What are karmic conditions? Karmic conditions, as the name implies, are the conditions produced by the bodily, verbal, and mental actions, and they are also the conditions by which the five-aggregate body receives the retribution of wholesome and unwholesome karma. It is only through these karmic conditions that the five-aggregate body can live among all dharmas, create karma, and receive its retribution. All dharmas include everything in one's surroundings—people, affairs, objects, and principles—including other five-aggregate bodies and the living environment, all the natural phenomena of the universe's material world (the vessel-world). Sentient beings rely on these to create karma and receive retribution. One's mode of living, conditions of existence, and means of sustenance are karmic conditions; family members, relatives, close friends, and colleagues are karmic conditions. Only with these conditions can one receive the retribution of wholesome and unwholesome karma. Among these, the physical body is the direct retribution, the karmic fruit; it can also be the karmic cause and karmic condition for the physical body before the end of this life and the physical body of future lives. The environment is the circumstantial retribution, the karmic fruit; it can also be a karmic cause and karmic condition. A dharma can be a cause, can be a condition, can be a fruit—the dharma is not fixed, and neither is the fruit.
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