{"collection":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","full_text_available":false,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits027_htm/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits027_htm","id":"sacred_texts_v1_bud_bits_bits027_htm","license":"unknown_pending_legal_review","rights_basis":"sacred_texts_v1_preview_gate_primary_text_only; acquisition-method/ToS and compilation-copyright questions still open, not resolved by this gate","source":"sacred_texts_v1","source_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/bud/bits/bits027.htm","summary":"This is a translated excerpt from the *Visuddhi-Magga* (Path of Purification), a foundational 5th-century Theravada Buddhist scholastic treatise, presenting a systematic doctrinal analysis of karma. The passage categorizes karma into six types across two triplets: meritorious, demeritorious, and \"immovability\" karma (tied to formless-realm meditation); and bodily, vocal, and mental karma distinguished by the avenue through which intention manifests. Its central argument is that all karma \u2014 including ostensibly good, meritorious acts \u2014 is causally dependent on ignorance (*avijj\u0101*), the failure to perceive the Four Noble Truths correctly. The text makes the striking claim that even meritorious deeds performed in pursuit of happiness are themselves forms of suffering, since they perpetuate the cycle of rebirth; it illustrates this with vivid similes (a moth flying into a lamp, someone licking a honey-smeared knife's edge). The passage culminates in the assertion that a truly wise person who abandons ignorance does not even perform meritorious karma, implying liberation transcends the entire karmic framework rather than merely improving one's karmic balance. Readers interested in Theravada Buddhist philosophy of mind, the mechanics of dependent origination, or the doctrinal basis for why enlightenment ends rebirth will find this a dense but rewarding primary source.","tags":["Henry Clarke Warren","Pali Canon Translations","Theravada Buddhism"],"text":null,"title":"Buddhism in Translations - \u00a7 27. Karma.","tradition":"Sacred Texts: Buddhism","translated_text":null,"word_count":916}