Skip to content
buddhavacana

On kamma and rebirth

· 18 min read

The Buddha probably did not really teach the concept of kamma, nor did he associate it with rebirth

Although dependent origination is compatible with the notion of “rebirth”, and implies that our present (mental) condition can be traced back to past mental constructs, the Khandhaka does not reference either kamma or the notion of rebirth.

Therefore, I suggest these concepts were not originally taught by the Buddha, but may be later clarifications (by himself or his disciples).

Many Buddhists believe the Buddha “invented” the concepts of kamma and rebirth but as Bronkhorst (2007) in Greater Magadha points out, both notions were prevalent in other beliefs during the Buddha’s time, and form part of the “fundamental spiritual ideology” of the Greater Magadha region. However, the notion of kamma in these beliefs was different from how the Buddha’s later teachings defined it.

kamma was regarded as the accumulation of spiritual “baggage” that “burdens” or “encumbers” the “soul”, and causes rebirth. The metaphor is that kamma acts as a “weight” that binds the soul to another birth upon death (rather than presumably allowing the soul to ascend into heaven and even ultimately becoming completely free). The greater the “karmic burden”, the lower the level of existence of the rebirth. Please note, this was not necessarily the Buddha’s belief (he was probably ambivalent about whether this notion is true or not), but represents prevalent belief during his time.

It is also important to differentiate between the “traditional” notion of kamma vs how the Buddha has allegedly1 redefined it. The traditional view is that all actions lead to the accumulation of kamma, including both morally “good” actions and morally “bad” actions. The idea is that all actions have an element of “impurity”, even supposedly innocuous actions such as sitting still breathing quietly (apparently even then it was recognised mere breathing can harm microscopic, living creatures).

This led to the following different set of beliefs based on the above premise:

  • Early Jainism: All actions lead to the accumulation of kamma, so to achieve liberation all activity must be suppressed. This led to the development of extreme ascetic practices — in which practitioners would remain motionless for very long stretches of time, and self-mortification was interpreted as bringing about the destruction of the traces of earlier deeds that had not yet suffered retribution. This is described in the earliest books of the Śvetāmbara Jaina canon. The practitioner practises absorptive meditation (sukkajjhāṇa), abstains from food and eventually even breathing, and obtains liberation (from the cycle of rebirths) hopefully moments before death. The Buddha started his soteriological journey by practising Jain meditation techniques such as the dimension of nothingness and the dimension of neither-apperception-nor-non-apperception, which are techniques designed to suppress all thought and therefore avoid the generation of kamma. He then went on to practise extreme asceticism such as stopping his breath and stopping all intake of food. These are also techniques designed to stop the accumulation of kamma. The Buddha eventually abandoned these practices and presumably the Jain notion of kamma.

  • Brahmanism: The Jain perspective was also adopted in the Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad and mentioned in the Bhagavadgītā (according to Bronkhorst (2007)). According to Gombrich (2006, p. 40) in How Buddhism Began, the Upaniṣadic view of karman can be summarised as:

    1. Man is reborn according to the quality of his works (karman). ‘Works’ refers to following ritual prescriptions. [40] The typical karman is a sacrifice; this is normally positive. Violating a ritual norm is negative. Each such act has a given, finite result, positive or negative: a purifying act will be rewarded, a bad/polluting act punished. The most important forms of such reward and punishment are long-term: rebirth in higher or lower forms of life. Such higher and lower forms are on earth and in heaven(s) and hell(s), but all are temporary.
    2. The only escape from this cycle of rebirth is by gnosis of a hidden truth, brahman, which is the esoteric meaning of the sacred texts (the Vedas). That truth is to be realised = understood during life, and this will lead to its being realised = made real at death. He who understands brahman will become brahman. In a less sophisticated form of this doctrine, brahman is personified, and the gnostic at death joins Brahman somewhere above the highest heaven.
    3. The truth to be realised is about the nature of reality. The microcosm (man) mirrors the macrocosm (the universe). Both have an essence, a true nature, a ‘self’ (ātman), which is the same for both. So at the cosmic level brahman and ātman are to be understood as synonyms.
    4. Being an essence, that ātman is unchanging: it is being as opposed to becoming. Being is also a plenum, since it can be predicated of everything that exists. Unhappiness is always due to a lack of something; being, a plenum, can lack nothing; therefore being has no unhappiness, but is bliss.
    5. Ontology is merged (we might say confused) with epistemology, as can be seen from the double meaning of ‘realised’ given above. A truth (satya) is at the same time an existent (sat); indeed, it is existence (sat again), since existence is only one. Essentially we are existent, but we are also conscious of that truth. So existence is conscious (cit), or rather consciousness (vijñāna).

  • Ājīvikism: According to Bronkhorst, they also believed in the extreme ascetic practice of “voluntary death by starvation” but crucially did not believe this would hasten liberation, because they believed in a deterministic universe governed by the principle of order (niyati). There is no cause or basis for the purity of living beings, and all living beings must “serve their time” across 8,400,000 great kappas (each kappa represents an aeon, or cycle of the evolution and dissolution of the universe). This did not necessarily preclude a belief in kamma, and perhaps the Ājīvikas regarded it as a principle similar to entropy, so there is still a benefit in reducing kamma to a minimum in a deterministic universe, hence the ascetic practices.

As we can see, dependent origination is a radically original idea and necessitates a reconsideration of kamma. kamma is redefined (either by the Buddha but more likely a later disciple, presumably after the events narrated in the Khandhaka) as not necessarily caused by action, but by mental constructs, specifically “intention”. Therefore kamma is an accumulation of previous mental constructs resulting in current mental condition.

However, note that the “Buddhist” concept of kamma is not present in dependent origination, nor in any of the earliest discourses. According to dependent origination, liberation is not dependent on accumulated kamma, it is achieved by the cessation of non-optimal mental constructions. There is nothing in the Buddha’s conception of dependent origination that suggests existing or accumulated kamma will help or hinder the cessation and subsequent liberation. This is why I suggested the Buddha probably did not originally teach the concept of kamma, because it was irrelevant to the path to liberation, but it is useful as an “explanation” for current mental state.

Unfortunately, as Bronkhorst (1998) in Did the Buddha Believe in Karma and Rebirth? noted, the “[traditional] concept of karma keep on popping up within the Buddhist tradition. Interestingly, such practices and ideas are often presented as correct at one place in the early texts, and criticized and rejected at another.” Indeed, “… practices and ideas corresponding to the non-Buddhist concept of karma continued to exert an attraction on the Buddhists, even long after the days of ‘early Buddhism’. I there drew attention to the practice of physical inactivity advocated by the Chinese master called Mahāyāna in the 8th century in Tibet, and to the tathāgatagarbha doctrine in Mahāyāna Buddhism, which is so close to the non-Buddist idea of an inactive self that even some Buddhist texts draw attention to it.” Often, modern Buddhists sometimes describe kamma more from the perspective of the “traditional” notion rather than the redefined “Buddhist” concept.

An example of the traditional view of kamma making its way back into Buddhism is 13S4/1.3.5.1 Kammanirodhasutta, which advocated the cessation of all kamma (kammanirodha) - this is clearly an insertion of traditional Jain thinking.

Many scholars, such as Gombrich in several of his books, have declared that kamma is central to the Buddha’s teachings and that he has redefined kamma to mean “intention.”

But is this the case? Let’s look at the actual sutta referenced by Gombrich - 16A6/2.1.9 Nibbedhikasutta - I will quote the relevant section in full so that the full context can be appreciated:

587. Action (Kamma), Bhikkhave, should be understood… and the path leading to the cessation of kamma should be understood. This is what was said. And in reference to what was this said? Intention, Bhikkhave, I declare to be kamma. Having intended, one acts by body, speech, and mind.

588. And what, Bhikkhave, is the origin of kamma? Contact, Bhikkhave, is the origin of kamma.

589. And what, Bhikkhave, is the diversity of kamma? There is, Bhikkhave, kamma that leads to experience in hell; there is kamma that leads to experience in the animal realm; there is kamma that leads to experience in the realm of hungry ghosts; there is kamma that leads to experience in the human world; there is kamma that leads to experience in the deva worlds. This, Bhikkhave, is called the diversity of kamma.

590. And what, Bhikkhave, is the result of kamma? I declare, Bhikkhave, the result of kamma to be of three kinds: experienced in this very life, or in a subsequent birth, or on some later occasion. This, Bhikkhave, is called the result of kamma.

591. And what, Bhikkhave, is the cessation of kamma? The cessation of contact, Bhikkhave, is the cessation of kamma. This very ariyo aṭṭhaṅgiko maggo (Eightfold Path) is the path leading to the cessation of kamma, namely: right view… and so on… right focus.

592. When, Bhikkhave, a disciple of the liberated thus understands kamma, thus understands the origin of kamma, thus understands the diversity of kamma, thus understands the result of kamma, thus understands the cessation of kamma, thus understands the path leading to the cessation of kamma, he understands this penetrative optimal life as the cessation of kamma. That which was said: “Kamma, Bhikkhave, should be understood… and the path leading to the cessation of kamma should be understood,” it was said in reference to this. (5)

Note that the suttas in Aṅguttara Nikāya are generally late, so it is highly unlikely that this sutta represented the original view of the Buddha. The title of the sutta itself (Nibbedhikasutta) is an indication this is meant as a detailed exposition (nibbedhikapariyāyaṁ) which implies it is probably an explanation crafted by a disciple, probably hundreds of years after the death of the Buddha. Also, the sutta does not start with Evaṃ me sutaṃ (Thus heard by me), therefore it was probably not a sutta recited by Ānanda in the First Council.

The text of the sutta clearly shows that kamma is clumsily inserted as part of the dependent origination chain. Moreover the use of kamma here is the ordinary usage of the word (to mean “actions” or “deeds”), and not some universal law of justice acting in accordance to merit or defilements - which is how a lot of Buddhists and even non-Buddhists refer to as “karma”.

The sutta advocates the “cessation of kamma” as part of the chain of cessations that leads to liberation. This insertion into the chain is clumsy because liberation via the eightfold path requires “action” (kamma) - in fact, it requires “right action” (sammākammanta) which this sutta itself points out. So this is clearly an attempt to insert the Jain view of cessation of all kamma into the dependent origination chain, but with a clever redefinition of kamma as intention (even though intention is already implied in “mental constructs” or saṅkhara). This redefinition of kamma is not mentioned or referenced in Dīgha, Majjhima or Saṃyutta Nikāyas, therefore it is extremely unlikely to have been originated by the Buddha himself.

So this rather clumsy reference to kamma has evolved into a sophisticated system of merit (including accumulation and transfer) that has since pervaded much of Buddhism as a religion. It is rather unfortunate as most Buddhists (and even non-Buddhists) today associate the Buddha with the elaborated notion of kamma which he has in all probability never articulated or elaborated.

References

Section titled “References”
Bronkhorst, J. (1998). Did the Buddha Believe in Karma and Rebirth? Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies, 21(1), 1–19.
Bronkhorst, J. (2007). Greater Magadha. Brill.
Gombrich, R. F. (2006). Theravāda Buddhism: A social history from ancient Benares to modern Colombo (2nd ed.). Routledge.

Footnotes

Section titled “Footnotes”

  1. as we shall see later, it is doubtful whether he has in fact redefined it as the characterisation of kamma as “intention” is quoted somewhat out of context from a late sutta. ↩

Backlinks