Karma and latent tendencies

What this passage does

Why does the meditation-born mind leave no residue? This passage answers through karma and its traces. The yogi's action is neither white nor black (4.7). Ripening karma wakes only the tendencies that match it (4.8); they persist across births (4.9) and have no beginning (4.10). Yet they rest on supports, and fall when those go (4.11). It restates 2.12–2.14 with the end now in view.

Learning goals

• Explain Vyāsa's four kinds of action and why the yogin's is neither white nor black (4.7).
• Explain how ripening karma wakes only matching tendencies, across any gap of birth, place or time (4.8–4.9).
• Explain how tendencies without beginning can still end (4.10–4.11).

The argument, step by step

1. A yogi's action is neither white nor black; for others it is of three kinds.
2. From that, only the latent tendencies that match its ripening come forth.
3. Even across birth, place and time they follow without a gap, because memory and impressions have one form.
4. They have no beginning, because the wish to be is permanent.
5. Yet they are held together by cause, fruit, basis and support, and when these go, they go.

The sūtras

1. 4.7 karmāśuklākṛṣṇaṃ yoginas trividham itareṣām
   A yogi's action is neither white nor black; for others it is of three kinds.
2. 4.8 tatas tadvipākānuguṇānām evābhivyaktir vāsanānām
   From that, only the latent tendencies that match its ripening come forth.
3. 4.9 jātideśakālavyavahitānām apy ānantaryaṃ smṛtisaṃskārayor ekarūpatvāt
   Even when separated by birth, place and time, they follow without a gap, because memory and impressions have one form.
4. 4.10 tāsām anāditvaṃ cāśiṣo nityatvāt
   And they have no beginning, because the wish to be is permanent.
5. 4.11 hetuphalāśrayālambanaiḥ saṃgṛhītatvād eṣām abhāve tadabhāvaḥ
   Since they are held together by cause, fruit, basis and support, when these are gone, they are gone.

Study

This passage answers the question 4.6 raised: why does the mind born of meditation leave no residue? The answer runs through karma and its traces.

The first claim sorts action. 'A yogi's action is neither white nor black; for others it is of three kinds' (4.7). Vyāsa sets out four kinds (Woods p. 305). Black action belongs to the wicked. White-and-black, the ordinary mixed life, is done by outward means and lays down karma by harming or helping others. White belongs to those who practise discipline, study and meditation, and stays within the mind. The fourth belongs to renunciants whose afflictions have dwindled and whose body is their last. Their action is not white, because they have renounced even the fruit of good action, and not black, because they do none.

The second claim explains how karma shapes experience. When karma ripens, 'only the latent tendencies that match its ripening come forth' (4.8). Vyāsa's example: karma ripening as a divine life does not call up the tendencies of hell-beings, animals or humans (p. 306).

The third claim is about distance. 'Even when separated by birth, place and time, they follow without a gap, because memory and impressions have one form' (4.9). An impression is a stored experience; a memory is that experience surfacing. Vyāsa's example is a birth as a cat: even if a hundred births, great distances or long ages intervene, once karma of that kind ripens, the cat-tendencies wake at once. As experiences are, he says, so are impressions, and as impressions are, so is memory (p. 307).

The fourth claim pushes the question back. 'And they have no beginning, because the wish to be is permanent' (4.10). Vyāsa points to the wish seen in every creature, 'May I never cease to be! May I go on being!', and asks how a creature just born, which has never met death, could fear it (p. 309). This is the clinging to life of 2.9.

The consequence answers the worry that follows. Beginningless does not mean endless. 'Since they are held together by cause, fruit, basis and support, when these are gone, they are gone' (4.11). Vyāsa traces the cause as a six-spoked wheel: merit brings pleasure and demerit pain; pleasure brings attachment and pain aversion; these bring effort, and effort brings more action. Its driver is ignorance, the root of all the afflictions (p. 314; compare 2.4).

Rebirth is assumed throughout, as it is in the tradition the text belongs to. A teacher should present it that way and not quietly replace it. Students who do not hold the belief can still test the smaller claims within one life: situations wake matching habits, old patterns return whole after years, and a habit weakens when its supports are taken away.

For practice, the hopeful sūtra is 4.11. The text does not ask anyone to find the first link of the chain. It asks them to remove the supports, starting with the one within reach.

For discussion

1. How do Vyāsa's four kinds of action differ, and why is the fourth 'neither white nor black' (4.7)?
2. Give an everyday example of 4.8, where a situation wakes only the habits that fit it.
3. What is Vyāsa's argument from a newborn creature's fear of death (4.10), and what does it assume?
4. If tendencies have no beginning, how can 4.11 say they end?

A common misreading

That 'neither white nor black' means the yogin is beyond good and bad and may act as he likes. Vyāsa says the yogin's action is not white because he has renounced even the fruit of good action, and not black because he does no harm.

A practice for the room

Sit with eyes lowered. Ask each person to bring to mind one small habit, nothing heavy, and keep it private. Guide four quiet minutes, one for each support in 4.11: what started it; what it gives you; where in you it seems to live; what sets it off. Then one minute to choose the easiest support to remove this week. Close with three natural breaths. Nobody needs to share anything.