..续本文上一页stiny with disregard of action, good or bad. Fate interferes with the working of cause and effect in so far as it produces results which are not caused by corresponding acts. As a denial of cause and effect fate must be dismissed as a mere fiction.

　　The undesirable effect of akusala kamma in some con­ditions cannot be altered, but has merely to be outlived.

　　Take as illustration a man who has borrowed 100 pounds from his master in order to marry. The feast being over, he finds himself incapable of repaying the debt. If the master is kind-hearted, he might not confiscate his property, but say e.g. that his servant can pay him off with his work, one day counting for one pound. In that case a hundred days will be needed before the accounts are squared, be­fore the servant can begin to earn again something. During that period no new acquisition can he made, but his pre­vious possessions remain his all the same.

　　Somewhat similarly akusala kamma can effect a rebirth in such a state of misery that no new kusala action can be done there. This undesirable effect has simply to be outlived, “till the last penny of the debt is paid.” When the effect of that unskilful action is exhausted, like a cloud which has shed all its rain, then naturally like the sunshine, the previously accumulated good tendencies will produce their good effects (kusala vipaaka). This can happen at any time whenever the opportunity is favourable. It is this accumulated kamma (katatta kamma) that can become indefinitely effective (aparaapariya vedaniiya kamma). If, however, it would miss the opportunity to become effective, it would become “dead,” unproductive (ahosi kamma).

　　This unproductiveness is the only escape from this repeated round of rebirth (sa.msaara). From this possibly unproductive kamma one can clearly understand that Bud­dhism is neither an absolutely rigid, law of cause and effect, where every seed must produce its fruits, nor fatal predetermination, nor blind chance.

　　"There are these three sources of irrational views,” it is said in the A.nguttara Nikaaya (Tikanipaata, Mahaavagga 61), “which are questioned, investigated and abandoned by the wise who follow the hereditary traditions—­three sources of irrational views which establish themselves in the denial of kamma: (1) there are some who believe that all is a result of acts in previous lives; (2) there are others who believe that all is the result of creation by a Supreme Ruler; (3) there are others again who believe that everything arises without reason or cause. But then if a person becomes a murderer, a thief, an adulterer, etc., if this would be due to past actions, or made by the creation of a Supreme Ruler, or if this would happen by mere chance, then one would not be responsible for evil action.”

　　Kamma is the very opposite of all these irrational views, because it is action itself; and upon each new action depends all further effects. If that action produces results and that depends on other actions—those results will correspond to their cause. Any other view is unproved, unprovable, illogical, irrational, untenable.

　　“Karma avoids the superstitious extreme, on the one hand, of those who believe in the separate existence of some entity called the soul; and the irreligious extreme, on the other, of those who do not believe in moral justice and retribution.” (Buddhism: Prof. T. W. Rhys Davids, p. 103).

　　What we are and that we are is not mere chance; it is not rigid determinism either, for that would leave un­explained the differences in faculties and modes of life. As a scientific law, be it physical or biological, is clearly not a law with binding force, but only a description of a way of action, constant as far as our observation goes—­similarly the law of…

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