Summary Of The Main Point
About The Law Of Kamma And Its
Relevance To Other Laws
The Law of Kamma and Right View
The Lord Buddha, the light of the world and the universe, happens for the purpose of assuaging suffering and promoting arises for all living beings. He is the world's and the universe's true refuge. Since the first day He resolved to become enlightened as a Buddha one day, He had Right View and continued to accumulate merit and cultivate Perfections throughout His countless lifetimes. He did everything good and decent for the sake of Buddhahood. In His final lifetime, He became enlightened as the Lord Buddha and discovered the Four Noble Truths. He knew that living beings continued to suffer because they lacked Right View. In ignorance, they continued to accumulate misdeeds. The Lord Buddha emphasized the importance of having Right View because it could guide one to accumulate only good deeds. The Tenfold Right View is as follows:
1. Practice Generosity: To survive, we all need the four necessities which include shelter, food, clothes, and medicine. Since all of us are still trapped in the round of rebirth and must continue to suffer rebirth, aging, illnesses, and death, it is necessary that we help each other by generously giving to one another. Moreover, we must not exploit each other and we must not be inconsiderate. We must try to remove miserliness from us by practicing generosity. We must believe that alms-giving does bear fruit. Unfortunately, what we are seeing today is selfishness, exploitation, and other signs of greed.
2. Help Each Other Out in Times of Need: We must learn to live together despite our diversity because none of us can exist alone. When everyone in the community can have more or less an equal standard of living, there will be less problems overall. When certain members of the community encounter financial hardship and cannot adequately support themselves, it is up to the better-to-do members to help these other members out as best as they can so that they can continue to survive and have the opportunity to better themselves later on. We must believe that aid-giving does bear fruit. It means that giving to social aid is one way to accumulate good deeds because we are helping our fellow beings out in times of need. Unfortunately, what does happen in the world today is that these less fortunate members of the community are sometimes taken advantage of by the better-to-do members.
3. Admire and Honor Virtuous Individuals: Individuals worthy of our respect and gratitude both directly and indirectly include our ancestors, our parents, our teachers, our elders, our superior, and the Buddhist monks who practice righteousness. We express our gratitude to them by admiring them and respecting them, by not finding faults with them, not feeling jealous of them, or not trying to act superior to them. Admiring and honoring virtuous individuals is a decent practice which should be passed on to posterity. We must believe that revering individuals who are worthy of our reverence does bear fruit. The practice fosters harmony and unity and encourages us to do good deeds. Unfortunately, most people nowadays feel no need to care for their aging parents. They want to replace their boss by taking over his job. They do not respect their teachers, etc. Such indecent practices spawn fierce rivalry, disunity, and disharmony.
4. Good and Bad Kamma Do Bear Fruit: This is in accordance with the saying 'we reap what we sow' in that we receive the good consequences of our good deeds and we receive the ill consequences of our bad deeds. Therefore, it is crucially important that we know the criteria of good and bad deeds so that we can choose to perform only good deeds. Everything we decide to do remains within us. It is like hammering a nail into a plank of wood and removing the nail afterward, the plank still bears the scar from the nail. Good deeds cannot wipe away bad deeds. However, good deeds can dilute or slow down the ill consequences of bad deeds in the way that water can be added to salt. The more water is added, the less salty the water will be. But if more salt is added, then the water will become more salty.
5. The Reality of This World Exists: This world encompasses conditioned things, body, and mind in the forms of living beings which include human beings, celestial beings, hell beings and their respective abodes. The Law of Kamma dictates that each being lives with the consequences of his past Kamma and lives to perform new Kamma. That is, everything in our lives and every aspect about our lives are determined by our overall Kamma. There are no such things as coincidences. As a human being, each one of us meets with life's vicissitudes in a unique way as a result of our unique overall Kamma. No two people face the exact same pattern of vicissitudes. Not only does the reality of this world exist but this world is a world of opportunities for human beings. We can use our body to perform good deeds and accumulate as much merit as we wish. This is in contrast to celestial beings and animals that cannot perform good deeds to any real extent. The Human Realm is conducive to the accumulation of good deeds because we are surrounded by virtuous friends such as Buddhist monks, novice monks, parents, teachers, etc. We have only a finite amount of time in this world. We may or may not reach the average lifespan and death can come at any moment. Certain misdeeds in our past existences can very easily cut short our life. It behooves us then to hurry and accumulate as many good deeds as possible while we can and to abandon all misdeeds. We must do our best with whatever time we have left. Remember that this world is a world of opportunities and we must use everything it provides to perform only wholesome deeds.
6. The Reality of the Hereafter Exists: Death is definitely not the end. As long as the consciousness is still dominated by defilements, only the body deteriorates and dies but the consciousness continues to undergo rebirth as dictated by its overall Kamma. The Lord Buddha said, "All beings possess their own Kamma. They are the heir of their Kamma. Their rebirth and their race are determined by their Kamma. Their Kamma is their refuge. Their Kamma determines their crudeness and their refinement." The Lord Buddha's saying makes us realize that wherever a human being or an animal is born, each being is receiving the consequences of the good and bad Kamma accumulated in his past existences. That makes each one of us the heir of our Kamma. After death, each being continues to live in the hereafter by being reborn as a human being, an animal, etc., depending on each being's overall Kamma. For example, if during one's existence as a human being, one is a womanizer and a liar, after one dies one will be reborn as a monkey. Based on the Lord Buddha's Teachings, the theory of evolution is inconsistent with the truth because what causes a human rebirth and what causes an animal rebirth are completely different. Species does not evolve and the overall similarity among species arises from similar overall Kamma of members of the respective species.
The hereafter or rebirth takes place right after death. Since living beings are still trapped in the round of rebirth, there subsequently arise different realms of existence to accommodate them. Take for example our earth where we can see human beings and a great variety of animals inhabiting the same realm of existence. Human beings live like human beings and animals live like animals. For example, fish must live in the water. They will die if they try to live on land. In the same token, human beings who try to live like fish will only die. The hereafter of each living being is unknown. One does not know what type of being one will be reborn as next. One may have a rebirth in a different universe altogether. The only thing which is certain is the fact that everyone must be reborn and continue to live in the hereafter because our inherent defilements are still with us. Therefore, it behooves us to learn about the hereafter and how it is determined by our overall Kamma.
There are four ways to prepare for life in the hereafter:
1) We must believe in Kamma and the Law of Kamma.
2) We must practice generosity by giving alms and do it to our best ability. We must convert our money and other material wealth, which are crude wealth into merit which is refined wealth. The reason is life in the hereafter is nourished by our accumulated merit or condemned by our accumulated demerit.
3) We must observe the Five Precepts meticulously. The Five Precepts are what make us truly human.
4) We must develop our insight through the practice of meditation. Meditation is instrumental in the cultivation of penetrating insight. This penetrating insight allows us to witness the truth for what it is. The brighter our penetrating insight, the further we can witness the truth. This type of insight is called 'Bhavana-maya-panna' or insight resulting from mental development.
Life in the hereafter is unavoidable since we are still dominated by defilements. How we live in the hereafter is dictated by our overall Kamma and the Law of Kamma. If we have made mistakes throughout our past, now is the time to stop making them. We must go forward and leave all the mistakes behind us. We must follow the Lord Buddha's instructions and live each day to the best of our ability by accumulating only good deeds.
7. We Are Indebted to Our Mother: Mother is considered the Arahat of the home. She carries us in her womb. She nurtures and takes care of us since our birth. She gives of herself generously. At the very least, we owe our mother in the three following ways:
1) She makes it possible for us to be conceived.
2) She is our physical prototype.
3) She is our psychological prototype.
It is becoming more and more evident these days how teenagers tend to overlook their mothers' important role. They pay more attention to their friends than to their mothers. They tend to get annoyed with their mothers and accuse them of being nagging when they are only trying to teach them something. The ready availability of alcohol and drugs causes some individuals to commit matricide because their mothers refuse to give them any money to indulge in their habit. Matricide is a very grave misdeed and will cause the perpetrator to have a rebirth in the hell realm of Aveci immediately after he dies. The best way to repay our mother is not by becoming a successful professional or by giving her money but by encouraging her to give alms, observe the Five Precepts, and practice meditation.
8. We Are Indebted to Our Father: An example of someone who could eventually realize his father's important role is King Ajatasattu. Having been misled by a wicked person, he killed his father King Bimbisara. A story was told to demonstrate the deep love that King Bimbisara had for his son. When his son was young and suffered from a very painful boil, King Bimbisara used his mouth to suck the pus from the boil because he could not bear to see his son cry so piteously. After the patricide, King Ajatasattu understood the love his father had for him because he became a father for the first time himself. His guilt made him unable to eat or sleep. Our father made it possible for us to be conceived. He serves as our physical and psychological prototype in the same way as our mother. Here again, the best way to repay our father is not by becoming a successful professional or by giving him money, but by encouraging him to give alms, observe the Five Precepts, and practice meditation.
9. The Reality of Spontaneous Rising Exists: Spontaneous rising means have a rebirth in an adult form, which is completely different from human beings and animals. A rebirth in the Celestial Realm, the Form Brahma Realm, and the Non-Form Brahma Realm takes the form of spontaneous rising. Spontaneous rising also occurs in the Peta Realm, the Asurakaya Realm, and the Hell Realm. There are at least two reasons why we should study about spontaneous rising as follows:
1) Knowledge about Spontaneous Rising Encourages Us to Develop Hiri and Ottappa Hiri means being ashamed of evil while Ottappa means being fearful of the ill consequences of evil deeds. The lack of these two virtues is what causes many more living beings to be reborn in the States of Unhappiness. The Lord Buddha compared the number of beings being reborn in the Sates of Happiness as the number of an ox's horns whereas the number of those reborn in the States of Unhappiness as the number of the ox's body hair. The chance of having a rebirth as a human being is as scarce as a blind turtle which comes up for air every 100 years and happens to get its neck caught inside a noose hanging about at the surface of the great ocean. The number of living beings that are reborn as a human being is like the amount of dust in the fingernail when compared to all the dust on earth. All the dust on earth can be compared to the number of human beings that are reborn in the States of Unhappiness after they die simply because they have committed so many misdeeds during their human existence on earth.
Hiri and Ottappa work to keep us from making mistakes in two ways:
1.1) When temptation comes from outside of us in the form of diversity especially in the area of differences in religious belief, it can lead to misunderstanding, arguments, fights, and all the way to violent eruptions which can lead to killing. When we are caught in the situation, we must exercise patience and resist any anger which may arise because once a fight breaks out, enmity will not only occur between the involved parties, but will also follow both parties and bind them in a bond of enmity for endless lifetimes to come.
1.2) When temptation comes from outside of us in the form of different Causes of Ruin¹¹], we must avoid them at all cost by exercising our Hiri and Ottappa.
2) Knowledge about Spontaneous Rising Encourages Us to Accumulate Merit Now that we know how life continues in the hereafter in two ways which are the States of Happiness and the States of Unhappiness, we should feel encouraged to perform only wholesome deeds so that we can spend our hereafter in the States of Happiness. After we have continued to perform wholesome deeds countless lifetimes after countless lifetimes, we can eventually achieve Emancipation and attain Nibbana.
The fact that the naked human eye cannot detect spontaneous rising which has a more refined physical form can cause some of us to disbelieve about life in the hereafter. But for those of us fortunate enough to learn about spontaneous rising, we should take care and live our lives in ways that will lead us to spend the hereafter in the States of Happiness. We must endeavor to perform only wholesome deeds and not to give in to any temptation to exploit or harm others for the sake of our own gain. We should be willing to lay down our lives in order to avoid committing any misdeed. This way we can remind ourselves and advise others not to commit even the slightest misdeed, but to perform even the slightest good deed.
10. The Accomplished Buddhist Monks Who Practice Righteousness and Possess the Insightful Knowledge of This World and the Hereafter Exist: It means that the Path which leads to enlightenment exists. It means that Arahats exist. It means that as long as there are holy individuals in the world who practice according to the Noble Eightfold Path, there will continue to be Arahats. Individuals who have the insightful knowledge of this world and the hereafter can be divided into two categories, as follows:
Category 1: The Lord Buddha
Category 2: The Arahats
The Lord Buddha mentioned this particular part of the Tenfold Right View because He wanted to point out that there were indeed individuals that had insightful knowledge of the hereafter. The hereafter is not a figment of imagination or a result of intellectual debate. Such insightful knowledge can only be gained by Buddhist monks who practice righteousness in accordance with the Lord Buddha's Teachings. The knowledge can be gained by any individual who lays down his life to practice according to the Noble Eightfold Path. Although the Lord Buddha and the Arahats are no longer with us, there are still holy individuals that have attained a certain level of this insightful knowledge. Therefore, it is up to us to search for such worthy individuals, to learn from them, to follow their teaching so that we too can gain a certain level of this insightful knowledge.
Having the Tenfold Right View can help us to set three life-goals which include abandoning evil, performing good deeds, and keeping our mind bright and clear. These goals keep us on the right course. Therefore, we must keep these goals in mind all the time. There were several examples of individuals during the time of our Lord Buddha who possessed enough overall merit to attain Arahatship. However, they missed the precious opportunity because they associated with fools in their youth.
