by Dalai Lama
One action or mental state cannot be the cause of both saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. In general, any action that is instigated by ignorance is the cause of saṃsāra, even though the motivation may be virtuous, such as a similitude of the determination to be free from saṃsāra or the compassionate wish to help someone. Actions sustained by the power of the basis — referring to actions involving holy objects — are exceptions to this. Actions done with faith in the Three Jewels — such as making offerings, bowing, and meditating on their excellent qualities — are virtue concordant with liberation.
REFLECTION
1. Observe your thoughts during the day and identify the causal and immediate motivations for your actions.
2. Try to identify the ignorance of the ultimate nature. Then observe if misconceptions and instances of distorted attention arise.
3. Periodically during the day stop and examine your mental state: Is it virtuous, nonvirtuous, or neutral? Is it creating the cause for happiness, suffering, or neither?
2. Formative Action (saṃskāra karman)
Formative actions afflict transmigrating beings because they plant polluted karmic seeds on the consciousness. Formative action is the intention (mental karma) or the physical or verbal action that is newly formed by first-link ignorance. It produces the mental and physical aggregates of a future birth in cyclic existence. In the context of the twelve links, formative action or karma refers specifically to volitional actions that bring rebirth as their result, not to all actions in general. These polluted virtuous and nonvirtuous intentions are expressed through the three doors of our bodies, speech, and minds in our deeds, words, and thoughts.
Formative actions are either virtuous or nonvirtuous; neutral mental states do not have the force to produce a rebirth because they lack a clear intention. The completion of the action produces a karmic seed that has the potency to bring a rebirth. This karmic seed is placed on the third link, causal consciousness. When nurtured by the eighth and ninth links — craving and clinging — the karmic seed will blossom into the tenth link, renewed existence, which in turn gives rise to the next birth. Both the seed and the resultant aggregates are ethically neutral.
Prāsaṅgikas say that in addition to the seed, the action also produces a having-ceased, a functioning thing that indicates the action happened and has stopped. Like karmic seeds, having-ceaseds are neutral. The having-ceased of an action and the karmic seed are activated by craving and clinging and lead to renewed existence.
Second-link formative action — our mental intentions and physical and verbal actions — is the direct cause of a future rebirth; it is a path of action with all four branches complete, which projects a fortunate or unfortunate rebirth. Other karmas that do not have all four branches or that are weaker complete that rebirth by influencing other conditions and events, such as our experiences, the environment we inhabit, and our habitual physical, verbal, and mental tendencies.
The term “formative action” may also be translated as “conditioning action,” implying that it creates or composes something else, in this case a future rebirth. Conditioning action excludes unpolluted actions and neutral actions that are incapable of projecting a new birth with polluted aggregates.
Formative actions are of three types: demeritorious, meritorious, and invariable.
(1) Demeritorious karma is created under the influence of ignorance of ultimate truth and ignorance of karma and its effects; the motivation is one directed toward our own selfish happiness in this life. Created only in the desire realm, demeritorious karma leads to an unfortunate rebirth as a hell being, hungry ghost, or animal. Here the disadvantages of the eight worldly concerns become obvious. While it may be difficult to overcome our habituation to them, it is possible. By gradually steering our minds to more virtuous intentions, we will definitely decrease our misery now and in future lives.
(2) Meritorious karma is the virtuous karma created in the desire realm that leads to a fortunate rebirth in the desire realm. Such karma, created under the influence of first-link ignorance and virtuous mental factors, is created by Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike.
To create this meritorious karma, our motivation must be free from the eight worldly concerns that seek our selfish happiness of only this life. Our motive may be to live ethically and with kindness because those are our values. Someone who believes in rebirth may be motivated to take a higher rebirth with wealth and power. Although this is a worldly aspiration, it is free from attachment to the happiness of only this life and is a Dharma action and meritorious karma. Dharma practitioners who seek liberation or buddhahood want to have a series of higher rebirths in order to have a good basis to accumulate all the causes to fulfill their spiritual aims. Their actions done with that motivation are also meritorious.
(3) Invariable karma brings rebirth as a deva in the form or formless realms. These actions are created under the influence of first-link ignorance by a mind that has attained a form or formless realm meditative absorption that has not degenerated before the person dies.
Invariable karma leading to rebirth in the first three dhyānas where the feeling of happiness is present is motivated by a thought that is disinterested in lovely sense objects and primarily seeks the pleasurable feelings born from concentration. Someone who has reversed attachment for sense pleasure and grown tired of the bliss of the first three dhyānas seeks the feeling of equanimity. With this motivation she creates invariable karma that brings rebirth in the fourth dhyāna and the four formless realms. In these meditative states, the roughness of meditative bliss has been suppressed and the far-superior feeling of equanimity is experienced.
Invariable karma is so-called because it creates the cause to be born in that specific meditative absorption and no other. It may be the first, second, third, or fourth dhyāna of the form realm or a meditative absorption of infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, or peak of saṃsāra (neither-discrimination-nor-nondiscrimination) in the formless realm. For example, a human being lacking Dharma realizations who develops the absorption of the second dhyāna and whose concentration has not degenerated before she dies will experience the craving and clinging of the second dhyāna at death. These will ripen that karmic seed, and she will be reborn in that very dhyāna, not in any other. In this sense that karma is invariable.
Each time we engage in an action supported by ignorance that has a clear intention and is either virtuous or nonvirtuous, we create the beginnings of a new set of twelve links. Which karmic seed and having-ceased ripen to bring the next rebirth depends on other factors such as the strength of the karma and our state of mind at the time of death. A new rebirth is not the sum total of all the karma we have ever created. Only one karma — or in some instances a few karma — determine the realm of our next rebirth.
How karma created to be reborn in the desire realm ripens may vary. The ripening of karma in the desire realm can be affected by the person’s thoughts just before death, prayers of spiritual mentors, the circumstances of prospective parents, and occurrences in the bardo (the intermediate stage between death and the next life). If conditions change, upon a mini-death52 in the bardo the karma that would bring rebirth as a dog may become inactive, and another karma that brings rebirth as a human being may ripen instead. Karma to be reborn as a human could ripen as rebirth in Amitābha’s pure land if at the moment of death the person, either by her own power or by the influence of a spiritual friend, directs her mind toward Amitābha and his pure land.
Contemplating the first two links increases our renunciation of saṃsāra and motivates us to live ethically. We become more interested in learning about emptiness because the wisdom realizing the ultimate truth can eliminate the ignorance that is the root of saṃsāra and bring liberation.
REFLECTION
1. What are the different types of formative actions?
2. Trace the process of their arising from ignorance to afflictions to action. Make examples from your life.
3. As
you go through the day, be aware that your actions that are complete with all four branches are creating causes for your future lives.
4. How does this awareness change how you think and what you do?
3. Consciousness (vijñāna)
Third-link consciousness is primarily to the polluted mental consciousness that has just joined to the next birth under the control of afflictions and karma. Third-link consciousness does not refer to all consciousnesses. It is not a sense consciousness, nor is it the consciousness of a buddha, pure-ground bodhisattva, or arhat, because they are no longer reborn under the power of afflictions and karma. Third-link consciousness afflicts transmigrating beings because it leads to the next rebirth.
The third link refers only to the mental consciousness of two specific moments:
(1) The causal consciousness is the moment of consciousness on which the karmic seed created by a formative action is placed. This consciousness is neutral and the seed of a virtuous or nonvirtuous karma infuses or “perfumes” it. The continuum of the causal consciousness carries the seed until the time it ripens as the new rebirth; at that time, it becomes the resultant consciousness.
(2) The resultant consciousness is the first, brief moment of mental consciousness at the beginning of a new life. In the next moment the fourth link, name and form, arises. In terms of most human lives, the resultant consciousness occurs at the moment of conception. We don’t know if conception occurs before the fertilized ovum implants in the uterus or at the time it does. It is also hard to say when the resultant consciousness occurs in cases of in vitro fertilization. However, it is clear that without the presence of a mental consciousness, the mere physical joining of a sperm and ovum will not become a human being.
What carries the karmic seeds until they bring their results is a widely discussed topic among Buddhist schools. In the context of the twelve links, the causal consciousness plays this role. The Vaibhāṣika, Sautrāntika, and Svātantrika schools assert the continuity of the mental consciousness to be the third-link consciousness. Unlike other Buddhist schools that assert six consciousnesses — visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental — Cittamātra Scriptural Proponents assert eight consciousnesses, the previous six plus the afflictive consciousness and foundation consciousness (ālayavijñāna). The foundation consciousness, or storehouse consciousness, is the repository of all karmic seeds and assumes the role of the third-link consciousness. These Cittamātrins assert such a foundation consciousness because they say there must be a stable mind that carries karmic seeds from one life to the next. Also, there must be something that the word I refers to, something that is the person.
Prāsaṅgikas disagree, saying that in the long term the mere I carries the karmic seeds. They assert this because a nominally existent person exists when the action is created and when the action bears its result, so this mere I must be the basis for infusion of the karmic seed. The mere I is impermanent and cannot be found under ultimate analysis; there is nothing to point to and say “this is the person” other than the person that exists by mere imputation. Although the mere I carries the karmic seeds over a long period of time, the mental consciousness carries them temporarily. The mental consciousness cannot be the constant carrier because at the time a person directly realizes emptiness the mind is unpolluted, and polluted seeds cannot be associated with this unpolluted mind. Therefore the mere I carries the karmic latencies during this time.
Consciousness according to the Pāli Tradition
According to the sūtra explanation, third-link consciousness refers specifically to the consciousness that initiates the new life, the rebirth-linking consciousness (P. paṭisandhicitta) that follows the death consciousness and connects the mindstream from the previous life to the new life. This consciousness is illusory, like an echo, a light, a seal impression, or a shadow; it does not come here from the previous life yet it arises due to causes in previous lives.53 The consciousness of the next life is not the same as the previous life’s consciousness, nor it is totally unrelated. If they were identical, one could not cause the other. If they were totally unrelated, there would not be a continuum.
In the new life, consciousness simultaneously gives rise to the mental aspect of existence, which is called name, and animates the new physical form. In scientific terms, for a human rebirth, consciousness links with the fertilized ovum, making it become the body of a living being. Name consists of the five omnipresent mental factors of feeling, discrimination, intention, contact, and attention.54
In addition to this developmental perspective, consciousness conditions name and form whenever we cognize an object. The five factors of name depend on consciousness and cannot occur without it. Even in deep sleep, fainting, coma, or meditative absorption, consciousness is present, although it is a subtle type of consciousness that is not aware of the external world.
The Pāli Abhidharma explains that consciousness and name and form are co-nascent, meaning that they arise simultaneously like fire and its heat. In addition, consciousness and name and form are mutual conditions in that each conditions and supports the other, like two sticks leaning on each other to stand upright.
While the sūtras speak of six types of consciousness, emphasizing that each type of consciousness is responsible for cognizing its own corresponding object, consciousness also performs another role: it maintains the continuity of an individual’s existence within any given life from birth until death and then beyond. It carries with it memories, karmic seeds, habits, and latencies, connecting different lives and making them a series such that future lives relate to previous ones.
4. Name and Form (nāma-rūpa)
Name and form afflict transmigrating beings because they hold the object of clinging, the body. Name refers to the four mental aggregates — feeling, discrimination, miscellaneous factors, and primary consciousnesses — and form is the body. The link of name and form exists during the time after the link of resultant consciousness and before the link of the six sources. Third-link consciousness is a condition for form because this body becomes a living body only when consciousness is present. When the “name” or mental aspect of this life ceases, the person’s rebirth ends and the body remains a lifeless corpse. While the cognitive faculties remain after death, they cannot connect an object and preceding moment of consciousness to produce cognition because consciousness is no longer associated with the body.
The mental and physical aggregates — our minds and bodies — of this life are the polluted ripening result of karma. As such, they are produced by afflictions and karma. They are the basis of the duḥkha we experience in the present life, and because of attachment to them, afflictions arise, creating more karma that results in further rebirths.
In the case of human birth, fourth-link name and form refer to the five aggregates from the time just after conception until the time the five sense organs begin to develop. Form is the embryo that begins to grow in the womb. It consists of the four great elements — earth, water, fire, and air — and forms derived from them, such as color, smell, and so forth. The four great elements are metaphorical designations for the different qualities of matter. Earth is the solid aspect, the property of resistance and hardness. Water is the fluid and cohesive aspect that enables things to stay together. Fire is the quality of heat and energy, and air represents mobility, contraction, and expansion. Beings in the formless realm lack a body and have only the seed of form.55
Name refers to the four mental aggregates because they engage with objects with the help of names and terms. Just after conception only the mental and tactile consciousnesses arise because in the embryo only the mental and tactile faculties are present.56
Name and Form in the Pāli Tradition
Name (mentality) and form (materiality) are major aspects of our experience. Form is the four great elements forming the body. Name is a collective term for the other three mental aggregates (feeling, discrimination, and miscellaneous factors) and the five mental fact
ors (contact, feeling, discrimination, intention, and attention) that accompany consciousness and are indispensable to making sense of and naming things in the world around us. When the object, cognitive faculty, and corresponding consciousness come together, contact is essential for any cognition. Once contact has occurred, attention functions to bring the mind to the object. Then feeling, discrimination, and intention arise as ways of experiencing and relating to the object. Although all five mental factors are present, the strength of each one will vary according to the mental state. When strong pain or pleasure is foremost, feeling is more prominent; when we are examining something and noting its characteristics, discrimination is stronger. When we are making plans and deciding what to do, intention is foremost.
Why are contact and feeling included in name when name is earlier in the causal sequence than the links of contact and feeling? Why are feeling, discrimination, and miscellaneous factors part of name as well as objects known by the mental source, which is part of the next link, the six sources? Different instances of these mental factors are spoken of in each link. While one instance of contact and feeling occur simultaneously with the link of name, another instance of contact follows name and form, and another instance of feeling follows that instance of contact. Similarly, one instance of the three mental aggregates may be included in name and form, while another instance is the object known by the mental source.