Friends
How does Kamma
cause Rebirth?
In Majjhima Nikāya
135 a brahman raises the problem:
There are found people who are short-lived, and those that are long-lived;
there are found people
who are very sick, and those that are healthy; there are found people who are
ugly, and also those
that are beautiful; there are found people who are powerless, and those that
are powerful; there
are found people who are poor, and those that are rich; there are found people
who are of low
family, and those that are of high family; there are found people who are
stupid, and those that
are intelligent. What then, Master Gotama, is the reason for this diverse inferiority
& superiority
among human beings?
The Blessed One replied:
Beings are owners of their kamma, inherit their kamma, kamma is their maker
and creator,
they are born from and by their kamma, kamma is the womb from which they
emerge,
they are linked and associated to their past kamma as their friend and refuge...
Therefore does kamma divide beings into the high and low, beautiful and ugly!
In Anguttara Nikāya III,40 it is said:
"Killing, stealing, adultery, lying, backbiting, harsh angry speech
and empty prattling, practiced,
cultivated and frequently engaged in, will lead
to hell, the animal
world or the realm of ghosts."
Further: "Whoso kills and is cruel, will either
go to hell, or if reborn
as a human, will be short-lived.
Whosoever tortures other beings, will be afflicted
with disease. The
hater will be ugly & hideous,
the envious will be without influence, the stubborn will
be of low rank, the indolent will be ignorant.
In the reverse case, a person will be reborn in a
heavenly world; or, if
reborn as a human being, and
will be endowed with health, beauty, influence,
riches, noble rank and
intelligence."
In the
Milindapañha the King asks
the Arahat Nagasena:
What is it, Venerable Sir, that will be reborn after death?
O King: A psycho-physical combination of mentality-&-materiality (name-and-form
= nama-rupa).
But how? Is it the same psycho-physical name-and-form combination as this
present one?
No, O King. But the present psycho-physical combination produces kammically
advantageous and
disadvantageous intentional activities, and through such kamma a new psycho-physical
combination
will
be created, conditioned and born.
Source: The
Milindapañha
Buddhaghosa explains in
his
Visuddhimagga (Path of Purification):
Whosoever has no clear idea about death and does not know that death consists
in the dissolution
of the five groups of existence (i.e. form, feeling, perception, mental
formations, &
consciousness),
he thinks that it is a person, or being, that dies and
transmigrates to a new body in a new place.
And whosoever has no clear idea about rebirth, and does not know that
rebirth consists in the
arising of the five groups of existence, he thinks that it is a person, or
being, that is reborn, or
that the person reappears in a new body. And whosoever has no clear idea about
Samsara, the
round of rebirths, he thinks that a real person wanders from this world to
another world, comes
from that world to this world, etc. And whosoever has no clear idea about the
phenomena of
existence, he thinks that the phenomena are his ego or something appertaining
to the ego, or
something permanent, joyful, or pleasant. And whosoever has no clear idea about
the conditional
arising of the phenomena of existence, and about the arising of kammic
volitions conditioned
through ignorance, he thinks that it is the ego that understands or fails to
understand, that acts
or causes to act, that enters into a new existence at rebirth. Or he thinks
that the atoms or the
Creator, etc., with the help of the embryonic process, shape the body, provide
it with various
faculties; that it is the ego that receives the sensuous impression, that
feels, that desires, that
becomes attached, that enters into existence again in another world. Or he
thinks that all beings
come to life through fate or chance. A mere phenomenon it is, a conditioned thing,
that rises in the
following existence. But not from a previous life does it transmigrate there,
and yet it cannot arise
without a previous cause.
When this conditionally arisen bodily-mental phenomenon (the fetus) arises,
one
says that it has
entered into a next existence. However, no being (satta), or life-principle
(jiva),
has
transmigrated from the previous existence into this existence, and yet this
embryo could not
have
come into existence without a previous cause.
Source:
Visuddhimagga (Chap. XVII)
Everywhere, in all the realms of existence, the noble disciple sees only mental
and material
phenomena kept going through the interlocking of causes and effects. No
producer of the
intentional act or kamma does he see apart from the kamma activity itself, and no recipient
of the
kamma-result apart
from the result itself. And he is well aware that wise men are using
merely
conventional language, when
with regard to a kammical act, they speak of a doer, or an
agent, or with regard to a
kamma-result, they speak
of the recipient of the result.
No doer of
the deeds is found, No one who ever reaps their fruits: Only Empty
phenomena roll on as conditioned
states: This
only is the correct view.
The deeds and their results roll on and on, all
being conditioned
by other phenomena. In this infinite causal matrix, there is
no ultimately first beginning
to be
found,
just as it is with seed and tree...
No god, no Brahma, can be called The maker of this
wheel of life:
Only selfless phenomena roll on, all being dependent on and created by their
causal conditions...
Source:
Visuddhimagga (Chap. XIX).
