Fear and The Ambiguity of Intention
(Buddhist Literature Essay)
A path to enlightenment, transcendence of samsara into utter Buddhahood might deceivingly seem, although exceedingly difficult and requiring substantial determination, somewhat straightforward. If one follows a life of commitment to the “path”, they will be navigating forward and generating good karma. “Of all the paths the Eightfold Path is the best; of all the truths the Four Noble Truths are the best; of all things passionlessness is the best: of men the Seeing One (the Buddha) is the best.”(1) Regardless of the school of Buddhism, The Four Noble Truths, the fourth of which encompasses The Eightfold Path as part of magga (2), are central to the practice and inform the pretenses under which the dharma operates. Within sīla (3) is one of Buddhism’s central tenants: the purity of actions, the idea that actions should come from one’s personal self restraint and/ or self motivated action due to their intrinsic commitment to the spiritual path rather than external motivations of gaining karmic advantage. Nevertheless, the path seems less linear when fear, a visceral reaction that lives in the human psyche and a chemical response to danger or the possibility of danger (4), might be interpreted to be used as a tactic of compliance and following the path in the same texts that suggest the purity of actions like The Platform Sutra, The Dhammapada, and others in the canon like the The Hungry Ghosts stories. Additionally, the ambiguity of intention, and its epistemic uncertainty as it relates to “selfishness” and views on karma contingent on action, obscures the clarity of the spiritual path to enlightenment.
The laws of karma are heavily informed by the intention behind action, “rooted in ethical considerations… what matters are the attitudes, desires, passions, dispositions, and general character with which we perform the action and not the actions per se and their general results. That is, the karma of an action is determined largely by the intentions dispositions desires character and moral virtue of the agent.” (5) The concept of “cetanā” encapsulates the notion of intention behind impulse, which heavily informs an individual’s karmic path. “I say, monks, that cetanā is kamma; having intended, one does a deed by body, word, or thought.” (6) In this case, intention is equanimous or even prioritized over the action itself. “Actions performed without intention produce no karma, whereas intention alone is capable of producing it. That is, intention is not only a necessary condition for considering an act to be moral or immoral, it is sometimes held to be sufficient.” (7) However, much of the “doing” in the doctrine lies is in contemplation, on meditation, dhyāna (8), in the process of what is not done and how craving is resisted (9), “such an emphasis on originating dispositions and intentions as determinative of moral quality implies that it matters little what we do.”
The Platform Sutra explores the idea of how good deeds without purity of intention do not equal good merit. The text exemplifies the story of Bodhidharma revealing to Emperor Wu of Liang that his good deeds would bring him no merit. In The Pure Land of the West the greater importance of one's inner state is developed. It is highlighted how “lay practice outside of a monastery is preferable to following the forms of monastic renunciation without inner practice.” “The Master said, building monasteries, giving alms, and making offerings are simply ways to cultivate blessings. You can’t confuse blessings with merit. Merit concerns the dharma body, not a field of blessings.”
Despite the emphasis on intention of action, the ambiguity of what consists as an action that holds karmic consequences seldom draws distinction between a thought and the physical embodiment of the agent. “The vocal or physical act is, as it were the thought or intention incarnate. Buddhism refuses to make the clear-cut distinction between mental act and the bodily and vocal acts found in western action theory.” Much of the “doing” is in contemplation, and in the non-doing. The Dhammapada suggests to “speak not harshly”, “inflict no violence”, eradicate desire, and renounce craving. “Let a man be watchful of speech, well controlled in mind, and not commit evil in bodily action. Let him purify these three courses of action, and win the path known by the Great Sage.” Here, there is no distinction between action and mind, a well controlled mind and the physical carrying out of an action are non-hierarchical.
The Platform Sutra suggests similar ideals, with an emphasis on seated mediation, as this will allow the arrival to the "pureness of our fundamental nature”, which is said to be “intrinsically pure, cannot be generated or extinguished, are self-sufficient and capable of generating dharma.” Nevertheless, the pureness of reason to embody these practices, becomes questionable as purity is the goal. The goal of purity will be achieved when these methods are applied and practiced as they are fundamental to the human core, but to attain these states one most practice contemplation and meditation, which many times involves letting go of cravings and dealing with bodily sensation, or the Six Thieves. “This expression refers to our six powers of sensation. They are called ts’ei: “thieves” because they are said to “steal” our serenity and replace it with an endless procession of sensations that alternate between attraction and repulsion.” Thus, there might be a correlation between fear and actions in the way the narrative is proposed.
The concept of fear is thought to be at the root of all suffering in Buddhism due to the sensation arising as a resistance to impermanence. There are thought to be five fears, or āhāra, fear for (one’s) livelihood (ājīvikā-bhaya), fear of grief (śoka-bhaya), fear of death (maraṇa-bhaya), fear of a bad destination (durgati-bhaya), fear through timidity (parṣadaśādya-bhaya). Passages in sacred texts that suggest distress as a byproduct might indeed trigger śoka-bhaya or durgati-bhaya and lead individuals to act to avoid these, as they suggest the possibility of grief or acquiring bad karma. The Platform Sutra highlights the pain of evil, "Make haste in what is right; defend the mind from evil. If you are slow in doing good, your mind will take delight in evil. If a person does evil, he should not do it repeatedly; he should not set his will upon it: it's painful to accumulate evil. If a person does good, he should do it repeatedly; he should set his will upon it; it's pleasant to accumulate good.” Even though the same text proposes svabhava (own-being/ becoming), and that “you will attain liberation when you meet the good friend inside your own mind”. Hence, “the ten thousand teachings are all present within your own mind”, by nature, the mind likes to rejoice in evil and one should strive for good. According to the aforementioned views on karma, an action to avoid suffering, even if it will eventually lead to a connection with one’s purity, would generate karma as it is not pure in intention.
Similarly, The Dhammapada also alludes to fear tactics in the narrative. Passages like “The craving of one given to heedless living grows like a creeper. Like the monkeys seeking fruits in the forest, he leaps from life to life tasting the fruit of his karma.” or “Whoever is over come by this retched and sticky craving, his sorrows grow like grass after the rains. This I say to you good luck to all assembled here! Dig up the root of craving, like one in search of the fragrant root of the brown grass. Let not Mara crush she will get in again, as a flood of crushes a reed” exemplify the deep rooted byproduct of evil with an aggressive undertone, which might come to lead individuals to act on behalf of avoiding the gruesome consequences of evil action. A parallel emerges, as there is an emphasis on the true nature wanting to do good, there is a sense of false fulfillment in doing bad. “When our nature is false, it gives rise to eighteen kinds of falsehood. When our nature is true, it gives rise to eighteen kinds of truth. Who uses them for evil is an ordinary being. Who uses them for good is a buddha. And where does such usage come from? From our nature.”
The story of The Hungry Ghosts sets up a tangible narrative of what could happen if people decide to live their life in evil ways. This could be interpreted as a way of inciting fear into people’s life in order to have them follow the teachings, nevertheless, this idea directly contradicts the Buddhist purpose of having everyone find their own journey and stirring away from being dogmatic. In Sugar Mill “Gudasala”, it is said that intentions matter and that the actions themselves, “and so Maudgalyanana, the result of absolutely evil actions is absolutely evil, the result of absolutely pure actions is absolutely pure, and the result of mixed actions is mixed.” Here the question arises once again, to what extent can an action be absolutely pure if it is fear driven? A conflicting proposal from the previous interpretations of karma aligns more with this passage, “inconsistent with a fourth full classification of karma in terms of consequences- White, black, black and white, neither black nor white.” This interpretation suggests that there is indeed a gray area in the karmic consequences, “actions which have good intentions but which also have bad consequences, intentional or unintentional are classified not as white karma (which would be the case if only the intention mattered) but as black and white karma.” The gnarly depiction of the ghosts show a perspective of bad karma, what would happen to someone if they don’t act well. A resistance to ending up like a ghosts seems like a natural reaction of any sentient being, following a good moral code as a way to avoid a similar dreadful fate to the ghosts remains vague in terms of the type of karma being generated.
The ghosts are criticized for being selfish due to their performance of negative and malicious acts. Yet the critique rests in an ambiguous space: is it explicitly about selfishness or merely condemns the actions themselves? There is an ambiguity that arises about purity of intention, because it would be considered "selfish" to perform good deeds in order to receive merit, and the actions would not generate "good karma" even if they are exploitative in their intention. The discourse around selfishness versus intention can be traced back in to the Buddhist perception of self, or rather, lack of self, anātman. “This idea of self is at the root of every evil passion.”
“Given the truth of the Buddhist view of the person as a stream of causally connected past, present and future “selves”, then what reason does my present egoistic self have for promoting the interests of any of my future selves?” The epistemic uncertainty castes a shadow of uncertainty over any motive behind any given action. It could be considered both “selfish” or egoistic to act in a way that favors the future self in order to generate “good karma”, but also altruistic, as one needs to give up momentary pleasure by resisting desire. “Hence it seems that a certain minimal altruism is required for Prudential egoistic action the promotion of the interests of my future selves is a minimally altruistic act especially when some interest clash with my present desires.” The only alternative then, is a state of thoughtlessness, where action arises merely as a reflection of one’s true nature, a manifestation of pure intention, “those who understand the teaching of no-thought see the realm of Buddhas.”
In a mind of no-thought there is no room for fear, desire, or distraction. "And the realization of the samadhi of prajna is no-thought. And what do we mean by ‘no-thought’? The teaching of no-thought means to see all dharmas without being attached to any dharma, to reach everywhere without being attached anywhere, to keep your nature pure, so that when the Six Thieves pass through the Six Gates, they neither avoid nor are corrupted by the Six Realms of Sensation but come and go freely… Those who understand the direct teaching of no- thought reach the stage of enlightenment."
In the quest for enlightenment, as long as there is any notion of the self, or self-interest for that matter, as well a present presence of sensation or distraction, there will live ambiguity of intention and of karma generated. Texts like The Dhammapada, The Platform Sutra, and The Hungry Ghosts stories allude to fear tactics to promote the path, which might get in the way of actions being purely love and compassion driven, yet something being pure cannot exist under the notion of self or without no-thought. When these notions are present, the gray area between narratives that might cause fear and lead to people following the religion due to fear of “bad karma” or receiving negative reactions in their life versus intentions and purity gets amplified. In a more utilitarian mindset of karma, it is the action and the impact that matters more than the intention, yet across the texts there are many situations where merit is “meritless” if it doesn’t arise from purity of the heart, which is merely a reflection of one’s rejection to the impermanence of life.
(Full Version with footnotes/ in text citations available upon request)
Works Cited
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2. Bodhi, Bhikkhu. The Noble Eightfold Path: Way to the End of Suffering. Kandy, Sri Lanka: Buddhist Publication Society, 1994.
3. Huineng, and Red Pine. The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-Neng. Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint, 2009.
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6. O’ Flaherty, Wendy D. Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions. University of California Press, 2020.
7. Nāgārjuna, and F. Max Müller. The Dharma-Samgraha: An Ancient Collection of Buddhist Technical Terms. Delhi: Pilgrims Book Pvt. Ltd., 1999.
8. Rotman, Andy. Hungry Ghosts. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2021..
9. Prahlad Pradhan, Subhadra Jhā, and Vasubandhu. The Abhidharmakośa of Vasubandhu: With the Commentary. Patna: K.P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1983.
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