[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-238622-105":59,"doc-detail-238622-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","can-sense-be-made-of-the-buddhist-theory-of-karma","Can Sense Be Made of the Buddhist Theory of Karma","","Buddhist karma is examined as a metaphysical and ethical principle: popular accounts treat karmic fruition as a natural law that connects actions to later pleasant or unpleasant consequences. The discussion then shifts to the abhidharma framework attributed to Vasubandhu, where the account of experience must be systematically grounded in what is ultimately real rather than socially conventional. The analysis applies Vasubandhu’s criterion of irreducibility to persons, distinguishing body and mental factors and beginning their categorization.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":45,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/religion-spirituality/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/can-sense-be-made-of-the-buddhist-theory-of-karma/238622/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/can-sense-be-made-of-the-buddhist-theory-of-karma/238622.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Anda","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-21","2026-09-11",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":29},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"How do popular Buddhist teachings explain the law of karma?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"They present karma as a natural law: actions lead to later consequences that are pleasant or unpleasant, depending on the nature of the action.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What problem does the essay raise about the popular view of karma?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"It asks how karma fares under abhidharma’s more precise and rigorous theory, which aims to avoid figurative expressions and conceptual shortcuts.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What does Vasubandhu’s criterion of ultimate reality require?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Something is ultimately real if it is simple or irreducible—unable to be broken down physically or conceptually—whereas conventionally real things depend on social convention.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},238622,1791058960,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":44,"category_name":45,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":29,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},962075006959,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/e0002397efbe92a78e?_k=1776741047341049297","Can sense be made of the Buddhist theory  \nof karma?  \nRichard P. Hayes  \nAutumn 1989􀀃  \nAs a popular teaching, the Buddhist doctrine of karmic fruition (karmavipka) is relatively easy to understand and poses few problems. In the popular Buddhist view, the law of karma is a principle of nature, according to which a person who acts in a certain way must later experience consequences that are pleasant or unpleasant, depending upon the nature of the action itself. Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, a modern Tibetan author, thus explains the law of karma as a special case of the general law of cause and effect.“Karmic seeds”he writes,“inevitably ripen in accordance with their cause, i.e., virtue leads to joy, and non-virtue to sorrow.”1 Another modern Tibetan author, Geshe Rabten, states the matter even more forcefully: “Just as a seed cannot grow into a plant of a different type, so our actions can only produce actions of their own type. An unvirtuous action can only give rise to suffering, and a positive action can only give rise to happiness. This order can never be mixed up.”2  \nAccording to the accounts ofkarmic fruition given by these Buddhists, no emotional state arises by chance or fate or luck; rather, every mood that a living being may have is the natural fruition of actions performed in the past. There is, therefore, no injustice in a universe that has as an essential part ofits structure a natural moral dimension. This moral dimension isin the Buddhist view as much an invariable part of the natural universe as are such physical dimensions as the law of gravity and the laws of thermodynamics.  \nThe popular version of the law of karma as presented above by various modern Buddhist writers is evidently well suited as a metaphysical foundation for the traditionally eudaemonic ethical guidelines of Buddhism. This doctrine gives the appearance, on the surface at least, of being well grounded in ordinary experience. Wrongdoing does, in the experience of most people, give rise to such unpleasant mental states as remorse and feelings ofguilt, and these unpleasant mental states do seem to be as much a natural consequence  \n􀀃 Read at the Department of Philosophy, Brock University.  \n1 Geshe Ngawang Dhargyey, Tibetan Tradition of Mental Development: Oral Teachings of a Tibetan Lama. (Dharamsala, India: Library of Tibetan Works & Archives, 1974) p. 71.  \n2 Geshe Rabten, The Essential Nectar: Meditations on the Buddhist Path. Editing and verse translation by Martin Willson. (London: Wisdom Publications, 1984), p. 114.  \n1  \nof wrongdoing as becoming overweight seems to be a natural consequence of eating the wrong kinds of food. But how does the law of karma fare under the constraints of the more precise and rigorous presentations of Buddhist theory known as abhidharma?  \nThe dialogues of the Buddha were generally delivered to ordinary people in ordinary language, and so they adhered to the relatively loose linguistic and conceptual conventions of society at large. The purpose of abhidharma is supposed to be to convey the teachings ofthe Buddha in a more exact and systematic way that is, ideally at least, as free as possible of figurative expressions and other kinds of conceptual shortcuts. The purpose of this essay is to examine the discussion of karma as found in the Abhidharmakoa of the fourth century C.E. Indian abhidharma specialist Vasubandhu.  \nIdeally any abhidharmic account of experience should refer only to things that are ultimately real, as opposed to things that are established only in virtue of the agreement of society. The principal criterion of being ultimately real, as opposed tobeing a convenient social fiction, is stated by Vasubandhutobe simplicity or irreducibility. That which cannot be broken down, either physically or conceptually, into more primitive constituents is said to be ultimately or substantially real. But that which can be physically broken or analysed into more simple concepts is said to be only conventionally rea","cbCairzIow9u9ePu","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCairzIow9u9ePu","pdf",85026,14,"English","# Can Sense Be Made of the Buddhist Theory of Karma?\n## Popular doctrine of karmic fruition\n## Cause, effect, and moral dimension\n## Abhidharma and the criterion of ultimate reality\n## Irreducibility: atoms and conventional objects\n## Abhidharma analysis of the person","[{\"question\":\"How do popular Buddhist teachings explain the law of karma?\",\"answer\":\"They present karma as a natural law: actions lead to later consequences that are pleasant or unpleasant, depending on the nature of the action.\"},{\"question\":\"What problem does the essay raise about the popular view of karma?\",\"answer\":\"It asks how karma fares under abhidharma’s more precise and rigorous theory, which aims to avoid figurative expressions and conceptual shortcuts.\"},{\"question\":\"What does Vasubandhu’s criterion of ultimate reality require?\",\"answer\":\"Something is ultimately real if it is simple or irreducible—unable to be broken down physically or conceptually—whereas conventionally real things depend on social convention.\"}]","Can Sense Be Made of the Buddhist Theory of Karma | PDF",1789138533,35]