[Buddha-l] Re: Problems with karma

[Dan Lusthaus]

> Interestingly this corresponds to lists of the causes of illness in
Tibetan
> medicine - probably in some other traditional medical systems to.

> - Chris

Yes, indeed. These are traditional Indian medical terms, reiterated (in
various rearrangements and sharpened differentiations) in such contexts as
the Yogacarabhumi's explanation for various conditions, such as insanity,
intoxication, dying, etc. The oldest extant Indian medical text, the
Caraka-samhita, offers similar lists (which it treats in a Samkhyan way,
equating bile, phlegm, wind, etc., with the three gunas, and so on).

So at the very least, "illness" in the formula, "illness, old age and
death" -- which are the common metonymies for duhkha -- were not attributed
by Buddha exclusively to karma.

I discuss this passage from the Samyutta Nikaya that offers these other
causes, in refutation of the claim by Siivaka Moliya that ALL misfortune is
caused by karma, in _Buddhist Phenomenology_ pp. 175ff.

Dan Lusthaus