Sarvastivada Buddhist Arguments for Karma: Thoughts & Feedback? (A little long)

[[Hello all, this is a segment of one of my past papers from an Asian studies class I took on Asia and nature. I chose to write in large part partially on a specific explanation of karma as a natural part of the universe according to Sarvastivada Buddhism. I edited the segment a little bit to better fit a post discussion. Thoughts, feedback, etc. would be greatly appreciated! :smile:]]

According to Sarvastivada Buddhism, our series of lives occur in countless sequences of atomic events (called dharmas) that progress through constant arising, extinction, and then replacement, with this process repeating over and over. Not only that, even our moment-to-moment existence as our current “selves” is an array of constantly changing dharmas that work through the arising, extinction, and replacement cycle.

This also relates to how karma works in Sarvastivada Buddhism. At times, the manner in which the dharmas that constitute us react is dependent upon our moral actions. In other words, if I commit a morally good action, then my dharmas will arise sooner-or-later in a manner that is pleasant to my body, and vice versa.

The Buddhist text entitled Questions of King Milinda contains an important metaphorical passage illustrating the connecting relationship between our karma and our dharmas. King Milinda asks a Buddhist monk, Nagasena, “What is reborn?” to which Nagasena replies that mental phenomena (nama) and form/physical matter (rupa) is reborn. King Milinda then asks if it is the same form and mental phenomena that is reborn from rebirth to rebirth, to which Nagasensa replies that it is not. However, Nagasena makes clear that the next form and mental constituents that presents itself is dependent upon the good and evil deeds of the past form and mental events. Eventually in the conversation, King Milinda asks Nagasena for an illustration. Nagasena gives the metaphor of a thief who steals a mango from a man, and then the man takes the thief to the king to be punished. Hoping to spare himself punishment, the thief explains to the king that the mango he stole is not the same anymore as it was in the past. In other words, because of the constant change of the mango’s conditions, the mango is not the same in the future or present as it was in the past. Nagasena asks King Milinda if this thief should be found guilty, to which King Milinda replies that he definitely should. Nagasena asks why and King Milinda explains that even though it is true that the mango changed as time went on, it is still in dependence upon its state from the past--the past conditions of the mango “domino effect-ed” into the present conditions of the mango. Nagasena affirms that King Milinda’s reasoning is correct and explains the same is true of us and our karma--our past state that commited good or evil deeds will affect our new state which is not released from our past state’s deeds/karma (Bronkhorst 67-68).

We can ascertain, therefore, that the Sarvastivada has a sort of atomic understanding of ethics. Our moral deeds influence the dharmas that constitute us. This is certainly a fascinating theory of morality, and if true, it would definitely make justice and morality objective. Yet, there is a natural question lingering in the background and that is why do the atomic events that compose each individual respond to their moral deeds, especially without a creator deity in control? It seems that this idea would inevitably involve a creator god who orchestrates our atomic constituents to respond based upon our ethical actions.

We must not forget that the atomic dharmas not only consist of a physical type, but also of a mental form. Therefore, it seems that the mind of every individual must be involved in connection to their karma. Bronkhorst elaborates on this mental involvement of karma in Buddhism:
[Moral] Deeds leave traces in the mind, more precisely in the series of mind-events which the Buddhists believe constitute the mental continuum. It follows that deeds, which are mental, leave traces that are mental. The next question to be asked is: is the fruition of deeds also mental? The Buddhist scholastic position was that they are not, or not exclusively. Deeds are mental, the traces they leave are mental, but their fruition is not only mental (84-85).

In other words, our moral actions definitely exert influence on us mentally. The next question Bronkhorst articulated upon within the cited paragraph is: are the effects (fruition) of our moral actions also mental? In the doctrinal Buddhist position of schools like the Sarvastivada, the answer is, “No,” or at least not entirely. As a result, our moral actions do affect us at a mental level, but according to positions like the Sarvastivada they also have an impact on us in physical ways that connect to the world outside of our minds, for instance, the physical constituents of our bodies.

It seems, then, that based on what Bronkhorst is saying we can infer that the dharmas react in a pleasant or unpleasant manner based upon the moral character of our deeds because our minds know right from wrong and inevitably have some sense of moral reasoning. So, when we commit evil actions, for example, our minds will orchestrate unpleasant mental and physical states which sooner-or-later impact us.


Works Cited
Karma by Johannes Bronkhorst; University of Hawaii Press, 2011.