KARMA: The 10 Courses of Action

Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Ven. Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth) UPDATED AN D EXPANDED by Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu

 

Mental-karma is important as are deeds.

"Karma" refers to deeds able to produce results in the future.

 

"Courses of Action" (karma-patha) are a little different. This is a name for a group of ten kinds of karmic actions -- either unwholesome or wholesome -- the Buddha taught as particularly important to living beings.

 

The Buddha was not known as the Buddha, one of his many epithets, in ancient India. Nor was he "Buddhist," a "god" (deva), or a Brahmin (priest). He was known as a karma-vadin ("teacher of karma," teacher of the efficacy of deeds to produce results).

 

The Buddha's teaching concerning karma is that deeds have the efficacy to produce corresponding actions, effects, consequences, results. This is not cause-and-effect, however, if only because the results are usually exponentially larger than the original deed. One "killing" does not produce one "being killed" later on.

 

How well the Buddha knew! (xiangjiaocao)

That is because the seed, potentially, or karma laid down in the mind/heart is a citta, of which there are countless millions in a moment. Cittas have the potential to act as death-proximate karmas leading to rebirth, and when they serve this function, the result is very bad. Similarly, all skillful karma produces disproportionate results as well, which is beneficial and welcome by living beings experiencing the result.

 

Not all karmas can serve as death-proximate karmas (the thought-moment passing through the mind at the exact moment of passing from one life to yet another life), but "courses of action" (karma-pathas) can. That is why they are called "courses." Like corridors or pathways, they can lead to a consequence, welcome or unwelcome, directly.

 

There are three kinds of deeds -- those of body, speech, and mind -- be they unskillful or skillful:

 

I. Ten Unwholesome Courses of Action

• There are 3 bodily actions: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct;
  
• 4 verbal actions: perjury, slandering, harsh speech, babble;
  
• 3 mental actions: covetousness, ill-will, wrong views.
  

Unwholesome mental courses of action comprise only extreme forms of defiled thought: The greedy (rapacious) wish to appropriate others' property, the hateful (antagonistic) thought of harming others, and the holding or clinging to pernicious wrong-views.

While milder forms of mental defilement are also unwholesome, they do not constitute "courses of action."

 

Karma "courses"

Karma is following us everywhere we go. It's everywhere we're going to be.

 

The American Theravada scholar-monk Bhikkhu Bodhi -- the most famous translator of large collections of Buddhist sutras -- explains (in "Rebirth and Karma," from Recording 5 of The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is) that these ten are called "courses" of action rather than ordinary karma.

 

As mentioned above, this is because they have the power, in and of themselves, to lead to rebirth. They are courses or corridors leading to particularly unfortunate or fortunate future states.

For example, even a relatively minor good intentional-action can lead -- IF it serves as the death-proximate karma -- has the power to get one into a heaven. There are many heavens, and not a single one of them is eternal, so rebirth in a heaven is not the goal of Buddhism. But it is a welcome rebirth, a fortunate destination, while cycling through samsara. Samsara is the ongoing Wheel of Rebirth and endless disappointment.

II. Ten Wholesome Courses of Action

• There are 3 bodily actions: avoiding killing, stealing, sexual misconduct (or preserving life, protecting what belongs to others, avoiding harm);
  
• 4 verbal actions: avoiding perjury, slandering, harsh speech, foolish babble (or honest, reconciling, gentle, and wise speech);
  
• 3 mental actions: unselfishness, goodwill, right views.
  

Both lists repeatedly occur in the texts (e.g., in AN X.28, 176; MN 9), and they are explained in detail in MN 114 and in the Commentary to MN 9 (R. Und., p. 14), Atthasālini Tr. I, 126ff.

Ven. Saint Sivali

Ven. Sivali: shining example of good karma

An enlightened monastic from the time of the Buddha, Venerable Sivali, is remembered and venerated as having unbelievably good karma -- a store of "merit" (punya) that benefited many and for everyone to emulate.

 

There is no reason to "envy" Ven. Sivali his good fortune because he created it, and we ourselves can also create it. We can accrue a vast store of merit by good mental, verbal, and physical deeds, actions that benefit ourselves and others. Such deed will follow us through this life and future lives, redounding with welcome results whatever we are doing almost anywhere we find ourselves, until we realize enlightenment. They also help in this realization. Karma, it's everywhere you want to be (and it will even be there helping everywhere you don't want to be).

 

We are always generating karma, albeit we are rarely doing it consciously or with any appreciation of what we are doing and what the result will be when our deeds come to fruition for us.

 

And we are always passing away and being reborn. But a rebirth as a human is extraordinarily rare. It is a precious opportunity to make merit with reverberating with pleasant, pleasurable, and welcome karmic-results and effects (vipaka and phala).

 

"King of the 'Gods'"

Sakka is St. Michael (saintmichaelwarrior)

Sakka, the king of the devas, also made incredibly good karma -- sufficient not only to be reborn in a celestial world in space (one of the many "heavens") but as king of it and king of the four kings in the celestial world just below his world. In his world, he is lord of lords, the "lords" being the 33 deva rulers he oversees as chief among more or less equals.

 

Wisdom Quarterly has often shown that Sakka's fame extends around the Earth, a terrestial world in space which he protects from titans and nagas and other inimical forces. Why does he visit Earth, assign the regents of the Catumaharajika-deva-loka to guard, and get updates on human progress every fortnight?

 

It is because Sakka is a stream enterer devoted to the Buddha and the protection of the Dharma in the world for as long as possible. In Christendom he is known as Saint or Archangel Michael, in India as Indra (in fact the name "India" may derive from Indo, one of Sakka epithets), in Taoism as the Jade Emperor, in the Yarsanism (Islam) religion of Iraq and Iran Pir Dawud the deva (called Yazidis or Yezidis)...

Why do Christians blame rape victims?

Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Tom Boggioni (RawStory.com; Claire Gordon, Al Jazeera America, June 18, 2014)

Christian university student/rape victim told to look for her sin as the cause (RawStory)

 

Catholic Church [get] out of my body (FEMEN)

According to an investigative report from Al Jazeera America, rape victims searching for help at Bob Jones [Christian] University in Greenville, South Carolina, were told to repent and seek out their own “root sin” that caused them to be raped.

 

Within the past year BJU has opened its own investigation into sexual abuse and rape, and now former students who were victimized are coming forward to tell their stories about life on a campus where they were shamed and told to keep their stories to themselves.

 

Rape, abuse, incest (rainn.org)

Coming from a conservative Mennonite family, Katie Landry, who at age 19 had never even held hands with a boy, was raped multiple times by her supervisor at her summer job. Two years later, haunted by the attacks, and attending Bob Jones University, she sought help from then dean of students, Jim Berg.

 

BJU rape survivor Katie Landry (AJA)

According to Landry,  Berg asked whether she’d been drinking or smoking pot and if she had been “impure.” He then brought up her “root sin.”

 

“He goes, ‘Well, there’s always a sin under other sin. There’s a root sin,’” Landry explained. “And he said, ‘We have to find the sin in your life that caused your rape.’ And I just ran.”

 

“He just confirmed my worst nightmare,” she added. “It was something I had done. It was something about me. It was my fault.”

Christian conservatives: Rape? Were you asking for it? That's what ya get for having sex!

 

Republicans: Military-rape? Man up, soldier!

Landry eventually withdrew from the school and didn’t tell anyone else for five more years.

 

In interviews with Al Jazeera, other victims of abuse related how Biblical scripture was used to lay blame for the rapes on their own sins and that their trauma was a sign that they were fighting God and would never be at peace until they forgave their rapists.

 

Called the “Fortress of Fundamentalism, ” Bob Jones University’s philosophical approach to almost all mental problems, beyond medical issues, is that they are the result of sin.

• [Rationalist, materialist, left-leaning readers may not like to hear it but: Unskillful karma from past lives does cause one many troubles in many ways in other lives. To blame oneself for what was done in previous lives, however, leads to a lot of confusion about identity, justice, root causes and conditions of anything. We are not in the past. The present does not contain all of the causes, but it usually does contain triggers, and we can do something about guiding our attention and intention now. The working out of karma is very mysterious and impossibly complicated. Make merit to counteract it.]

Even R.J. has more compassion

In a 1996 book, Becoming an Effective Christian Counselor, written by former BJU Dean of Education Walter Fremont and his wife, counselors are instructed to emphasize that the blame lies with the abuser.

However, the authors also state that being sexually assaulted is not an excuse for “sinful feelings” of discontentment, hate, fear, and especially, bitterness, calling unresolved anger “rebellion and bitterness against God.”

• [That's true. That's right. Those things are our karma, our action in response to someone else's grave misdeeds. Each being is the owner of one's own karma. Rapists have the karma of rape, which does NOT necessarily manifest as being raped although it can. It manifests in many terrible and unwelcome ways now and in many future lives. But are we performing the mental-karma of resentment, hate, fear, anger, sadness, and so on? Although most of us cannot normally exercise control over our emotions and reactions, we can gain such control. We can be mindful and not react to what comes up. If we fail to be mindful then react to what typically comes up for victims, we sink ourselves worse than the initial injury.]

Every 2 minutes in the U.S. (codepinkla.org)

Previously Al Jazeera America reported on a BJU student named identified only as Lydia, who had been raped off campus and, seeking help, reported it to the school authorities only to eventually be expelled for dwelling upon it and questioning the schools handling of the incident. [Such indifference by the school is abominable!] More

Perfectionism: Taking the Easy Way

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Brianna Sacks (k llingthebuddha.com)

"K lling the Buddha" is a glib koan that became a Mahayana slogan for "do not put idols on pedestals." We can become awakened without depending on others, that is, when we awaken, the truth we realize does not depend on anyone or anything. But getting their does depend on noble friendship. So even the thought of harming the Buddha, a liberator, offends Theravada sensibilities. It makes light of one of the Five Heinous Karmic Acts.

.

Brianna Sacks (Huffington Post/USC)

Surrounded by ten other cross-legged and deeply breathing bodies rooted still in the thick India morning air, I felt a sense of triumph. I -- the buzzing, over-stimulated American -- was meditating.

 

My screaming hips and lower back quivered in resistance as I focused on the gentle rocking of my long breaths, silently repeating, “Hong Sau” as the monks directed. Swaddled in a red felt blanket under the swaying mosquito net of the Ananda Ashram’s makeshift temple, I had won. That’s how I saw my dip into the spiritual world -- something to check off my accomplishment list.

 

Some did try to kill the Buddha like Angulimala.

I pray to no religious leader, nor do I seek guidance from a higher power. I am a disciple of the great American religion of ambition.

• [Be lamps (dipa) unto yourselves, be islands (dipa) unto yourselves taking no other as a lamp or island with only the Dharma as your guide was the historical Buddha's final admonition (DN 16). See exact wording below.]

It hasn’t always been that way. Two very loving, comforting, metaphysically aligned parents brought me into this world, and I thank these people for my unique, spiritual childhood -- parents who often meditated against the trunk of an ancient oak tree shadowing our home because of its “powerful energy” or gathered with their handful of spiritual friends, who opened chakras and performed healing treatments. At breakfast my brother and I discussed last night’s dreams from our booster seats. Crystals and worn, ripped copies of the Kabbalah were my playthings. Everything smelled like incense. I sang Hebrew blessings over my preschool lunches, attended Hebrew school, was bat-mitzvahed, and later dabbled in Christian youth groups and momentarily found Jesus.

 

“Meditate, it will save you,” is what I grew up hearing. But I couldn’t.

When I was six, my parents asked me to draw the hurt in my soul because, as my mother says, I was born with a painful wound burrowed into my being. They kept the drawing -- one of a gray, black mass resembling a cave that lived inside my giant red, lopsided heart.

 

My mother calls me a machine, a robot wrought of skin and bone that can always push harder, do more, be better.
 

My unrelenting quest for perfection often produces debilitating panic attacks and pitfalls of depression. The number of times I have spent trapped in my car, hyperventilating, sobbing, trying to breathe into the phone while my mom on the other end of the line tries to calm me begs the question: “What am I chasing?”

Pausing, forcing myself to pull back the restless, insecure pieces of myself and look deep inside is a task I have been running from, fearing that if I do, I will get lost.

 

“You’re already lost” is a thought that often rings far off in my consciousness. But ambition is still my accepted method of self-torture.

 

So when I learned that my journalism class would be spending almost three days at the Ananda Ashram in Pune, India, before our reporting week in Mumbai [Bombay], I silently cursed everything. 

 

Meditation, which had haunted me my entire life, would put me on lockdown. In rural India, surrounded by grey shrubs, slow, shriveled cows, and red mountains, I would not be able to escape. More

What the Buddha said at the end
"The Great Final-Nirvana Discourse" (Maha Parinirvana Sutra, DN 16.33-35)

Theravada: The Buddha reclining into final nirvana, Thailand (DennisonUy/flickr)

 
33. "Therefore, Ananda, be lamps/islands (dipa) unto yourselves, guides (sarana) unto yourselves, seeking no external guide, with the Dharma as your island, the Dharma as your guide, seeking no other guide.
 
"And how, Ananda, is a disciple an island unto oneself, a guide unto oneself, seeking no external guide, with the Dharma as one's island, the Dharma as one's guide, seeking no other guide?
 
34. (1) "When one dwells contemplating (satipatthanas or The Four Foundations of Mindfulness) the body in the body, earnestly, clearly comprehending, and mindfully, after having overcome hankering and sorrow with regard to the world; (2) when one dwells contemplating feelings in feelings, (3) the mind in the mind, and (4) mental objects in mental objects, earnestly, clearly comprehending, and mindfully, after having overcome hankering and sorrow with regard to the world, then, truly, one is an island unto oneself, a guide unto oneself, seeking no external guide, having the Dharma as one's island, the Dharma as one's guide, seeking no other guide.
 
35. "Those disciples of mine, Ananda, who now or after I am gone, abide as a island unto themselves, as a guide unto themselves, seeking no other guide, having the Dharma as their island and guide, seeking no other guide: it is they who will become the highest (tamatagge), if they have the zeal to learn."

• VIDEO: Buddhist monks bless new Thai restaurant's opening

What child molesters look like (photos)

Ashley Wells, Amber Larson, Seven, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Huffington Post; RAINN

Jackson family child rapists and sex abusers (Perquimans County Sheriff's Office)

 

Not a "victim," Grace McDonnell

The sheriff of a small American county in northeast North Carolina says he is "disgusted." Why?

He is disgusted by the parents of six men who are accused of sexually abusing their sister for nearly a decade, at a private family compound.

 

"I blame the parents for this," Perquimans County Sheriff Eric Tilley told The Huffington Post on Tuesday.

Prison guard/sexual predators arrested

"It's your responsibility as a parent to teach [your children] right and wrong. When you see a child doing something that is totally wrong and you don't correct them, then the child thinks it's okay."

• [Are they Christians? Not "good Christians," of course. But, yes, they are all Christians, patriarchal Protestants. FEMEN says no to patriarchy.

"Silent all these years" (rainn.org)

Tilley said his deputies charged the six brothers, ranging in age from 19 to 27, on May 6 [2014], with a number of crimes related to the alleged sexual abuse of their 16-year-old sister [which means she is still a child].

The sheriff said the alleged abuse began when the girl was 4 years old and continued [for a decade] until she was almost 15.

 

Authorities have identified the brothers as Aaron Jackson, 19, Benjamin Jackson, also 19, Nathaniel Jackson, 21, Mathew Jackson, 23, Jon Jackson, 25, and Eric Jackson, 27.

 

I raped Justin Bieber. He was asking for it?

Charges against the brothers range from rape to sexual assault, according to Tilley.

 

The men's parents -- John Jackson, 65 and Nita Jackson, 54 -- face charges of felony child abuse.

 

"Part of the investigation revealed that, at one point, the mother observed some of this activity and never did anything about it," Tilley said of the charges against the parents. More

• 

  End the silence (rainn.org)

  Yeater had sex and a baby with then child pop star, now accused felon, Justin Bieber 
• Horrible Ann Coulter's attempt to make fun of #BringBackOurGirls goes wrong
• Did mommy-blogger Lacey Spears poison her 5-year-old son for attention?
• Prison guards love systematic homosexual abuse
• Pittsburgh prison guards: We raped the convicts

KARMA: The 10 Courses of Action

Seth Auberon, Ashley Wells, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly; Nyanatiloka (Anton Gueth)

Mental-karma is important as are deeds.

Karma: "Courses of Action" (kamma-patha) is a name for a group of ten kinds of either unwholesome or wholesome actions the Buddha taught. 

He was known in ancient India not as a "Buddhist" or a Brahmin but as a Karma-vadin ("Teacher of Karma"), one who teaches the efficacy of personal deeds. There are three kinds of unskillful deeds -- of body, speech, and mind -- and three kinds of skillful ones:

 

I. Ten Unwholesome Courses of Action

• three bodily actions: killing, stealing, sexual misconduct;
  
• four verbal actions: perjury, slandering, harsh speech, babble;
  
• three mental actions: covetousness, ill-will, wrong views.
  

Unwholesome mental courses of action comprise only extreme forms of defiled thought: The greedy (rapacious) wish to appropriate others' property, the hateful (antagonistic) thought of harming others, and the holding or clinging to pernicious wrong-views.

While milder forms of mental defilement are also unwholesome, they do not constitute "courses of action."

 

Good Karma

Karma is following us everywhere we go.

Bhikkhu Bodhi (Tape 5: Rebirth and Kamma, "The Buddha's Teaching: As It Is") explains that these ten are called "courses" of action rather than ordinary karma because they have the power, in and of themselves, to lead to rebirth -- a course or corridor leading to a particularly unfortunate or fortunate state. 

For example, even a relatively minor good intentional-action can lead, IF it serves as the death-proximate karma (the thought passing through the mind right at the moment of passing away from one life to yet another) -- has the power to get one into a heaven. There are many heavens, and not a single one of them is eternal, so rebirth in heaven is not the goal of Buddhism. But it is a fortunate destination for rebirth in samsara, the ongoing Wheel of Rebirth and disappointment.

II. Ten Wholesome Courses of Action

• three bodily actions: avoiding killing, stealing, sexual misconduct (or preserving life, protecting what belongs to others, avoiding harm);
  
• four verbal actions: avoiding perjury, slandering, harsh speech, foolish chit chat (or honest, reconciling, gentle, and wise speech);
  
• three mental actions: unselfishness, goodwill, right views.
  

Both lists repeatedly occur in the texts (e.g., in AN X.28, 176; MN 9), and they are explained in detail in MN 114 and in Commentary to MN 9 (R. Und., p. 14), Atthasālini Tr. I, 126ff.

Sivali

Ven. Sivali: shining example of good karma

An enlightened monastic from the time of the Buddha, Venerable Sivali, is remembered and venerated as having unbelievably good karma -- a store of "merit" (punya) for everyone to emulate.

 

There is no reason to "envy" him his good fortune because we ourselves can also accrue a similar store of merit by good works (mental, verbal, and physical),  deeds that benefit ourselves and others that follow us through this life and from life to life until we find enlightenment.

We are always generating karma and always being reborn, but a human birth is extraordinarily rare, a precious opportunity to make merit with redounding pleasing and welcome karmic-results and effects (vipaka and phala).

The Fruits of Recluseship (sutra)

Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Tipitaka Network (Digha Nikaya 2)

Golden Buddha cloth hanging on city street (Georgie_girl/flickr.com)

  

(Matthew Ahmet/dailymail.co.uk)

The Samannaphala Sutta [samana = recluse, shaman, hermit, wandering ascetic, Buddhist monastic; phala=fruit; sutta=sutra, discourse] is second among the Long Discourses of the Buddha. 

This sutra gives the background and explains how an ancient Indian royal, King Ajatasattu, became a Buddhist lay disciple. It starts with the king in his palace seeking advice from his Brahmin ministers about which wandering ascetic or Brahmin to go see.

 

Ignoring the recommendations of those six ministers, the king turns to the royal physician Jivaka Komarabhacca for advice. Jivaka informs him that the Buddha is staying at a Mango Grove in Rajagaha, the capital of Magadha, and suggests visiting him there. 

Monks and novices in Theravada Thailand (T.O. Johnson/T.O.OtisPhoto/flickr.com)

Accepting this suggestion, Ajatasattu sets out on his royal mount together with Jivaka, a large number of women on elephants, and a procession of torch-bearing attendants.

 

Later, we learn that the king had already spoken to the other six ascetics his ministers recommended and was not pleased with their teachings.

 

According to the Buddha, on hearing the Dharma (the Buddha's teaching), King Ajatasattu would have become a stream-winner -- if it were not for his "heinous" karma, patricide, as he had recently killed and deposed his father, the beloved Buddhist King Bimbisara, who was himself a stream-winner. Such action is especially weighty karma with results that are certain to ripen in the very next rebirth. (Killing a stream-enterer is also very heavy karma to bear but is not among the Five Heinous Actions: harming a buddha, killing one's mother, killing one's father, killing an arhat, or creating a schism in the Sangha).

 

Japanese Zen (Arashiyama)

It is the night of Komudi, the full-moon day in the month of Kattika, at a time after Ajatasattu has already deposed his father Bimbisara, former king of Magadha, who was a devoted noble disciple of the Buddha (a stream enterer, the first stage of sainthood).

 

The dialogue is mainly between the Buddha and young Ajatasattu. Other personalities mentioned are Queen Vedehi, his mother, Prince Udayibhadda, his newborn son, and the six rival ascetic teachers of the Buddha's day. The six includes the founder of Jainism, Mahavira, who is known in Buddhist texts as the Nigantha Nataputta ["Possessionless Son-of-Nata"], whose family name is Aggivessana.

The Six Rival Teachers

The rival teachers mentioned are characterized as representative of various Indian philosophical movements at that time. They are Purana Kassapa, Makkhali Gosala, Ajita Kesakambala, Pakudha Kaccayana, Sancaya Belatthaputta, and Nigantha Nataputta (Mahavira, which like the name "the Buddha" is simply a title meaning "Great Hero," an epithet used for the Buddha in earlier times).

This discourse opens a window into their individual teachings, as reported by King Ajatasattu to the Buddha. Unfortunately, each of these accounts is very brief.

Respect of Ascetics

Novice with candle in Shwe Yan Pyay, Burma (UrsulasWeeklyWanders.com)

 

Indian culture respects ascetics. Here an "ascetic" (samana) refers to a person who has given up his or her family and social life to search for greater happiness by finding answers to the ultimate questions: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where am I going? What is the meaning of life?

 

This goal of asceticism was later expanded in Buddhism to include the greater happiness of the world. King Ajatasattu, one of the most powerful royals of the day in India, expressed his respect for recluses, even if that person was formerly his servant.

Prior to Mahavira and the Buddha accepting female disciples into their wandering ascetic orders (sanghas), all samanaswere male. Mahavira was first to admit them. But the Buddha, whose mission was to establish the Dharma with male and female monastics and male and female lay disciples, was the first to do so as a world-religion, a universal teaching that spread all around the world. 

Jainism, on the other hand, though slightly older, never traveled beyond India to become a universal teaching. Jains did travel and therefore there are communities elsewhere but not Mahavira's teaching itself. 

Females were given the same duties and responsibilities as their male counterparts  in the Buddhist monastic order. (The widespread belief that the Buddha imposed eight additional rules on his stepmother, the first Buddhist nun, is not the case, as a textual analysis of the Bhikkhuni Vinaya reveals, according to Ven. Ayya Tathaaloka).

Fruits of becoming a Buddhist recluse

Theravada Buddhist nuns of California, with Ayya Tathaaloka, fourth on the right (AFB)

 
The title of the sutra literally means "recluseship-fruits," the benefits of becoming an wandering ascetic, a Buddhist monk or nun.

Basic rewards

When asked what these fruits are, the Buddha provides the king with satisfactory answers on the many rewards of practicing in accordance with the Buddha's Dharma and (Monastic) Discipline.

• One is respected even by kings, as well as being provided with one's basic necessities, safety, and protection.
• One is endowed with restraint and virtue (as explained in the The Net of All-Embracing Views).
• One remains with guarded sense faculties.
• One is mindful and clearly aware (sati-sampajana).
• One is contented.

Intermediate rewards

Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhist nuns with prayer wheel and beads (colunas.epoca.globo.com)

 

By withdrawing and detaching from the Five Hindrances, further spiritual benefits arise as one succeeds in the practice of "meditation" (bhavana, jhana, jhaneti, kammathana):

1. the first four meditative absorptions (rupa-jhanas),
2. insight-knowledges (vipassanā-ñāṇa),
3. advanced capacities.

The Highest reward

The highest reward, which is the ultimate goal of the Buddhist path, is the realization and full penetration of the Four Noble Truths, which leads to enlightenment and NIRVANA, which is complete freedom from samsara (the otherwise endless round of death and rebirth and suffering).

Bodhi Bytes and Campus News

• Burmese Buddhists celebrate New Year with Water Festival
• Alliance for Bhikkhunis (Buddhist nuns)

• United Nations Vesak 2013 Message
• The birth of Insight Meditation (podcast)
• Google maps Cambodia's Angkor Wat
• Sigalovada 《尸迦罗越》佛教动漫电影预告片
• Walking meditation (podcast)
• "The Fourth Noble Truth" starring Harry Hamlin makes world premiere at Sonoma International Film Festival on April 3rd
• Stunning images of Seda Monastery, the world's largest Tibetan Buddhist school
• The Buddha factory (slideshow)
• Borobudur (Indonesia) as a high-resolution simulacra

• Fellowship brings fresh ideas to Abington campus community
• IIT-Gandhinagar students learn about Indian philosophy
• Shinnyo-en Buddhists donate $6.6 million to USC
• UC Berkeley researchers control cell migration, revolutionize economics with Buddha

• Female religious leaders at UNL discuss role of women in different faiths
• Missouri State professor studies Buddhism in Sri Lanka
• Mindful meditation at school makes kids go Ommm
• Mumbai University to set up Buddhist studies centre

The title of this sutra is from Bhikkhu Bodhi's translation. Other translations are "The Fruits of the Homeless Life" (Maurice Walshe), "The Fruits of the Life of a Recluse" (Rhys Davis), "The Fruits of the Life of a Samana" (BPA), and "The Rewards of Spiritual Practice" (by Ayya Khema in German as Die Früchte des spirituellen Lebens and Visible Here and Now in English), another German version is available from Pali Kanon.

Is porn bad karma?

Ashley Wells, Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly (OPINION)

What if I just do it to pay my tuition...then it's skillful karma, right? Right? I could just do anything and say my intention was "good," right? Right? - Ugh, I already told you, read Wisdom Quarterly to figure it out.

 

I didn't think about karma, just rationalizing

Is helping create pornography "right livelihood," a kind of prostitution (exchanging sex for money), or human trafficking?

It seems it is. The Buddha defined the Noble Eightfold Path factor of "right livelihood" (sammā-ājīva) as not engaging in trades or occupations that, whether directly or indirectly, result in harm to ourselves and others. In both the Chinese and Pali language canons, it is said:

What is right livelihood? A disciple of the noble ones, having abandoned a dishonest means of maintaining oneself, keeps life going by some right livelihood. [This kind of tautological definition, which seems to say nothing, is common because all of the pertinent terms are detailed in the discourses.]

Before buddhahood, Siddhartha indulged in sensuality and found it disappointing and leading to harm rather than enlightenment and leading to liberation. The Buddha understood its lure, having experienced it firsthand, but also realized the escape from its alluring trap.

  

Rahula, Bimba, and Siddhartha

More concretely today interpretations include work "integrated into life as a Buddhist" (TheBuddhistCentre.com), something ethical, "wealth obtained through rightful means" (Ven. Basnagoda Rahula) -- honesty and ethics in business dealings, not cheating, defrauding, or stealing (Lewis Richmond). As people now spend most of their time at work, it is important to assess how our work affects our minds and hearts. So important questions include, How can work become meaningful? How can it be a support, rather than a hindrance, to spiritual practice -- a place to deepen our awareness and kindness? (Richmond)

The Buddha defined right livelihood, at a minimum, as avoiding five types of business:

1. trade in weapons and instruments of killing,
2. trade in human beings: slave trading, prostitution, or human trafficking (the buying and selling of children or adults most commonly for the purpose of sexual slavery, forced labor, or commercial sexual exploitation [such as the production and dissemination of Internet porn] for the trafficker or others,
3. trade in flesh: "flesh" referring to the bodies of beings, which includes breeding animals for slaughter,
4. trade in intoxicants: manufacturing or selling intoxicating drinks or drugs,
5. trade in poisons: producing or trading in any kind of poison or a toxic product designed to harm.

Can sex work ever be free of exploitation and therefore something worth advocating?

 

Could I take it back or get more money?

So is acting in, creating, or promoting porn "bad," "wrong," harmful, unwholesome, unskillful, unprofitable when such karma (deeds) finally ripen? Who really cares? Belle Knox is partly right -- we watch porn. We don't act in it, film it, promote it, profit from it, or encourage exploitation.

 

It seems she will regret it and probably already does. Western mores encourage us to feel shame, guilt, regret, remorse, worry, misgivings, and even panic about SEX. Let's not. Let's be sex positive. Sex is fine; sexual misconduct is not.

 

Sex and sensuality (kama) themselves are not "sexual misconduct" (kamesu micchacara). Knox is talking about the two as if they were the same thing. Go naked, be free, look beautiful, enjoy sensual pleasures, make love (not war).

 

This whore was suspended for doing porn

Let's go even further and decriminalize sex work because "shaming and blaming" are part of how we exert social control on each other (in our species and our pets) and how it was done to us by our elders. This all goes far beyond "sex" to what we think is offensive, acceptable, discomfiting, and decent. Judging makes us hypocrites. So rather than judge, let's be mindful of our own actions. The world will be the world, and we don't have to be the world.