Karma and rebirth Flashcards
Karma
Karma = Intentional action
Physical Verbal Mental
“It is ‘intention’ (cetanā) that I call karma; having formed the intention, one performs acts (karma) by body, speech and mind.
action & its result *restricted to a
single individual
*persists until fruition
Karma and Rebirth
- flow of energy of cause and effect
- we don’t know when effect comes to fruition
- always in flux
karmaptha (courses of karma)
Unwholesome actions:
§ Physical:
§ Taking life
§ Taking what is not given § Sexual misconduct
§ Verbal § Lying
§ Divisive speech § Hurtful speech
§ Frivolous speech
§ Mental
§ Covetousness/ greed
§ Ill-will / hatred
§ Wrong view / delusion
Wholesome actions
§Refraining from phyisical unwholesome actions
§Reafraining from verbal unwholesome actions
§ Mental
§ Desirelessness § Kindness
§ Right view
Six Realms of Saṃsāra (gati)
6 ways to be reborn:
1. gods (live much longer then humans, have certain powers to help humans)
2. humans: good actions, good karma: can be reborn as gods or humans. only humans can eventually have no new karma and enter nirvana
3. animals: humans ruled by ignorance reborn as animals
4. hungry ghosts: always craving and greedy humans: robin as hungry ghosts
5. demons: “jealous gods”: expelled from heaven for jealousy and hate
6. hell beings: humans driven by hatred: reborn as hell beings, access to nirvana not possible
“dependant arising”
- ignorance: not knowing that everything is impermanent: root of samsara
- mental formations
- consciousness
- mind and body
- six senses
- sense-contact
- feeling
- craving
- grasping
- becoming
- birth
- old age and death
= 12 causes for rebirth
transitions of dependent arising:
in past, present and future:
transform stimuli based behaviour into responses and cultivation of “wholesome/good behaviour”
all stati Interdependent, all in one instant
saṃsāra Wheel of becoming
contains dependent arising:
Center: ignorance, greed, hatred
Middle: 6 types of rebirth
Outer: 12 causes for rebirth (dependant arising)
Cause and Condition in saṃsāra:
- In saṃsāra everything arises due to causes and conditions
- Several causes give rise to several results
- It is a dynamic processes of continual change
- It is a complex interaction of causes and conditions
- Experience is made of given effects (from past actions) & free causes (i.e. the course of action in response to the given circumstances)
- No pre-determined destiny, no absolute free will
– Only nirvāṇa is unconditioned
karmic retribution
The problem of karmic retribution:
- Development of ritual and devotional strategies
that lighten the consequences of karmic fruition:
- suppression of the obstructions caused by past actions
(karmāvaraṇa)
- development of ways to reach out to people fallen into unfortunate destinies
solution: “accumulating merit”
- Promotion of pious donations to the three jewels
- Prescription of devotional activities directed towards buddhas, bodhisattva, or their functional equivalents. Includes:
- foundation, and ritual interaction with stūpas, images, dharma preachers.
- participation in regular or seasonal rituals (such as festivals)
- acts connected with the transmission, commemoration, copy, recitation, and wearing (as talisman) of sūtras, verses, mantra/dhāraṇīs, names.
Délok: visions of afterlife
- Délok (’das log), lit. “those who have returned from the dead”.
- Ordinary people who die, journey to the realm of the dead, and return to report their afterlife experiences.
- Popular accounts aimed at a lay, non- specialist audience, dealing with common anxieties about death and afterlife.
Tibetan Délok (14th cent)
- Quick and unexpected death
- Painful death experience and arrival to the netherworld
- Arrives before the Lord of Death who weights virtues and sins and pronounces judgment
- Visits the regions of hell where tortured beings plead to bring messages to the families to perform rites
- Returns to the living and delivers messages, preaching the value of virtuous life
Tibetan Intermediate State BARDO, book of the dead
49 days Intermediate State between Death and Rebirth:
- Dissolution of the five elements
- Arising of the Clear Light (Bardo of Death)
- Arising of the Visions of the Bardo: Peaceful and Wrathful Deities (Bardo of Reality)
- Judgement of Yama and path to rebirth in one of the Six Realms (Bardo of Existence)
- Rebirth
book of the dead
Treasure Text (gter ma) discovered in the 14th c. by Karma Lingpa titled the Bar do Thos grol, i.e. Liberation by Hearing in the Intermediate State
§Ritual use as a “guide to the intermediate state”, different versions, commentaries, prayers, and related literature
- First Translated in English in 1927 by Evans-Wentz and Lama Kazi Dawa Samdup = title links to The Egyptian Book of the Dead. (Background: Theosophy)
- The German edition (Zurich, 1935) was prefaced by C. Jung (introduction translated in the 3rd English Edition, 1957)
-Western Appropriations: theosophy and occultism, psychological interpretations of Buddhism, psychedelic guide…
