Is Everything Due To Kamma?

Although Buddhism attributes the inequality of mankind to Kamma as one of the chief causes amongst a variety, yet it does not assert that everything is due to Kamma.

If everything is due to Kamma, a person would always be bad if it was his Kamma to be bad. One would not need to consult physician to be cured of a disease; for if one's Kamma was such, one would be cured.

According to Buddhism there are five orders or processes – Niyamas, which operate in the physical and mental realms.

1. Utu Niyama - physical inorganic order; e.g., the seasonal phenomena of winds and rains, the unerring order of seasons, characteristic seasonal changes and events, the causes of wind and rains, the nature of heat etc.

2. Bija Niyama - physical organic order; order of germs and seeds; e.g., rice produced from rice seed, sugar taste resulting from sugar-cane or honey, the peculiar characteristics of certain fruits, etc. The scientist theory of cells and genes and the physical similarity of twins may be ascribed to this order.

3. Kamma Niyama - order of act and result; e.g., desirable and undesirable acts produce corresponding good and bad results. As surely as water seek its own level, so does Kamma, given opportunity, produce its inevitable result - not in the form of reward or punishment but as an innate sequence. This sequence of deed and effect is as natural and necessary as the way of the sun and the moon.

4. Dhamma Niyama - order of the norm; e.g., the natural phenomena occurring at the advert of a Bodhisatta in his last birth. Gravitation and other similar laws of nature, the reason for being good, and so forth, may be included in the group.

5. Citta Niyama - order of the mind or psychic law; e.g., processes of consciousness, constituents of consciousness, power of mind, etc. Telepathy, telethesia, retro cognition, premonition, clairvoyance, clairaudience, thought reading - all psychic phenomena which are inexplicable to modern science are included in this class.

Every mental or physical phenomena could be explained by these all-embracing five orders or processes which are laws in themselves.

It is this doctrine of Kamma that gives consolation, hope, self-reliance and moral courage to a Buddhist.

This belief in Kamma "validate his effort and kindles his enthusiasm" because it teaches individual responsibility.

This law of Kamma explains the problem of suffering, the mystery of so-called fate and predestination of other religions, and above all the inequality of mankind.