🌱Day 77: 🌱Why Do Our Bodies Tell Such Different Stories?: Understanding Kamma Through the Cūḷakammavibhaṅga Sutta | Study Notes from BMV Monday Sutta Study with Bhante Dr. G. Chandima

                        

The Cause of Sickness

Pāli (excerpt):

“Idha māṇava, ekacco itthī vā puriso vā sattānaṃ viheṭhakajātiko hoti pāṇinā vā leḍḍunā vā daṇḍena vā satthena vā. So tena kammena evaṃ samattena evaṃ samādinnena kāyassa bhedā parammaraṇā apāyaṃ duggatiṃ vinipātaṃ nirayaṃ upapajjati. No ce kāyassa bhedā parammaraṇā apāyaṃ duggatiṃ vinipātaṃ nirayaṃ upapajjati, sace manussattaṃ āgacchati, yattha yattha paccājāyati, bavhābādho hoti. Bavhābādhasaṃvattanikā esā māṇava, paṭipadā yadidaṃ sattānaṃ viheṭhakajātiko hoti pāṇinā vā leḍḍunā vā daṇḍena vā satthena vā.”

“Here, student, some woman or man is one who harms beings with the hand, with a clod, with a stick, or with a knife. Having done so and completed such action, on the dissolution of the body, after death, they are reborn in a state of deprivation, in a bad destination, in perdition, in hell. But if they come back to the human state, wherever they are reborn, they are sickly. This is the path leading to sickness, I say—to harm beings with the hand, with a clod, with a stick, or with a knife.”

The Cause of Good Health

Pāli (excerpt):

“Idha pana māṇava, ekacco itthī vā puriso vā sattānaṃ aviheṭhakajātiko hoti pāṇinā vā leḍḍunā vā daṇḍena vā satthena vā. So tena kammena evaṃ samattena evaṃ samādinnena kāyassa bhedā parammaraṇā sugatiṃ saggaṃ lokaṃ upapajjati. No ce kāyassa bhedā parammaraṇā sugatiṃ saggaṃ lokaṃ upapajjati, sace manussattaṃ āgacchati, yattha yattha paccājāyati, appābādho hoti. Appābādhasaṃvattanikā esā māṇava, paṭipadā yadidaṃ sattānaṃ aviheṭhakajātiko hoti pāṇinā vā leḍḍunā vā daṇḍena vā satthena vā”

“Here, student, some woman or man does not harm beings with the hand, with a clod, with a stick, or with a knife. Having done so and completed such action, on the dissolution of the body, after death, they are reborn in a good destination, in a heavenly world. But if they come back to the human state, wherever they are reborn, they are healthy. This is the path leading to health, I say—to abstain from harming beings with the hand, with a clod, with a stick, or with a knife.”

🌀 The Question That Baffles Even Today

Why do some people enjoy robust health all their lives while others, despite careful living, struggle with chronic illness from birth?

Why are some born into bodies that thrive, while others suffer silently in theirs?

Is it simply biology? Random fate? Divine will?

The Buddha offers a transformative ethical and karmic perspective that challenges both scientific materialism and fatalistic superstition.

📜 The Cūḷakammavibhaṅga Sutta’s  Answer

In MN 135, the Buddha teaches that sickness and health are not merely the results of external or immediate causes, but consequences of past moral actions—specifically, acts of violence or harmlessness.

🔻 Cause of Sickness: Past Harm

“One who harms living beings—by hand, clod, stick, or blade—on death is reborn in a woeful state. If they return to human life, they are sickly wherever reborn.”

🔺 Cause of Health: Past Harmlessness

“One who abstains from harming living beings—by hand, clod, stick, or blade—on death is reborn in a happy realm. If they return to human life, they are healthy wherever reborn.”

This is not punishment or reward, but a moral law of cause and effect (kamma-vipāka), akin to how planting a bitter seed leads to bitter fruit.

The Hidden Kamma in Your Bones

We tend to think of health as a product of:

1. Genetics 🧬
2. Diet & exercise 🏃‍♂️🥦
3. Healthcare access 🏥
4. Environment 🌍

But the Buddha boldly adds another layer: Your past actions — especially acts of harm — echo in your physical body. This is not moral punishment, but natural karmic unfolding.

Harm others → carry the karmic residue in your body.
Live harmlessly → inherit the grace of health.

It’s not random.
It’s not fate.
It’s cause and effect, beyond the microscope, traced in the unseen ledger of kamma.

🌼 What Does This Mean for Us Today?

• A health condition might be more than a medical event; it could be a karmic message.

• Instead of asking “Why me?”, we begin to reflect, “How can I live differently now?”

• The path to healing begins not just in medicine, but in ahimsa—harmlessness in thought, word, and deed.

🧘 Modern Resonance: Rethinking Health and Responsibility

Contemporary science explains illness through genetics, infection, environment, and behavior—all valid proximate causes. But the Dhamma deepens this view, offering a moral ecology where body and mind are interlinked across lifetimes.

Here’s how these teachings speak to us today:

🧬 1. Beyond Genes: Inherited Kamma

Modern medicine sees predisposition to disease in DNA. Early Buddhism suggests a kammic blueprint shaping which womb we’re born into, and how the body functions within it.

💭 2. Mental and Moral Health Interwoven

As seen in Girimānanda Sutta, perceptions (saññā) can heal. Thus, mental purification reduces future suffering, implying mindfulness, compassion, and ethical living as healthcare strategies.

🧑‍⚖️ 3. Ethics over Entitlement

In a world obsessed with looking healthy, the Dhamma reminds us: how we treat others, especially the vulnerable, may shape our own physical condition later. No one escapes the echo of their actions.

🤝 4. Collective Kamma and Social Health

Think of war zones, exploitative industries, and systemic violence: whole communities suffer poor health not merely by chance, but possibly due to collective unwholesome kamma (e.g., SN 42.3 Yodhājīva Sutta).

🪷 A Transformative Reorientation of Healing

Instead of focusing only on fixing symptoms, the Buddha’s path suggests:

• Sīla (ethical restraint) as preventive medicine

• Karuṇā (compassion) as karmic purification

• Paññā (wisdom) as deep healing of self-view

• Ahimsa (non-harming) as the root of future health

The Buddha’s teaching isn't about blame, but about freedom—from suffering caused by ignorance and cruelty.

✨ Closing Reflection: What Medicine Misses, the Dhamma Reveals

The hands that heal must not first have harmed.
The mind that wishes for peace must sow peace.
Health is not inherited—it is created, breath by breath, choice by choice.

In a world searching for miracles in pills and procedures, the greatest healing may begin in the heart—with the simple resolve:

“I will not harm.”

May this reflection on kamma inspire us to live gently—free from harm in body, speech, and mind—knowing hurt may return as future illness!