Selected Lectures on the Sūtra of the Collection of the Father and Son (102)

The three bodily karmas, four verbal karmas, and three mental karmas together constitute the ten karmas; body, speech, and mind accord with and follow one another. After the ten karmas are carried out, these karmic actions cease moment by moment. The karmic-action seeds are sent out to function and then cease; that momentary karmic action is gone, and finally the entire behavioral activity disappears—yet the karmic seeds remain, having been recorded. Who does the recording? It is the Ālayavijñāna, which is closest to us, that records them, because He sends out seeds and then takes the seeds back, and the karmic actions performed by the seeds are thereby simultaneously stored in the Ālayavijñāna. The Ālayavijñāna is fair and impartial. He will not say, "The five aggregates were created by me and belong to me, so I must conceal their evil deeds"—refusing to record or output karmic seeds no matter what evil karma the five aggregates commit, so that the five aggregates would not have evil retribution. The Ālayavijñāna has no such mental activity; like a video camera, He is honest and without deception. All the karmic actions performed by the five aggregates are automatically recorded mechanically, without any selection, faithfully recording every behavioral activity in exhaustive detail. After being recorded, they are stored as seeds in the mind-substance. Once the causal conditions are complete, the karmic seeds are output, and the seeds will take root and sprout, then bear fruit—the retribution appears. There are extremely many examples that illustrate how the Ālayavijñāna faithfully actualizes the karmic retribution of sentient beings. For example, if A had an evil karmic affinity with B in a past life, and B is reborn into A's family in this life, that counts as the conditions ripening and the seed sprouting; the child growing up counts as blossoming; and when the time comes, B will deceive and take revenge on A—A's retribution then appears. The preceding stages are all flower, sprout, branches, and leaves; when the retribution arrives, A may come to understand what this child came to do—turns out he came to collect a debt, to take revenge. The vast majority of people, even after undergoing retribution, do not understand this principle; before that, they have no awareness and simply do not know that such a special karmic affinity exists. Because of the evil affinity from a past life, the two people come together in one place to settle the karmic seeds, and neither of them knows it.