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There is none who is wholly - blamed or praisedThere never was, there never will be, nor does there exist now, a person who is wholly blamed or wholly praised. (Kodha Vagga - the Dhammapada)

There was much discussion on TV, radio etc about kamma and vipaka, after the devastating tsunami. I recently heard a scholar monk claim that the Buddha felt 14 times, the effect of akusala kamma from his previous births. I do not know what they all are.

Many know that his cousin Devadatta tried to kill him by rolling a stone down a cliff and a splinter drew blood from his toe.

He fell ill several times, was disparaged in public by a vicious woman and a meal shortly before final Nibbana caused a dysenteric attack.

To understand properly vipaka, in the context of the Buddha - and arhants - it is imperative to know the distinction between a 'person' and 'individual'.

Siddharata Gotama, as all living beings, was born from ignorance of primordial craving to the notion of a 'self' that tether beings to re-becoming; from attachment to a discrete unit consciousness defiled by avijja.

Siddharta Gotama overcame this ignorance, and consciousness was cleansed, as he describes in several Suttas. Strictly, it cannot be said that the arhant was born' and that he died. The words birth and death are not used when describing the arhant.

Unskillful action is rooted in the defilements (kilesa): greed (lobha) aversion (dosa), view (moha). Such kamma leads to arising of kamma.

Skillful action - from full penetration of the Dhamma by arhants - leads to cessation of kamma. The 'individual', a Buddha, an arhant, cleansed from the defilements does not cumulate vipaka.

Since 'persons' feel effects of kamma, the Buddha and arhants - such as venerable Moggallana killed by bandits in their last birth - experienced results of past actions, when done as 'persons', from defiled consciousness.

In this context, it is useful to note that the word puggala is commonly mistranslated as 'person'. A detailed discussion of this critical distinction is beyond the scope of this article.

A verse in the Suttanipata is traditionally misinterpreted to rationalize the 'three-life' interpretation of Dependent Arising' or paticcasamuppada.

A condensed quotation of it is this: 'By action is one a farmer, craftsman, merchant, servant, thief, soldier, priest, king. In this way the wise see action as it really is. Seeing dependent arising they understand the result of action (akusala/kusala).

When the verse is restored to its correct context in the text, the meaning of kammam paticca kassako hoti, sippiko hoti' - meaning what one depends on what one does - is correctly interpreted as that one is known (as a farmer, thief etc), according to the result of acting in a certain way.

The question of kamma or ethical action is: What should I do? All actions done by me, by a person, are akusala or kusala (unskillful or skilful).

The Buddha did not invent the 'theory' of kamma and vipaka. It was known as a natural law from ancient times in India and for example, in Greece, long before the time of the Buddha. Read the following beautiful deep words I have paraphrased from the Dhammapada: - 'Mind is foremost.

Everything is mind-made. Mind is the forerunner of states. If one speaks or acts with a pure mind, happiness follows just as the shadow that never leaves.

The flitting fickle mind is difficult to guard and difficult to control. Just as the fletcher straightens his arrow, the wise straightens the mind.

As a fish taken out from water and thrown upon the land flutters - so does this mind therein with passions not abandoned. An evil deed is sweet as honey, so does a fool think, until it ripens in grief.

Just as milk curdles not instantly, an evil deed does not bear fruit at once. It follows the fool like smoldering fire covered with ash. Irrigators lead water. Fletchers straighten shafts. Carpenters bend wood.

Do not disregard evil, thinking 'It shall not come upon me'. Falling raindrops fill even a water jar. A fool likewise collects little by little, until filled with evil. One alone does evil. It is self-born and self-conditioned.

Evil grinds the unwise just as diamond a gem. Just as rust in iron eats its way when it comes to be, by one's own deeds is the transgressor led to states of woe. Vipaka follows one as the wheel the hoof of the ox.

A very important statement of the Buddha, defining kamma, in a certain context, is that 'Intention is kamma. Some contemporary teachers maintained that all action result in some reaction, even done involuntarily when trampling upon insects while walking.

The teaching of the Buddha gives the mind the first place and the body a bad second. To fully understand aspects of mind such as intention or cetana is very difficult. All consciousness is intentional or teleological, purposive.

There is no empty having of thoughts in the mind. In unreflective consciousness we are directed upon things. It is an immanent process. Intention, properly speaking, is 'intentional intention' connoting choice.

Intentions are relations between a number of possibilities, between the 'actual' and the 'possible'.

The set of relations is the same which ever of various intentions is chosen 'actual'. In intentional intention (cetana), the 'possible' aspects show up as possible and the 'actual' as optional.

There is now exercise of preference - with the pleasant preferred to the unpleasant. This is intention in its simplest form.

Intentions, by themselves, are a structural affair, a matter of negatives: what are the intentions upon this occasion? All intentions are not probable; some stand out more prominently than others.

The emphasized aspect may be the 'actual' as the negative of all possible actions. This is attention (manasikara).

For example, a chair can be used to sit, stand on and used as a weapon. When the chair is used to sit, it cannot be used, at the same time, to stand upon or hit with.

Now, there is exercise of preference. Thus where there is attention or in Dhamma terms, manasikara, there is always intentional intention; and cetana is a matter of negatives.

Kierkegaard says the negative is everywhere. Cetana are sankhara or determinations (but all sankhara are not cetana). A determination is negative: Omnis determnatio est negatio, writes Spinoza. A negative exists as a denial of a positive.

When sitting on the chair, it denies the existence of intentions to stand upon it and hit someone with it. But in the very act of denial, it confirms the existence of the positive.

A negative determines both the existence and the essence of the positive. There is more to be said. That is also beyond the scope of this essay.

In the Culakammavibhanga Sutta, the Buddha tells a student: 'Student, beings are owners of their actions, heirs of their actions, are bound to their actions, have actions as their refuge. It is action that distinguishes beings as inferior and superior'.

He tells why some are born with long/short life; are healthy/sickly; ugly/ beautiful; uninfluential/influential; poor/rich; low-born/high-born etc; and in the Mahakammavibhanga Sutta he goes into the subject in depth where he makes the important distinction between ALL and SOME.

That is, ALL who do evil do not necessarily reap evil, and ALL who do good reap a happy result.

Actions that we do are subject to enormous variables and permutations that the Buddha warned, 'Do not think about the ripening of kamma. It will make you go mad'.

Buddhism is neither a religion (in its narrower sense) nor a philosophy (in its wider sense); it is the Dhamma (the Truth).

It rests and survives on the single universal truth of impermanence (anicca) as discovered by the Buddha. It unveils the reality of the transient nature of all component things which constitute everything mundane.

One who accepts or is convinced of this fundamental as well as the ultimate truth, should first fortify himself with total initial commitment to observe the five precepts which are clearly not commands (to refrain from taking life, stealing, adultery, uttering untruth, and taking intoxicating drinks.)

An alms giving was held at St. Mary’s College, Hambantota to invoke merits for the tsunami victims. Here more than one thousand Buddhist monks walk to the alms giving along the tsunami devastated areas in Hambantota. (Picture by Weeraketiya group correspondent)

Voluntary rational adherence to these five precepts will morally strengthen the follower or the observer with a healthy foundation to lead a highly righteous life which eventually disciplines him to refrain from causing any mental or physical pain to another. One who observes the precepts is himself just one person.

The moral drill he develops through the observance extends and embraces every other in society. So his restraining negative conduct grows into a benign positive effect producing a beneficial environment for the entire mankind.

With this ethical basis firmly laid leaving those salutary denials which neutralise the harmful aggressiveness naturally inherent in man behind, he should progressively move forth sincerely and resolutely (thokam thokam khane khane) in a positive breath which leads him to emancipation from this state of unsatisfactoriness (dukkha) in samsara (cycle of being) which everyone of us experience.

The Abbess of Taiwan’s Tayuan Buddhist Meditation Centre, Sik Chiu Chin who visited Sri Lanka on the invitation of Attanagalla Raja Maha Viharadipathi Ven. Dr. Pannila Ananda Thera, toured tsunami affected areas with a view to look in to the situation of displaced families and provide assistance to them. Here, she offers a stock of medicine for the use of tsunami affected families housed at Kalmunai Maha Vidyalaya. (Attanagalla special correspondent)

Then taking the strides from moral well-being leading to spiritual perfection, he should begin to practise metta (loving kindness), Karuna (compassion), mudita (altruistic joy), and upekkha (equanimity) which are mentally impregnated with humane dispositions extended to others with no egotistical intention whatsoever.

Such a person on path elevates himself above the more earthly beings of all levels and grades.

Thus a follower of the Buddha from the very first step itself undertakes to conduct himself for the good of others which brings joy to them and moral fortification to himself to whom motivation comes from within one's own self and not from a force outside.

One absolve oneself with the moral force oneself builds within. No prayers, vows, promises, self-mortification or presents to anyone except extension of selflessness to others, brings it within you.

A Buddhist could feel relaxed even in worst disaster conditions if he has realised the eternal truth of impermanence in life.

The gods omnipotent, semi-potent and impotent will on their own initiative volunteer to help and rescue those who are morally and spiritually uplifted, an upliftment one has realised in this birth or in a previous birth.

Then instead of man becoming subservient to gods, gods become servants of the pious and the righteous. That is the spirit of Buddhism.

However, when it comes to each individual one cannot escape the effect of one's own kusala (good) or akusala (evil) That is how in some instances, the sick and the infants survived while in certain other instances, the healthy and the strong died.

Although traditional Buddhism suffers from the sexism prevalent then and now in India, China, and elsewhere, it seems the Buddha recognized the essential equality between men and women.

After all, we have all been men and women at some time in our cycle of births and rebirths!

In the morning, the bhikkhuni Soma dressed and, taking bowl and robe, entered Savatthi for alms.

When she had walked for alms in Savatthi and had returned from her alms round, after her meal she went to the Blind Men's Grove for the day's abiding. Having plunged into the Blind Men's Grove, she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day's abiding.

Then Mara the Evil One, desiring to arouse fear, trepidation, and terror in the bhikkhuni Soma, desiring to make her fall away from concentration, approached her and addressed her in verse:

Then it occurred to the bhikkhuni Soma: "Now who is this that recited the verse - a human being or a non-human being?"

Then it occurred to her: "This is Mara the Evil One, who has recited the verse desiring to arouse fear, trepidation, and terror in me, desiring to make me fall away from concentration."

Then the bhikkhuni Soma, having understood, "This is Mara the Evil One," replied to him in verses:

"What does womanhood matter at all
When the mind is concentrated well,
When knowledge flows on steadily
As one sees correctly into Dhamma.
One to whom it might occur,
'I'm a woman' or 'I'm a man'
Or 'I'm anything at all' -
Is fit for Mara to address."

Then Mara the Evil One, realizing, "The bhikkhuni Soma knows me," sad and disappointed, disappeared right there.