Training in Skillful Kamma
We’ve mentioned many times that kamma is complex and that it’s very difficult to draw direct connections from one action to its results or to predict how soon those results will come to fruition. Nevertheless, there are patterns of cause and effect from which we can learn, so that we don’t have to reinvent the Dhamma wheel every time we act. These patterns are most clearly related to the practice of virtue, but we will see—in line with the principle of scale invariance—that they relate to the practice of concentration and discernment as well.
Remember, these are all patterns of tendencies. Given that we, for the most part, are doing all kinds of things all the time, our karmic mix may weaken or strengthen these tendencies. But knowing what the tendencies are will help give us guidance as to which actions are good to add to the mix and which are best avoided.
To begin with, there are eight principles of unskillful actions that tend to lead to specific kinds of undesirable results in the next life. Taking life leads to a short life in the next lifetime. Stealing leads to the loss of one’s own wealth. Illicit sexual behavior leads to rivalry and revenge. Telling lies leads to being falsely accused. Divisive tale-bearing leads to the breaking of one’s friendships. Abusive speech leads to unappealing sounds—an interesting connection. Frivolous chattering leads to words that are not worth taking to heart. The drinking of fermented and distilled liquors—and this includes even the best wines—leads to mental derangement. That’s one set of patterns [§15].
Another set of patterns: If you harm beings with your fists, with clods, sticks, or knives, it leads to being sickly when you’re reborn. If you’re ill-tempered and easily upset, even only when lightly criticized, if you grow offended, provoked, malicious and resentful, if you show annoyance, aversion, and bitterness, then when you’re reborn you will tend to be ugly. If you’re envious, if you envy, begrudge, and brood about other people’s gains, their honor, respect, reverence, then when you’re reborn you’ll tend to be uninfluential. Nobody will want to listen to you. If you do not give food, drinks, cloth, or other gifts to people worthy of respect, then you’ll tend to be poor when you’re reborn. If you are obstinate and arrogant, if you don’t give respect to those who deserve respect, then you’ll tend to be low-born whenever you are reborn. If you don’t ask reliable people about what’s skillful or not, you will tend to be reborn without much wisdom or discernment.
That’s the negative side of the list. There’s also a positive side: If you refrain from harming other beings physically, you will tend to be reborn with good health. If you’re not easily provoked to show anger, you will tend to be reborn beautiful. If you’re not envious of others, you will tend to be influential. If you give gifts, you will tend to be reborn wealthy. If you’re respectful to those who deserve respect, you will tend to be high-born. If you ask reliable people about what’s skillful or not, you will tend to be reborn with wisdom and discernment [§16].
There’s another general principle, which is that if you engage frequently in one kind of act, it tends to lead you to do other similar acts. For example, if you harm other beings in search of power, then you don’t want the truth to be found out. Because you go into denial, you have less and less opportunity to learn the truth about anything worthwhile [§17]. As a result, you’ll find it easy to engage in actions that become more and more unskillful: a positive feedback loop that leads in a downward spiral. On the other hand, if you’re virtuous—which includes being truthful—any vows you make tend to succeed. If you use that success wisely, that becomes a positive feedback loop that leads upward.
Many of these principles are codified into precepts and rules, but don’t think that they relate only to external behavior. If you practice in line with them, they also translate into internal virtues in the practice of concentration and discernment. Ajaan Lee, for example, gives some nice similes for how those first eight principles also apply to concentration practice.
To begin with, the taking of life: When you’re sitting and concentrating and your mind is beginning to settle down, don’t kill your goodness. Don’t kill your concentration. Look after its life carefully.
As for stealing, don’t steal other people’s bad qualities to think about. You never asked their permission to take their bad qualities and to brood over them. If you’re going to steal their qualities, take their good ones and think about those instead. Ajaan Lee also says that if you take the bad words of other people and brood over them, it’s like taking something they’ve spit out and then eating it yourself. And then when you get sick, who are you going to blame?
As for avoiding illicit sexual behavior, this refers to not getting involved in sensual fantasies while you’re meditating.
As for the precept against telling lies: Don’t lie to yourself about your meditation, and don’t lie to others. “Lying to others” refers to this: When you’re sitting here, you look like you’re meditating, but are you really meditating? If you’re not, you’re lying.
Divisive tale-bearing: Don’t get involved in any thoughts that would split you away from your friends, i.e., your breath and your body here in the present moment.
As for abusive speech, don’t get involved in any inner tirades against yourself that would get you discouraged. Sometimes you’ll hear of Thai ajaans yelling at their students, criticizing their behavior, but as they explain it, they’re trying to strengthen the student’s morale, not weaken it. So if you have to criticize your behavior to yourself in order to get back on the path, do it in a way that lifts your spirits—and sometimes the criticism will have to be strong to get the desired effect—but don’t do it in a way that gets your spirits down.
Frivolous chattering refers to any random thoughts that come in and pull you away from the breath.
And as for the drinking of fermented and distilled liquors, this refers to sitting here with no mindfulness and alertness. Your mind is supposed to be following the path, but it’s weaving back and forth, and finally falls down on the side of the path in a stupor, without any mindfulness.
These are some of the ways in which the eight unskillful external actions are related to the internal action of practicing concentration.
As for discernment, the practice of abandoning unskillful actions and developing skillful ones develops discernment on two main levels. On the first level, discernment deals with clearly seeing which is which: what’s skillful, what’s not. On the next level, you develop your discernment by learning how to motivate yourself effectively to develop what’s skillful and to abandon what’s not. In some cases, this is easy; in others, not. The cases where it’s hard: Those are the ones that force your discernment to grow.
A sutta passage describes four kinds of actions: There are actions that are pleasant to do and give a profitable result, and actions that are unpleasant to do and give an unprofitable result. These two are no-brainers. It’s easy to motivate yourself to do the first sort of action and to avoid the second sort. However, there are also some kinds of actions that are unpleasant to do, but they are profitable. There are others that are pleasant to do, but are unprofitable. And it’s in reference to these last two types of actions that the Buddha says you can be known either as a fool or a wise person. I’ll read you the passage:
“As for the course of action that is unpleasant to do, but that, when done, leads to what is profitable, it’s in light of this course of action that one may be known as a fool or a wise person. For a fool doesn’t reflect, ‘Even though this course of action is unpleasant to do, still when it is done, it leads to what is profitable,’ so he doesn’t do it, and thus the non-doing of that course of action leads to what is unprofitable for him. But a wise person reflects, ‘Even though this course of action is unpleasant to do, still when it is done, it leads to what is profitable,’ so he does it, and thus the doing of that course of action leads to what is profitable for him. As to the course of action that is pleasant, but that, when done, leads to what is unprofitable, it’s in light of this course of action that one may be known as a fool or a wise person. For a fool doesn’t reflect, ‘Even though this course of action is pleasant to do, still when it is done, it leads to what is unprofitable,’ so he does it, and thus the doing of that course of action leads to what is unprofitable for him. But a wise person reflects, ‘Even though this course of action is pleasant to do, still when it is done, it leads to what is unprofitable,’ so he doesn’t do it, and thus the non-doing of that course of action leads to what is profitable for him.” [§18]
As this passage shows, one measure of your discernment is your ability to talk yourself out of doing things that you like to do but you know would lead to bad results. You have to learn how to use psychology with yourself and motivate yourself to avoid things that are unprofitable. At the same time, if something is unpleasant to do but you know that ultimately the results will be good, a sign of discernment is knowing how to talk yourself into doing it. In either case, discernment here is pragmatic, strategic. It doesn’t deal with abstractions. It grows by learning how to look for the good results and using psychology to get yourself to act in a way that will yield those results.
So, in looking at these various courses of action, you can see that skillful kamma is not just a matter of precepts or of external virtue. It also relates to concentration and discernment. All levels of skillful action are interrelated. This also means, though, that having good virtue and understanding the principles of kamma are an important foundation for the entirety of the path. The skills you develop when dealing with actions on the external level will help you on the internal level too.
And don’t think that this training stops at the foundation. It can actually take you all the way to the end of the path.
We’ve had a number of questions about why we focus on the issue of skillful and unskillful actions when instead we could focus on a sense of emptiness or space around those actions. The questions seem to assume that the issues of skillful and unskillful action are like a briar patch that you’d rather avoid if possible. But in reality, you can’t avoid it. Awakening isn’t in the air or the space around us. Awakening is found by going through the middle of the briar patch, but the briars are only on the outside of the patch. Once you get to the inside of the patch, the plants inside are a lot nicer.
Remember what I said a few days ago, that ultimate freedom is found next to our freedom of choice in the present moment, and we get to know that freedom of choice best by trying to get more sensitive as to what is skillful and what is unskillful in our actions. In the beginning this may be difficult, but as you get more and more adept at it, the path becomes more joyful. And it’s in the middle of the patch of briars that the ultimate happiness lies. The emptiness and spaciousness outside the briar patch are conditioned things. Only when you understand that they’re conditioned and will eventually let you down: That’s when you’ll be willing to go into the patch.
Q: Don’t you think that asking ourselves which stage we have reached is a reinforcement of our ego?
A: I’m not asking you to ask which stage you’ve reached. Simply notice, when you’re doing something, whether it works or not. I’m also asking you to become more sensitive to the results of the action.
Q: Personally, I’m content with simply walking along the path and improving myself to get further and further away from suffering. What do you think of that?
A: That’s perfectly fine. To alleviate suffering is a perfectly fine motivation, but ideally you won’t rest content with just a little bit of improvement. It’s not a question of focusing on which stage you’re at, it’s simply realizing that the less suffering you cause, the better it is for you and for other people—and if you’re really attentive and honest, you can lessen suffering to a level you wouldn’t have dreamed possible.
