Commentary on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (181)

What are the ten unwholesome karmic deeds?

Worldly beings of scant learning and no wisdom give rise to delight and attachment upon agreeable contact. Agreeable contact refers to bodily tactile sensations that greatly delight and please the mind consciousness; it is called exquisite tactile sensation. For example, the body touching soft clothing, warm sunshine, a comfortable bed—and most important of all, the touch between men and women. The desire realm is a world established primarily upon this kind of touch. What the body faculty and body consciousness come into contact with is called the tactile sense-object. For instance, when warm and comfortable sunshine touches the body, when cold or hot wind touches the body, when soft or hard clothing touches the body, and the body consciousness has a sensation, that is called contact, and the dharma being touched is called the tactile sense-object. Also, when one is hungry or thirsty, the sensation in the stomach is also contact—all of these are tactile sense-objects. Another example: after sitting for a long time, one feels fatigued; fatigue is also a tactile sense-object. When meditating, if the body feels at ease and the body feels extremely comfortable, these are all tactile sense-objects.

Ordinary sentient beings are most attached to agreeable tactile sensations, chiefly the touch between men and women. When a man and a woman touch each other, the mind gives rise to delight and craving, and thus the mind is defiled. This is craving dominated by the mind consciousness, also including the eye consciousness and body consciousness, but mainly the feelings of the sixth consciousness (mind consciousness). Once the mind consciousness gives rise to defiled attachment, it creates karma; the step following the mind's delight is certainly the creation of karma, and karmic actions will appear. People without cultivation will manifest foolish karmic actions of body, speech, and mind. Some practitioners, though their minds may sometimes have defilement, do not carry out actions of body or speech. The most accomplished practitioners do not even have defilement in their minds. As for the karmic actions created: three kinds of bodily karma can be created—killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct; there are four kinds of verbal karma—false speech, frivolous speech, divisive speech, and harsh speech; and there are three kinds of mental karma—greed, hatred, and delusion.

The three bodily deeds, four verbal deeds, and three mental deeds together make up the ten karmic deeds, with body, speech, and mind following and accompanying one another. After the ten karmic deeds are committed, these karmic actions cease moment by moment. When the seeds of karmic action are output and take effect, they cease; the karmic action of that instant is gone, and finally the entire action and creation disappears. Yet the karmic seeds remain and are recorded. Who records them? It is the ālayavijñāna, which is closest to us, that records them, because He outputs seeds and then withdraws seeds, and the karmic actions created by the seeds are thereby simultaneously stored in the ālayavijñāna.