KAMMA AND REBIRTH

According to the Buddha's teaching, all beings except the arahants are subject to "renewal of being in the future" (punabbhava), that is, to rebirth. Rebirth, in the Buddhist conception, is not the transmigration of a self or soul but the continuation of a process, a flux of becoming in which successive lives are linked together by causal transmission of influence rather than by substantial identity. The basic causal pattern underlying the process is that defined by the teaching of dependent origination (see above, pp. 30-31), which also demonstrates how rebirth is possible without a reincarnating self.

The process of rebirth, the Buddha teaches, exhibits a definite lawfulness essentially ethical in character. This ethical character is established by the fundamental dynamism that determines the states into which beings are reborn and the circumstances they encounter in the course of their lives. That dynamism is kamma, volitional action of body, speech, and mind. Those beings who engage in bad actions - actions motivated by the three unwholesome roots of greed, hate, and delusion - generate unwholesome kamma that leads them to rebirth into lower states of existence and, if it ripens in the human world, brings them pain and misfortune. Those beings who engage in good actions - actions motivated by the three wholesome roots of non-greed, non-hate, and non-delusion - generate wholesome kamma that leads them to higher states of existence and ripens in the human world as pleasure and good fortune. Because the deeds a person performs in the course of a single life can be extremely varied, the type of rebirth that lies ahead of him can be very unpredictable, as the Buddha shows in MN 136. But despite this empirical variability, an invariable law governs the direct relationship between types of actions and the types of results they yield, the basic correlations being sketched by the Buddha in MN 57 and laid out in greater detail in MN 135.

In several suttas of the Majjhima Nikāya the Buddha refers to various planes of existence into which rebirth can occur and he also gives some indication of the types of kamma that lead to those planes. This cosmological typography is not, from the Buddhist standpoint, the product of conjecture or fantasy but a matter directly known to the Buddha through his "Tathāgata's powers of knowledge" (MN 12.36); to some extent the process is also verifiable by those who gain the divine eye (e.g., MN 39.20). A brief overview may be given here of the planes of rebirth recognised in Buddhist cosmology and of their kammic antecedents, as systematised in the developed Theravāda tradition.

The Buddhist cosmos is divided into three broad realms - the sense-sphere realm, the fine-material realm, and the immaterial realm. Each of these comprises a range of subsidiary planes, amounting to a total of thirty-one planes of existence.

The sense-sphere realm, so called because sensual desire predominates there, consists of eleven planes divided into two groups, the bad destinations and the good destinations. The bad destinations or "states of deprivation" (apāya) are four in number: the hells, which are states of intense torment as described in MN 129 and MN 130; the animal kingdom; the sphere of ghosts (peta), beings afflicted with incessant hunger and thirst; and the sphere of titans (asura), beings involved in constant combat (not mentioned as a separate plane in the Majjhima). The courses of kamma leading to rebirth into these planes are classified into a set of ten - three of body, four of speech, and three of mind. These are enumerated briefly at MN 9.4 and explicated in MN 41. Gradations in the gravity of the evil intentions responsible for these deeds account for specific differences in the mode of rebirth resulting from such actions.

The good destinations in the sense-sphere realm are the human world and the heavenly planes. The latter are sixfold: the gods under the Four Great Kings; the gods of the Thirty-three (tāvatimsa), who are presided over by Sakka, a Buddhist metamorphosis of Indra, depicted as a devotee of the Buddha, faithful, but prone to negligence (MN 37); the Yāma gods; the gods of the Tusita heaven, the abode of the Bodhisatta before his final birth (MN 123); the gods who delight in creating; and the gods who wield power over others' creations. The last is said to be the abode of Māra, the Tempter in Buddhism, who besides being a symbol for Desire and Death, is also regarded as a powerful deity with evil designs, keen to prevent beings from escaping the net of samsāra. The kammic cause for rebirth into the good destinations of the sense-sphere realm is the practice of the ten courses of wholesome action, defined at MN 9.8 and in MN 41.

In the fine-material realm the grosser types of matter are absent and the bliss, power, luminosity, and vitality of its denizens are far superior to those in the sense-sphere realm. The fine-material realm consists of sixteen planes, which are the objective counterparts of the four jhānas. Attainment of the first jhāna leads to rebirth among Brahmā's Assembly, the Ministers of Brahmā and the Mahā Brahmās, according to whether it is developed to an inferior, middling, or superior degree. Baka the Brahmā (MN 49) and Brahmā Sahampati (MN 26, MN 67) seem to be residents of the last-named plane. The suttas mention especially the divine abodes as the path to the company of Brahmā (MN 99.24-27). Attainment of the second jhāna in the same three degrees leads respectively to rebirth among the gods of Limited Radiance, of Immeasurable Radiance, and of Streaming Radiance; the third jhāna to rebirth among the gods of Limited Glory, of Immeasurable Glory, and of Refulgent Glory. The fourth jhāna ordinarily leads to rebirth among the gods of Great Fruit, but if it is developed with a desire to attain an insentient mode of existence, it will conduce to rebirth among the nonpercipient beings, for whom consciousness is temporarily suspended. The fine-material realm also contains five special planes that are exclusively for the rebirth of non-returners. These are the Pure Abodes - the Aviha, the Atappa, the Sudassa, the Sudassī, and the Akanittha. In each of these planes in the finematerial realm the lifespan is said to be of enormous duration and to increase significantly in each higher plane.

The third realm of being is the immaterial realm, where matter has become non-existent and only mental processes exist. This realm consists of four planes, which are the objective counterparts of the four immaterial meditative attainments, from which they result and whose names they share: the bases of infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, and neither-perception-nor-non-perception. The lifespans ascribed to them are respectively 20,§000 ; 40,000 ; 60,000$; and 84,000 great aeons.

In Buddhist cosmology existence in every realm, being the product of a kamma with a finite potency, is necessarily impermanent. Beings take rebirth in accordance with their deeds, experience the good or bad results, and then, when the generative kamma has spent its force, they pass away to take rebirth elsewhere as determined by still another kamma that has found the opportunity to ripen. Hence the torments of hell as well as the bliss of heaven, no matter how long they may last, are bound to pass. For this reason the Buddha does not locate the final goal of his teaching anywhere within the conditioned world. He guides those whose spiritual faculties are still tender to aspire for a heavenly rebirth and teaches them the lines of conduct that conduce to the fulfilment of their aspirations (MN 41, MN 120). But for those whose faculties are mature and who can grasp the unsatisfactory nature of everything conditioned, he urges determined effort to put an end to wandering in samsāra and to reach Nibbāna, which transcends all planes of being.