Shared Karma, and Strong Versus Weak
The treatise turns to a distinction that explains why a whole world-system's own physical environment feels like something beings jointly inhabit rather than each build separately — shared karma versus karma unique to each being — before an extended catalogue of exactly what makes one act of karma decisively stronger than another.
1. Shared Karma Versus Karma Unique to Each Being
如契經言：有共業、有不共業。云何共業？若業能令諸器世間種種差別。云何不共業？若業能令有情世間種種差別。或復有業令諸有情展轉增上，由此業力說諸有情更互相望為增上緣，以彼互有增上力故，亦名共業。是故經言：如是有情與餘有情互相見等，而不受用、不易可得。
As the sūtra says: there is shared karma, and there is karma unique to each being. What is shared karma? Karma capable of bringing about the container world's own various differences. What is unique karma? Karma capable of bringing about the sentient world's own various differences.
There is, further, karma that causes sentient beings to mutually reinforce one another — through the force of this karma, sentient beings are said to serve as a dominant condition for one another, since each genuinely exercises a dominant influence on the others; this too is called shared karma. It is for this reason that the sūtra says: such sentient beings can see one another and the like, yet cannot simply take and make use of one another's own experience, nor can this be exchanged.
The closing scriptural quotation makes a subtle but important qualification to "shared" karma: even the physical container world that many beings jointly inhabit and jointly influence one another's experience of is not, on this account, some single external object standing entirely apart from every individual mind — each being still experiences that shared world through their own private continuum, and one being's actual felt experience can never simply be lifted out and handed directly to another, however much their surrounding circumstances overlap. "Shared" describes a genuine mutual influence and a genuine common environment, not a literal merging of separate minds into one.
2. What Makes a Karmic Act Strong
云何強力業？謂對治力強補特伽羅，故思所造諸不善業，由對治力所攝伏故，令當受那落迦業轉成現法受、應現法受業轉令不受。所以此業名強力者，由能對治業力強故。又故思所造一切善業皆名強力。依此業故，薄伽梵說：我聖弟子能以無量廣大之業善熏其心，諸所造作有量之業，不能牽引、不能留住，亦不能令墮在彼數。
What is strong karma? A person of strong antidote-power who has deliberately committed some unwholesome act — through the very strength of that antidote's power, an act that should have brought hell-rebirth is transformed into one ripening only in this present life, and even an act that should have ripened in this present life can be transformed into one that need not ripen at all. Such karma is called strong precisely because the countering, antidotal power is itself strong. Every wholesome act deliberately performed is likewise called strong. It is on the strength of this same principle that the Bhagavat said: my noble disciples are able to thoroughly perfume their own minds with immeasurable, vast karma — so that the limited karma they have separately accumulated can neither drag them along, nor hold them fast, nor cause them to fall into that karma's own destined reckoning.
又對治力劣補特伽羅，故思所造諸不善業，望諸善業皆名強力。又故思造業異熟決定不斷不知，名強力業。此中意說一切善不善業異熟決定，聖道力不斷者，皆名強力業。又欲界繫諸不善業性皆是強力。又先所串習名強力業。又依強位名強力業。又不可治者所造諸業名強力業，無涅槃法故。又由田故發強力業。又由心加行故發強力業，謂於無上菩提發強大願等。
Also, for a person of weak antidote-power, deliberately committed unwholesome acts, set against wholesome acts, are likewise all called strong. Also, deliberately performed karma whose ripening is fixed, uninterrupted by the noble path's own power, and not otherwise counteracted, is called strong karma — meaning, in effect, that any wholesome or unwholesome karma whose ripening is fixed and not severed by the power of the noble path is called strong. Also, every unwholesome act bound to the desire realm is, by its very nature, strong. Also, karma long habituated beforehand is called strong. Also, karma performed at the height of one's powers is called strong. Also, karma performed by one incapable of being counteracted at all — lacking any capacity for nirvāṇa — is called strong, for lack of any antidote whatsoever. Also, karma is made strong by the field it is directed toward. Also, karma is made strong by the mind's own deliberate effort — as when one gives rise to a vast, resolute vow toward unsurpassed awakening.
由九種因發強力業，謂由田故、事故、自體故、所依故、作意故、意樂故、助伴故、多修習故、與多眾生共所行故。
Karma is made strong through nine distinct causes: by its field, by its matter, by its own essence, by its support, by its mental application, by its underlying intention, by its accompaniment, by repeated cultivation, and by being carried out together with many other beings.
The nine causes each have a concrete illustration in T1606: a strong "field" means an object of unusually great merit, worthy of offerings; a strong "matter" means a gift that is abundant and of the finest quality; "own essence" ranks the different kinds of wholesome practice by their own inherent strength (moral discipline outweighs mere giving, meditative cultivation outweighs discipline, and so on); "support" means an act performed by one already free of desire; "mental application" means an act accompanied by especially vigorous, pure faith; "underlying intention" means an act motivated by genuine aspiration toward nirvāṇa itself, not lesser aims; "accompaniment" means an act reinforced by broadly cultivating other meritorious deeds alongside it; "repeated cultivation" is simply sustained practice over time; and "carried out together with many other beings" means an act one performs oneself, teaches others to perform, or rejoices in seeing others perform, multiplying its force through shared participation. Taken together with the earlier list of what makes karma strong through antidote-power, habituation, timing, or the sheer absence of any capacity for liberation, this section gives a remarkably granular picture: karmic weight is never a single, uniform quantity, but the resultant of many distinct, independently varying factors — some about the act itself, some about the person performing it, and some about the specific circumstances surrounding it.
Part 42 Complete
Shared and unique karma, and the nine causes behind a strong act of karma, are now examined. Part 43 turns to a famous scriptural puzzle — why the Buddha seems, in one passage, to deny that pleasant karma always ripens as pleasant experience — and the treatise's own resolution of what that teaching actually, more precisely, means.
Continue to Part 43 — What "Pleasant Karma Ripens as Pleasant" Really Means →