Buddha’s wisdom and a universal law
Around 26 centuries ago on a day as today a most remarkable event in the history of the world took place when wisdom dawned on earth with the Great Enlightenment of Gautama Buddha. A world lost in abysmal darkness for countless aeons was swathed in the benign glow of an astounding discovery made by the Great Sage. The abstruse mentality-materiality nexus of life and the solitary path to the extinction of existential desire, lay bare. Hitherto mysterious phenomenon known as “karma” appeared to Him in all its clarity and formed a cornerstone of the marvellous doctrine He presented before the world. The great repository Tripitaka stands lucid testimony.
‘Kamma’ as pronounced by Gautama Buddha denotes wholesome actions of mind, speech and body that beget benevolent results and unwholesome actions unwholesome results. This law is timeless, insurmountable and applies in equal measure to all
Kamma as pronounced by the Enlightened One briefly denotes wholesome and unwholesome volitions (cetana) that arise in one’s mind and accompanying mental factors that shape one’s destiny. Wholesome actions of mind, speech and body, He said, beget benevolent results and unwholesome actions unwholesome results. This law is timeless, insurmountable, applies in equal measure to all, a Samma Sambuddha included. The text says there is no place in the sky or in the bowel of the earth or at the bottom of the sea that one can escape it. Even the Greatest Being on earth is not exempt from the juggernaut.
Yet, disbelievers abound and one who did in ancient India was Makkalighsla the propounder of the theory that it is totally inconsequential if a man walks the banks of river Ganges maiming and killing those he confronts on the way. The human mind knows no bounds in its depths of aberration.
Profound Abidhamma preached to devas and thereafter to Ven. Sariputta by Buddha explained that even an unpleasant sight (such as of a tortured or murdered man) is the consequential result of one’s unfortunate kamma (acts) of the past, and if one is saddened or angered by it, he acquires further harmful kamma of an ominous nature that adversely bears upon him in the future. An adept and trained mind however, is capable of harnessing that sight into a topic of insight meditation on anicca, dukkha, anatta leading to the final understanding of oneself, of the cosmos and all things beyond. The said rationale behoves a pleasant consciousness gained such as the vision of benign Buddha or the sound of sublime dhamma preached generates equally beneficial after-results. The principle applies to beings even lesser than humans, eg. the nocturnal bird who gained happiness from the sight of the Noble One early every morning-commentary on MangalaSutta.
The enormity of a Buddha’s samsaric merit (good karma) prevents Him from witnessing anything abhorrent such as the agonising last moments of the evil monks Devadatta and Kklika. The law of nature holds supreme over all things corporeal and incorporeal until the principle is theoretically comprehended and practically overcome through the insightful Eightfold Path.
The present essay concerns Buddha’s sermon titled Pubbakammapil thik pad na, delivered by the Noble One to his disciples while resting on an outcrop near lake Anothaththa in the vicinity of the magnificent Himalayas. It begins dramatically, “O monks, listen to my past karma. Karma-result spares not even a Buddha”. During the dispensation of Kashyapa Buddha, he was a brahmin of high caste by the name of Jothipala and he ridiculed Kassapa Buddha as a bald-headed empty recluse. Later he entered the order and made the definitive prediction that he would be a future Buddha called Gautama. However, that unpardonable act made him undergo untold suffering in countless lives and pursued him unto his very last life on earth. As punishment he was made to starve for six long years during his search for the ultimate truth by following a wrong path of inflicting rigours on himself and abstaining from taking food. His physical appearance took the form of a living skeleton, a peta. He dropped unconscious on countless occasions until he realised penance was not the path of emancipation. Thus did the Noble One pay for a crime long lost from memory.
Incidentally, the one who introduced Jothipala to Kassapa Buddha then was Ghateekara, the low-caste humble potter of Vehalinga, faithful friend of Kassapa Buddha, attainer of Angmihood, leading a chaste life and caring for his blind parents, receiving the bare necessaries of life with barter of his pottery produce since he refrained from handling money. The unending effort of Ghateekar to persuade his friend to meet Kassapa Buddha as traced in the sutta is simply spellbinding, to say the least. How one day kalpas later, Ghateekara reborn as a deva in AvihaBrahmwsa, soon after midnight descends on Jetawanrmaya lighting up the entire sky and begins a “nostalgic” conversation with his old friend Jothipala now Gautama Buddha, recounting their friendship at Vehalinga is equally fascinating. The Kassapa Buddha-Jothipala-Ghateekara encounter verily requires a separate presentation.
Of the 12 kamma-effect instances mentioned by Buddha, the second concerns vilification He had to face at the hands of a ravishingly beautiful woman named Chinchi. Spurred on by her religious teachers the heretics whose popularity was on the wane because of the Noble One, she pretends she leaves Jetawanaramaya in the morning about the same time devotees come in to pay homage. It is none of your business, says she, when questioned by the devotees where she spent the night. As time passes she is bold enough to say she spends the night with Buddha. The mundane ones believe it, not attainees of sowanhood.
On a particular day when Buddha is preaching to an audience with the king in attendance, she arrives covered in a red cloth to hide her simulated pregnancy and blurts out “Great preacher, you deliver sermons here but do not inquire whether I who carries your child need a crumb of food (lunumiris). Buddha declares calmly, “Sister, only two persons, you and I know whether it is truth or not”.
Those words of a Samma Sambuddha are too profound to go unacknowledged. Through intervention of gods Chinchi’s simulated pregnancy disappears and she is chased out of the preaching hall by the gathering. As she exits Buddha’s view, the earth unable to remain still, opens up for rising flames from Avichi hell to envelop her. Not even the Noble One could help it.
Buddha declared His past karma- “In the long past as a man of low birth by the name of Munli given to many a vice, I insulted a Pacceka Buddha named Surabhi possessed of immense irdi powers as an immoral sinner. In consequence, I spent several tens of thousands of years in Avichi, the residue being the insinuation of Chinchchi”.
It being so, misguided heretics never abandoned hope. In a desperate situation of succour, they relied on another follower of theirs, a young woman called Sundari. The plot was identical to Chinchi’s, where she is seen moving in the temple in the wrong direction at the right time. To whomever she meets her demure reply is that it is a rendezvous with Buddha. Her masters do not fail to join her in chorus. Again sceptics begin to believe them.
However, heretics soon realise their scheme does not yield the desired results. They hire some criminals to murder Sundari and the body to be hidden in the refuse pit near Jetawan r maya. The king is informed of the murder and Buddha is slandered across the city. Finally however, the murderers are found out by the king’s spies and the conspirators along with the murderers are ordered by the king to be executed together and buried in the same pit. The commentary presents a vivid account of the episode.
The Noble One was a Brahmin once who abandoned the lay life to become a pious hermit in the Himalayas living a rigid life with his students. While so living he came across a virtuous ascetic named Bheema possessed of supernormal powers. Being overcome with jealousy, he derided the ascetic as an immoral knave. His pupils did the same. Vagaries of the human mind however developed, are unpredictable. The temporary but intense humiliation Buddha and His disciples faced through Sundari was its sequel.
Again Bodhisatta born into a prosperous family aeons ago, after the demise of his father quarrelled with his younger brother over the father’s wealth. He dispossessed his brother of his share and finally killed him. A countless number of years spent in the netherworld did not dissipate the crime, and in his birth as Seriwanija he was to meet his future tormentor who would follow him unto the end. He was Devadatta, his brother-in-law, nature’s own conduit of reprisals. He caused a bleeding injury on Buddha’s foot in an attempt to do the impossible, to kill him. As explained by Buddha, it was the consequence of an evil act of his in the extreme past where as a boy playing on the street he injured an alms-seeking Pacceka Buddha with a stone. Time did not obliterate the misdeed.
The incident concerning the drunken tusker Nlgiri charging towards the Noble One in all its fury as plotted by Devadatta is known to all. The boundless compassion Buddha displayed towards His son Rahula, His tormentor Devadatta and towards every living being was directed at Nlgiri this time in equal measure. The mighty beast struck by the avalanche of kindness fell at His feet like a docile pet, whereupon Buddha placed His palm on its forehead. The commentary states, petrified onlookers in hiding rushed out to throw their jewellery at N l giri in exultation. The origin of this episode was traced by the Buddha to a time when he was a mahout who prodded his animal to advance menacingly at an alms-seeking Pacceka Bodhi-attainer. The monstrous act followed Him upto His last birth of none less than Buddahood itself.
Buddha recounts in vivid detail, the rest of the 12 instances when nature accosted Him with unpleasant repercussion of His previous unwholesome deeds despite the fact that He was the undisputed Master of the three worlds.
The twelfth and final misdeed which pursued Him unto Buddahood relates to a time when he was a clever physician. Being negligent in the treatment of a patient entrusted to his care who ought to have been given a particular course of treatment knowingly administered a wrong drug instead which made the patient vomit blood. When Buddha’s life-span was about to end, time was also ripe for the aeons-old misdeed to come alive. The Great Being was afflicted with the disease known as “l hithapakk ndika”- vomiting of blood. The strength of millions of elephants simply vanished, said the commentary of Arahats. Kamma did not spare even the Diety of Deities. Thus ended the rarest life on earth.
“Beings are owners of their actions, heirs to their actions, they originate from their actions, are bound to their actions, have their actions as refuge. It is actions that distinguish beings as inferior or superior.
They are the cause and condition for people to be short-lived and long-lived, sickly and healthy, ugly and beautiful, uninfluential and influential, poor and wealthy, low-born and high-born, stupid and wise” said the Buddha in reply to a question of Subha, a brahmin’s son-ChlakammavibhangaSutta, MajjimaNikaya.
Buddha in His wisdom did not beseech people to relegate all things to kamma in complacence. Kamma is a facet of the doctrine, not its terminus. He invoked one and all to penetrate the veil of delusion and seek the Dhamma in earnest like a “man desperately attempting to extinguish a fire that has overwhelmed him”.
“Constantly engulfed in flames, what laughter, what merriment?” said He. “Immersed in darkness, why isn’t the light being sought?”- Jar Wagga, Kuddhaka Nikaya.
Karmic theory and Nirvana are beyond the reach of scientific research since they are not subjects of empirical study, but objects of supermundane “vision”.