The Kamma Of Thought

Transcription from online discourse recorded Mar 25, 2018

I am going to talk this afternoon about the Kamma of thought. First of all I want to give a little clarity on what kamma is and how it works. Kamma or Karma is action. It's volitional action. Things that are done with the body, speech or mind and any karmically effective action will have a resultant (Kamma resultant upaka). So our experiences in life are in part the result of past kamma. Past kamma is always one of the causal factors. It's never the only causal factor for our experience. There are natural factors, there's laws of physics, there's laws of genetics and so on (these are the different niyamas) but kamma is always one that applies whenever we have an experience through the senses. We say kamma is done with body, speech and mind but that is only a kind of a crude approximation. Kamma is only done in the mind. An action that has no mental impulse behind it doesn't have any karmic weight. The classic example is stomping a beetle in the dark. If you deliberately stomp a beetle then that's an act of killing. Breaking the 1st precept with karmic weight behind it. But if you are walking in the dark and don't see the beetle and you step on it you aren't making any kamma with that. The result for the beetle is the same either way. It doesn't make any difference to him, but for the actor/the doer it makes a difference.

This was actually one of the differences between Buddhism and Jainism. The Jains believe that kamma is made by the body also. So stepping on a beetle in the dark is also karmically heavy. So Jain monks will take elaborate procedures not to kill small creatures. For example, constantly sweeping the path they are walking on to make sure there's no bugs or ants on it. Whereas in Buddhism it's only deliberate actions that have any kammic weight. So kamma always originates in the mind and in terms of the Abhidhamma theory of mind moments it's one way to look at kamma at a very fine grain, at a very microscopic level is a balancing of the ledgers of the mind that for every skilful mind moment you will have a pleasant resultant, for every unskillful you will have an unpleasant mind moment resultant. So kamma always originates in the first instance in thought, in the mind. Something done accidentally unknowingly is not considered kammic.

So this brings us to the question of when the action is done only at the level of the mind with thought only. There is kamma attached to thought. This in the Buddha's eightfold noble path the second path factor is samma Sankalpa (right thought or right intention) and that is defined as thoughts that are not greedy, not cruel and not deluded. It's is given in the negative ahingsa, aloba, adhosa amoha. So it's refraining from thought forms that are based on defilements. This is in itself kind of indicative of a deeper teaching that in many cases particularly in points like this pointing to morality and ethics is that the expressions are given in the negative. It could be phrased in positive terms, it could have said instead that right thought is based on generosity, on kindness and so on but it's given in those negative forms which implies that the more natural expression of the mind is the wholesome one. That when the unwholesome thoughts are not present the mind will naturally go to love and kindness, generosity, wisdom and peacefulness.

This is something we find throughout the Buddha's teaching that the general thrust of it is that progress is made by not gaining new virtues but by abandoning or liberating oneself from various defilements and fetters. Allowing the more natural primordial purity of your mind to express itself. The mind will naturally go to love and kindness when thoughts of ill will are not present. The mind naturally goes to kindness and generosity when thoughts of greediness and selfishness are not present. So in a way, you could say it takes more mental energy to hold defilements in the mind than not. The path factor of right effort which is number 6 is defined in terms of the 4 right efforts which all have to do with the contents of the mind or thought defined broadly. The effort to rouse up wholesome states that have not yet arisen. The effort to encourage and cultivate those wholesome states that are present. The effort to not allow unwholesome states to arise and the effort to diminish those unwholesome state that have arisen. Those are the right efforts. That is effort applied to the contents of the mind.

Now when we get to considering the nature of thought itself you see that thought has a volitional component but it's not ordinarily controlled without some effort. Which anyone notices when they begin meditating. The mind is all over the place (we talk about the monkey mind jumping from branch to branch) and it seems like it's out of any possible control. It's like an anarchic kind of wondering throwing up this and that. Even with an effort to reign it in it doesn't seem easy to do.

It's important to understand the role of volition in the process. The only one who has full control over the mind is an arahant. One of the definitions of an arahant is "he is master of the pathways of his mind, he only thinks that he wishes to think, he doesn't think what he doesn't wish to think”. So he is completely in control of his own mind. For all of us who are not at that stage then there is different degrees of control of the mind and at different times. When you are bright, sharp and clear you will have better control of your mind than when you are dull and half awake. But there is always in each mind moment an element of volition. This is another teaching from Abhidhamma that volition is a universal factor just arising in each mind moment. This is a tricky kind of subtlety to understand volition (cetena in pali - is the mental factor of volition or will). In western philosophy, there is a long-standing issue of free will vs determinism and this is a major problem in philosophy in the west. This comes up often when speaking about the mind and thought. In Buddhist terms, people wonder about free will and determinism which is a false category to apply because the Buddhist understanding of the psyche is without the self. Free will and determinism comes in when you have a concept of a discrete self (an atman or a soul or an ego or however you want to call it) as a real substantial thing. The question then is this thing determined or is it free, but in psychology, based on no self there is only a dynamic interplay of factors. There is no substantial entity continuing from moment to moment. Cetena is just one of a complex of factors. One of the factors is will and it too is part of the conditioned realm so it has causes and conditions. It's part of the dependent origination as well and I think one of the problems when we try and think about this and make sense of it, one of the things we should try and avoid, is a linear a concept of process. Remember there are a couple of axioms that are a basis of the Abhidhamma. One is that nothing arises without a cause and the other is nothing arises from a single cause.

When we talk about dependent origination for example it's, in essence, a simplification, a schema to explain how things arise in the human experience. However, each moment is part of a 3 dimensional net or web of causes. Everything that arises has multiple causes. Volition is just one vector driving the mind moment. So there is an element of cetena or volition or will (however you want to call it) present in each moment of thought but it can be very slight. This means that it also has a very little kammic weight. Other times there might be stronger volition you might be deliberately choosing to think about something. This for example when you trying to solve a problem, trying to figure something out (why won't the generator start put your mind to figuring out the carburettor, gas filter - you're deliberately thinking; putting your mind to a problem so there is a deliberation involved). So there is a heavier degree of cetena or will. This requires some effort. If you don't put effort in the mind will just run on habitual patterns and the influence of will/cetena is very slight and the influence of past kamma is very strong when the mind runs on a habituated path. And to break out of habituated path requires effort and a strong application of cetena. So this is where right effort comes in, if you notice that your mind has caught in unskillful habitual patterns (maybe grumbling mumbling mind, or anxious nervous mind or greedy wanting mind) you find this pattern that you fall into easily that is habituated. Then there is actually very little will involved in going with that, there is very little kamma being made, it's negetive but it's small. But then it requires an effort of will to change that and it is possible to break out of that. One of the ways the Buddha talks about is substituting an unskillful thought with a skillfull thought. The example probably talked about most is overcoming thoughts of ill will with thoughts of love and kindness or compassion. So that if you find yourself being negative or angry and hostile in your thought towards an individual then you try and send them love and kindness. You can also try and think of something positive about that person to bring to mind. This Visuddhimagga talks about this at some length as giving different kind of examples. It says that if all else fails and you can't think of anything good to think of the person then imagine them when they were a little baby. However, usually, even the worst kind of people have some good side. I like to say even Hitler loved his dog. So there's always some point to find to focus on the positive and that's applying right effort working skillfully and wisely with the kamma of thought.

One thing that's an important caution when we talk about the kamma of thought not to fall into feeling guilty because you had unskillful thoughts. I mean that is just compounding the problem. Unless you are an arahant every human being will have skilful and unsuppresshoughts arising all the time. It is completely counterproductive to feel negative about yourself because you have had unskillful thoughts. You have been thinking ill will of your neighbour and start punishing yourself for it, that's counterproductive, it's silly, there's no point in going there. Don't make yourself neurotic by trying to be a policeman of your thoughts. Don't supress thought. If you just push it under the carpet it's of no benefit. Recognise and understand, this is where awareness, sati, mindfulness comes in, is to be present/aware know your own thoughts. Acknowledge them be aware of them but don't validate them, believe in them or identify with them. This is quite important too in understanding the nature of the thought process. It is like all phenomena in the conditioned world, it dependently arose, it's essentially empty and it's impermanent.

People can actually suffer a great deal with their thoughts. People can even suffer to the point of suicide based on thoughts, on ideation and there is no reason to that if you understand the nature of thought. It's empty, it's dependently arisen, there's really nothing there. Even if it's based as a reflection or a mirror of some external object or situation, it's still just a thought. It's a thought formation and it has no actual substance. Thoughts might be of the past (we call the memory) or they might of the future (speculation, fear, hopes) or they may relate to the present moment. Thoughts of the past are unreal because they are referencing events that have passed away and are no longer existed. thoughts of the future are unreal because they are referencing events that have not yet manifested so they have no substance. Thoughts of the present are unreal because you can't pin them down, as soon as you look at it it's already in the past. The present moment is always fleeting away. So all the thoughts are essentially unreal. It's also useful to understand the limitation of thought. I would say the power of thought and the limitation of thought. The power of thought is what enables us to live in the world. We need to have the ability to organise experience. To be able effectively do anything or accomplish anything. Without thought, nothing is done or accomplished. Anything we make or do or build begins with a thought. First, there is a thought in the mind and then the body follows along and does it. It always always originates in thought. Obviously, anything you try and accomplish if you have a greater ability to organise your thinking then the task is going to be accomplished more efficiently with better results. So thinking has a very important practical function.

The limitation of thinking could be expressed in a couple of different ways. One is the danger of taking it too seriously at what is we think is not necessarily in accordance to reality. There are many ways in which thinking could be wrong. We could start off with a wrong premise to begin with then anything we build on that is going wrong and not in accordance with reality. Or you could just make false reasoning and assumptions along the way. I think we have to particularly watch out for the tendency of the mind to use thought to validate an opinion or a decision that comes about intuitively or emotionally. Thought/reason can function very much like a lawyer, it can argue either side of the case and you can make a decision made on an entirely emotional basis and then you justify it by constructing arguments in your mind and then tell yourself this is the most logical thing to do. It's easy to fool yourself in this way. You need to be clear about the underlying roots of our decisions and impulses.

The other limitation of thought is something that will never be accomplished by thought is the realisation of the unconditioned. The mind is capable of escaping from the conditioned and experience the unconditioned but it's not capable of understanding or comprehending the unconditioned in the way we understand and comprehend the conditioned things. This is not because of a limitation of thought, it's because the nature of the unconditioned itself is beyond conditionally, that means it's beyond any kind of syllogism or comparison. Anything that is available as a tool to thought it is not, even at the highest, most refined or most genius level of thinking cannot comprehend or hold the unconditioned because the unconditioned is in a realm totally outside of anything thought can accomplish. So you cannot think yourself into liberation and you can't really think about Nibhana even though many books and pages have been written about Nibhana. In a way it's all a dance around about, it's not striking at the essence which is ineffable (meaning it's indescribable, it can't be put into words because words are a limited conditionality). Thought can't cross that threshold.

So one of the ways we get closer to that is in meditation when behind or beyond thought then we are experiencing the mind in a more natural state. The mind isn't doing thought. Some people think meditation is suppressing thought. That's not really correct. If you are meditating well your thought will become quiescent, it will become quieter and there will be less of it. Eventually, in second Jhana there is no thinking process, but in meditation, for a long time there will thinking arising and passing away. The effort as such should be clear and the thought is clearly seen, but also to notice what is beyond, behind or between the thoughts. Notice the quiescent space in between thoughts. There might not be much of that initially when the mind is constantly chattering away but then with practice, the mind becomes quieter and you notice periods with no thought and there is just mind being mind. The presence of consciousness is there but there's no thinking. That can give you a glimpse into a deeper state of being underlying thought process. If you can notice thoughts arising and falling (I am speaking primarily about vipassanameditationn) you see the impermanent nature, that in itself takes away the strength of the thoughts and they become more quiet.

It is possible to get the mind to a place where you noticing the intention to think before the thought arises. This is when you really can understand the will to think (cetena). The mind can be so quiet that you can just feel the first disturbance of an intention to think yet there is no content you are not thinking about anything but you can feel the mind gathering ready to think. If you notice that clearly and consciousness is applied to it as an object at that stage it can stop and abort the process before it comes into full manifestation and the mind continues quietly with this only occasional little burble. Then you see that the intention to think is a factor separate from the actual thought itself, it precedes the thought. First, there’s a movement/a gathering and then the intention is fed into it further, it will gel into a proper thought and then you will be thinking of something. Thought has a linear nature, it then becomes a conditioning factor of its own impelling further thoughts (this when you get caught in a train of thought and you get lost in a speculation or daydream or some kind of wondering of mind as one mind moment is feeding the next).

All of the 8 path factors exist on a mundane and a supermundane level. When we talk about the 8 fold path we usually talking about the mundane level which is what guides us as we make way through the conditioned world. But there is another aspect to the 8 fold path is when they come together fully perfect (which what samma means - usually translated as right, "right view, right intent etc..."). When all of the 8 become perfect together this is a path moment. This is the moment of "maga" - magapala. This is the emergence into awakening and this is always given in the Abhidhamma when it's explicated in mind moments leading up to full awakening is at the very penultimate moment is maga and pala is the fruit (the realisation of Nibhana). So it's Magapala (it's another Pali term that indicates what in English is usually called enlightenment) and is given as 2 steps, there are 2 mind moments. There's the moment of the path which is a karmically effective moment and the fruit which is karmically resultant (an immediate result). So the path factor is when they reach this transcendental or supermundane level path moment they are all aligned to Nibhanna (to the unconditioned). So right thought is aligned to the unconditioned. So it basically immolates itself, it's like throwing itself into the abyss because a thought about Nibhanna, in the end, is a paradox (it can't be held by thought). So thought abandons itself, voids itself into Nibhanna.

I think I will stop there.

Ajahn Punnadhammo