Karma Begins
Having examined every affliction at exhaustive length, the treatise turns to origination's second half — the karma affliction's dominant force actually produces. It opens with the classical division of karma into volition itself and what volition produces through body and speech, the ten karma-paths, and the five-part structure used to precisely analyze any single act, worked through in full detail for killing.
1. Volitional Karma, Karma-After-Volition, and Five Kinds of Function
云何煩惱增上所生諸業？謂若思業、若思已業，總名業相。又有五種業：一取受業、二作用業、三加行業、四轉變業、五證得業。今此義中意多分別加行業。
What is the karma produced through affliction's own dominant force? Volitional karma, together with karma-after-volition, is collectively named karma's own mark. There are, further, five kinds of karmic function: the function of grasping and receiving, the function of activity, the function of preparatory effort, the function of transformation, and the function of realization. In this present context, the discussion mostly concerns the function of preparatory effort specifically.
何等為思業？謂福業、非福業、不動業。何等為思已業？謂身業、語業、意業。又此身語意三業，或善或不善。不善者，即十不善業道，謂殺生、不與取、欲邪行、虛誑語、離間語、麁惡語、雜穢語、貪欲、瞋恚、邪見。善者即十善業道，謂離殺生、離不與取、離欲邪行、離虛誑語、離離間語、離麁惡語、離雜穢語、無貪、無瞋、正見。
What is volitional karma? Meritorious karma, demeritorious karma, and unshakable karma. What is karma-after-volition? Bodily karma, verbal karma, and mental karma.
These three — bodily, verbal, and mental karma — are further either wholesome or unwholesome. The unwholesome are the ten unwholesome karma-paths: killing, taking what is not given, sexual misconduct, false speech, divisive speech, harsh speech, frivolous speech, covetousness, ill will, and wrong view. The wholesome are the ten wholesome karma-paths: abstaining from killing, from taking what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from false speech, from divisive speech, from harsh speech, and from frivolous speech, together with non-covetousness, non-ill-will, and correct view.
T1606 clarifies why the treatise focuses specifically on "the function of preparatory effort" among the five kinds of karmic function just listed: grasping-and-receiving describes the ordinary faculties simply doing their basic job (the eye seeing, and the like); activity describes matter's own inherent properties (earth's capacity to support weight); transformation describes a craftsman deliberately reshaping raw material into an ornament; and realization describes the noble path bringing about nirvāṇa — none of these four is what "karma" ordinarily means in an ethical sense. Preparatory effort — deliberate volition giving rise to bodily and verbal action — is specifically what the ten karma-paths, and the entire subsequent discussion of ethical cause and effect, actually concerns.
2. The Five-Fold Structure for Analyzing Any Act, Worked Through for Killing
又殺生等應以五門分別其相，謂事故、意樂故、方便故、煩惱故、究竟故。如契經言：故思造業。云何名為故思造業？謂他所教勅故思造業、他所勸請故思造業、無所了知故思造業、根本執著故思造業、顛倒分別故思造業。此中根本執著故思造業、顛倒分別故思造業，若作若增長，非不受異熟。作者，謂起造諸業令其現行。增長者，謂令習氣增益。
Killing, and every other karma-path, should be analyzed through five components: the basis, the underlying intention, the means, the affliction involved, and the completion. As the sūtra says: deliberately volitional karma. What is deliberately volitional karma? It is of five kinds: karma deliberately performed at another's instruction; karma deliberately performed at another's urging; karma deliberately performed out of sheer ignorance; karma deliberately performed out of a firmly rooted conviction; and karma deliberately performed out of distorted discrimination. Of these five, the latter two — performed out of firmly rooted conviction, or out of distorted discrimination — if either performed or reinforced through repetition, invariably produce a karmic ripening. "Performed" means the act is actually carried out and made to occur; "reinforced through repetition" means its habitual imprint is thereby strengthened.
於此義中殺生事者，謂有情數。意樂者，謂此想及必害意。方便者，謂為害故，加刀杖等。煩惱者，謂貪等。究竟者，謂彼眾生由方便故，或無間死或後時死。
In the specific case of killing: the basis is a being capable of being killed. The underlying intention is both correctly recognizing the target as such and the firm intent to actually kill it. The means is taking up a weapon or the like for the purpose of killing. The affliction involved is craving, hatred, or delusion, as fitting. The completion is that the being, through the means employed, dies either immediately or at some later time.
The five deliberately-volitional modes are worth reading as a graded scale of moral responsibility, and T1606's own point about which two "always" produce a karmic ripening is the key takeaway: acting at another's coercive instruction, at another's mere persuasion, or out of simple ignorance are all comparatively lighter — such acts, even when actually carried out, do not necessarily generate the deeper habitual reinforcement that guarantees a future ripened result. Acting out of one's own firmly rooted, deep-seated conviction, or out of one's own actively distorted reasoning, by contrast, always leaves this deeper mark, precisely because the deed in these two cases expresses something more fully, deliberately one's own, rather than something merely triggered from outside or performed thoughtlessly. This five-part analytic structure — basis, intention, means, affliction, completion — is the treatise's own general-purpose tool, and the treatise applies it explicitly to killing here as the paradigm case before moving on to the remaining nine karma-paths in the parts that follow.
Part 39 Complete
Karma's own basic structure is now established: volitional karma and karma-after-volition, the five kinds of karmic function, the ten karma-paths, and the five-part analytic scheme worked through in full for killing. Part 40 applies this same structure to the remaining nine karma-paths, and turns to what makes a karmic result absolutely certain to ripen.
Continue to Part 40 — The Nine Remaining Karma-Paths, and Decisive Karma →