by Dalai Lama
(1) Natural virtues include the eleven virtuous mental factors — faith, integrity, consideration for others, nonattachment, nonhatred, nonconfusion, joyous effort, pliancy, conscientiousness, nonharmfulness, and equanimity. These are called natural virtues because their nature is virtuous; they naturally bring pleasing results.
(2) Related virtues are primary consciousnesses and mental factors that become virtuous because they are accompanied by virtuous mental factors. When compassion is present, the mental primary consciousness and the mental factors of intention, feeling, and so forth that accompany it become virtuous.
(3) Subsequently related virtues are seeds and latencies of virtue established by virtuous consciousnesses and mental factors, and virtuous actions; for example, the karmic seed created by the mind of generosity. Seeds and latencies are not actual virtues; this is an example of the name of the cause (the virtuous path of action) being given to the effect (the seeds and latencies of virtue).
(4) Virtues due to motivation are physical and verbal actions motivated by the naturally virtuous mental factors. The action of making a donation to a charity is a physical virtue when done with a generous motivation.
Vaibhāṣikas and Prāsaṅgikas assert that virtue includes both minds and forms. They consider virtues due to motivation — physical and verbal actions motivated by virtuous mental states — to be virtues. Since prātimokṣa precepts are form according to these two schools, the precepts are virtuous forms. According to Sautrāntikas, Cittamātrins, and Svātantrikas, only minds can be virtues.
(5) Ultimate virtue is emptiness because realizing it eradicates all obscurations and enables virtue to flourish. Emptiness, however, is not an actual virtue because it is permanent and itself does not produce results.
This list of virtues is not exhaustive. Other virtues include, but are not limited to, a buddha’s speech and the thirty-two signs and eighty marks of a buddha.
Even a moment of a natural virtue can have far-reaching results. When the mental factor of conscientiousness arises in the mind, the primary consciousness and mental factors associated with it all become virtuous. The physical and verbal actions done with that motivation are also virtuous. While the karmic seeds of those actions are neutral, they carry the potency for agreeable results to arise, and for that reason they are subsequently related virtues although they are not actual virtues.
Commensurate with the five virtues, there are five nonvirtues:
(1) Natural nonvirtues are mental factors such as attachment, anger, jealousy, and resentment that are nonvirtuous by nature.
(2) Related nonvirtues are the mental primary consciousness and mental factors that accompany a naturally nonvirtuous mental factor.
(3) Subsequently related nonvirtues are latencies left on the mind by nonvirtuous minds and mental factors. They are not actual nonvirtues but are ethically neutral.
(4) Nonvirtues due to motivation are physical and verbal actions done with a nonvirtuous motivation.
(5) Ultimate nonvirtue is, for example, saṃsāra, which breeds nonvirtue although it is not an actual nonvirtue.
In general, virtuous karma and merit are synonymous. In the context of saṃsāra, they are actions that have the ability to bring favorable results. Calling an action virtuous or meritorious emphasizes that it is psychologically healthy and ethically irreproachable. In terms of spiritual progress, virtuous actions enrich the mind, establishing the foundation for generating the realizations and excellent qualities of arhats, bodhisattvas, and buddhas. In the context of the two collections of merit and wisdom, merit is that which has the capacity to give rise to the form body of a buddha.
In general, the expression root of virtue refers to a virtuous mental factor, although it also seems to indicate seeds of virtuous karma. Śāntideva’s Engaging in the Bodhisattvas’ Deeds and Candrakīrti’s Supplement contain extensive discussion about anger destroying the roots of virtue. When anger destroys the roots of virtue, or when wrong views or other heavy nonvirtuous actions cut the root of virtue, it prevents future agreeable results from coming about even when suitable circumstances are present.
When human beings cut the root of virtue, it affects only the root of virtue related to the human realm; the root of virtue of the higher realms remains. They may still encounter fortunate conditions in the future and regain their root of virtue.
REFLECTION
1. Review the different types of virtue. Which are actual virtue and which are just called virtue? Make examples of each in your life.
2. Review the different types of nonvirtue. Which are actual nonvirtue and which are simply called nonvirtue? Make examples of each in your life.
6
Karma, the Universe, and Evolution
TRUE DUḤKHA includes sentient beings and our environment. In preceding chapters we discussed our unsatisfactory state as sentient beings and our life experiences as well as the true origins of these: ignorance, afflictions, and polluted karma. In this chapter we’ll look more closely at how the true origins of duḥkha bring forth the environments in which we sentient beings dwell.
The Origin of the Universe
Similar to today, a vibrant topic of discussion among both religious and secular people in the Buddha’s time centered on the origin and destruction of the universe. As recorded in the sūtras (MN 63), they asked: Was the universe eternal or not eternal, transient or permanent, finite or infinite? Did the universe have a beginning or was it beginningless? The Buddha refused to answer these questions because the people who asked them were thinking in terms of an inherently existent universe. No matter how the Buddha could have responded, they would have thought that either the universe existed inherently or did not exist at all. Because holding either of these views would have harmed them, the Buddha chose not to respond. At other times the Buddha refused to comment on the origin of the universe because it was not relevant to the alleviation of duḥkha and attainment of liberation. Abhidharma texts and the Kālacakra Tantra, however, commented on the evolution of the universe in conventional terms. Nowadays scientists research these same topics, leading to fascinating dialogues between Buddhists and scientists, some of which I have attended.
There are several approaches that could be taken regarding the origin of the universe: first we must investigate if it was created by a cause or if it arose causelessly. Most people find causeless or random production unacceptable because in our everyday lives we witness effects arising from causes. Furthermore, it would be difficult for anything to function and change if it lacked causes and conditions; permanent phenomena cannot interact with other things to produce something new.
Among those who accept that the universe arose due to causes, there are different assertions. Theistic religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and some branches of Hinduism speak of an external creator. Most scientists attribute the origin of the universe to the Big Bang, some asserting that one Big Bang began all existence, others saying there may have been several Big Bangs as different universes began. Non-theistic Sāṃkhya (a Hindu philosophical school) and some other traditions speak of a primal substance out of which everything was created. Buddhists speak of the interplay between the laws of nature and the law of karma and its effects.
Difficulties arise when we posit one original cause or event as the source of the universe with its mass, space, and time. If there were a single, initial cause for all existence — be it a cosmic substance, dense matter, or preceding Intelligence — what triggered that one cause to give rise to the universe with all of its complexity and diversity? Change — such as the production of a universe — involves a complex interplay of many factors that influence one another. Since even the existence of something small like a flower involves multiple causes and conditions, needless to say, this is the case with more complex entities such as the universe.
Because things depend on causes and conditions they change; whatever arises necessarily depends on the causes and conditions that produce it. This
is the law of causality, a natural law of the universe that describes how things arise and produce results. Within this general law of causality, Buddhaghoṣa’s commentary on the Dīgha Nikāya, Sumaṅgala-vilāsinī, speaks of five specific types of causality:45
1. Inorganic causality (P. utu niyāma) is the causality occurring with inorganic matter as described by physics, astronomy, and inorganic chemistry. It includes the causal functioning of subatomic particles as well as the causality involved with grosser matter such as the weather and aerodynamics.
2. Biological causality (P. bīja niyāma) involves organic forms — for example, the causality involved with genes, chromosomes, and biological processes in the plant and animal worlds.
3. Psychological causality (P. citta niyāma) deals with the complex interactions among various types of consciousnesses and mental factors — for example, how sensory cognizers occur, how mental consciousness arises in reaction to them, and how memory comes about.
4. Karmic causality (P. kamma niyāma) concerns volitional actions done by sentient beings and their karmic effects. Our actions have an ethical dimension that naturally influences the rebirth we take as well as our experiences, habitual actions, and environment.
5. Natural phenomenal causality (P. dhamma niyāma) concerns certain natural phenomena such as the wondrous events that occur when a bodhisattva descends into his mother’s womb in his last rebirth, attains awakening, turns the wheel of Dharma, and passes away (attains parinirvāṇa). These include events such as the earth quaking and a great light appearing in the world system. Such things occur dhammatā, or naturally.46 The causality of the twelve links of dependent origination is natural phenomenal causality epitomized by the Buddha’s words, “When that exists, this comes to be. From the arising of that, this arises. When that does not exist, this does not come to be. When that ceases, this ceases.”
This causality is the natural order of things in the universe. Although the other four types of causality are actually types of natural phenomenal causality, only those causal relations that do not fall within those four are included in natural phenomenal causality.47
These five types of causality are explained to show that there is no external creator of the universe or of sentient beings. Rather, all things arise and cease continuously in dependence on their causes and conditions. While each of the five has its own sphere of operation, they are interconnected and influence one another.
Mind and the External World
Abhidharma texts speak of countless world systems, but I’m unsure if a world system is equivalent to a solar system, galaxy, or universe. In any case, Mahāyāna sūtras and the Kālacakra Tantra speak of vast world systems throughout infinite space. At any particular time, some world systems are arising, some abiding, some disintegrating, and others remaining dormant. In this view, there is no absolute beginning. There is simply the beginningless interplay of various factors that make world systems arise, abide, disintegrate, and remain dormant.
Buddhist thinkers speak of conditioned phenomena — things that are impermanent, composed of parts, and conditioned by other factors — as being of three types: form, mind, and abstract composites such as time. What is the relationship between form — the material building blocks and resultant compounded things in the external universe — and mind, with its thoughts, feelings, and intentions? When we speak of the development of a world system and the evolution of life in particular, what is the relationship between mind and form?
I will share my thoughts about this. These are by no means definitive conclusions but hopefully they will spark some curiosity among both those with scientific inclinations and those with spiritual dispositions.
The general Buddhist view is expressed by the First Dalai Lama in his commentary on the Treasury of Knowledge (EPL 556):
If one asks: This manifold world which has been explained — the environment and the sentient beings living in it — where does it come from?
It does not arise without cause or from a discordant cause because it arises occasionally. And it does not arise from [the creator god] Īśvara and so forth because it arises gradually. As it says this, if one asks, from what does it arise? The manifold world of the environment and the sentient beings living in it arise from karma.
The manifold world is comprised of the environment and the sentient beings living in it. The world did not arise without a cause because everything that functions must arise from causes. It did not arise from a discordant cause because a specific effect can arise only from the causes and conditions that have the ability to produce it. If causality were arbitrary, then anything could produce anything, and by studying Italian, we could learn to speak Chinese. The fact that something arises only at some times (occasionally) means that it arises only when all of its causes and conditions have come together. The world is not created from a creator such as Īśvara because if it were, it would arise all at once, whereas the world and the sentient beings in it evolved gradually. The source of the world and the sentient beings who inhabit it is karma — volitional actions originating in the minds of sentient beings.
Although Vasubandhu stated in the Treasury of Knowledge, “The manifold world arises from karma,” he and other Abhidharma authors did not detail the exact process through which this occurs. The broad concept is that through the interdependence of material substances and sentient beings’ karma, the world evolved in such a way that it could support the various life forms that live in it.
In a Sūtrayāna context, Candrakīrti noted in his Supplement, “From the mind the world of sentience arises. So too from the mind the diverse habitats of beings arise.” The Cittamātra school understands this literally and developed a philosophical system that denies the existence of external objects and instead asserts that both the perceiving consciousness and perceived object arise from the same latency on the foundational consciousness. The Madhyamaka school disagrees. Although it refutes an objectively existent world “out there” that is unrelated to sentient beings’ minds, it asserts external objects, saying that sentient beings’ intentions create karma, which influences their resulting body-mind complex and their external habitat.
In Vajrayāna, the Guhyasamāja Tantra speaks about the inseparability of the subtlest mind and the subtlest wind (prāṇa). The subtlest wind is not the gross wind that blows leaves, nor is it the subtler energy, or qi, in our body. It is an extremely subtle wind or energy that is inseparable from the subtlest mind. The wind is the aspect of movement, the mind is the aspect of cognizance. This subtlest mind-wind is not within the range of what scientific instruments can measure. In general it is dormant throughout the lives of ordinary beings and becomes manifest only at the time of death or as a result of yogic practices that involve absorbing the coarser levels of wind and mind. From the perspective of highest yoga tantra, although the coarse mind and coarse form (the body) are different substances with different continuums, at the subtlest level of mind and form they are one nature — the subtlest mind-wind.
The Kālacakra Tantra speaks of the connection between the elements in our bodies and those in the external world and the analogous relationship between the movement of celestial bodies and changes within our bodies. Since our body and mind are related, these changes in the external and internal elements affect the mind. Conversely, the mind, especially its intentions (karma), influences our bodily elements and by extension the elements in the larger universe.
The Kālacakra Tantra explains that when a world system is dormant only space particles, which bear traces of the other four elements, are present. These elemental particles are more like attributes than distinct material substances. The material things in our environment are composed of these elements in varying degrees. As part of composite objects such as our bodies or a table, the earth element provides solidity, the water element fluidity and cohesion. The fire element gives heat and the wind element enables movement. The elements develop progressively in both the universe and our bodies: first space
, then wind, fire, water, and earth sequentially. At the time of a human being’s death, the elements absorb — they lose the power to support consciousness — in the reverse sequence.
Similarly, when a world system collapses and comes to an end the elements composing it absorb into each other in this reverse sequence — earth absorbs into water, water into fire, fire into wind, and wind into space. Unobservable by our physical senses and lacking mass, space particles are the fundamental source of all matter, persisting during the dormant stage between one world system and the next and acting as the substantial cause for the coarser elements that arise during the evolution of the next world system.
Space particles are not like the partless particles asserted by non-Buddhist schools that assert ultimate, partless, unchanging building blocks out of which everything is constructed. Nor are they inherently existent particles. They exist by being merely designated in dependence on the potency for the other four elements.
The external five elements are related to the corresponding inner five elements that constitute the body. These, in turn, are related to the subtlest wind that is one nature with the subtlest mind. The subtlest mind-wind is endowed with a five-colored radiance that is the nature of the five dhyāni buddhas and the five wisdoms. In this way, there is correspondence between the external world and the innermost subtlest minds of sentient beings. The five subtle elements in the body evolve primarily from the subtlest wind (one that is part of the subtlest mind-wind) of that sentient being. The five subtle elements in turn bring forth the coarse five elements in the body and in the external universe.
Thus from a tantric perspective, all things evolve from and dissolve back into this inseparable union of the subtlest mind-wind. The subtlest mind-wind of each individual is not a soul, nor does it abide independent of all other factors. The relationship between the mind, the inner five elements, and the five elements in the external universe is complex; only highly realized tantric yogis are privy to a full understanding of this.