Kusala-kamma
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
Our Encyclopedia recently received a wonderful opportunity for a major renewal on its 14th birthday . After many years of growing our Encyclopedia had become bit slow and sometimes even decided not to answer when people knocked on the door.
A very big thank you and blessings to Dmytro Rudiy (rudiy.nl) for his great work in upgrading the server, website and all of the infrastructure and helping make TBE fast and reliable again for everyone!
We kindly ask our readers to help us cover the cost of this important upgrade and also help with the ongoing costs of keeping the Encyclopedia alive and freely available.
or card
Every little donation helps and every one is deeply appreciated. 🙏🙏🙏
OM AH HUM VAJRA GURU PADMA SIDDHI HUM 🙏🙏🙏
May blessings shower down on all of yous 🙏🙏🙏
kusala-kamma; wholesome actions; Wholesome, skillful, good, meritorious. An action characterized by this moral quality (kusala kamma) is bound to result (eventually) in happiness and a favorable outcome. Actions characterized by its opposite (akusala kamma) lead to sorrow.
Wholesome, meritorious, good action, virtue.
((That which is) good, free from fault). Proper, convenient, skilful. N Good action, benevolent deed, meritorious action.
Any positive action by means of thought, speech and body is a kusala. It does naturally beget some benefit to the one who does perform it.
Kusala is wholesome.
'karmically wholesome' or 'profitable', salutary, morally good, (skillful)
Connotations of the term, according to Com. (Atthasālini), are: of good health, blameless, productive of favourable karma-result, skillful. It should be noted that Com. excludes the meaning 'skillful', when the term is applied to states of consciousness.
It is defined in M.9 as the 10 wholesome courses of action (s. kammapatha). In psychological terms, 'karmically wholesome' are all those karmical volitions (kamma-cetanā) and the consciousness and mental factors associated therewith, which are accompanied by 2 or 3 wholesome roots (s. mūla), i.e. by greedlessness (alobha) and hatelessness (adosa), and in some cases also by non-delusion (amoha: wisdom, understanding). Such states of consciousness are regarded as 'karmically wholesome' as they are causes of favourable karma results and contain the seeds of a happy destiny or rebirth. From this explanation, two facts should be noted:
(1) it is volition that makes a state of consciousness, or an act, 'good' or 'bad';
(2) the moral criterion in Buddhism is the presence or absence of the 3 wholesome or moral roots (s. mūla).
The above explanations refer to mundane (lokiya, q.v.) wholesome consciousness. Supermundane wholesome (lokuttara-kusala) states, i.e. the four paths of sanctity (s. ariyapuggala), have as results only the corresponding four fruitions; they do not constitute karma, nor do they lead to rebirth, and this applies also to the good actions of an Arahat (Tab. I, 73-80) and his meditative states (Tab. 1, 81-89), which are all karmically inoperative (functional; s. kiriya).
Kusala belongs to a threefold division of all consciousness, as found in the Abhidhamma (Dhs.), into
wholesome (kusala),
unwholesome (akusala) and
karmically neutral (avyākata),
which is the first of the triads (tika) in the Abhidhamma schedule (mātikā); s. Guide, pp. 4ff., 12ff; Vis.M. XIV, 83ff.