Nyanatiloka Buddhist Dictionary

link (karma-formations) designates only karmic volition (s. áyúhana). Both, however, i.e. the2nd and 10th proposition, practically state one and the same thing, namely, that karma is thecause of rebirth, as we shall see under 10.Clinging (upádána) may be an inducement of decisive support (upanissaya) to many kinds ofwholesome and unwholesome karma. Sensuous clinging (kámúpádána), i.e. clinging to sensuousobjects, for example, may be a direct inducement to murder, theft, unlawful intercourse withthe other sex, evil words and thoughts, etc. Clinging to rules and ritual (sílabbatúpádána) maylead to self-complacency, fanaticism, cruelty, etc. Clinging is also for the evil karmaassociated therewith, a condition by way of co-nascence, association, etc.(10.) "Through the process of becoming is conditioned rebirth" (bhava-paccayá játi), i.e.through the wholesome and unwholesome karma-process (kamma-bhava) is conditioned therebirth-process (upapatti-bhava). The 2nd and 10th propositions, as already pointed out,practically teach one and the same thing, namely, that karma is the cause of rebirth; in otherwords, that the karmical volition (cetaná) is the seed out of which springs the new life, justas from the mango-seed is generated the new mango-tree.Hence, the 5 karmical causes (ignorance, etc.) of the past birth are the condition for thekarma-results of the present birth; and the 5 karmical causes of the present birth are thecondition for the 5 karma-results of the next birth (s. diagram). As it is said in Vis.M. XVII:"Five causes were there in the past,Five fruits we find in present life;Five causes do we now produce,Five fruits we reap in future life."Now, just as in this process of continually changing mental and bodily phenomena, nothing canbe found that would pass from one moment to the next moment, so also there is no enduringentity, ego, or personality, within this process of existence that would transmigrate from onelife to the next (s. náma-rúpa, anattá, patisandhi, khandha). "No being and no living soulpassed from the former life to this life, and yet this present embryo could not have enteredinto existence without the preceding causes" (Vis.M. XVII). "Many things may serve toillustrate this fact, as for example the echo, the light of a lamp, the impression of a seal, orthe image produced by a mirror" (ib.)."Whosoever is in the dark with regard to the conditionally arisen things, and does notunderstand that karma originates from ignorance, etc., he thinks that it must be his ego thatknows or does not know, acts and causes to act, and that arises at rebirth. Or he thinks thatthe atoms, or a creator, with the help of this embryonic process, must have formed thisbody, or that it is the ego endowed with faculties that has impressions, feels, desires, clings,continues and enters again into existence in a new birth. Or he thinks that all beings havebeen born through fate, or fortuitously" (Vis.M. XVII).Now, on hearing that Buddhism teaches that everything whatever in the world is determinedby conditions some might come to the conclusion that Buddhism teaches some sort offatalism, and that man has no free will, or that will is not free.