[Buddha-l] bad karma causes illness?

[jkirk]

The doctrine that bad karma (usually phrased as karmic
retribution) causes illness, stupidity etc. reminds me of certain
Protestant attitudes to such human afflictions, that are based on
the Calvinist idea that if you end up sick, stupid, or poor, it's
your own fault and you are being punished by God.  Despite the
linguistic dodges of various Buddhist philosophers to make it
seem like karma is an impersonal law of the cosmos (comparable to
the common Christian idea that the Lord moves in mysterious ways,
His wonders to behold), I learned while doing fieldwork in my
profession that ordinary folks in south Asia anyway take this
karmic retribution idea personally, and sometimes obsessively
search their souls trying to figure out what they did that
brought such horrendous results on their bodies.  I heard these
ideas from patients when I was doing research in a hospital in
India.

Hindus (don't know about Sikhs) have various religious rituals
available to them by which they can try to overcome bad karma,
bad luck, demon attacks, witchcraft or sorcery and the like--all
afflictions which IMO fall under supernatural causation. But the
Buddhists, poor dears, don't have any of these methods--they must
grin and bear it. They can only improve their moral standing if
they have the money to build a pagoda or buy amulets from a
monk--but no evidence that these deeds will provide relief from
such afflictions, since such relief might be only forthcoming in
their next more fortunate rebirth. Monk Buddhadasa railed against
the idea that you can buy yourself out of a bad future rebirth
via amulets and/or ostentatious merit making performances.

Reading between the lines in this sutta, one can see that the
exemplary crimes the Buddha cites, if not performed as actual
murders, have to do with the occupation of farming (and that is
why other suttas inveigh against monks having anything to do with
farming). "...some woman or man is one who harms beings with his
hands or with clods or with sticks or with knives." Such can be
said of anyone practicing farming, herding, etc. Then the
discourse moves on to such sins as rage, envy, stinginess with
resources. In no. 13, we find that daanaa to monks is conflated
with daanaa to Brahmans: "some woman or man is not a giver of
food, drink, cloth, sandals, garlands, perfumes, unguents, bed,
roof and lighting to monks or Brahmans." (We already know that in
other suttas monks are to steer clear of garlands, perfumes &
unguents.) The fact that Brahmans are given such honor here
contrasts with other suttas where the Buddha asserts that
Brahmans are not born but made--only by character and behavior.
Such are not the Brahmans cited in this text.

Then it moves on to sins of pride or arrogance, and a list of
silly questions that should not be asked of monk or Brahman.
No.20 sums it all up: "Beings are owners of kammas, student,
heirs of kammas, they have kammas as their progenitor, kammas as
their kin, kammas as their homing-place. It is kammas that
differentiate beings according to inferiority and superiority." 

Inferiority and superiority eh?
All due to kamma, not due to behavior in this life alone?  
Here I see a return of a similar idea, the much later Calvinist
idea that you cannot buy God's grace (no material making of
merit, folks), you must do good or you'll go to hell, but if you
exert efforts to do good, you might earn His grace. If you are
rich and socially superior, it's a pretty good sign that God
bestowed his grace on you. (See Weber, The Protestant Ethic.)
(Hard to believe that Marx didn't say something about this
somewhere.)

Most of the canonic ideas about the cosmic workings of kamma
simply strike me as anciently supernatural when it comes to
behavior, morals, and the consequences of action in daily life,
or the question of no discoverable explanations. 

Joanna






See Verse 7:

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.135.nymo.html

W.F. Wong

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