asahi wrote: ↑Tue Mar 28, 2023 12:59 am
Sam Vara wrote: ↑Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:18 pm
The issue here is indeed intention. Whatever the beliefs of the slaughterer, the ineradicable fact is that s/he intends the animal to die, and follows through with it.
I agree generally with above said , but a muslim intention is to do a job in his mind set some sort like cutting vegetables and not something like intending in killing a human being .
Sure. The intention to cut vegetables, to kill an animal, and to kill a human being all have different intentions, but in each case the intention is there.
But lets see , the Buddha idea is saying what matters in producing rebirth is intention (of craving) .
OK, although in AN 6.63 the intention is mentioned without the craving.
That’s why he said “I define deeds (karma) as intention.
The Pali (in AN 6.63) is:
Cetanāhaṁ, bhikkhave, kammaṁ vadāmi. What this means exactly is subject to some disagreement. Bhikkhu Bodhi translates it as "It is volition, monks, that I call kamma", and adds in his notes:
This should probably be understood to mean that volition is a necessary factor in creating kamma, not that volition on its own invariably and in all instances creates kamma. It can thus be seen as a counterfoil to the Jain position that any action, even an unintentional one, creates kamma...The Chinese parallel...says: "How does one understand kamma? There are two kinds of kamma: intention and the kamma [created] when one has intended...
But if we take cetana to mean intention, it is in no sense a counterfoil to the Jain position, nor is the Chinese parallel helpful in deciding this. Nor can we automatically assume that cetana is intention; the P.E.D. also gives "mind in action, thinking as active thought..."
More importantly, Thanissaro thranslates it more simply and directly as
Intention, I tell you, is kamma
This seems to be saying that the rwo are synonymous; if there is intention, then it is kamma. And then there is the next line with an ambiguous absolutive
Cetayitvā. Sujato sides with BB, in rendering this:
For after making a choice one acts
But look at what BB says about absolutives in
Reading the Buddha's discourses in Pali (p.33):
The primary use of the absolutive is to express an action done by the subject of the sentence prior to the action denoted by the main verb; on occasion the action described by the absolutive may occur at the same time as the action denoted by the main verb
And this is precisely how Thanissaro sees it:
Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, and intellect.
For me, what decides it is the fact that if the Buddha said that intention (or even some other form of mentation) was merely a necessary condition for kamma, we are left wondering what is the extra factor which is required for it to be kammic. We are given lots of examples of kamma, but apart from that passage, and maybe others like it, there is no definition of what this incredibly important mental factor actually
is.