not just value judgements imposed by a society. They are references to energies that are psychologically, emotionally and physically palpable. Action in line with wholesome energy supports well-being and harmony, just as the contrary does the opposite. This is the principle of ethical cause and effect, or ‘kamma-vipāka’. Kamma-vipāka means that each individual’s actions don’t just affect others – they leave an imprint on that individual’s mind. This effect (vipāka) imprint or ‘patterning’ is retained in accordance with an inclination called ‘becoming’ (bhava). Becoming links up the ‘dots’ of each imprint (‘kamma- formation’ or saṇkhāra) and thereby both solidifies the pattern and gives rise to the sense of continuity. It is triggered by a reflex of clinging or attaching to phenomena, and the result is that the mind shapes an identity out of these patterns and imprints. Like one’s personal genetic code, saṇkhārā retain our kammic blueprints, and so from day to day we remain the same person in relative terms. We become the results of our actions, for good or bad; and as these patterns contain codes for action, then based upon that inheritance, or vipāka, we then act – kamma. The process of kamma-vipāka creates the impression of a self who is the result of their actions, and is ‘coloured’ by their ethical quality. To put it simply: it’s not so much that I create kamma, but that kamma creates ‘me’. Thus kamma-vipāka transcends the separation between action and actor. It embeds consciousness in a field of ethical meaning, where every action forms and informs ‘me, mine, myself’. 10 PREFACE Also, as kamma arises in an ongoing tide of causal energy, results of action can take place in future lives. And this means that kamma binds us to the process of birth and death, something that the Buddha brought to mind in dramatic terms: ‘Long have you (repeatedly) experienced the death of a mother … of a father … the death of a brother … the death of a sister … the death of a son … the death of a daughter … loss with regard to relatives … loss with regard to wealth … loss with regard to disease. The tears you have shed over loss with regard to disease while transmigrating and wandering this long, long time – crying and weeping from being joined with what is displeasing, being separated from what is pleasing – are greater than the water in the four great oceans. ‘Why is that? From an inconstruable beginning comes transmigration. A beginning point is not evident, though beings hindered by ignorance and fettered by craving are transmigrating & wandering on. Long have you thus experienced stress, experienced pain, experienced loss, swelling the cemeteries – enough to become disenchanted with all fabricated things, enough to become dispassionate, enough to be released.’ (S.15:3; Thanissaro, trans.) As shocking as this admonition is, it also contains the message that liberation from this saṃsāra is possible: through the clearing, the letting go, and the ‘ceasing’ of those very energy patterns that carry cause and effect – and ‘me’.
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