Malcolm, The Buddhist teachers I’ve heard or read who have addressed or mentioned this issue have all presented it as “fruits”, a multitude of effects.
Can you point to where the Buddha said that each karmic event caused one and only one effect?
Every action has only one ripening. I think that's what he referred to.clyde wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 11:47 pm
Malcolm, The Buddhist teachers I’ve heard or read who have addressed or mentioned this issue have all presented it as “fruits”, a multitude of effects.
Can you point to where the Buddha said that each karmic event caused one and only one effect?
Vasubandhu, Abhidharmakośabhaṣyā 4:95a:clyde wrote: ↑Wed Apr 27, 2022 11:47 pm
Malcolm, The Buddhist teachers I’ve heard or read who have addressed or mentioned this issue have all presented it as “fruits”, a multitude of effects.
Can you point to where the Buddha said that each karmic event caused one and only one effect?
I think what the teachers are referring to (at least it has been my experience) are the residual or ripple effects. For example, if you contribute in some way to a Dharma center, your actions, even minimal, will help to make the teachings available to many people. So, even if you donate just a dollar or volunteer to help clean or do some other task, the residual effect is that the action will benefit more people than just giving the dollar to a beggar or cleaning out your garage, even though, at the moment, each may seem to need it more than the Dharma center does.
These are moments of consciousness, though. A volitional moment (or rather series of moments) of consciousness conditioning the ones that follow, but each successive and discrete.
If I understood you correctly, what we would conventionally call a “doing” (e.g. - giving someone a gift or gossiping) or “event” (achieving a goal or milestone) is really a multitude of actions; so if each action has one effect, since there are a multitude of actions, there are a multitude of effects. And each volitional action is preceded by an intention.Sādhaka wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 1:16 am If you think about it, one single action has many moments within it (the Sanskrit term for a single moment, that is like 1/60 of a fingersnap, would be ksana, I believe?); and we could possibly be accumulating traces within our alayavijnana at the rate of 1 per 1/60 of a finger snap, if it’s possible to have an instant of volition within each said 1/60th fingersnaps….
Of course one could also be accumulating merits at the rate of one merit per ksana, on the brightside. Just something to ponder in regard to this topic….
Thank you. I’ll take a look at it.
It's Abhidharma, i.e., advanced Dharma analysis by arhats.
Appear is a critical word there.
So, not a direct teaching of the Buddha, but not something to be lightly dismissed.
It’s my understanding that many Buddhists hold that view.
Yes, I chose that word purposively.Queequeg wrote: ↑Thu Apr 28, 2022 6:39 pmAppear is a critical word there.
Its how things appear, which is a subjective apprehension. Its a series of discrete mind-moments that appears as multiple effects (the way the rabid succession of frames appears to create motion and a deep, textured, and apparently real world on the movie screen).
Correct. But a given cause can only produce a single result. A cause expires upon the production of its result. This does not mean a seed is a sufficient cause of a sprout, but it is the necessary cause. Sunlight, warmth, and moisture are also needed as conditions. But in absence of a seed, they won’t produce a sprout.
Does one action project one birth or many births? Do many actions project one birth or many births?
According to the system of the School:
95a. One action projects one arising.
p 677
For different conditions, vipaka will be different. Here are some references.
After hearing their story, the master asked the goat why it laughed and why it wept. Hereupon the animal, recalling its past deeds by its power of remembering its former existences, spoke thus to the brahmin:--"In times past, brahmin, I, like you, was a brahmin versed in the mystic texts of the Vedas, and I, to offer a Feast for the Dead, killed a goat for my offering. All through killing that single goat, I have had my head cut off five hundred times all but one. This is my five hundredth and last birth; and I laughed aloud when I thought that this very day I should be freed from my misery. On the other hand, I wept when I thought how, whilst I, who for killing a goat had been doomed to lose my head five hundred times, was to-day being freed from my misery, you, as a penalty for killing me, would be doomed to lose your head, like me, five hundred times. Thus it was out of compassion for you that I wept."
No. 18. Matakabhatta-Jātaka. From sacred-texts.com
1. The result of ripening is that by killing out of desire you will mainly be reborn as a hungry ghost, by killing out of anger you will mostly be reborn in the hells, and by killing out of delusion you will mainly be reborn as an animal.
2. The result of the dominant action is that, dominated by the former un-virtuous action, you will have a short life span and much sickness even if you take rebirth as a human being.
3. The result corresponding to the cause is that you will take pleasure in the act of killing, due to your former habitual tendencies.
“Dakini Teachings” translated by Erik Pema Kunsang
It’s difficult for me to think of a volitional act that does not have multiple effects. For example, a person giving dana benefits (an effect) and so does the sangha (an effect), and the effect can continue for some time.Malcolm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:38 amCorrect. But a given cause can only produce a single result. A cause expires upon the production of its result. This does not mean a seed is a sufficient cause of a sprout, but it is the necessary cause. Sunlight, warmth, and moisture are also needed as conditions. But in absence of a seed, they won’t produce a sprout.
This also applies to a karma— a karma is exhausted when it produces its vipaka. But in order to produce its result, conditions necessarily come into play.
An actual deed of killing, etc., is not confined to a single moment of intention. It is rather a series of moments of intention—from anticipating it, executing the deed, and then relishing in the satisfaction of having carried it out. Each of these moments of intention is a discrete karma, each with separate force and vipaka. Thus one deed of killing, made up of many actions, can have in many results. But each result is the ripening of an individual karma, and the case above, 500 individual throwing karmas.
Now, it is clear, it is rather a series of moments of intention. Its seems that his five hundred intentions with one act of killing produced five hundred vipaka. Thanks.Malcolm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 4:40 am
An actual deed of killing, etc., is not confined to a single moment of intention. It is rather a series of moments of intention —from anticipating it, executing the deed, and then relishing in the satisfaction of having carried it out. Each of these moments of intention is a discrete karma, each with separate force and vipaka. Thus one deed of killing, made up of many actions, can have in many results. But each result is the ripening of an individual karma, and the case above, 500 individual throwing karmas.
There's a categorical error in seeing effects of generosity in the sangha. Those effects are projections of the viewer but not actually happening in the way speculated. The sangha itself is predominantly a mental construct. It has no actual essence and so how can any effects be observed in it? This is a fundamental point that goes back to the four noble truths - we suffer because we don't actually know what is happening. We ordinary beings have a lot of ideas about what is happening, some of them more or less functionally useful, but inevitably, they will fail to functionally correspond to reality if we hold on to them as real things and that rupture will cause suffering.clyde wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 4:22 amIt’s difficult for me to think of a volitional act that does not have multiple effects. For example, a person giving dana benefits (an effect) and so does the sangha (an effect), and the effect can continue for some time.Malcolm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 12:38 amCorrect. But a given cause can only produce a single result. A cause expires upon the production of its result. This does not mean a seed is a sufficient cause of a sprout, but it is the necessary cause. Sunlight, warmth, and moisture are also needed as conditions. But in absence of a seed, they won’t produce a sprout.
This also applies to a karma— a karma is exhausted when it produces its vipaka. But in order to produce its result, conditions necessarily come into play.