Niyamas (conditioning factors of existence)

Agree.
I am sure there is a Suttha saying that every thing is not caused by Karma. If every thing caused by karma we will not be able to exercise our free will (citta Niyama). Hence we will not be able to end Sumsara.
Directly or indirectly Niyamas are supported in Sutthas.

Hi. Sorry if I have not much directly to contribute in matters of text, but I wrote some articles about the Niyāma. You can find them here if you are interested. They are my own working out of them though, and are not purely traditional.

Hello. The page says:

The last law described, Dhamma Niyāma is the law of purification and perfection. It is the law that comes into play when a person becomes skillful in using the law of kamma. That is, a person, based on acquired learning about the imperfect nature of material or worldly life and the possibility of perfecting his being, is setting before himself to transcend this material or worldly life and works to become such perfected being.

The suttas seems to call this type of kamma: ā€œthe kamma that ends kammaā€.

And what is kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result, leading to the ending of kamma? Right view, right resolve, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. This is called kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result, leading to the ending of kamma.

AN 4.237

The above seems based in the Dhamma Niyama mentioned in SN 12.20 about ending ignorance & craving.

Whether Realized Ones arise or not, this law of nature persists, this regularity of natural principles, this invariance of natural principles, specific conditionality.

Uppādā vā tathāgatānaį¹ anuppādā vā tathāgatānaį¹, į¹­hitāva sā dhātu dhammaį¹­į¹­hitatā dhammaniyāmatā idappaccayatā.

SN 12.20

Correct:

ā€œThe last law described, Dhamma Niyāma is the law of purification and perfection. It is the law that comes into play when a person becomes skillful in using the law of kamma. That is, a person, based on acquired learning about the imperfect nature of material or worldly life and the possibility of perfecting his being, is setting before himself to transcend this material or worldly life and works to become such perfected being.ā€

ā€”Dhammananda

Well, in that summary I have only stated that that Law is the law ā€œthat comes into playā€ when you begin to make steps on the path. All the other laws are still operating on you (and you still have to concern yourself with them) until Parinibbana. It is more about the magic that happens when you begin to walk the pathā€¦

1 Like

Itā€™s incorrect to refer to it as ā€˜magic;ā€™ itā€™s the development of skillful qualities requiring painful work and art.

And, in the most general terms, the fact that skillfulness leads ultimately to a dimension where skillfulness is transcended, accounts for a paradoxical dynamic common to all seven sets that form the Wings: the meditator must intentionally make use of qualities from which he/she wants to escape, gaining familiarity with them in the course of mastering them to the point where they are naturally stilled. There the transcendent paths and their fruitions take over. This is the sense in which even the path of right practice must eventually be abandoned, but only after it has been brought to the culmination of its development."ā€”Thanissaro

The Anapanasati sutta (Majhima Nikaya 118) repeatedly emphasizes this development of skills:

" And how are the four establishings of mindfulness developed & pursued so as to bring the seven factors of awakening to their culmination?"

The developing of skills and so on, refers still to ā€œthe kamma that ends kammaā€. The entering into the domain of the ā€œLaw of Dhammaā€ is more about what you experience as a result of that. This is by many experienced as entering so to say a sphere of magic, wherein ā€œwhat you getā€ appears to be utterly out of proportion in magnitude to what you do. As if you were guided and supported by invisible hands. Some donā€™t like the word magic though (to my mind certainly because they have something different in mind than I have when I use it).

That would be under the governing principle of the cosmos. But most readers would still be in the stage of being governed by the self (Anguttara Nikaya 3.40).

Yes, but in the context of the Fivefold Niyāma, that would still relate primarily to the ā€œKamma Niyāmaā€ and not the ā€œDhamma Niyāmaā€.

Most people are in the stage of developing skills, and itā€™s not profitable to incorrectly position oneself as at the end of the path:

" Many people have misunderstood this point, believing that the Buddhaā€™s teachings on non-attachment require that one relinquish oneā€™s attachment to the path of practice as quickly as possible. Actually, to make a show of abandoning the path before it is fully developed is to abort the entire practice. As one teacher has put it, a person climbing up to a roof by means of a ladder can let go of the ladder only when safely on the roof. In terms of the famous raft simile [Ā§Ā§113-114], one abandons the raft only after crossing the flood. If one were to abandon it in mid-flood, to make a show of going spontaneously with the flow of the floodā€™s many currents, one could drown."ā€”Thanissaro

Guided by the Nibbana/Nirodha Dhatu. As SN 12.20 (already posted) says: ā€œ[the] dependently originated [is] liable to end, vanish, fade away and ceaseā€.

Where most people are at seems not relevant to speaking accurately about what the Buddha-Dhamma truly is. :slightly_smiling_face:

Our experiences right now is not only a result of past karma. Itā€™s a combination of our past and present actions (which we have control over the present actions). So this removes any sort of pre-deterministic nature in Buddhism. The Devadaha sutta explains this, including the translatorā€™s introduction at the top:
https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/mn/mn.101.than.html

Also in Girimananda sutta many body illnesses are described, however only one of them is said to occur due to karma.

Hi PrincessB,

Welcome to the D&D forum! We hope you enjoy the various resources, FAQs, and previous threads. You can use the search function for topics and keywords you are interested in. Forum guidelines are here: Forum Guidelines. May some of these resources be of assistance along the path.

If you have any questions or need further clarification regarding anything, feel free to contact the moderators by including @moderators in your post or a PM.

Regards,
@michaelh (on behalf of the moderators)