Background Reading on Karma and Vipaka

"Kamma and Its Fruit" is a collection of essays on laws of Karma, Karma and causality, "Collective Karma" and an explanation of the results of our karma. One of the essays, called "Action" by Francis Story, gives a wonderful 9-page introduction to Karma that I think most students will find interesting and easy to read.

Below you will find a list of study questions that could be used for homework or to facilitate class discussion. Remember to tell students that Kamma=Karma

Definitions: Free Will, Determinism, volition

1. What is Kamma? What are the three types of actions performed by humans? What drives us to perform these actions?

2. What is Karma considered wholesome? unwholesome?

3. Is there any outside force (parents, friends, community) that can control or change your karma?

4. Are all unwholesome acts create the same kind of karma? How do immoral acts differ from one another?

5. What is collective karma?

6. What is Vipaka? How is Helen Keller an model example of overcoming bad vipaka?

7. How or where can someone gain a better understanding of themselves and ride their mind of unwholesome thoughts? How can we rid ourselves permanently of bad karma?

8. What happens to our karma at the moment of death?

9. If we release ourselves from the world of desire or bad karma, what happens then?

click here for Kamma and Its Fruit