For a Buddhist practitioner, gaining a comprehensive understanding of the law of kamma, is one of the essential things to aim at. So, here a small elucidation of this very fundamental law along the line of Abhidhamma.

Some Explanations on the Workings of Kamma

Suppose, for example a good meditator, attains samadhi, and picks up a certain kamma related to his spiritual path. Presumably, many times in the past he has been a monk, a priest, shaman, or scholar or something of that sort,….perhaps in the first place initiated, through the sight of some such person of knowledge. Then in many further lives, he off and on gathers kammical seeds (generating supportive kamma) related to that initial kamma. Which means, that after kamma generating thoughts related to this particular kamma, a binding or registering consciousness (tadarammana) arises, which binds those new types of kamma to the stock of related previous kamma.

In some lives, that kammical seed finds some opportunity to grow within an introspective consciousness (mind-door adverting), getting fed by a further desire for growth (vithi- a thought accompanied by a wholesome desire) (kamma is the seed, consciousness is the field desire for more is the moisture).

That kammical seed sprouting thus in consciousness, occasionally grows into speech and actions. Those verbal and physical actions in turn create circumstances and opportunities for further growth of that kamma. Which in some lives mean, that that person will take on the mode of life of a monk or priest or scholar.

But then, as is the nature of the physical manifestation of those kammical seeds that were responsible for the coming into being of the physical body, this manifestation has to yield itself to the laws of the physical world and in due time decay and perish. Yet, in accordance with certain laws governing the nature of the mind, at the near death moment of the physical manifestation of certain seeds that generated the physical body (meaning, at the near death moment of the body), there will arise certain mind states, (depending on the quality of the faculties at that time), which will initiate, based on certain fundamental tendencies, the continuation of certain kammical seeds in a future body.

Once the future physical body is taken on, certain tendencies of a more fundamental kind, will agree to the new existence (bhāva-nikkantika lobha). And thus, in the initial period of the new existence, usually only the more fundamental kammical seeds will have a chance of growing and much new kammical seeds are getting generated through responses made to impressions coming from the physical senses. Thus, there may come lives in which kammical seeds related to phases of further development will have no chances of growth due to the coping with impressions coming through the physical senses.

Note: Mind in Buddhism refers usually exclusively to the lower mind, excluding the higher faculties