Mechanics of Kamma and Rebirth

The Buddha used beaucoup metaphors to graphically illustrate any given teaching, and people kinda got it right away. In the Mahâsatipaííâna Sutta, for example, the Buddha uses the Simile of the Butcher to make a very specific point in meditation, and probably not to advocate wrong livelihood (butchery) or vivisection. In today’s world, we tend to over-analyse this type imagery, in the process extending and distorting it beyond its original intention – the highlighting of one specific point – causing the analogy to collapse. So, suspend disbelief and enjoy the view. This is the very big picture, and can stand a lot of filling in (happy to do, just ask ).

Imagine a person standing in the middle of a green, grassy field. This person is swinging a sack of seeds from right to left. When the sack reaches the furthest left it can go, this person disappears and another person sprouts in the same instant. The new person then catches the sack and in turn swings it to the left. At the leftest most point of the swing, he disappears and another person sprouts to catch the sack. She then swings the sack leftward, and yet another new person sprouts just as she disappears. This goes on and on until the edge of the green, grassy field. Immediately adjacent, the terrain changes dramatically to a sandy beach. The sack swinging, however, continues, with each person swinging the sack to the left, disappearing at the sprouting of the new person.

Upon closer inspection, you see that as the new person catches the sack, s/he adds a seed and interestingly, drops a seed. Each time the sack is passed along, another seed is added, one abandoned. You also note a determined look in the person’s eyes in trying to decide which seed to sack and which to drop. Even closer, you can see that as the sack is being swung leftwards, one seed pops out and lands in the exact spot where the new person sprouts. You also notice that even though each of these people are different, all the ones that appear on any given terrain tend to be somewhat similar, like an infinite variety of brothers and sisters. Thus the folks on the green grass were all tall, healthy, in good physical condition; the ones on the sandy beach tended to be skinner, a little more frail, and not as robust; on yet another field, darker complexions, while on the field immediately adjacent, lighter complexions. Ah yes, as you reflect on this scene, you see occasional efforts to shift the direction of the sack o’ seeds, changing the otherwise linear direction of the flow. Sometimes this change seems to happen for no reason at all, other times they appear to be targeting or to be avoiding something immediately in the path. You see quite a full sack with countless numbers of seeds, and since only one seed is added at a time and one seed falls out, you try to imagine a time when the sack never had any seeds in it and when it will be empty again, only to blow your mind, like imaging the edge of the universe. As if that exercise isn’t taxing enough, and in a real fit of curiosity (craziness?!), you try match the springing seeds to the person who originally placed it in the sack.*

There you have a simplistic description of the process of kamma and rebirth. To be clearer, though, let’s label the elements. The different fields each represent one physical lifetime. The people represent the five aggregates (matter, feeling, perception, formation, consciousness – eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind). The two seeds, one dropped and one added to the sack, are unwholesome and wholesome kamma, be it bodily, verbal, or mental intentional action. The determined look in the eyes is volition (cetana). The sack o’ seeds represents an accumulation of those previous actions. The seed that pops out and sprouts the new person is a result of kamma (kammavipâka), and the inertia from the swing is a kind of kammic energy (kammasatti) that provides momentum for the passing of the sack. The sprouting and disappearing of the people represents arising and passing away (yes, matter also arises and passes away on a moment to moment basis. Amazing that the Buddha saw this 2,500 years before the discovery of quarks, leptons and gauge bosons!) and shows moment to moment rebirth, while the transition from terrain to terrain is lifetime to lifetime rebirth. The name we erroneously give to this entire process of catching, choosing, wanting, dropping, adding, swinging, popping, sprouting, transitioning, and disappearing with all its material components, is “Me”.

Of course, there are lots of questions, like what did the Buddha mean when he said that “all beings are the owners of their kamma“, when clearly there is no single entity that runs through this whole process? Well, it’s the process itself that owns the kamma. What is the difference between reincarnation and rebirth? The former suggests some single entity that goes from corporeal form to corporeal form, which as can be seen in the above illustration, is not the case. One could argue that rebirth is the same thing, that some entity is born again and again. But here we have another concept not properly captured in English from the Pâéi, like “suffering” for dukkha. A more accurate rendering would be something like a “process of numerous births”. Think of a maternity ward – the same baby is not born over and over again, many babies are born in the same ward. But I digress….

One could say that the cessation of the process, the goal of a Buddhist, is nibbâna, but here is where the analogy would fall apart. While technically nibbâna is indeed the cessation, or extinguishing, of this process, using the above illustration would give the impression of annihilationism, something that is clearly a wrong view. The above is merely to help kinda get a grip on the complex process of becoming from moment to moment and from lifetime to lifetime.

Update: Please see also Kamma as a Sack of Seeds for further explanation of this metaphor.

* c.f. Acintita Sutta

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