Karma – action which causes deeds resulting in good or bad consequences, the work of dualism which acts like veil and covers our ultimate reality of life.
Karma is created by ignorance.
Karma is created by identification of thoughts and wrong perceptions which are derivatives of thoughts.
Karma is the result of conditioning of the human psyche.
Karma is a by-product of duality.
Karma is defined by the present day famous spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle as “the pain-body”.
Whether good or bad, Karma produces the same results which ultimately lead to suffering.
Karma are planted seeds in consciousness, given the right condition, which leads to fruition causing suffering. It is form based conditioning.
The thoughts manifest as the words
The Buddha – Dharmapala
The words manifest as the deeds
The deeds overtime hardens into character
So watch the thoughts and its way with care
Let it spring from love, born out of respect for all beings.
Samara – cyclic existence in the realm of forms, duality, which is propelled by Karmic effects.
The concept of “Twelve dependent originations” explains the nature of Karma.
Nature of Consciousness – Factors of Consciousness
Consciousness: In Buddhism there are eight factors which makes up of consciousness. The first five are the senses (sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing), the sixth is thoughts, the seventh is manas, and the eighth is alaya-vinana.
- sight – sensory
- smell – sensory
- touch – sensory
- taste – sensory
- hearing – sensory
- thought – sensory
- manas – Perceptive filter – Manas-vijnana (Skt. manas-vijñāna; “mind-knowledge”, compare man-tra, jñāna) is the seventh of the eight consciousnesses taught in Yogacara Buddhism. The higher consciousness that localizes experience through thinking. One of its primary functions is to perceive the subjective position of the store consciousness and erroneously regard it as one’s own ego, thereby creating ego attachment.
Its basic nature is that of thought, but there is a difference between it and the sixth consciousness. Not consciously controllable, it is said to be a mind of a realm that gives rise to contradiction of conscious decisions, and to incessant self-love. Since it can also be called the movement of the human mind which sees the limits of human variation from within, it is necessary that for their basis of existence, humans have some fundamental thing that unceasingly continues and changes, serving as the ground for the sixth consciousness. This consciousness is also called the place where good and evil are eternally accumulated, and is theorized as the connecting realm between the mano-consciousness and the ālayavijñāna. THIS IS THE EGO, or PERSONAL CONSCIOUSNESS. - The Eight Consciousnesses alaya -(Sanskrit: Aṣṭavijñāna, from aṣṭa “eight” and vijñāna “consciousness”) are concepts developed in the tradition of the Yogacara school of Buddhism. They enumerate the five senses, supplemented by the mind (manas), the “obscuration” of the mind (klesha), and finally the fundamental store-house consciousness (Sanskrit: ālayavijñāna, from ālaya “abode, dwelling”; Tibetan: kun gzhi rnam shes; Chinese: 阿賴耶識 Japanese: araya-shiki), which is the basis of the other seven. AWARENESS.
For the learner to easily remember the functions of eight factors of consciousness, East Asian tradition has a poem which aid Buddhists to remember their relationship.
Of eight brothers one is ignorant (seventh factor)
Thoughts are the most cunning (sixth factor)
Five brothers at the door selling and buying (five senses)
The owner of the house mind the store (eight factor)
To be free of Karma is to wake up to the reality of non-dualism which is beyond boundaries of the factors of consciousness but that which gives it birth: Our Buddha Nature. Zen Buddhism emphasizes this.