Lecture Notes on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (Pitāputrasamāgamasūtra) (178)

How do ignorance and delusion lead to karmic actions and karmic retribution?

Original text: 佛言大王。如是如是。愚痴异生。寡闻无智。于可意触。而生爱乐。心生染着。造如是业。身业三种。语业四种。意业三种。造作彼业。刹那迁谢。是业灭已。不依东方。南西北方。四维上下。中间而住。至命终时。见先所作。心想中现。如彼睡觉。忆梦中事。最后识灭。自业现前。

The Buddha said: Great King, it is indeed so. Ignorant ordinary beings (pṛthagjana), of little learning and without wisdom, give rise to love and delight toward agreeable contact; their minds become defiled and attached, and they create such karma—three kinds of bodily karma, four kinds of verbal karma, and three kinds of mental karma. Having created those karmas, the karmic formations cease and pass away moment by moment. After those karmic formations have ceased, they do not abide in the east, south, west, or north, the four intermediate directions, up or down, or in between. But at the time of death, one sees the deeds one formerly performed appearing within one's mind, just like a person who has awakened from sleep yet is recalling the events of a dream. When the final consciousness ceases, one's own karma manifests before one.

Delusion is ignorance—not understanding anything: not understanding what the five aggregates (pañca-skandha) are, not understanding that the five aggregates are illusory, not understanding that all dharmas are illusory, not understanding that this false self is a combination of elements, not understanding how to break through it, not understanding how to escape the cycle of the six realms of rebirth, not understanding how to realize the fruit of a bodhisattva, not understanding how to realize one's original face—the self-natured pure mind—and even not understanding how to become a Buddha. Not understanding any of this is called delusion and ignorance.