Buddhist Theories of Causality Contents Introduction General Perspectives on Causality Reference Works Causality in the Buddha’s Discourses Karma in the Buddha’s Discourses Pratītyasamutpāda in the Buddha’s Discourses Karma and Pratītyasamutpāda in Abhidharma Sources Kamma and Paticcasamuppāda in Theravada Abhidhamma Karma and Pratītyasamutpāda in Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma Hetu and Pratyaya in Abhidharma Sources Hetu and Paccaya in Theravada Abhidhamma Hetu and Pratyaya in Sarvāstivāda Abhidharma Sautrāntika Theory of Seeds (bīja) Causality in the Mahayana Causality in the Madhyamaka Nāgārjuna’s Seminal Works on Causality Commentaries and Studies on Nāgārjuna Causality in the Yogācāra Selected Yogācāra Texts Selected Studies on Yogācāra Karma in the Mahayana Academic Papers on Karma Academic Papers on Pratītyasamutpāda Academic Papers on Selected Topics Causality and Soteriology (Mārga)

The most fundamental aspect of the Buddhist tradition is the concept of Karma. Karma is the basis of Buddhist ethics and principles that maintain that the entire universe is bound to a similar law. Our actions will decide what will happen to us, for we caused it. The current state of our existence is with our past Karma, and the present action will determine our future condition of existence. Karma is a special instance of cause and effect, according to which all our actions of body, speech, and mind are causes and all our experiences are their effects. The Law of Karma explains why each individual has a unique mental disposition, a unique physical appearance, and unique experiences. These are the various effects of the countless actions that each individual has performed in the past. We cannot find any two people who have created the same history of actions throughout their past lives. So we cannot find two people with identical states of mind, identical experiences, and identical ...

Last revised on 11 December 2016. This is an unpublished work. Abstract: In his paper “Karma, Rebirth, and the Problem of Evil”, Kaufman discusses the religious belief of karma at the level of cognitive freedom. He thinks that the lack of memory and unverifiable effect is a hindrance to moral education and the karma theory is hence useless. The flaw in his argument is that Kaufman first renders karma theory into fatalism and then claims the lack of free will. I revisit the karma theory in the Theravada Buddhist tradition and prove that it is a coherent theory.

The "law of karma" is integral to the philosophy of yoga and various spiritual and religious traditions. Whether this law can be established scientifically like the laws of physics is still an open question. Here some aspects and implications of the law of karma are described in elementary yoga philosophy. Quantitative and qualitative relationships about the law of karma-which relates mental actions and reactions to the evolution of the mind-can be called karmachanics. In yoga philosophy the law of karma describes how a person's intentional good and bad mental actions produce quantitatively proportional reactions of pleasure and pain in the mind of the person doing the actions. The law of karma plays a fundamental role in benevolently guiding human beings towards the spiritual goal of life-the supreme consciousness-from which they evolved in the cosmic cycle of creation. The nature of free will, death, rebirth, and the spiritual goal of life are explained in terms of the law of karma, as described in the philosophical writings of a master karmachanic, P. R. Sarkar. Suggestions are given for testing the law of karma on the physical level.

In an effort to articulate a naturalized concept of karma for the purposes of contemporary ethical reflection, this paper raises four critical questions about the Buddhist doctrine of karma. The paper asks (1) about the advisability of linking the concept of karma to assurance of ultimate cosmic justice through the doctrine of rebirth; (2) about the effects of this link on the quest for human justice in the social, economic, and political spheres of culture; (3) about the kinds of rewards that the doctrine of karma attaches to virtuous action, whether they tend to be necessary or contingent consequences; and (4) about the extent to which karma is best conceived individually or collectively. The paper ends with suggestions for how a non-metaphysical concept of karma might function and what role it might play in contemporary ethics. The Buddha warned1 that karma is so mysterious a process that it is essentially unfathomable, declaring it one of the four topics not suited to healthy ph...

Buddhist modernists are developing an understanding of karma as a distinctive psychological process that frequently leads harmful actions to evolve into experiences of suffering and helpful actions to evolve into experiences of happiness. If we shift to this kind of understanding of karma, the effect on Buddhist ethics will be quite significant. In this essay I explore the relations between the old and the new understandings of karma and between this issue and the broader question of the theoretical structure of Buddhist ethics.