..续本文上一页f view; for this question implies the existence of a human entity to be changed into an animal entity in its following existence.
It is craving, as the inherent force of kammic action that tends to express, to perpetuate, to reproduce. Without this tendency action would not be kamma, would not be craving. But beastly actions of the passions will naturally tend to produce beastly effects, and then the process will be evolution of retrogression. Virtuous actions and self-control will naturally tend to produce holy effects, and then the process will be evolution of progress. Actions of selflessness, of pure unselfishness, will have no tendency to reproduce and hence will not further express themselves in effects.
When a being is born, it is neither created, not merely propagated by its parents, but it is a product of action in the past. The action (kamma) as volition (cetanaa) has constituted certain tendencies (sa.nkhaara), inclinations and repulsions, likes and dislikes, a character which owing to the lust for life (bhavata.nhaa) will seek to express itself again; and that is the evolution of rebirth (bhava-paccayaa jaati).
Rebirth will take place where those kammic tendencies will find the most agreeable surroundings to express themselves, the most suitable soil to take root again, the most kindred atmosphere to produce new fruits. This might be called the sympathy of kammic forces. If it thus happens that a mother”s womb, having just received the sperm, is physically and kammically well disposed, a conception might take place, finally resulting in the birth of a child, having some or many of the characteristics of its parents, not because it has inherited those from them, but owing to the sympathy and attraction of similar kammic tendencies. Like the lightning from a thundercloud will never enter into the water of a deep well, but will always seek the metal point of the lightning-conductor on the tip of a tower, for there it finds its greatest attraction—so the tendencies of a character will be attracted by, will sympathize with, those tendencies which are nearest in the sense of affinity.
Yet the opposite might happen, when a dying thought contains an element of hate or revenge, for those vices can never be so fully satisfied, as when in near relationship with the disliked object. Then the very antipathy of kammic tendencies might become the reason of attraction, like the positive and negative poles of a magnet.
If at the moment of the sexual act, there is no kamma attracted to take rebirth from these particular parents, their act will remain barren.
While the theory of heredity does not explain why not all the characteristics of father and mother are inherited, the Buddhist explanation is thus that the child does not inherit from father and mother, who only provided the opportunity, but that it brings its own inheritance, namely kamma, with it at the time of conception. It is this third factor, kamma, which besides the sperm and the ovum decides the conception at rebirth. Kamma thus is the real “natural selection” which struggles on for existence, resulting not in the survival of the fittest, but of the greatest craving, which will reproduce itself for good or for bad, till insight will deprive action of that reproductive force, leading it on to no-more rebirth.
When thus all action will have been stilled, no further craving can disturb the peace, where the wheel of rebirth can no longer revolve, the peace of perfect freedom from lust, hate and delusion, the Deliverance of Nibbaana.
Dependent Origination
“Five causes were there in the past,
And now a five-fold fruit.
Five causes in this present life,
A five-fold fruit to come.”
When speaking of origination, one can approach the subje…
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