This paper is critical of any Buddhist environmentalism that fails to give due attention to both dimensions, and it emphasizes that both the relational and developmental dimensions must be held in balance in order for a genuine Buddhist environmentalism to be possible.

Perhaps to the ordinary believer the very idea of upholding the precepts themselves promised safety as much as moral improvement…

The influence of สิ่งแวดล้อม¹ are directed out from the individual to his environment; the influence of สิ่งแวดล้อม² are directed inward from the environment to the individual.

If you have no merit there will be no wind. But either way, if you do not open the window you will get no breeze.

To the villager, a person is shaped—he does not shape himself—and, therefore, relating properly to one’s environment is of the first importance. You cannot think or will yourself into being a particular kind of person; you can only select and relate wisely to the influences impinging upon you. This implies a sort of limited free will; one can choose among available alternatives, but cannot create new alternatives.

¹: This first sense of sing waetlom (“environment”) is as the resources that one has around.
²: This second sense of “environment” is as our context—that which holds and shapes us.

There are no deliberate austerities or penances associated with such journeys; over-crowded buses or trucks seemingly without springs are common modes of transport in Northeastern Thailand. One informant stated that if people took a journey solely to make merit somewhere, then the trip would be no fun. However, if people went traveling purely for their own pleasure, with no planned stops at holy shrines, then merit would not be obtained.

An ethnographic investigation of pilgrimage in Thailand focusing on the Wat Phrathat Phanom Stupa in Isaan.

if you practice fully you succeed fully. If you practice partially you succeed partially. These five faculties are not a waste…

One gives a gift for the purpose of ornamenting the mind

Eight ways of giving a gift.

Drawing on the ideas of 19th-century naturalist John Arthur Thomson, Story suggests that animals primarily repay karmic debts by following their inherent nature. However, through interactions with humans, they do have the ability to learn higher behaviors.

The heart’s wish of one who is virtuous succeeds because of his purity.

When giving with a certain wish in mind, you can get it.

This sutta provides a canonical basis for the ubiquitous Buddhist practice of “dedicating the merit” of an offering.

With illustrations from the contemporary Thai religious landscape, we can observe how various forms of relational karma intuitively account for spirits and material objects as an agency of relations.

This is a preliminary research note on the cluster concepts of collective karma in Chinese Canonical sources.

Across the Buddhist world, we find not only that our relationships are constituted by karmic affinities, but also that in many contexts those relationships are seen as the media through which karma unfolds.

These understandings not only provide frameworks for interpreting relationships but underwrite ritual technologies through which people can form, maintain, or disperse these affinities.

Justin Ritzinger shares what he learned about the nature of karma after attending the “Lived Karma” conference at Dartmouth in 2022. To read more papers from the conference, see the Journal of Global Buddhism Vol. 24 No. 2.

These tales provide us with a glimpse of the ways that cosmologies do not materialize fully formed but are cumulatively built over time, subject to continual reshaping in different contexts. In this book I argue that preta narratives do not merely illustrate a changing cosmological system after the fact but played a crucial role in the process of the formation of that system

The Buddhāpadāna further develops the concept of Buddha-field, in that it speaks of innumerable Buddha-fields in all ten directions in the multiverse. Thus the Apadānas clearly show the line of development from the concept of merit-field in the early Suttas to the Pure Land systems of later Mahāyāna.

This essay features translations by Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu of four Apadānas: the Buddhāpadāna, Therāpadāna 502, Therāpadāna 80, and Therāpadāna 21. He provides a concise yet insightful introduction to Apadānas in general and explains the rationale behind his selection of these particular narratives.

Wherever the mind feels confidence, great king.

“Where should I give” and “Where is a gift very fruitful” are two different questions.

… their perfect physiques proclaim their supreme attainments.

Mendicants, when what exists, because of grasping what and insisting on what, does the view arise: ‘The one who acts does nothing wrong…’

Clinging to different aggregates yields very different philosophies, but all trend towards moral nihilism.

So, for Buddhists, as long as they try to cultivate a mind of equinimity and fortrightness, as long as they are compassionate, or use wisdom and an objective attitude to deal with whatever comes up, then there is no need to worry about whether one has a good fortune or not, or whether Fengshui is correct or not.

Ven. Master Sheng Yen explains that, while supernatural things such as fortunetelling or fengshui are not totally superstitious, they are also not accurate. The mind has the ability to transform and change its fate, so Buddhists need only be concerned with developing a wholesome mind.

… he suffered painful, sharp, severe, and acute feelings, which he endured unbothered, with mindfulness and awareness.

What, bhikkhus, is old kamma? The eye is old kamma, to be seen as generated and fashioned by volition…

This article presents an avadāna excerpt found in Śamathadeva’s Abhidharmakośopāyikā-ṭīkā. The tale reports a monk’s change of sex to female, followed by five hundred successive births as a woman, all of which happened as the karmic result of having addressed his fellow monks as women. The avadāna identifies this monk, who is introduced as a reciter of the Tripiṭaka, with the Bodhisattva in a past life.

Mendicants, do you see Sāriputta walking together with several mendicants? … All of those mendicants have great wisdom.

Beings come together because of a common element.

Monks, there are these eight bonanzas of merit, rewards of skillfulness, nourishments of happiness…

Giving and moral conduct,
developing a mind of love…

The three grounds for meritorious activity.

Someone with forty qualities is cast down to hell…

Mendicants, there are these three sources that give rise to deeds. What three? Greed, hate, and delusion are sources that give rise to deeds.

You should train like this: ‘We will fear the fault apparent in the present life, and we will fear the fault to do with lives to come.’

This selection from Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand was published for free distribution by the Lam Rim Buddhist Centre of South Africa.

Now a great producer of happiness is the making of good kamma. What is good about it? It is rooted in non-greed (generosity, renunciation), or in non-hate (loving kindness, compassion) or finally in non-delusion (wisdom, understanding).

In this booklet, Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli Thera offers a translation of Majjhima Nikāya 57, 135, 136, and 41 with a brief introduction to each sutta, highlighting the importance of wholesome states of mind, right intention, and right mindfulness in generating good kamma. There is also a short but humorous and insightful preface.

In the Velāma Sutta, the Buddha provides us with a vivid outline of the relative degrees of merit that can be acquired by performing different kinds of good actions.

In this translation and introduction to the Velāma Sutta (AN 9.20), the author brings out the salient message of the sutta, which is to perform good deeds. However, it is pointed out that the Buddha sees developing concentration and meditating on loving-kindness and impermenance as the best sources of merit since they lead to liberation.

The same Indo-European metaphor for abusing paternal property is traceable in the Middle Iranian and Indic tradition, ranging from Vedic to (Buddhist) Sanskrit dāyāda-.

This article focuses on the philology of the Sanskrit term dāyāda and its relation to the Buddhist story of Ajātaśatru. Dāyāda is a Sanskrit and Pāli term usually translated as ‘heir’. For example, “kamma-dāyādo” is to be the heir of one’s actions.

This article argues there is a second interpretation of the term as eating (√ad) what is given (dāya), i.e., one eats the fruits of one’s karma. The study here focuses on how Indo-European metaphors inform this translation and understanding of the term, using various related languages, especially West Tocharian. 

Devadatta,
–regarded as wise, composed,
incandescent with honor–
in the thrall of heedlessness
assaulted the Tathāgata…

Conquered by three forms of false Dhamma, Devadatta was incurably doomed to hell.

Mendicants, don’t fear good deeds. For ‘good deeds’ is a term for happiness…

The Buddha recalls the results he himself has experienced from doing meritorious deeds.

What if each time
you caused pain
a small round stone
was put in your pocket…

We are going to give the departed the opportunity to rejoice in the good we have done.

This essay is a short response to a newspaper article that Ven. Dhammika read in May of 2020. In his respose, the venerable corrects the idea that rituals are not part of the Theravāda faith and practice, giving doctrinal support along the way. However, Dhammika does agree that the view of transferring merit is not supported in early Buddhist teachings. Rather, early Buddhism taught that a practitioner can give others the opportunity to share in the happiness of wholesome action. 

Shinjin is the true cause of birth in the Purland.

This talk by Rev. Miyaji first discusses how Jodo Shinshu Buddhists do not believe in luck and astrology, but rather, they follow closely the principle of cause and effect. In part two, Miyaji explains how karma is understood from a self-power and other-power perspective. Rebirth into the Pureland depends on faith in the loving compassion of Amitabha Buddha, therefor merit and demerit do not bar a person from entry. Yet, when this loving compassion is fully understood, a person does not want to perform negative actions.

There are striking parallels between the Greek methods to train our mental responses to (bad) luck and the Buddhist analysis of unwholesome actions and corresponding advice to improve our karma. Both traditions are still helpful today in our attempts to secure happiness in the face of chance adversity.

A wise man in the world of the living should avoid bad deeds.

Reflection Questions:

1. What was the cause of this man’s leprosy?
2. How does the Buddha treat him?
3. What attitude towards lepers does this sutta encourage us to have?

Mahānāma once confided to the Buddha his anxiety about dying at a time when his mind was confused and bewildered (musati), thinking it might result in him having a negative rebirth. The Buddha reassured him that because he had developed various spiritual qualities for a long time, he had nothing to fear if such a thing should happen.

When you understand the world that you are in and you are in that place of mental fortitude, then you’re not looking for anything “out there.” But maybe you have something to offer people who are caught up in their fears.

In this heartfelt dhamma talk, Venerable Panyavati explains how the mind creates problems such as fear and insecurities, but once it is cultivated by the Buddhist path, it becomes peaceful and able to give peace to others.

This discourse, without known parallels, is a reminder that, however important the development of wholesome mental states and the elimination of unwholesome mental states, it is equally important to also develop those states conducive to Nirvāṇa if you want to escape Saṃsāra.

Kamma is action; vipáka is result. Therefore kamma is the active principle; vipáka is the passive mode of coming-to-be.

A collection of essays by five different authors that explain actions and results and how this understanding plays a role in cultivating the Buddha path. The essays are:

1. Action — Francis Story
2. Kamma and Causality — Francis Story
3. Action and Reaction in Buddhist Teachings — Leonard A. Bullen
4. Questions and Answers about Kamma and its Fruit — Nina von Gorkom
5. Kamma and Freedom — Francis Story
6. Collective Karma — Francis Story
7. Reflection on Kamma and its Fruit — Nyanaponika Thera
8. Karma: The Ripening Fruit — Bhikkhu Ñāṇajīvako

This sutra builds on themes found in Early Buddhist texts such as the Natha Sutta (AN 10.17) giving an example of how later Buddhists texts evolved from earlier ones.

I mean, thank God that the people that run this world are not smart enough to keep running it forever.

A short news article about Arlo Guthrie’s song “Alice’s Resturant.”

It tells the story of how Guthrie was arrested and fined for a simple act of kindness and how this record kept him from being drafted into the Vietnam War. Since being released in 1967, the song has become a Thanksgiving Day staple across the United States.

Kassapa, if one thinks, ‘The one who acts is the same as the one who experiences the result,’ then one asserts with reference to one existing from the beginning: ‘Suffering is created by oneself.’ When one asserts thus, this amounts to eternalism.

A naked ascetic named Kassapa approaches the Buddha while he is on alms round and asks whether suffering is created by oneself, by another, by both, or by chance. Explaining why he rejects all these options, the Buddha asserts that suffering arises due to impersonal conditions.

But the single mass of water at that time was utterly dark. The moon and sun were not found, nor were stars and constellations, day and night, months and fortnights, years and seasons, or male and female. Beings were simply known as ‘beings’. After a very long period had passed, the earth’s substance curdled in the water. It appeared just like the curd on top of hot milk-rice as it cools. It was beautiful …

In contrast with the brahmin’s self-serving mythologies of the past, the Buddha presents an account of evolution that shows how our choices are an integral part of the world.

You will never let go of the things you love. So you don’t have to worry.

In this talk, followed by questions and answers, Yuttadhammo explains the different categories of meditation and their common factors, such as mindfulness and concentration.

How can one make sense of ethical action when one is always already partly the other?

A medical anthropologist analyzes the Thai concept of the เจ้ากรรมนายเวร (čhao kam nāi wēn) and explores how a more porous sense of self helps Chiang Mai Buddhists to manage pain and assemble good lives.

These two collections include many suttas addressed to Buddhists dealing with the ethical and spiritual concerns of life within the world (as noted by Bhikkhu Bodhi), and thus involves the issues of merit (puñña). In this study I have illustrated the significant but often underestimated position of compassion with merit in early Buddhist doctrine.

In Study 1 (N = 582), we found that Buddhists and Taoists (karmic religions) judge individual actions as having greater consequences in this life and the next, compared to Christians.

When reminded of their ancestor veneration beliefs, Buddhists and Taoists (but not Christians) endorsed parochial prosocial norms, expressing willingness to give more to their family and religious group than did those in the control condition.

Taken together, these results provide evidence that different religious beliefs can foster and maintain different prosocial and cooperative norms.

The entire cosmos, from top to bottom, encompassing all its fascinating and terrifying variety, is saṃsāra. It is the arena of all manifestation, action (kamma) and result of action (vipāka). It is dependently arisen, contingent, imperfect, and all forms within it are impermanent and subject to change and dissolution.

This book details the early Buddhist view of the cosmos. Using mostly Pali sources, Punnadhammo Mahathero covers topics such as time, space, the various realms, and the qualities of the beings that inhabit them.

Pray to your master and to the Three Jewels,
and strive to be wholesome – physically, verbally and mentally.

In this brief poem, the great Tulku and Yogini, Sera Khandro, exhorts readers to wholeheartedly practice the Dharma. Khandro points out the importance of impermanence and karma to help practitioners overcome attachments and develop wholesome behavior. Other pieces of advice are to remain in solitude, establish mindfulness, and develop bodhicitta.

Having heard what was said by the Completely Awakened One, I shall now speak briefly about deeds good and bad to be done or to be eschewed by you.

A brief introduction to and English translation of the Pañcagati-Dīpanaṃ (“Illumination of the Five Realms of Existence”) thought to be a Southeast Asian recension of Aśvaghoṣa’s Chagatidīpanī (Sadgatikārikā?).

This text explains the five realms of rebirth and the actions which lead to rebirth in each one. It’s an excellent example of how the teachings on karma were elaborated after the Buddha’s passing, and how those teachings circulated around Asia in premodern times.

In their ignorance and delusion, the Buddha said, human beings are unable to realise and remember any single vestige of the sufferings they had experienced in their previous existences, and in their deluded cravings for and clingings to sensuous pleasures they are inevitably reborn to a world where their cravings, clingings and kamma take them.

A thorough explanation of the thirty-one realms of existence that a human may be reborn into, depending on their kamma. Suvanno Mahathera warns readers about the horror to which unskillful action leads and how to gain better rebirths through wholesome actions.

Whenever we perform an action with intention, such action deposits a “seed” in the mind, a seed with a potency to bring about effects in the future.

A brief but thorough explanation of kamma, its potential for creating one’s future, and the various realms of rebirth that it can lead to. Bhikkhu Bodhi ends by reminding us that the trajectory of our lives is in our hands, and that the ultimate aim of Buddhism is to reach the freedom of liberation.

How is it, Master Gotama: are pleasure and pain created by oneself?

The Buddha wins over a wanderer by giving a more nuanced understanding of karma.

In this essay, I examine the intertwining concepts of merit, power, Buddhist virtue, and the moral rendering of the physical universe apparent in late nineteenth-century Khmer vernacular texts.

This article looks at Buddhist literature in nineteenth-century Khmer. It argues that the literature of this period was a direct response to French colonialism, and though modern Cambodians questioned religious traditions and cosmologies, the law of karma and the framework of a moral universe persisted.

… four streams of merit, streams of the wholesome, nutriments of happiness—heavenly, ripening in happiness, conducive to heaven…

Unless these five dangers and threats are given up, one is said to be unethical, and is reborn in hell.

What is truly dangerous is breaking the precepts.

Any mendicant who abuses and insults their spiritual companions, speaking ill of the noble ones, will, without a doubt, fall …

The astute praise diligence in making merit.

Pasenadi asks the Buddha if there is one thing that secures benefit both in this life and the next.

…when a bhikkhu develops and cultivates the Noble Eightfold Path, whenever evil unwholesome states arise, he disperses them and quells them on the spot.

While sipping coffee in my mother’s Toyota, we hear the birdcall of two teenage boys in the parking lot…

In the canonical account there is no indication that for the bhikkhu to become female is the result of bad karma, or that for the bhikkhuni to change into a male is the result of good karma.

When there are no bhikkhus who are exhorters: this is a case of decline.

The Buddha invites Kassapa to teach the mendicants, but he is reluctant, saying that the monks have become stubborn and their good qualities are in decline.

Is the eye the fetter of forms or are forms the fetter of the eye?

Kāmabhū asks Ānanda about the senses.

And if a person who was being swept along by the current grabbed the wild sugarcane, kusa grass, reeds, vetiver, or trees, it’d break off, and they’d come to ruin because of that.

If you grasp at the aggregates as a self, you will meet with calamity, like a man swept down by a mountain river.

Mendicants, three kinds of people are bound for a place of loss, bound for hell…

I am one of those in the world who sleep well.

The Buddha sleeps well, even on cold, hard ground.

i have so much hope for the future

i hope everyone gets everything they deserve

We should see the truth that the mind that performs a deed is kamma itself and the subsequent mind is the result (vipāka) of that kamma. Other results that follow it are only uncertain by-products, since they may or may not occur, or do not keep up with our expectations due to other interfering factors.

Explains kamma (karma) as it is understood in Buddhism and how to use kamma (action) in a way that leads to the end of action and results: Nibbāna.

One of the main paradoxes of Buddhism’s coming to the West is that the teaching on karma, which in Asia is probably the most basic Buddhist teaching, is the one most Westerns don’t like and is most often dropped from the teaching one way or another.

This lecture describes the various ways karma has been misunderstood in the West and how a close reading of the Buddha’s words correct such views.

… wine at minimum conduces to madness

The karmic results of breaking the five precepts.

See also, SN 36.21.

Blissful is concord in the Saṅgha.

Concord in the Sangha leads to the welfare and happiness of many beings, both human and divine.

… there are these four ways of taking a wrong course

Making decisions prejudiced by favoritism, hostility, stupidity, and cowardice will lead in a bad direction.

… an enemy wishes of an enemy, ‘O, may this person sleep badly!’

When someone is angry, they wish ill upon their enemy and are disappointed if they do well.

Suppose a tree were leaning toward the east… When its root is cut, which way would it fall?

Mahānāma the Sakyan expresses his fear that if he dies unmindful he may be reborn into a lower realm. The Buddha tells him not to worry, as he will definitely go to a good place, having established the four factors of stream-entry.

When a noble disciple has these four streams of merit […] his merit simply is incalculable

The four factors of stream-entry—with wisdom as the fourth—are called streams of merit.

Let the king provide funding for those who work in trade. Let the king guarantee food and wages for those in government service. Then the people, occupied with their own work, will not harass the realm. The king’s revenues will be great.

A brahmin wishes to undertake a great sacrifice and asks for the Buddha’s advice. The Buddha tells a legend of the past in which a king is persuaded to give up violent sacrifice and instead to devote his resources to supporting the needy citizens of his realm. However, even such a beneficial and non-violent sacrifice pales in comparison to the spiritual sacrifice of giving up our attachments.

Data analyses showed that Buddhists were more likely to attribute bad outcomes to internal, stable, and global causes, but their well-being was less affected by it. Thus, these results indicate that the “depressive” attributional style is not that depressive for Buddhists, after all.

I do not recall any mental exultation arising because deities come to me

Ugga the Householder roars his lion’s roar and the Buddha confirms him as a non-returner.

How do you know the natural world is real?

The Buddha’s provisional worldview could not be purely materialistic. He established this point with the line that his followers posted in the first line of the Dhammapada: “The heart/mind is the forerunner of all phenomena.” With this line, the Buddha rejected the worldview in which the mind is simply the passive recipient of sense data, or in which its functions are nothing more than the after-effects of physical processes.

In order to end suffering, a provisional worldview was adopted by the Buddha. This article discusses that view and the strategic reasons for adopting it.

… when Sakka, lord of the devas, was a human being, he adopted and undertook seven vows

Witless fools behave
like their own worst enemies,
doing wicked deeds…

The deity Khema utters a series of verses in praise of good deeds. The Buddha responds with a simile for someone who departs the path of the good.

Given our present knowledge, is environmental concern to be seen as morally obligatory for a Buddhist or only a voluntary positive action?

… your mouth is being eaten by worms

… can you point out a fruit of giving that’s apparent in the present life?

The Buddha teaches General Sīha the benefits of giving.

… what is the reason why for different people the same kind of business undertaking might fail, while another doesn’t meet expectations, another meets expectations, and another exceeds expectations?

In Buddhism it’s all about what you do: you can’t just wait for good things to come. We put much more emphasis on doing good than on getting something good.

Kokālika has been reborn in the Pink Lotus hell because of his resentment for Sāriputta and Moggallāna.

A follower of Devadatta slanders Ven. Sāriputta and Ven. Moggallāna and, after suffering a painful disease, dies. The sutta then gives a graphic description of the sufferings awaiting him in hell.

… there is no way a personal offering can be more fruitful than one bestowed on a Saṅgha

When his step-mother Mahāpajāpatī wishes to offer him a robe for his personal use, the Buddha encourages her to offer it to the entire Saṅgha instead. He goes on to explain that the best kind of offering to the Saṅgha is one given to the dual community of monks and nuns.

I did not have valuable things to offer. But still, I offered some

Even a small offering of sesame seeds to the Buddha brought much merit.

But I offered them much more food than you did! Yet, I have been born in a lower heavenly world. Having offered very little, how did you receive more happiness than me?

Devas discuss the importance of thinking about the whole Noble Sangha when giving alms instead of individual monks.

Across from me she
was crying badly…

To defend the innocent is a bright deed. To kill is a dark deed. To kill in defense of the innocent is a deed both bright and dark

On how the Buddhist tetralemma helps us to approach ethical questions with an appropriate level of compassion, nuance, and humility.

This essay constitutes Bhante Sujato’s (somewhat elliptical) response to the now-infamous Bodhi/Thanissaro debate on “Just War.”

… if sentient beings only knew, as I do, the fruit of giving and sharing, they would not eat without first giving

… of all the grounds for making worldly merit, none are worth a sixteenth part of the heart’s release by love.

Goodwill far outshines all other ways of making merit.

In Vietnam, the decision for young women to ordain as Mahayana Buddhist nuns is navigated through careful interpretations of feeling. Nuns state their decisions to “go forth” (đi tu) in youth were precipitated by feelings of peace and comfort in monasteries even before they understood Buddhist teachings. Such feelings are interpreted as indicators of past-life karmic bonds, which create “predestined affinities” in this life (nhân duyên).

Are diversity and harmony necessarily at odds?

… the person represents the whole dynamic confluence of characters and actions in the world. Distinctions such as self and other, outside and inside, operate only as conventions within a story.

She hides in the room she painted for herself,
tuning, listening…

Someone with six qualities is able to enter the sure path

Things that enable or obstruct true understanding while listening to the teachings.

… having fulfilled our duty, free of remorse and regret, we were reborn in a superior realm

Some deities come to the Buddha and speak of their practice in their past life and, in so doing, explain the conduct expected of lay people towards monastics.

… these four things are unthinkable. They should not be thought about

If you try to think about these things you will go mad or get frustrated.

One of the toughest interviews I’ve ever had.

Bhikkhu Bodhi responds to ethical questions posed by Buddhists in Burma facing extraordinary violence from their military junta.

For Bhikkhu Bodhi’s return to the podcast a year later see episode 104.

Kamma is neither fatalism nor a doctrine of predetermination.

You should not evade self-responsibility for your own actions by blaming them on circumstances.

This is what we’re trying to do in meditation: we’re recalibrating our whole way of experiencing ourselves and our life

Bhikkhus, there are these three authorities. What three? Oneself as one’s authority, the world as one’s authority, and the Dhamma as one’s authority.

is one a brahmin due to birth,
or else because of actions?

Two brahmin students ask the Buddha about what makes a brahmin. The Buddha points out that, while the species of animals are determined by birth, for humans what matters is not your race or caste but how you chose to live.

To be able to let go of the past and future, it’s not seeing the negativity of the past or a waste of time thinking about the future, but it’s actually appreciating the joy and the beauty and the compassion of being right here right now. This is Kindfulness of the present moment. When you’re kindful of where you are right now, it means you’re here and you’re kind to this moment: Appreciating the beauty of being here and now

Brahmin, I don’t say that coming from an eminent family makes you a better or worse person. I don’t say that being very beautiful makes you a better or worse person. I don’t say that being very wealthy makes you a better or worse person.

The Buddha strongly rejects the caste system and the “prosperity gospel” interpretation of Karma.

“unintentional acts are not very blameworthy.”
“But if they are intentional?”
“Then they are very blameworthy.”
“But where does Nigaṇṭha Nātaputta say that intention is classified?”
“In the mental rod, sir.”

The Buddha debates karma with a rich supporter of the Jains, winning him over.

Kind protector, compassionate deity, heed me now, I pray

Notice how the self-empowering doctrine of Karma leaves a strong yearning for an external source of grace. A common trend in later Buddhisms was to provide such a God: either as a tantric Buddha, like here, or as a “distant” Buddha, like in the Amitabha and Maitreya cults.

It was very gratifying to watch the fish slip over the side of the boat and quickly swim away.

A traditional explanation of ceremonial animal freeing: a popular, pan-Buddhist ritual.

… laxity within the Sangha is stressed ubiquitously by the Buddha himself as the cause of the decline of the Dhamma.

In the original teachings deeds and their results are presented quite subtly, as everyone, of course, produces many millions of intentional deeds, both good and bad, over the course of their lifetime. And the deeds themselves are often motivated by a mixture of good and bad intentions, which are not purely one or the other.

In the later teachings these subtleties were often obscured by the didactic need to present the message in a clear and unambiguous way, and we find what is in essence a very complex teaching reduced to something rather simplistic: do this bad deed in this life, get a complimentary bad result in the next; do this good deed, get this good result.

Did Indian Buddhists believe in astrology, and, if so, how did they incorporate it into their religious framework?

See K.R. Norman’s series of articles on The Metres of the Lakkhaṇa Sutta for a discussion of this sutta’s poetry.

What kind of person isn’t thrown in jail for stealing half a dollar, a dollar, or a hundred dollars? A person who is rich, affluent, and wealthy.

Karma, contrary to later oversimplifications, is not a strict formula, whereby a certain action always has the same result.

The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll.

So, Ānanda, deeds are the field, consciousness is the seed, and craving is the moisture.

How consciousness, karma, and craving create and sustain future lives.

I give you back 1948.

A poem about what time can do to a person.

Basically, I wanna know

I have never yet had the question why good things happen.

Robina Courtin talks about how to teach the theory of karma to Westerners.

And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

A much-beloved, short, poetic story (nominally for children) which captures poignantly the existential crisis of growing up in the modern world, and encourages us all to not lose touch with that simple, direct wisdom of our inner child.

Note that the original, illustrated translation by Richard Howard is still under copyright, so the link above will instead take you to a more recent, scholarly translation by M. H. Bowker published by punctum in 2021.

Mister, that man attacked the king’s enemy and killed them. The king was delighted and gave him this reward.

The Buddha clears a layman’s doubts and confusion about the correct way to understand the law of karma.

Also includes a fascinating description of the Koliyan police — apparently known for their floppy hats and thuggish ways.

Buddhist ethics corresponds to a more generic, act-centered virtue ethics.

For at least the Pāli Buddhist tradition, the cessation of suffering is the sole intrinsic good.

If you can intentionally kill out of compassion, then fine, go ahead. But are you sure? Are you sure that what you think are friendliness and compassion are really friendliness and compassion? Are you sure that some subtle aversion and delusion have not surfaced in the mind?

For Bhante Sujato’s reply to their debate, see his essay On deeds of war.

Thought is the source of desire.

A fairy sings a love song for the Buddha, and Sakka asks a few deep questions.

Move in your own resort, bhikkhus, in your own ancestral domain. Mara will not gain access to those who move in their own resort.

The parable of the quail and the hawk.

Take a person who kills living creatures. If we compare periods of time during the day and night, which is more frequent: the occasions when they’re killing or when they’re not killing?

The Buddha rejects the poorly phrased fatalism of a Jain follower and gives an alternative method for overcoming bad karma.

Find another translation by Bhante Sujato on SuttaCentral.

What do you think, chief? Could a broad rock rise up or float because of prayers?

The Buddha excoriates a chief for believing that prayers can send someone to heaven.

See also AN 5.197 for a discussion on the causes of the weather!

This somewhat confusing discourse has a parallel in MĀ 12, which I recommend reading alongside this account as it helps to clarify things somewhat.

… someone is a sequence of choices, and the question is: Will my next choice be conscious, and will my ability to make it be unfettered?

The ghosts who lust for our dedication [of merits] are like beggars. Only a tiny fraction of the merits we have accumulated can be shared with them

If we are satisfied, then we will not want more. Wanting more is delusion. We think that it will be better if we can just have this person. But instead of getting better, many problems follow.

A short talk on the ten kinds of unwholesome action from MN41.

Here, bhikkhus, someone in pain and grief abstains from killing living beings, and he experiences pain and grief that have abstention from killing living beings as condition.

In this sutta, the Buddha admits that following the ethical path isn’t always pleasant. Still, he assures us it’s worthwhile in the end. But the best path of practice is that which is pleasant now and in the future.

… a young tender infant lying prone does not even have the notion ‘identity,’ so how could identity view arise in him?

A little baby has no wrong views or intentions, but the underlying tendency for these things is still there. Without practicing, they will inevitably recur.

… the deed in the early text [MN135] is simply stated to be the killing, or refraining from killing, of living beings, and so on. The specific types of actions, and their approval are not mentioned. In the [later] Sanskrit text we get a list of normally around ten causes that lead to the result, many of which are illustrated

In the centuries after the Buddha, many of the subtleties of karma were simplified for didactic expedience. This led to a formulaic, “if you do this, this will happen to you” understanding of karma (which the Buddha himself rejected as fatalistic). This model came to be repeated ad-infinitum in texts (such as the Karma-Vibanga) and in Buddhist art (such as at Borobudur) for millennia, perpetuating a simplistic, “popular” understanding of Karma which persists today.

To approach what, for the want of a better term, we call the mythic portions of the Nikāyas with the attitude that such categories as “mythic symbol” and “literally true” are absolutely opposed is to adopt an attitude that is out of time and place. It seems to me that in some measure we must allow both a literal and a psychological interpretation. Both are there in the texts.

Note that I (~KhBh) have removed pages 206–210 from the linked PDF as they contain a lengthy and irrelevant digression into Mahāyāna doctrine. If you’re interested, you can find the full article here.

… beings are intoxicated with life and engage in misconduct by body, speech, and mind. But when one often reflects upon [death], the intoxication with life is diminished.

Topics that are worth regularly reflecting on, whether as a lay person or a renunciant.

Their intentions, aims, wishes, and choices all lead to what is likable, desirable, agreeable, beneficial, and pleasant. Why is that? Because their view is good.

When a person has wrong view, all their path development is wrong. But when they have right view, everything good follows.

Protecting oneself, bhikkhus, one protects others; protecting others, one protects oneself.

For an audio recording of this sutta, see this entry.

Discriminatory views and practices are the antithesis of Right View, and they undermine the Middle Path by perpetuating identification with concepts of independent, constant, inherently existing selves and others

A brief outline of the discrimination faced by women across the Buddhist world, and a thoroughly cited argument for rejecting sexist views, even those that can be found in the Buddhist Canon.