Kamma, Vipaka and Rebirth

[robertk]

If all you want is a brief answer to "Where is all this kamma stored? "
. Nagasena replied to milinda

“Kamma is not stored somewhere in this fleeting consciousness nor
in any part of the body. But dependent on mind and body, it rests,
manifesting itself at the opportune moment, just as mangoes are not
said to be stored somewhere in the mango tree, but dependent on the
mango tree they lie, springing up in due season".

[jayarava]

If all you want is a brief answer to "Where is all this kamma stored? "
. Nagasena replied to milinda

“Kamma is not stored somewhere in this fleeting consciousness nor in any part of the body. But dependent on mind and body, it rests, manifesting itself at the opportune moment, just as mangoes are not said to be stored somewhere in the mango tree, but dependent on the mango tree they lie, springing up in due season".

Again, no. What I want is some kind of traditional explanation for something you claim is straightforward. Something I can cite in an essay rather than hearsay. I don't doubt that the belief is valid, but in order to take it further I need to know the source of it. If the belief cannot be located in traditional texts, does this mean that it is a modern innovation? If the belief can be located in traditional sources, does it have obvious antecedents or is it innovative? How does it develop? Etc.

And this quote from Miln, unattributed and a bother for me to track down, is no help because it does not tell us anything. It's a metaphor where the underlying reality is obscured. This is a common feature of many religious doctrines. The "seed > fruit" metaphor is used throughout India literature as a model for causation, but it really tells us nothing. What it in effect says is that there is a "black box" process that produces vipāka, just like the black box process that produces mangoes. This is the gist of the pañcavidhaṃ niyāmaṃ doctrine as well: cittaniyāma and kammaniyāma are plausibly like the natural (dhammatā) processes of bījaniyāma and utuniyāma (seed produce like seeds, in the right time and place), and as an afterthought dhammaniyāma (which is all about miracles) can be explained the same way. Simply saying it's a natural process clearly never suited the Abhidhammikas. They produced detailed answers in place of woolly metaphors.

Since other Buddhists perceived this problem and conceived of solutions for it, it is difficult to imagine the Theravāda intellectuals not noticing, and not trying to explain in detail. All this is dangerously close to being off topic. However I've found a much better answer which I will post separately.

[jayarava]

Last night I was looking again at Noa Ronkin's book Early Buddhist Metaphysics. In the chapter "Causation as the Handmaid of Metaphysics" she summarises the 24 conditions as found in the Paṭṭhāna in a very helpful way. What it now seems to me is that the functions of accumulating and passing forward kamma are distributed amongst several different types of conditionality - dhammas can operate in many different modes as a condition.

Under her discussion of the pair proximity (antara-paccaya) and and contiguity (samantara-paccaya) conditions Ronkin says:

"Every preceding thought moment is thus regarded as capable of arousing succeeding states of consciousness similar to it in the immediately following instant." (216)

She further speculates that these two, almost identical, modes of conditionality were

"probably necessary in order to account for the continuity of phenomena without relying on any metaphysical substance". (216)

Thus here we have a strong candidate for solving the problem I originally asked about. This is covered in Visuddhimagga XVII.73-6 (Vol 2, para 598 in the VRI ed.) Buddhaghosa spends some time refuting an internal dispute regarding the need for temporal proximity. This is slightly troubling because if we dispense with the need for temporal proximity we have no answer at all to our problem of action at a temporal distance - it's just something that happens according to Buddhaghosa. This is not how Ronkin interprets the Paṭṭhāna however. If we follow through the rest of the paccaya modes we find more specific links of this kind.

The decisive support condition (upanissaya-paccaya) allows a dhamma to self-sufficiently arouse a resultant dhamma. It's like a nissaya-paccaya but not necessarily foremost and "it last longer, has long-term effect and implies action at a distance... The importance of the decisive support condition seems to lie in its accounting for more and spiritual progress: virtues like trust or confidence (saddhā), generostiy (dāna), undertaking the precepts and others, all assist the occurrence of their long term results (the jhānas, insight, taking the path etc) as their decisive support, and these results, in their turn, condition the repeated arising of trust, generosity etc. (219, emphasis added)

As the Paṭṭhāna says: purimā purimā kusalā dhammā pacchimānaṃ pacchimānaṃ kusalānaṃ dhammānaṃ upanissayapaccayena paccayo. "All preceeding wholesome dhammas are a condition by way of decisive support condition of all subsequent wholesome dhammas" (i.5) Similarly for unwholesome (akusala) and undetermined (abyākata) dhammas.

This section is covered in Visuddhimagga XVII 80-84. We also have:

Habitual cultivation (āsevana-paccaya)... "for example, developing a certain skilful thought once facilitates the cultivation of the same thought with a greater degree of efficiency and intensity... It therefore underlies the cultivation of right view, right speech and right action." (219)

Habitual cultivation is thus also responsible for memory without an agent that remembers - Ronkin places this observation in a note, with a reference to an article in two parts by David Kalupahana, both (1962) 'The Philosophy of Relations in Buddhism' University of Ceylon Review: 19-54; 188-208. (task for today is to dig out these articles). Vism XVII 87, though what's here is a bit obscure.

The kamma-paccaya occurs in two modes simultaneous (sahajāta) and asynchronous (nānākhaṇika)... and according to Ronkin:

"An asynchronous condition obtains when a past kamma comes into fruition in a manifest corresponding action. Although the volition itself ceases, it leaves in the mind latent traces that take effect and assist the arising of an appropriate action when the necessary conditions are satisfied" (220)

This is less satisfying because it does not explain the "latent trace" but I think the implication is clear enough in the light of the other passages. Thus we can see now how the Abhidhammikas conceived of this process taking place.

So overall I think we can say that the principle is established with reference to the Abhidhamma, the idea of continuity with no entities, nascent in the suttas is fleshed out in the Paṭṭhāna. It's not so clear what Buddhaghosa intended in Vism, but it may have been so obvious by his time that he does now spell it out (though given how thorough he is otherwise I find this odd). I'm still slightly puzzled that this problem is so prominent elsewhere, and yet here quite submerged and difficult to get at. However in such gaps are where articles are published. I have quite a bit of work to do yet, but the article I'm working on is definitely taking shape.

Thanks to those who provided pointers and suggestions. I think I have what I need (I will thank the participants in the article that I'm writing). Also thanks to the moderator for clearing the way. I never saw most of the deleted posts and I'm glad not to have been distracted by them.

[robertk]

That is good.
When i said
robertk wrote:

So because of samanantara paccaya , and other conditions , there is the continuity and accumulating

.
Did it agree with what you found, or Ninas book on the Patthana, was there anything in that?

[SarathW]

Kamma is performed in seven Javna thought moments.
There is no separate thought called Bhawanga. (it is just a label)
Different name is given for each thought moment according its function in a given moment.

In fact bhavanga moments are completely different from javana moments. Both are absolutely real.
What do you mean by "thoughts"?

What I am trying to say is if you take the famous example of the man sleeping under a mango tree, all of seventeen thought moments are a different aspect of the same consciousness.
Kamma is caused only at the Javna level. For Arahants Javna is replaced with Phala.
So they do not have Kamma Citta. Hence it is called Kiriya Citta.

[robertk]

I see.
Actually each of those seventeen moments you mention is a completely new and different consciousness.

[beeblebrox]

Actually each of those seventeen moments you mention is a completely new and different consciousness.

Different yes, but I don't think completely new. It is constructed out of what was in the previous moment. Or else there would've been a "brand new" birth, with a completely clean slate... not a "rebirth."

Speaking of the thread topic... I think that this might explain what the rebirth actually is (including the physical rebirth), and how it works.

[robertk]

Dear beeble


There are three kinds of death :


The dispeller of Delusion (pali text society) trans. Bhikku Nanamoli:
page 121, volume1:

"this division too should be known, namely momentary death (khanika-
marana), conventional death (samutti marana) and death as cutting
off (samuccheda-marana).

"

The death we fear is conventional but in fact real death is occurring every instant. Each moment falls away completely, never to come back, but it conditions the next moment -a new one - to arise.







Yahoo! Groups Links

[SarathW]

Dear beeble


There are three kinds of death :


The dispeller of Delusion (pali text society) trans. Bhikku Nanamoli:
page 121, volume1:

"this division too should be known, namely momentary death (khanika-
marana), conventional death (samutti marana) and death as cutting
off (samuccheda-marana).

"

The death we fear is conventional but in fact real death is occurring every instant. Each moment falls away completely, never to come back, but it conditions the next moment -a new one - to arise.


Is Samuccheda-marana means a person becoming an Arahant?






Yahoo! Groups Links

[robertk]

Samuchedda marana is at the death of an arahat. Khandha parinibbana. The final death

[Dhamma_Basti]

My other find in the library yesterday was Gethin, Rupert. 'Bhavaṅga and Rebirth According to the Abhidhamma.' in The Buddhist Forum. Vol III. T. Skorupski and U. Pagel (eds.), London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, pp. 11–35.

Gethin works through the details of bhavaṅga process in a way that is now becoming quite familiar - his sources are the same ones we've been discussing. He rules out the bhavaṅga as the carrier of karma:

"it does not seem possible on the basis of what is said explicitly in the texts to justify the claim that the bhavaṅga carries with it all character traits, memories, habitual tendencies, etc." (30).

However Gethin is alive to the need to something to do this job or perhaps we should say for this function to be carried out somehow. Again, the fact that the Sarvāstivādins, the Sautrāntikas and the Yogacārins all recognised and proposed solutions to this problem seem to beg the question of how the Theravādins would solve it. This is exactly my own entry point. After years of study Pāli language and texts I started learning Sanskrit and delving into Sanskrit Buddhist texts. This led to an interest in Sarvāstivāda and puzzlement over how any Buddhist could believe that everything exists (sarva-asti). Gethin finds it inconceivable that the great Theravādin commentators, Buddhaghosa, Buddhadatta, and Dhammapala, had not considered the problem, and he ventures to speculate a little on how they might have solved it. Like Gethin, I'm interested that the great three seem not to have proposed an obvious solution. No one who has even dipped into the Visuddhimagga can conceive of Buddhaghosa as anything but thorough.

For Gethin there are many similarities between bhavaṅga and ālayavijñāna and thus he is willing to entertain the thought that the two at least "belong to the same complex of ideas within the history of Buddhist thought." (35). I agree on this last point.

There is still the lead pointing to pakati-upanissaya-paccaya which I will be trying to follow up today.

There is a highly interesting treatise on this matter by Vasubandhu, it is called the Karmasiddhiprakaraṇa and it is what one might call a 'sautrāntika-compatible' introduction into the concept of ālayavijñāna. Even though he mainly adresses the issues of the sautrāntika-system, Vasubandhu is not shy to equal ālayavijñāna with bhavaṇga-citta at one point. This might be his way of providing an upaya-kauśalya, and maybe he is stretching a little bit far in order to give his obviously mahāyānistic understanding an argumentative base among his mainstream buddhist opponents, but his argumentation is certainly very reasonable and adresses a couple if important issues within the framework of mainstream buddhist thought.
From my own humble point of view, mainstream buddhist schools did struggle hard to account for the problem of continuity in relation to their understanding of strict momentariness.

[cjmacie]

.
Lots of detail in this book to maybe compare:

http://www.dhammatalks.net/Books8/Pa_Au ... _Kamma.pdf

[CedarTree]

Kamma and rebirth has always been a tough subject for me.

Threads like this are immensly helpful. Only thing I sometimes worry is we make a language game where we create language and concepts and then use those language and concepts to re-enforce other language and concepts instead of having it be objective in an outside sense.

That may not make much sense lol but philosophy of language is full of such mistakes.