“If through and through, without residue, I am a form of Kamma, where
is to be found the position from which I can comprehend myself _as
such_?” For every position, without exception, of sheer necessity must
itself again be a form of Kamma.
Kamma, the _in-force_, is that which gives to the process concerned, to
the living being, _foothold, coherence, continuity_.
As such it presents itself to me the individual _immediately as
consciousness_. In consciousness I comprehend myself as a something
existing in virtue of an _in-force_, inasmuch as consciousness on one
hand is that which gives continuity to the _I_-process; on the other
hand, however, at every moment presents a fresh biological, Kammic
value, even as cannot be otherwise in any combustion process.
Be it well noted, however, Consciousness is not the Kamma. That
would give us Kamma as an identity. But Kamma in the course of its
self-acting development _becomes_ consciousness. Consciousness is
the _ultimate value_ (_Grenzwert_), in which at every moment of its
existence the form of the energy and the energy itself merge and
mingle, and consequently that which gives to the _I_-process not only
_conceptual_, but also _actual_ continuity.
Faith adopts as adequate cause a transcendent force, an imperceptible
to sense in itself. Science rejects all that is imperceptible to sense
and adopts as the adequate cause of one occurrence other occurrences.
The Buddha teaches that the actual processes have being in virtue of an
_in-force_, _i.e._ an imperceptible to sense; but this imperceptible
to sense is so, _not “in itself,”_ as a transcendent in itself, but in
the course of its automatic development, _for the individual becomes
perceptible to sense as consciousness_.
It is in this sense that we are to understand the matter when the
Buddha, having specified consciousness as one of the five Khandhas,
thus making it a _form_ of Kamma, upon another occasion says, “_It
is Cetana (thinking) that I call Kamma._” In a Burmese school I once
listened to the following questions and answers: _Teacher_, “What
is Kamma?” _Pupil_, “Cetana.” _Teacher_, “What is Cetana?” _Pupil_,
“Kamma.”
In this sense is to be understood the frequently recurring formula:
“In dependence upon individuality (_nāma-rūpa_) arises consciousness
(_viññāṇa_); in dependence upon consciousness arises individuality.”
For _in-force_, in contradistinction to a transcendent universal force,
is something that only exists in dependence upon its material.
The understanding of this point will be rendered much easier by a
comparison with a flame.
In a flame each moment of its existence represents a specific degree
of heat which, as such, _is the power_ to set up a succeeding moment
of ignition. This power is actualized wherever and for as long as
inflammable matter, fuel, is present. The inflammable matter, so
to say, is the liberating provocation that causes this power, this
potential energy which the flame every moment represents in virtue of
its heat to enter into life, and shows it the way into living energy.
But with this conversion into living energy, _i.e._ with the fact that
a new ignition moment is called into life, a new degree of heat, a new
value in potential energy also is produced, which, as the succeeding
ignition moment, anew passes over into living energy, thus forming
a repetition of the whole proceeding. It is a process which may be
briefly designated as a self-charging. The self-discharging, the act
of the passage of potential into living energy, is simultaneously the
charging anew with potential energy. Precisely in this consists the
nature of the self-active. The self-active is that which possesses the
faculty, the power to sustain itself; and this self-sustaining, when
analyzed, exhibits itself in the form of self-charging. If potential
energy has passed over into living energy, there is here no need of an
accession of foreign energy to fashion a new store of potential energy.
This new store is implied in the discharge itself. Energy, actual
energy, is not something that must receive an impetus from without in
order to come into activity, it is activity, action itself, and proves
itself such by itself; and all that is necessary is to comprehend, to
comprise it in this its characteristic quality.
That this perfectly natural conception to us has become so unnatural,
must be laid to the charge of our habits of thought, trained
one-sidedly as we have been, along the lines of mechanical views. Where
something happens, we look for some impulse from without; but we ought
never to forget that science does not give the actual world at all,
but only a re-actual world; in which world, to be sure, impulses must
be given if anything is to happen at all. The mechanical world-theory
is simply a “reading” of the play of world-events in order to give
computation and determination in advance; never under any circumstances
does it furnish an insight into actuality itself. Actuality is action
out of itself; it is the self-active. And all the insoluble problems
in which science loses her way when she seeks to carry the mechanical
comprehension of the play of world-events from the reversible processes
where it is possible and legitimate, over to the non-reversible
processes, all in the last analysis amount to this, that one is trying
to demonstrate something--_i.e._ the biological process--from external
preconditions, which along such lines can never be demonstrated,
not because in itself incapable of demonstration, but because it is
demonstrating itself through itself.
This the genuine thinker must absolutely hold to. Actuality is action
itself, not something that first must be acted upon. Everything
re-actual is thinkable only as the sequel of a push requires a push for
its explanation. Everything that is actual burns.
After this, what takes place in the _I_-process becomes comprehensible.
Here the passing over from potential to living energy has its
counterpart in the _volitional movements_. At every moment of its
existence the _I_-process represents a specific value in potential
energy which there where the external world enters with its
“liberating” provocations, ever and again passes over into living
energy as volitional movement. Every discharge in the form of a
volitional movement is a charging afresh with potential energy. It
is a self-sustaining proceeding in the fullest sense of the words.
The volitional movements are the ever repeated new foothold which the
_I_ fashions for itself, the ever repeated “sustenance” wherewith it
provides itself afresh.
The all-important point about this conception is that one should
clearly see that Kamma _does not, like a cord of some sort of solid
material_, thread itself through the _I_-process, as would be bound to
be the case with an _I_-force, whether dubbed soul, or life-force, or
whatever else; but that in every volitional movement it ever and again
springs up anew out of a material to which it itself, in the first
place, ever and again lends the power to this end. The material has
to be _Kammatized_ so as to be able to give Kamma the opportunity to
spring up anew. As in the friction of one piece of wood with another,
heat springs up, and ever and again springs up with each repetition of
the friction, so in the friction of the _I_-process with the external
world, with things, ever and again new volitional movements spring up.
“Somewhat, O monk, as when two pieces of wood are laid one upon the
other, are rubbed one against the other, heat arises, fire springs up;
and when these two pieces of wood are parted, are separated, the heat
that has arisen, disappears, ceases; even so, O monk, by reason of a
contact of a pleasurable nature, a pleasurable sensation springs up.”[3]
This the reply, the reaction peculiar to itself of the _I_-process
to the external world, a reply, a reaction that takes the form of
volitional movements, this is Kamma, the action of this _I_-process.
That which as regards all the rest of the world is imperceptible to
sense, here in the self-acting, the spontaneous development of the
individual, _becomes_ perceptible to sense. Nothing else whatever is
concealed within the _I_-process: itself has disclosed itself. As in a
flame there is nothing hidden and concealed, its activity constituting
its entire being, so in the _I_-process there is nothing hidden and
concealed. Its activity constitutes its entire being, and this activity
_in full entirety_ is disclosed in consciousness to the individual
himself, and to him only. And nothing more is needed than to comprehend
actuality simply as that which it is.
This insight into the _I_ as a pure combustion process places the whole
problem of existence upon an entirely new foundation.
In a combustion process every moment of its existence is a
_setting-up-of-life_ just as much as an _entering-into-life_. The
_I_-process in all its activities, whether of the corporeal or of the
mental variety, is a constant growing up of life itself, an arising,
a perpetual refashioning, setting up anew, inasmuch as the energy
perpetually works up, assimilates fresh material. Here is no _I_ that
experiences; no _I_ that thinks, speaks, does. I do not _have_ all this
as my functions, but this doing, speaking, thinking--this itself I
_am_. In all this I ever and again am being built anew, just as in the
assimilating of the nourishment of which I partake, I ever and again am
built anew,--it is all the one same process of combustion, differing
only in the surrounding circumstances and antecedent conditions.
“What, O monks, is the arising of the world? By reason of the eye
and of forms there arises visual consciousness. The conjunction of
the three constitutes contact. In dependence upon contact arises
sensation. In dependence upon sensation arises the thirst for life. In
dependence upon the thirst for life arises clinging. In dependence upon
clinging arises becoming. In dependence upon becoming arises birth (as
the birth of a fresh biological impulsion). In dependence upon birth
arises old age and death.”
This passage recurs with great frequency in the Scriptures. Following
the same scheme there are next dealt with--hearing and sounds, smell
and odours, taste and flavours, the body and contacts, thinking and
concepts.
In every one of its activities, at every moment of its existence, the
_I_-process is not something that possesses arising as a function,
but it _is_ the arising itself, as the flame _is_ the arising itself.
And it _is_ the arising itself because it burns, because it exists
in virtue of an individual energy. It is the thirst for life, the
impulsion towards life, which _upholds life_, causes it ever and again
to spring up anew, and _is life itself_; in exactly the same way
that the heat of a flame upholds the flame and is the flame itself.
We do not _have_ the impulse to life--that calls for a _conscious_
impulse--but we _are_ the life-impulse itself.