Buddhist Practice Can Eliminate Unwholesome Karma

Cultivation transforms the mind, especially the transformation of the manas. When seeds of unwholesome karma manifest, if the mind does not flow along with the unwholesome karma, that unwholesome karma is extinguished, and what is stored thereafter are seeds of pure karma. If through cultivation the mental factors are changed and purified, then what is stored after karma is created will be pure seeds. Once the mind has also been transformed and purified, some of the seeds of unwholesome karma will be extinguished, while others must be experienced before their time—heavy offenses receive light retribution, and once retribution is paid, they are ended. For example, at the time of realizing the fruits, the karma of the three evil destinies is extinguished; all various realizations of the Buddha's Dharma correspondingly extinguish a portion of the seeds of unwholesome karma. Yet major unwholesome karma still requires receiving slight retribution.

Cultivation in this present life also influences the defiled seeds stored from past lives; otherwise, cultivation would be of no use. The karmic seeds of birth and death accumulated over countless kalpas are immeasurable and boundless in number. If cultivation could not change the karmic seeds of past lives, then the immeasurable and boundless births and deaths would still have to be endured—when would one ever finish experiencing them, and when could one ever become a Buddha?

Cultivation can cut off the multitude of streams of birth and death. Without seeds of unwholesome karma, there would be no stream of birth and death. Why does birth and death flow? Because there is ignorance and there are karmic formations. Why is there evil retribution? Because there is unwholesome karma. What is evil retribution? It is birth and death within the three realms and transmigration through the six destinies. It is only because of unwholesome karma created through ignorance that there is transmigration through the six destinies, especially the birth-and-death transmigration of the three evil destinies. To extinguish the suffering feelings of birth and death in the three evil destinies, one must, through cultivation, extinguish the ignorance in the mind-ground. For example, at the time of realizing the fruits, at the time of seeing one's true mind, or at the time of entering the first bhūmi, a portion of ignorance is extinguished, the karma of the three evil destinies is eliminated, and one no longer goes to the three evil destinies to suffer.