How Are Cause, Condition, and Retribution Realized?

Everything sentient beings do, life after life, whether great or small, wholesome, unwholesome, or neutral (avyākṛta), is recorded by each individual's tathāgatagarbha and stored within it as seeds. When the conditions ripen, the tathāgatagarbha will output the stored karmic seeds to fulfill this law of cause and effect, and the sentient being will receive the corresponding retribution. Take the karma of killing, for example: when A kills B, the tathāgatagarbhas of both individuals each make their own record of the process. When the karmic action ceases, the seeds are stored away without perishing. When in some later life the two meet—whether acquainted or strangers—and the conditions ripen, their respective tathāgatagarbhas each output the karmic seeds, and the one who was killed will give rise to the intention to kill A.

If in a previous life A killed B unintentionally and by mistake, then when they meet in this life, B will also unintentionally and mistakenly kill A. In this way the law of cause, condition, and retribution is fulfilled with perfect impartiality, yet B does not know why he killed A, and A does not know why he was killed. The karmic seeds of killing and being killed for both then vanish, and neither owes the other anything. If B, in collecting the debt, goes too far—for instance, at the same time robbing A of his property, or dismembering A's corpse, or committing other unwholesome or wholesome deeds—then their respective tathāgatagarbhas will make new records. When they meet again in a later life, A will again collect a debt from B; and if A again goes too far in collecting, B will in turn collect back from A. Thus cause and effect cycle on without end, with no day of emergence. This is how sentient beings are: their karmic results are interwoven, entangled without cease, unbearably suffering, truly pitiable—karmic actions never cease, and the cycle of saṃsāra never ends. Sentient beings should study Buddhism, clearly understand the Buddha's principles, purify their karmic actions, and refrain from creating unwholesome karma. They should form many wholesome connections, cultivate the path through mutual help, board the ship of Dharma together, and reach the other shore together.