[Buddha-l] Re: buddha-l Digest, Vol 8, Issue 121

[Richard P. Hayes]

On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 10:26 -0400, Hugo wrote:

> All this discussion about interpretations of the Law of Kamma leads me
> to understand why in the sutta of Right View it is said that believing
> in the Law of Kamma is Right View with fermentations:
> 
> http://www.accesstoinsight.org/canon/sutta/majjhima/mn-117-tb0.html

Thank you for citing this text, Hugo. It is one of the texts that has
been pivotal in my understanding of kamma (poor though that
understanding remains). Also pivotal was a discussion in Buddhaghosa's
commentary to MN version of the sutta on the four foundations of
mindfulness, in which he said, as I recall, that stream-entry consists
in abandoning attachment to good conduct (siila) and vows (vata).
Whenever good conduct and vows are undertaken with some notion of
personal gain---that is, whenever one asks "What is in this good conduct
for me---then one is attached to the good conduct. But when one just
does the wholesome action because it is the wholesome action, then one
is no longer attached to the wholesome action. 

The passage you cite from the MN does not say exactly the same thing,
but it does make the point that when one is thinking in personal terms
while doing wholesome actions, then one is doing contaminated (saasava)
wholesome actions. This contaminated wholesomeness is a step toward
doing uncontaminated wholesome actions, so one should not belittle it,
but one should be aware that there is still a distance to go in being
wholesome. Similar points are made almost ad nauseam in the perfection
of wisdom literature.

In one of his Unitarian sermons (number 160 to be precise) Emerson
argues that people go seriously astray when they think of God as as
external being who creates and superintends the cosmos. Rather, he says,
one should understand that God is conscience. It is that within all of
us that is pained when anyone is treated violently or dishonourably, and
that in all of us that feels diminished by our own behavior when it
falls short of our own highest standards. So God, says Emerson, is not
so much the giver of particular laws but the principle of goodness that
all particular laws can only imperfectly embody. (Yes, Emerson was a
Platonist.) Toward this end, he quotes Socrates as saying "The gods are
more pleased by our integrity than by our charity." Charity is a
particular good, to be sure, but it is derivative of an overall goodness
of character (susiila, as the Pali would have it) and so of lesser value
than the goodness of character itself.

Much of what has been said in this whole protracted discussion of
whether eating (or buying) meat is bad karma has struck me as focusing
on a relatively unimportant issue (the goodness of a particular action)
and ignoring the more important issue of good character. When character
is maximally good, I am tempted to say, the very question of whether it
is acceptable to eat (or buy) the flesh of animals killed against their
will ceases to arise as a question. The answer is dead obvious.

Although Emerson wrote sermon CLX before he became acquainted with
Buddhism, he ended the sermon with a line that any Buddhist would
immediately resonate with: 
"The reason why so few men have found the Father is that so few men
watch their own minds." (Substitute Buddha for Father, since Emerson's
conception of God is so close to what Buddhists talk about in different
terminology.) 

Seek the Buddha in the mere obedience of precepts and in other people's
opinions about which actions are good and which are bad karma, and one
finds a relatively unworthy shadow of the Buddha. Seek the Buddha in the
mindfulness from which following precepts spontaneously flows, and one
finds the Buddha.

-- 
Richard