Chapter 5 - Present Effect Due To Past Cause

Thus, owing to the rounds of defilements and kamma comprising the five causes in the past, there arises rebirth consciousness together with mind body, six bases, impressions and feeling. These five effects are collectively called vipaka vatta (round of effects). Because of their ignorance, common people have the illusion of pleasantness about every sense object and mind object. They develop craving, thereby starting again the vicious cycle of causes and effects that represent their rounds of suffering.

Consciousness, the six sense bases, etc., arise as the kammic result of past kammas. It is a matter of cause and effect relationship just like all other phenomena. This leaves no room for ego, God or Prime Mover. The only difference is the moral law governing this relationship, the nature of feeling, whether pleasant or unpleasant, being dependent on the good or bad sankhara in the past. In reality there is no person who has pleasant or unpleasant feeling nor any being who causes him to have such an experience. Life is only the continuum of consciousness, impression, etc., as conditioned by five factors, viz., ignorance, craving, etc.