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While beliefs in karma and rebirth were common in the Buddha’s day, as part of Brahmanism and Jainism, they were not universal: Ājīvikas believed in rebirth driven by an impersonal force of destiny, rather than personal karma; materi alists denied karma and rebirth; and sceptics saw no basis for either affirming or denying them.

Karma and rebirth beliefs are a central theme in Buddhism, but the Buddha is por trayed as having meditation-based personal knowledge of them, rather than simply having accepting them from his cultural environment. He is said to have awakened to them on the night of his enlightenment (MN I.247–249). From a state of great medita- tive calm, mindfulness, and sensitivity he developed the ‘threefold knowledge’: memory of many of his countless previous lives; seeing the rebirth of others according to their karma; and the destruction of the deep-seated spiritual taints which keep the mind unawakened and bound to repeated rebirths, so as to attain the Deathless, nirvāṇa (Pāli nibbāna).

The rebirth of beings according to the quality of their actions—good actions leading to relatively more pleasant rebirths, and bad ones leading to the more unpleasant ones— showed how beings moved within the many realms of sentient existence, experiencing ageing, sickness, death, and many other forms of dukkha (Pāli; Skt duḥkha): physical and mental pains, whether obvious or subtle, especially when one responds to them with grasping or aversion.

While craving and ignorance determine that a person is reborn, how a person is reborn is seen to depend on their karma, their intentional actions. Whether good or bad, these matter, for they leave a trace on the psyche which shapes character, life-scenarios, and future rebirths.

For the Buddha, the epitome of the kind of right view that conduces to a good destiny in the round of rebirths, if not being pitched at the level of liberating wisdom, is:

There is gift, there is offering, there is (self-)sacrifice [i.e., these are worthwhile]; there is a fruit and ripening of actions that are well done and ill done; there is this world, there is a world beyond [this world is not unreal, and one goes to another world after death]; there is mother and father [it is good to respect parents, who established one in the world]; there are spontaneously arising beings [there are also kinds of rebirth, such as in the heavens, in which beings arise without parents]; there are in this world renunciants and brahmins who are faring rightly, practising rightly, and who proclaim this world and a world beyond having realized them by their own higher-knowledge. (MN III.72)

To deny this is the epitome of wrong view (MN I.402), as expressed by the materialist Ajita Kesakambalī (DN I.55).

The Nature of Karma

In the Buddha’s teaching, understanding and improving one’s karma or action (Pāli kamma, Skt karma) help one to:

(1) live more happily in the present life;

(2) avoid a subhuman rebirth and attain a human or heavenly rebirth which is happier in itself and with more opportunities for spiritual development; and

(3) develop the kind of wisdom- based mental actions that can cut off all rebirths.

In all of this, ethics is central. For the Buddha, the ethical quality of the impulse behind an action was the key to its being good or bad, rather than its conformity with ritual or class norms, as in Brahmanism (Gombrich 2006: 67–70; 2009: 19–44). Ritual is only helpful if it helps develop wholesome states of mind; hence things such as bowing and chanting Buddhist texts have a role.

Moreover, in contrast with the Jains, the Buddha saw karma as essentially mental in nature. It is the volitional impulse or intention behind an act: ‘It is volition (cetanā), O monks, that I call karma; willing, one acts through body, speech or mind’ (AN III.415).

Even thinking of doing some bad action is itself a bad (mental) karma, especially when one gives energy to such a thought, rather than just letting it pass. Deliberately letting go of such a thought is a good mental karma. The psychological impulse behind an action is ‘karma’, which then sets going a chain of causes culminating in a pleasant or unpleasant karmic result. Actions must be intentional if they are to generate karmic results: accidentally treading on an insect does not have such an effect, as Jains believe.

The Nature of Cetanā

Cetanā is variously translated as ‘will’, ‘volition’, and ‘intention’. It is not ‘will’, though, as a factor that stands outside other conditioned mental states, totally ‘free’, but is itself a conditioned and conditioning state. As it is the impulse that immediately leads to action, cetanā is not ‘intention’ in the sense of a plan, a resolve to do something in the future, which may or may not actually be done (as in ‘my intention was to visit him today, but something came up, so I could not’). That said, resolving to do an action in the future is itself a present mental action, which will have its own cetanā.

Maria Heim (2014: 42) agrees it does not mean an intention to do a future action, but otherwise uses ‘intention’ as its translation. ‘Volition’ is a generally workable translation, with the related verb ‘wills’, to translate ceteti. ‘Volition’ may lack something of the full goal-directedness of ‘intention’, yet ‘intention’ is lacking in the impelling force of ‘volition’.

The Milindapañha (61) says: ‘Being willed/intended (cetayita-), sire, is the characteristic of cetanā and a characteristic is concocting (abhisankharaṇa-).’ A simile then explains that just as someone might ‘concoct’ a poison or a delightful drink that would afflict or please those who drink it, so one who ‘through volition, having willed (cetanāya cetayitvā)’ an unwholesome or wholesome action, would be reborn in a hell or heavenly rebirth; and likewise for someone inspired to act in the same way. That is, cetanā brings together factors in an action that leads to future karmic results.

The Theravādin commentator Buddhaghosa defines cetanā thus:

‘It wills’ (cetayatī ti), thus it is cetanā; ‘it puts together’ (abhisandahatī ti) is the meaning. Its characteristic is the state of cetanā. Its function is directing towards (āyūhana-1). It is manifested as co-ordination (saṃvidahana-). It accomplishes its own and others’ functions, as a senior pupil, a head carpenter etc. do. But it is evident when it occurs in the state of the instigation (ussāhana-bhāvena) of associated states in connection with urgent work, remembering and so on. (Vism. 463)

That is, cetanā gathers together and organizes various mental qualities and directs them towards a certain objective accomplished by an action (see Heim 2014: 41 n. 18). Heim summarizes, ‘It is a dynamic activity of collecting and animating rather than a state, decision, choice or inclination’ (2014: 105), that is:

a matter of coordinating quite a large number of other mental factors . . . [which] contribute to morally relevant thought and agency in complex ways not limited to either rational deliberation or various appetitive forces, but invoking sensibilities, motivational roots, faculties, aptitudes, energies, functions. Such a depiction stretches considerably beyond modern conceptions of intention construed as a combination of belief and desire and some kind of relation between them. (2014: 106)

The Pāli Nikāyas define the fourth of the five khandhas, ‘constructing activities’ (saṅkhārā), in terms of cetanā, as: ‘these six classes of cetanā: volition (sañcetanā-) regarding visual forms, sounds, smells, tastes, tangibles and mind-objects’, these cetanās being (most immediately) conditioned by sensory contact (phassa) (SN III.63).

In the Abhidhamma, though, the constructing activities (note the plural) are explained as cetanā along with a number of processes that initiate action or direct, mould, and give shape to character (e.g. Bodhi 1993: 91).

Among these are processes which are ingredients of all mind states, such as sensory contact and attention, ones which intensify such states, such as energy, joy, or desire-to-do, ones which are ethically ‘wholesome’, such as mindfulness and a sense of moral integrity, and ‘unwholesome’ ones, such as greed, hatred, and delusion (e.g. Bodhi 1993: 76–91). A selection of these states are what cetanā brings together in carrying out an action, a karma.

Further, in the Theravāda (Bodhi 1993: 77–78) and Sarvāstivāda (AKB II.24) Abhidhammas, cetanā is a universal mental factor, thus occurring in every kind of mind state, including those of arahants, who generate no more karmic results, and ones that are the result of past karma and make no new karma. Thus while all cetanā is directed towards something—it is intentional—some forms of cetanā lack the factors of collecting and directing that generate karmic results. Asl. 111 explains:

Its function is directing towards (āyūhana-); there is no cetanā in the four planes of existence [including actions of an arahant] that does not have the characteristic of being intended (cetayita-). All have the characteristic of being intended, but the state of the function of directing towards is only in regard to what is wholesome or unwholesome; once the role of directing (associated states) towards wholesome and unwholesome action is attained, there is only a partial role for the remaining associated states. But volition (cetanā) is exceedingly energetic; it makes a twofold instigation (diguṇa-ussāhā-), a twofold effort (diguṇa-vāyāmā).

This is explained to mean that cetanā is like a cultivator directing strong men at harvest time, or a coordinating chief disciple or general, who incites others by acting themselves (Asl. 111–112).

The Relation between the Karmic Results of an Action and Ethical Assessment of the Action

A bad action is seen to have bad, i.e. unpleasant, karmic results, but its having these results is not what makes it ‘bad’. Hence there is talk (MN I.389–391, cf. DN I.163, SN V.104) of:

(1) ‘Action that is dark and with a dark ripening (kammaṃ kaṇhaṃ kaṇhavipākaṃ)’: one ‘generates an activity (saṅkhāraṃ abhisaṅkharoti)’ of body speech or mind that is ‘afflictive (sabyābajjahaṃ)’ and hence is reborn in an ‘afflictive’ world such as hell, with afflictive contacts and afflictive, painful feelings. AN II.234 explains dark actions as killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying, and taking intoxicants.

(2) ‘Action that is bright (sukkaṃ) with a bright ripening’: generating unafflictive activities, so as to be reborn in an unafflictive world, such as a heaven. AN II.234 explains bright actions as abstention from killing etc.

This makes clear that while the nature of an action’s karmic ripening corresponds to the nature of the action, it does not determine its nature. A ‘dark’ action is not to be counted as dark because it has a dark karmic result; rather, it has a dark result because it is itself dark: causing affliction here and now. Its having dark karmic results is a sign of its dark, afflictive, unwholesome nature, but not the criterion for its being unwholesome in the first place.

Nevertheless, other passages hardly neglect to mention karmic results, in the form of pleasant or unpleasant experiences—perhaps as additional motivating or demotivating factors for the actions—and of course do concern themselves with the immediate (non-karmic) effects of actions on both others and oneself.

Wholesome and Unwholesome Actions and Their Roots

In Buddhism, one should avoid actions criticized by the wise (AN I.89) and a ‘good’ action is generally referred to as kusala (Pāli, Skt kuśala): informed by wisdom and thus ‘skilful’ in producing an uplifting mental state in the doer, or ‘wholesome’ in that it involves a healthy state of mind (Cousins 1996; Harvey 2000: 42–43).

A ‘bad’ action is akusala: ‘unwholesome/unskilful’. Key criteria for an action being ‘unwholesome’ is its conducing to the harm of oneself, of others, or of both (MN I.415–416), and its being ‘destructive of intuitive wisdom, associated with distress, not conducive to nirvāṇa’ (MN I.115).

Correspondingly, a ‘wholesome’ action does not conduce to any such harm, but does conduce to the growth of wholesome states of mind (MN II.114). The ‘harm’ to oneself that is relevant here is spiritual harm, or material harm if this arises from selfhatred.

In other respects, an act that benefits others at the expense of material harm to oneself is certainly not unwholesome. Thus one should avoid ‘corrupt and harmful (sandosa-vyāpatti) actions of unwholesome volition (akusala-sañcetanikā) with painful consequences (dukkhudrayā), (karmically) ripening in suffering (dukkha-vipākā)’, and do ‘beneficial actions of wholesome volition, with happy consequences, ripening in happiness’ (AN V.292–297).

In a detailed analytical survey that I conducted (Harvey 2011) of the factors related to an unwholesome/unskilful actions in the Pāli Canon, my summary was that they involved:

1. unwise attention, feeding

2. attachment/greed/covetousness, hatred/ill-will, delusion/ignorance, which are both ‘the unwholesome’ and are roots that sustain

3. ‘the unwholesome’: specified unwholesome actions of body, speech, or mind,

4. that are of unwholesome volition, and intentional,

5. that are dark, corrupt, with fault/blameable (sāvajjaṃ) (by the wise), as they

6. bring pain and injury to oneself or to others

7. in a way that is anticipated by correct perception of the immediate facts of the situation,

8. such that one should not inflict on another what one would not like inflicted on oneself

9. and are criticized by the wise,

10. as not to be done,

11. and that, as a karmic result, bring dark harm and pain in this and later lives to the agent, as well as

12. unwholesome character tendencies,

13. obscuring wisdom and moving one away from nirvāṇa.

Wholesome actions have the opposite qualities.

In the Sammādiṭṭhi Sutta is a passage (MN I.46–47) that identifies typical akusala and kusala actions and makes clear what lies at the root of such actions:

When, friends, a noble-disciple understands the unwholesome (akusalañ) and the root of the unwholesome (akusala-mūla-), the wholesome and the root of the wholesome, in that way he is one of right view, whose view is straight, who has perfect confidence in the Dhamma and has arrived at this true Dhamma.

And what is the unwholesome? . . . Killing living beings is the unwholesome; taking what is not given is the unwholesome; misconduct in sensual pleasures is the unwholesome; false speech is the unwholesome; divisive speech is the unwholesome; harsh speech is the unwholesome; frivolous chatter is the unwholesome; covetousness is the unwholesome; ill-will is the unwholesome; wrong view is the unwholesome. This is called the unwholesome.

And what is the root of the unwholesome? Greed is a root of the unwholesome; hatred is a root of the unwholesome; delusion is a root of the unwholesome. This is called the root of the unwholesome.

And what is the wholesome? Abstention from . . . [the above ten actions]. This is called the wholesome.

And what is the root of the wholesome? Non-greed is a root of the wholesome; non-hate is a root of the wholesome; non-delusion is a root of the wholesome. This is called the root of the wholesome.

In this passage, ‘the unwholesome’ is explained as consisting of specific actions of body and speech that are widely recognized as harmful to others, plus mental states that are likely later to lead to such harmful actions.

Greed, hatred, and delusion are presented here as the inner causes of ‘the unwholesome’, though not the criteria for labelling something as ‘the unwholesome’. They are, though, themselves unwholesome (AN I.201).

As regards the nature of greed, hatred, and delusion: (1) greed (lobha) covers a range of states from mild longing up to full-blown lust, avarice, fame-seeking, and dogmatic clinging to ideas; (2) hatred (Pāli dosa, Skt dveṣa) covers mild irritation through to burning anger and resentment; and (3) delusion (moha) is expressed in stupidity, confusion, bewilderment, dull states of mind, ingrained misperception, specious doubt on moral and spiritual matters, and turning away from reality by veiling it from oneself.

As to the opposites of these:

(1) non-greed (alobha) covers states from small generous impulses through to a strong urge for renunciation of worldly pleasures;

(2) non-hatred (adosa) covers friendliness through to forbearance in the face of great provocation, and deep loving-kindness and compassion for all beings; and

(3) non-delusion (amoha) covers clarity of mind through to the deepest insight into reality.

While phrased negatively, these three are more than the mere lack of their opposites. They are positive states in the form of anti-greed (generosity and renunciation), anti-hatred (loving-kindness and compassion), and anti-delusion (wisdom).2

Karmically Fruitful (‘Meritorious’) Actions

Good actions are said to be ‘beautiful’ (kalyāṇa) and to be, or have the quality of, puñña (Pāli, Skt puṇya), which term is either an adjective or noun. As an adjective, Lance Cousins sees it as the ‘fortune-bringing or auspicious quality of an action’ (1996: 153), while as a noun ‘it is applied either to an act which brings good fortune or to the happy result in the future of such an act’ (1996: 155). Thus we see:

Monks, do not be afraid of puññas; this, monks, is a designation for happiness, for what is pleasant, charming, dear and delightful, that is to say, puññas. I myself know that the ripening of puññas done for a long time are experienced for a long time as pleasant, charming, dear and delightful. (It. 14–15, cf. AN IV.88–89)

Puñña is usually, rather limply, translated as ‘meritorious’ (adjective) or ‘merit’ (noun). However, ‘meritorious’ implies being deserving of reward, praise, or gratitude, but puñña refers to something with a natural power of its own to produce happy results; it does not depend on anyone to give out what is due to the ‘deserving’.

In Christian theology, ‘merit’ referred to a good deed seen to have a claim to a future reward from a graceful God, an idea that ill fits Buddhism.

A puñña action is ‘auspicious’, ‘fortunate’, or ‘fruitful’, as it purifies the mind and thus leads to future good fortune (McDermott 1984: 31–58). The Sanskrit word puṇya may derive from the root puṣ, ‘to thrive, flourish, prosper’, or pū, ‘to make clean or clear or pure or bright’; hence a Theravāda commentary explains ‘puñña’ by saying ‘it cleanses and purifies the life-continuity’ (Vv-a. 10; Bodhi 1990, cf. AKB IV.46a–b).

The effect of the translation ‘merit’ is to produce a flattened, dispirited image of this aspect of Buddhism, rather than conveying an uplifting and admirable action. Admittedly, puñña alone will not bring awakening, as wisdom is needed for this, but it does help prepare the ground for this.

As the noun puñña refers to the power of good actions as seeds for future happy fruits, an appropriate translation is ‘(an act of) karmic fruitfulness’, with ‘karmically fruitful’ as the adjective. The Saṅgha is described as the best ‘field of puñña’, i.e. the best group of people to ‘plant’ a gift ‘in’ as regards good results of the gift, hence ‘like fields are the arahants; the givers are like farmers. The gift is like the seed, (and) from this arises the fruit’ (Pv. I.1).

In defence of the above translation, while karmic results can be of either good or bad actions, and puñña relates only to good actions, the English word ‘fruit’ can also mean only edible, pleasant fruit such as apples, without referring to inedible, unpleasant ones. One might use the translation ‘karmically beneficial’, but this lacks a tone of inspiring uplift.

The opposite of puñña is apuñña, which one can accordingly see as meaning a ‘(act of) karmic harm’ or ‘karmically harmful’, i.e. producing no pleasant fruits, but only bitter ones. A synonym for apuñña is pāpa, which, while often translated as ‘evil’ or ‘bad’, really means that which is ‘infertile’, ‘barren’, ‘harmful’ (Cousins 1996: 156) or ‘bringing ill fortune’.

Buddhists are keen to perform ‘karmically fruitful’ actions; for puñña is an unlosable ‘treasure’, unlike physical goods (Khp. 7).

The early texts refer to three ‘bases for effecting karmic fruitfulness’ (puñña-kiriya-vatthus): giving (dāna—especially by giving alms to monastics), ethical discipline (sīla), and meditative cultivation of wholesome qualities (DN II.218).

Later texts add: showing respect, helpful activity, sharing karmic fruitfulness, rejoicing at the karmic fruitfulness of others, teaching Dhamma, listening to Dhamma, and straightening out one’s views (DN-a III.999).

Any act of giving is seen as karmically fruitful, even giving in the hope of some return, or giving purely to get the karmic result of giving. A purer motive, however, is seen as leading to a better karmic result.

Thus it is particularly good to give from motives such as the appreciation of a gift as helping to support a holy way of life, or of the calm and joy that giving naturally brings (AN IV.60–63).

While a large gift is generally seen as more auspicious than a small one, purity of mind can also make up for the smallness of a gift, for ‘where there is a heart of calm and joyful faith (citta-pasāde), no gift is small’ (Jat. II.85).

Indeed, a person with nothing to give can act auspiciously by simply rejoicing at another person’s giving. The same principle, of course, logically implies that if one verbally or mentally applauds someone else’s unwholesome action, one is performing an unwholesome action oneself. For other aspects of karmic fruitfulness, see Harvey (2000: 17–23).

Degrees of Gravity of Good and Bad Actions

Acts of giving are perhaps the most typical ones seen to generate karmic fruitfulness, but the degree of this depends both on the purity of mind of the giver, and the virtue of the recipient (MN III.255–257).

It is said that a gift to an animal yields a hundredfold, to an unvirtuous human a thousandfold, to an ordinary virtuous human a hundred thousandfold, and to a person of one of the Noble stages, it has an immeasurable fruit. The virtue and spiritual development of the recipient is seen to have this multiplying effect as giving to them makes an inspiring connection to an embodiment of wholesome states, which engenders much joy in the giver so as to have a powerful purifying effect. Mahāyāna texts add that it is particularly beneficial to give gifts to one’s parents or the sick.

Correspondingly, it is seen as worse, and generating more bad karmic results, to intentionally harm a more virtuous being.4 It is also said to be more unwholesome to kill a larger insect, bird, or animal than a smaller one, as this requires more force of action and volition. It is worse to kill a human, and amongst humans, it is worse to kill a more virtuous person.

In any case, the act is made worse by stronger defilements lying behind it. One can summarize this by saying that an unwholesome act is made worse according the strength or perversity of the volition of which it is a manifestation (Harvey 2000: 52).

The most heinous actions are to deliberately kill one’s mother or father, or an arahant, to shed the blood of a Buddha, or cause a schism in the monastic Saṅgha. Such acts definitely lead to one’s next rebirth being in hell for the remainder of an aeon.5 This must be seen as because such acts harm those for whom one should have great respect.

Other aspects of a bad action affect its seriousness and karmic effect. It needs to be intentional (Harvey 1999, 2007a), and is worse if one is full control of oneself; it is less bad if one is unclear or mistaken about whether a living being is being harmed, and is worst when one fully knows the harmful effect of one’s action but does not see anything wrong in it, so that one does not hold back on or regret the act (Harvey 2000: 52–58).

Regretting a bad (or good) action, and resolving not to do it again, lessens its karmic result as it reduces the psychological impetus from the act (Harvey 2000: 26–28). However, while painful feelings at the thought of a past act may be part of its karmic result, entertaining heavy guilt feelings is seen as associated with (self-)hatred, and as an anguished state which is not conducive to calm, clarity, and thus spiritual improvement.

The Sharing of Karmic Fruitfulness

All Buddhist traditions accept the idea that the beneficial effects of good actions—their karmic fruitfulness or ‘merit’—can be shared with others. Typically this is done by sharing with a dead relative the karmic fruitfulness of acts of generosity to the monastic Saṅgha.

In Theravāda tradition, a karmically fruitful act may not only be performed by empathizing (anumodanā) with someone else’s auspicious deed, but also by the auspicious quality of an act (patti, what has been gained) being transferred to or shared with another being. The Buddha was once asked by a brahmin if gifts given to a brahmin in the hope that they are transferred on to a deceased relative actually do benefit the dead. He replied that the dead will benefit only if reborn as departed ghostly beings known as petas (Pāli; Skt pretas), for these live either on the putrid food of their realm or on what is provided by gifts from relatives and friends (AN V.269–272, cf. Miln. 294).

The Petavatthu accordingly describes a number of instances where a gift is given in the name of a suffering peta, so that they attain rebirth as a god due to the karmic fruitfulness of the giving. Theravāda rites for the dead therefore include the feeding of monks and the transference of the karmic fruitfulness to the deceased, or whatever other ancestors may be petas, in the hope that this will ease their lot as petas or help them to a better rebirth.

Another early text has the Buddha say that it is wise to support monks and to dedicate the gift to the local gods, so that they will look with favour on the donor (DN II.88). The gods are seen as having less opportunity to do auspicious deeds themselves, but can benefit from transferred karmic fruitfulness, which helps maintain them in their divine rebirth; in return, it is hoped that they will use whatever powers they have to aid and protect Buddhism and the person making the donation. A boy ordaining as a novice or full monk will also share the karmic fruitfulness of this act with his mother. Here, her karmic fruitfulness will come from both the act of ‘giving up’ her son to the monkhood, and her rejoicing at his auspicious act.

Given the Buddhist stress on the idea that someone can only generate karmic fruitfulness by their own deeds, the idea of ‘transferring’ it is potentially anomalous. To avoid such an anomaly, the Theravāda commentaries developed an orthodox interpretation, and Tibetan Buddhists have a similar idea.

This is that no karmic fruitfulness is actually transferred, but that the food, etc. donated to monks is dedicated, by the performer of the auspicious donation, to an ancestor or god, so that the donation is done on their behalf, with their property. Provided that they assent to this donation-by-proxy by rejoicing at it, they themselves generate karmic fruitfulness. By a living being affirming someone else’s action as good, particularly if it is done on their behalf, they directly perform a positive mental action of their own.

The idea of sharing karmic fruitfulness helps to modify any tendency in the karma doctrine to encouraging people to ‘amass’ karmic fruitfulness for themselves, like a kind of non-physical money in the bank.

Karmic fruitfulness can and should be shared with others. Giving, for example, generates karmic fruitfulness; then when this is shared with others, there is another generous act which generates more karmic fruitfulness: the more karmic fruitfulness is shared, the more there is of it—unlike with money or material goods—and happiness increases in the world! Sharing karmic fruitfulness is a way of spreading the karmic benefits of good deeds to others, as a gesture of goodwill.

This is expressed in the traditional simile to explain such sharing: lighting many lamps from one.

In Mahāyāna traditions, bodhisattvas on the first of the ten stages are urged to dedicate their good karma to the future buddhahood of themselves and others. Such transfer (pariṇāmanā) of karmic fruitfulness is seen as possible because karmic fruitfulness is ‘empty’ and does not inherently ‘belong’ to any particular ‘being’.

In the Mahāyāna, the aspiration is usually that karmic fruitfulness is shared with all beings, and typically to help them attain enlightenment. Humans should transfer it for the benefit of other humans, and beings in unfortunate rebirths. They should also transfer it to buddhas and bodhisattvas with a view to increasing their perfections and virtues (Ss. 205–206).

In turn, though, bodhisattvas and buddhas are seen as transferring it to devotees who ask for such help in faith. Śāntideva praises the transfer of karmic fruitfulness in the final chapter (X) of his Bodhicaryāvatāra, aspiring that, by the good karma generated by his writing this poem, humans and other beings should be free from various afflictions and be endowed with morality, faith, wisdom, and compassion.

In verse 56 (cf. Ss. 256–257), he even prays that the sufferings of the world should ripen in him: that he should take on the bad karma of others, not just give them his karmic fruitfulness. How might this be possible? Perhaps by totally empathizing with a person who has acted badly, one becomes attuned to their actions and may generate some bad karma for oneself; and the experience of being empathized with and understood may help the other person reflect on their own past bad actions, regret them, and so lighten their karmic results.

The Mahāyāna idea of gaining rebirth in a Pure Land—a realm presided over by a buddha where the conditions for attaining enlightenment are ideal—also draws on the idea of the transfer of karmic fruitfulness. Pure Lands are seen as outside the normal system of rebirths, including heavenly ones, according to personal karma. To be reborn in one requires not only the dedication of one’s own karmic fruitfulness to this end, but also a transfer of some of the huge stock of karmic fruitfulness of a land’s presiding buddha, stimulated by devout prayer. This ‘transfer’ can perhaps be seen as brought about by a devotee’s so rejoicing at the great virtues of the relevant buddha that this becomes a mental act of great karmic fruitfulness.

Is There Group Karma?

To what extent can karma relate to groups of people, rather than only to an individual? As volitional involvement is required to generate karmic results, then actions of other people can only bring an individual karmic results to the extent that that individual approves of such actions or is somehow involved in them (Payutto 1993: 68). This is because one kind of action is mental action. So, if one approves of a bad or good action carried out by someone else, this is a volitional action that generates corresponding karmic results—though probably not as strong as for those who physically do the action.

If one orders someone to do an action, one is as karmically involved as the person who does the action, if not more so. Again, if a group of people work together towards a common goal, e.g. robbing a bank, they share in the karmic results of this. That said, if someone is killed in the course of a robbery, only those who were aware of this as a possibility would get the karmic results of killing.

This has implications for killing by an army. Vasubandhu, giving the Sarvāstivāda view, says that when an army kills, all the soldiers are as karmically involved as the ones who directly do the killing, for by sharing in a common goal (which here is bound to involve some killing) they mutually incite one another.

Even someone forced to become a soldier is karmically involved, unless he has previously resolved, ‘Even in order to save my life, I shall not kill a living being’ (AKB IV.72cd). That said, defensive violence is not as bad as offensive violence, and if a killing is done against the rules of engagement, this aspect is only karmically relevant for those who do or approve of this kind of killing.

Also relevant is how an individual’s actions are influenced by the actions of people with whom they associate (cf. AN II.158) or the actions of their society as a whole.

To the extent that someone goes along with bad influences from others, they are likely to do a kind of bad action that is common within their social group.

The above has implications for whether there is such a thing as ‘national karma’. For example, if someone approves of the past bad actions of his or her nation’s army, then they will generate some bad karmic results for themselves. Also, of course, people who are reborn as humans may be rebirths of a member of a past generation from the same country.

Karmic ‘Seeds’ and When They Bring Their Results

The precise details of how actions bring karmic details are seen to be so complex as to be ‘unthinkable’ except to a buddha (AN IV.77), but certain general principles can be discussed. The Theravāda Abhidhammattha-saṅgaha and its commentary talks of:

(a) ‘weighty’ karma, such as heinous bad actions or the strong wholesome actions such as attaining jhāna;

(b) ‘near’ karma done or recalled near the time of death;

(c) ‘habitual’ karma, which is done often, or is often dwelt on;

(d) otherwise ‘effective’ karma.

(a)–(d) is seen as the order of precedence as to which kind of karma ripens first after death. Also, some karma ripens in this life, some in the next, some at some later time, if it gets the opportunity, but some minor karma never gets the opportunity to ripen (Bodhi 1993: 203–205; Wijeratne and Gethin 2002: 174–177).

This implies that karma is not seen as just about habits, as habitual karma is only one kind of karma. Actions are more like seeds, which may be more or less potent, and take time to mature, when the conditions are right.

Yet the analogy of a ‘seed’ has its limits, as seeds do not normally affect each other, while, at AN I.249–253, it is said that the same bad action done by a generally virtuous and an unvirtuous person will have a worse karmic effect on the latter, just as a pinch of salt in a cup of water has a bigger effect than in the Ganges.

This suggests that good actions can ‘dilute’ the effect of bad actions, at least so as to make their ‘seeds’ less potent. For a detailed discussion of the Sarvāstivāda and Sautrāntika view of karma, which has had a variable influence on Mahāyāna traditions, see AKB IV.1–127.

The Range of Kinds of Rebirth

The cycle of rebirths is seen as involving innumerable lives over vast stretches of time. These lives can be in a variety of kinds of realm. A human rebirth is seen as relatively rare (AN I.35); while the human population has been increasing, there are still many more other creatures. Mahāyāna Buddhists talk of having attained a ‘precious human rebirth’ (Guenther 1971: 14–29; cf. DN III.263–264): a marvellous opportunity for spiritual growth that should be used wisely and respected in others. As it may be cut short at any time by death, it should not be frittered away. To be reborn as a human requires past good karma.

Animal rebirths include sentient creatures as simple as insects, along with fish, birds, and land animals. Plants are not included as a type of rebirth, though they are seen as having a very rudimentary consciousness in the form of sensitivity to touch (Vin.I.155–156).

Rebirth as a peta (Skt preta), literally the ‘departed’, is as a frustrated ghostly being who inhabits the fringes of the human world due to strong earthly attachments, not unlike the ghosts of Western literature. One type of peta, generally known as a ‘hungry ghost’, is portrayed as having a huge stomach, racked by hunger, and a tiny neck that allows little sustenance to pass.

The worst realm is hell (niraya), comprising a number of hellish rebirths. These are described as involving experiences of being burnt up, cut up, frozen, or eaten alive, yet being revived to re-experience these (e.g. MN III.183). They are, then, realms in which a tortured consciousness experiences abominable nightmares, where every object of the senses appears repulsive and ugly (SN IV.126).

Some hells are worse than others, but all are seen as appropriate to the bad deeds that led to them. While life in the hells is measured in millions of years, no rebirth is eternal, so a being from hell will in time reach the human level again.

The animal, peta, and hell realms are the lower rebirths, where beings suffer more than humans. The Buddha is seen as compassionate in having warned people of the danger in actions that lead to such rebirths. The higher, more fortunate realms of rebirth are those of humans and devas, ‘illustrious ones’ or gods. Together all the above rebirths comprise the five realms. Sometimes this becomes six, by adding the asuras, the demi-gods, seen as proud, fierce, power-hungry divine beings (counted among the lower rebirths).

The gods are said to live in twenty-six heavens, which are grouped according to a threefold classification of rebirths. The lowest of these is the ‘realm of sense-desire’ (kāma-dhātu), which encompasses all the rebirths mentioned so far, including the six lowest heavens. In all of these realms, beings perceive sensory objects in such a way as to particularly notice their qualities of desirability or undesirability.

More subtle than and ‘above’ the realm of sense-desire is the ‘realm of (pure, elemental) form’ (rūpa-dhātu). Here dwell more refined gods, who are known in general as brahmās, in contrast to the devas proper of the six lower heavens. In the realm of form there are said to be sixteen heavens of a progressively more refined and calm nature. Beings at this level of existence are aware of objects in a pure way devoid of sensuous desire, and are without the senses of touch, taste, and smell. They suffer from other attachments and limitations, however.

More refined than the form realm is the ‘formless realm’ (Pāli arūpa-dhātu; Skt ārūpya-dhātu), which is comprised of the four most refined types of rebirth. They are purely mental ‘spheres’ (āyatana) completely devoid of anything having even subtle shape or form.

They are named after the characteristic states of consciousness of the brahmās reborn ‘there’. In the first, they have the experience of ‘infinite space’, i.e. contentless space in its limitless expanse; in the second, they dwell on the ‘infinite consciousness’ which can contemplate infinite space;

in the third, they experience the apparent ‘nothingness’ (or no-thingness) of their level of existence; in the last, their resting state of consciousness is so subtle that their sphere is that of ‘neither-perception- nor-non-perception’. This last rebirth, the ‘summit of existence’, is the highest and most subtle form of life in the cosmos, with a huge lifespan of 84,000 aeons; and yet even this eventually ends in death.

All these rebirth realms parallel the kinds of human mental states and actions that are seen to lead to them; hence Buddhism has a kind of ‘psychocosmology’ (Gethin 1997; 1998: 112–132).

The Results of Karma in This and Other Lives

Living an ethical life is said to variously lead to: wealth, through diligence; a good reputation; self-confidence in all kinds of company, without fear of reproach or punishment; dying without anxiety; and rebirth in a good world (DN II.86).

Unwholesome actions have the opposite kind of results. Virtue also gives a good basis for developing the meditative calm of jhāna, which then tends to rebirth in a corresponding heaven, as well as preparing the mind for insight. In order to attain nirvāṇa, a person must be able to perform a transcendental action, namely the attainment of deep insight into reality (AN II.230–232).

The movement of beings between rebirths is seen as governed by the principle that beings are ‘heir’ to their actions (MN III.203). It is said in the Tibetan tradition6 that acts of hatred and violence tend to lead to rebirth in a hell, acts bound up with delusion and confusion tend to lead to rebirth as an animal, and acts of greed tend to lead to rebirth as a ghost.

A person’s actions mould their consciousness, making them into a certain kind of person, so that when they die their outer form tends to correspond to the type of nature that has been developed. If bad actions are not serious enough to lead to a lower rebirth, or after having already done so, they affect the nature of a human rebirth: stinginess leads to being poor, injuring beings leads to frequent illnesses, and anger leads to being ugly—an extension of the process whereby an angry person gradually develops ugly features during their present life (MN III.203–206).

Poor, ill, or ugly people are not to be presently blamed for their condition, however, for the actions of a past life are behind them, and the important thing is how they act and how others treat them now. But if bad karma can lead to being poor, that is not the same as saying that being poor cannot arise from other causes.

Is Everything Due to Karma?

Karma is seen as bringing about its effects partly through events in the world and the actions of other people. Does this mean that everything is due to karma? The answer, for the Theravāda tradition, is ‘no’: most things in the animate and inanimate world are seen as not due to karma, though they are conditioned in other ways.

At AN V.109–110, it is said that bodily afflictions include:

. . . illnesses (ābādhā) originating from bile, phlegm, wind, or a combination of these; illnesses produced by seasonal change (utu-pariṇāma-jā); illnesses produced by careless behaviour (visama-parihāra-jā); illnesses produced by exertion (opakkamikā7); or illnesses produced as a result of karma (kamma-vipākāni-jā) . . .

SN IV.229–231 lists these as the various causes of (unpleasant) feelings (vedayitāni), such that it is incorrect to say, ‘Whatever this person experiences, whether pleasant or painful or neither painful nor pleasant, all that is due to what was done earlier.’

This passage is discussed at Milindapañha 134–138, where King Milinda is described as wrongly thinking ‘all that is experienced is rooted in karma’. The monk Nāgasena points out the various causes of feelings, as above, and denies that karma underlies them all. Bodily winds, for example, can arise from a number of physical causes, though some do also arise due to past karma. On feelings in general, he says, ‘small is what is born of the maturing of karma, greater is the remainder’ (135).

Of course, to suffer from human illnesses, one must be reborn a human, and have the karma for this, so in a general sense all illnesses have some karmic input. And genetic illnesses must be seen by a Buddhist as specifically due to karma, as one gets one’s genes from one’s parents but who one’s parents are is a result of one’s karma.

In Theravāda Abhidhamma, there is a view that is potentially at odds with the idea that there are many events in the world not due to karma. It is held that in any sense channel, e.g. the visual, there is a sense-consciousness rapidly followed by mind-consciousnesses that make sense of and respond to such an object.

What is important, here, is that the initial eye-, ear-, nose-, tongue- and body-consciousness are all seen as results of past karma.8 How can this be, if what they are conscious of is regarded as generally not due to past karma? A combination of three possible answers seems appropriate:

1. Karma determines what kind of being someone is reborn as, and as different kinds of beings have different kinds of sense organs, which are sensitive in different ways—e.g. human sight compared to that of a fly or eagle—then the form of a being’s consciousness is influenced by karma.

2. A certain visual scene may not be due to past karma, but that a certain person is in a particular location so as to see it can be seen as possibly due to past karma.

3. Even if there are two people in the same place, they will notice different aspects of what is available to see, for example one will tend to notice pleasant aspects, and the other unpleasant. It is in this sense that their sense-consciousnesses can be seen as the result of past karma: it filters awareness of the surrounding environment so that only particular ‘edited highlights’ tend to be noticed.

The third explanation is not explicitly given in any text, but fits in well with other Buddhist ideas. It is supported by a passage at SN I.91–92, which recounts a tale of a man who is rich due to having given alms to a pacceka-buddha in a past life, but a miser unable to enjoy what wealth might buy due to later having regretted his generosity.

Here, one can say, past karma entails that the man only notices unpleasant, unenticing aspects of the world. One’s experienced world is shaped by one’s karma-shaped character, as implied by SN I.62:

It is in this fathom-long carcase, which has perception and mind, that, I declare, lies the world, and the arising of the world, and the cessation of the world, and the course that goes to the cessation of the world.

That is, what one notices in the outer world, and how one labels and thinks about this— which all becomes ‘the world’ to one—is a construction shaped by the kind of person one is, which comes from one’s cravings and attachments and karma.

In the Yogācāra, one of the schools of Mahāyāna philosophy, the question of whether everything is due to karma is set in a different context. This is because it holds— depending on how it is interpreted—either that

(a) only mental phenomena exist, or that

(b) all we ever have access to is the flow of experience, with any concept of a material world being a projected construct.

If a material world does not exist (interpretation a), then a physical body does not exist apart from the experience of ‘body’. Hence there can be no physical causes in the body or environment that could be non-mental causes of feelings or illnesses. This makes it most plausible to see these as the result of past karma.

In fact, the Yogācāra sees the flow of experiences as the ripening of karmic seeds generated by one’s previous actions and stored in the ālaya-vijñāṇa—the ‘storehouse consciousness’ that is a background unconscious level of the mind—and matured by the subtle influence of vāsanās or perfuming ‘impressions’ generated by ingrained attachment to mental constructions.

Nevertheless, experiences that are part of new actions are not the result of past karma, and experiences can also arise from the actions of other mind-streams (Vims. vv.18–20), i.e. other beings.

On interpretation b, we can know nothing of the body and illnesses other than the mental experience of them, which is greatly shaped by past karma. We cannot know of any causal sequences in ‘the body itself ’ that could work independently of the mind in causing experienced illnesses, and it would seem that medical knowledge can only relate the experienceable features of ‘medicines’ and ‘bodily processes’.

The Yogācāra does not hold that we all inhabit totally private worlds, though. The similarity in people’s karmic ‘seeds’ means that our ‘worlds’ have much in common, though different types of being are seen as perceiving the ‘same object’ very differently: while humans see a river as a source of washing and drinking, for fish it is just their home environment, and for ‘hungry ghosts’ it is a stream of pus and excrement which cannot assuage their ravaging thirst (Ms. 2.4). This idea does imply that there is an extra- mental ‘something’ that is being perceived differently, which supports interpretation b.

Does Past Karma Remove Freedom of Action in the Present?

To what extent does Buddhism hold that past karma determines new karma in the present? As character often affects what actions one does, and character is largely seen as a product of past actions, does this limit freedom?

A relevant passage here is MN III.169–171, where it is said that a being that is reborn in hell will take a very long time before regaining a human rebirth, for this is harder than a blind turtle putting its neck through ring floating on the ocean, when it only surfaces once a century. Even when a human rebirth is regained, the person will be poor, ugly, ill, or deformed and will behave badly, so as to return to hell!

In contrast to this, MN III.177–178 says that a wise man who upholds the ethical precepts will be reborn in a heaven and only ‘once in a very long while’ will he be reborn as a human. When this does occur, he will be rich and handsome, etc., will behave virtuously, and so return to a heaven.

In both cases, the effects of karma are seen as lasting a very long time, and even the patterns of good and bad actions, and thus the character traits which prompt these, are seen as similarly recurring: the form and directedness of character is seen as continuing over the ages.

Nevertheless a passage at SN I.93–96 has a different emphasis. It holds that one born as an outcaste, or as a hunter, or poor, ill-fed, ill-featured, diseased, or a cripple (due to relatively bad past karma), may do either evil or good actions, hence being reborn in a hell or heaven. Likewise for a person who is born as a Brahmin or as noble, rich, or good-looking.

This implies that one is not stuck with carrying on in evil—or in good. Together, then, these passages imply that a past evildoer only tends to continue in evil.

The pattern can be changed, perhaps by a bad person coming under the good influence of others (or vice versa), as with the murderous Aṅguḷimāla (MN II.97–105) when he is confronted by the Buddha and goes on to become an arahant. It may also be changed by consistently acting in the best way one’s current character tends to allow. One can think of a person’s character as tending to be expressed in a characteristic spectrum of wholesome and unwholesome actions.

Over time, the more a person acts towards the wholesome end of the spectrum, the more their character develops in a wholesome direction, so that their spectrum shifts its range to include more strongly wholesome actions and less strongly unwholesome actions. Focusing actions at the unwholesome end of the spectrum has the opposite effect. One becomes the kind of person one makes oneself, within one life, and from life to life.

An arahant is one who operates only with a wholesome spectrum, and has destroyed the roots that would have made a return to unwholesome actions possible. Indeed, Thig. 400–447 gives an account of a woman who had previously had a string of bad rebirths in hell or as an animal, but who becomes a Buddhist nun and then an arahant, a liberated person.

There is a tendency to carry on in old character patterns set up by past actions, though one can also break out from these. If new karma was simply the result of past karma, this would entail that one would be condemned to eternally repeat the mistakes of the past, and would not be responsible for one’s actions.

The Buddha in fact criticized any theories that undermined the idea of responsibility for action. These included:

1. Two forms of fatalism, which respectively saw all experiences (pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral) and associated actions as due either to past karma (pubbe katahetu) or the creation of a God (Issara-nimmāna-hetu).

2. A form of indeterminism, which saw all experiences as without any cause or condition (ahetu-appaccayā), being due to pure chance (AN I.173–175; cf. MN II.214).

The Buddha saw each of these views as implying that any action, e.g. being a murderer, is due to past karma (cf. Kvu. 545–546), a deity’s action, or chance, presumably due to the feelings accompanying such acts being so based. He thus saw those who held such views as supporting ‘inaction’ (akiriya): if one is not responsible for one’s actions, the will to act in a wholesome way, and not an unwholesome one, is paralysed. But one nearly always has some degree of choice.

Is it problematic, though, that Buddhism sees a person’s karma as sometimes ‘catching up’ with them through the actions of other people (e.g. Thig 400–447, AN II.32)? A person’s past karma might be the cause of their being murdered, injured, insulted, or offered poor or good alms food.

So does this idea compromise the freedom, and thus responsibility, of the person who ‘delivers’ a person’s bad karmic result: say of a murderer, if his victim’s death is due to the victim’s own bad karma? I think not. If person X is murdered by Y due to X’s own karma, Y’s freedom can be retained if:

a) X’s character is the result of his past karma and is such as to provoke the easily irritated Y into murdering him, or

b) Due to his karma, X unconsciously puts himself into a position where Y feels that it is advantageous to murder him: note that Moggallāna’s murder is seen as having been ordered by ascetics jealous of his success in gaining converts (Jat. V.126), or

c) Y is intent on killing an unspecified person(s) (e.g. due to madness, war, or terrorism), and X’s karma determines that it is X who is killed.

In all three cases, Y’s self-chosen action (unless mad) fulfils, as it happens, X’s karma, without Y being a passive, blameless agent of X’s karma coming to fruition. So, there is no good reason to see one’s actions as sometimes determined by other people’s past karma.

For Buddhism, karmic results of a particular action are actually seen to vary, so past karma does not inflexibly determine a fixed result, produced in a mechanical- like way. Only intentional actions bring karmic results, and even then, the result may vary according to the nature of the person that does the act, the results being worse for a morally and spiritually undeveloped person (AN I.249–253; Mahā-parinirvāṇa Sūtra, T 12, 374, 38, 549b29–50b18): in this case, the bad action ‘reverberates’ so to speak, with other such actions, undiluted by many good actions.

Without this flexibility, it is held that there would be ‘no living of the holy life, no opportunity for the utter destruction of suffering’ (AN I.249).

Not only does regret reduce the karmic effect of a (bad or good) past action, but when a person attains ‘stream-entry’, the first glimpse of nirvāṇa, they are free of any rebirths at less than a human level (SN V.357).

While this must be partly due to the fact that they, from now on, always act morally, it must also imply that any previous bad karma that might have led to a bad rebirth can now no longer do so.

So karmic results are not inflexibly determined by past karma alone, but also need cooperating conditions to foster their arising, and these may modify the form and timing of their arising (Thanissaro 1996: Part I, B, cf. Vism 601–602).

The Question of Free Will

As for the broader issue of whether Buddhism accepts ‘free will’ in the context of it seeing all mental states, including volition, as arising from conditions, there is not space here to fully discuss it.

Suffice it to say that if there were a will or self that was unconditioned, it would be permanent and unchanging, and hence not capable of doing anything, as the arising of an impulse to action is a change. But a conditioned being can have a degree of self-direction, and this quality can grow as mindfulness increases and helps the undermining of limiting mental defilements (Harvey 2007b, 2016).

Karma and Nirvāṇa

While Buddhists aim to avoid bad actions and do good actions, even good actions have their limitations, in that the good rebirths that they lead to are still within the conditioned realm of existences that entail suffering and death. Nirvāṇa, though, is a state beyond birth, death, rebirth, and suffering.

So the ideal karma is not even ‘bright’, good karma/action.

Hence MN I.390 says that beyond actions that are bright, dark, or mixed is ‘action that is neither dark nor bright with neither-dark-nor-bright ripening, action that leads to the destruction of action’: the ‘volition for abandoning’ the latter three kinds of action.

AN II.236 explains this kind of action as the factors of the Noble Eightfold Path, and AN I.263 sees actions born of non-greed, non-hatred, and non-delusion as leading to the cessation of (rebirth-fuelling) actions.

AN III.384–385 sees nirvāṇa as neither dark nor bright, in the sense of neither a bad nor a good rebirth. Thus while wholesome actions generally lead to more pleasant rebirths, some have the potential to lead beyond all rebirths and their diverse forms of suffering.

Works Cited

Bodhi, Bhikkhu (1990) Merit and spiritual growth. In: Nourishing the roots: essays on Buddhist ethics. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 13–17. Available from: http://www.bps.lk/olib/ wh/wh259.pdf
Bodhi, Bhikkhu (ed.) (1993) A comprehensive manual and Abhidhamma: the Abhidhammattha Sangaha: Pali text, translation and explanatory guide. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.
Cousins, L. S. (1996) Good or skilful? kusala in canon and commentary. Journal of Buddhist ethics, 3, 136–164.

Gethin, R. (1997) Cosmology and meditation: from the Aggañña Sutta to the Mahāyāna.
History of religions, 36, 183–219.
Gethin, R. (1998) The foundations of Buddhism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. Gombrich, R. F. (2006) Theravāda Buddhism, second edition. London and
New York: Routledge.
Gombrich, R. F. (2009) What the Buddha thought. London: Equinox. Guenther, H. V. (1971) The jewel ornament of liberation. Berkeley: Shambhala.
Harvey, P. (1995) The selfless mind: personality, consciousness and nirvana in early Buddhism. London: Curzon Press.
Harvey, P. (1999) Vinaya principles for assigning degrees of culpability. Journal of Buddhist ethics, 6, 271–291.
Harvey, P. (2000) An introduction to Buddhist ethics: foundations, values and issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harvey, P. (2007a) Avoiding unintended harm to the environment and the Buddhist ethic of intention. Journal of Buddhist ethics, 14, 1–34.
Harvey, P. (2007b) ‘Freedom of the will’ in the light of Theravāda Buddhist teachings. Journal of Buddhist ethics, 14, 35–98.
Harvey, P. (2011) An analysis of factors related to the kusala/akusala quality of actions in the Pali tradition. Journal of the International Society of Buddhist Studies, 33, 175–210.
Harvey, P. (2013) Introduction to Buddhism: teachings, history and practices, second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harvey, P. (2016) Psychological versus metaphysical agents: a Theravāda Buddhist view of free will and moral responsibility. In: R. Repetti (ed.), Buddhist perspectives on free will: agentless agency? London and New York: Routledge, 158–169.
Heim, M. (2014) The forerunner of all things: Buddhaghosa on mind, intention and agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McDermott, J. P. (1984) Development in the early Buddhist concept of kamma/karma. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Payutto, P. A. (1993) Good, evil and beyond: kamma in the Buddha’s teaching. Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation Publications. Available from: http://www.buddhanet.net/pdf_file/good_evil_beyond.pdf
Thanissaro (1996) The wings to awakening: an anthology from the Pali Canon. Barre, MA: Barre Center for Buddhist Studies.
Waldron, W. S. (2003) The Buddhist unconscious: the ālaya-vijñāna in the context of Indian Buddhist thought. London and New York: RoutledgeCurzon.
Wijeratne, R. P., and Gethin, R. (2002) Summary of the topics of Abhidhamma and exposition of the topics of Abhidhamma. Oxford: Pali Text Society.
Williams, P. (2009) Mahāyāna Buddhism: the doctrinal foundations, second edition. London and New York: Routledge.
Suggested Reading
Cousins, L. S. (1996) Good or skilful? kusala in canon and commentary. Journal of Buddhist ethics, 3, 136–164.
Gethin, R. (1998) The foundations of Buddhism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, esp. 112–132, 140–146, 215–218.
Harvey, P. (2000) An introduction to Buddhist ethics: foundations, values and issues. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, esp. 8–66.
Harvey, P. (2011) An analysis of factors related to the kusala/akusala quality of actions in the Pali tradition. Journal of the International Society of Buddhist Studies, 33, 175–210.
Heim, M. (2014) The forerunner of all things: Buddhaghosa on mind, intention and agency. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nagapriya (2004) Exploring karma and rebirth. Birmingham: Windhorse.
Payutto, P. A. (1993) Good, evil and beyond: kamma in the Buddha’s teaching. Bangkok: Buddhadhamma Foundation Publications. Available from: http://www.bud dhanet.net/pdf_file/good_evil_beyond.pdf.

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