Karmic Potentials, Tendencies and Constant Habits

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Brief Review of the System of Karma According to Vasubandhu and Nagarjuna

Last time, we presented the main components of karma, or karmic impulses, according to Vasubandhu and Nagarjuna. We saw that mental karma refers to the mental factor of a compelling urge that draws the consciousness and its accompanying mental factors into engaging in a pathway of karma for a physical, verbal, or mental action with or directed at an object. The karmic impulses for physical and verbal actions refer to their revealing and nonrevealing forms that are compelled by these karmic mental urges. 

The revealing form of a physical action refers to the movement of the body involved in implementing a method for carrying out a physical action. The revealing form of a verbal action refers to the utterances of the sounds of speech involved in implementing a method for carrying out a verbal action. The revealing form lasts only as long as the physical or verbal action itself lasts. Revealing forms may be constructive, destructive, or unspecified as being either of the two. They reveal that they were brought on by constructive, destructive or unspecified compelling mental urges. 

In addition, some physical and verbal actions have nonrevealing forms. These include only constructive or destructive physical or verbal actions and among them, only those that are strongly motivated by a constructive emotion or a disturbing one. The nonrevealing forms are also compelled by the mental urge that brings them on in conjunction with the revealing form, but they do not reveal that urge. In addition, they themselves are compelling karmic impulses that continue to affect our physical and verbal behavior after the action with which they began ceases. These nonrevealing forms of an action, then, arise with the revealing form of the actions but continue after the actions have ceased so long as we do not give them up. 

A distinctive feature of karmic impulses is that they actively do something; they actively perform a function. Mental karma actively draws the consciousness and its accompanying mental factors to engage in an action with or toward an object. Revealing forms actively enact a method for carrying out a physical or verbal action. Nonrevealing forms affect our continuums either directly, by regulating our behavior, as in the case of vows, or indirectly, by building up in strength to bring about more powerful results through others either obeying our orders or utilizing something that we have made for them or given them.

Simply stated, then, there are these three different types of karmic impulses – mental, revealing and nonrevealing. In the case of actions of the mind, the mental karmic impulses refer only to what brings on the action. In the case of actions of the body and speech, the karmic impulses refer to what occurs during the action and, in the case of the nonrevealing forms, what continues after the action as well. That’s what we’ve covered so far.

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