The Direct and Dependent Retributions of Sentient Beings

The Buddha said in the Bodhisattva Upāsaka Precepts Sūtra that the evil karma of a single evil sentient being can cause the entire land to have no harvest of melons, fruits, and vegetables. Why is this so?

The karmic retribution of sentient beings is divided into direct retribution and circumstantial retribution. Direct retribution refers to the karmic causes and effects experienced by the five-aggregate physical body, such as the type and condition of a sentient being's physical body, which category it belongs to among the four noble ones and six ordinary beings, which realm of sentient beings it belongs to among ordinary beings, whether the six faculties are complete, whether they are normal, whether there are impairments or afflictive obstructions, and so on. The physical body that constitutes a sentient being's direct retribution is determined by that individual sentient being's karmic seeds (the karma created in past lives and this life), and is individually transformed and produced by that single sentient being's tathāgatagarbha. Circumstantial retribution, on the other hand, is the shared living environment of sentient beings. The living environment is not enjoyed by a single sentient being alone, but is jointly enjoyed by sentient beings with collective karma; therefore, the living environment is jointly determined by the karmic seeds of many sentient beings with collective karma. Thus, the living environment of circumstantial retribution is the karmic causes and effects generated by the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings with karmic connections and collective karma, in accordance with their shared karmic seeds.

Circumstantial retribution is the external living environment of sentient beings. The living environment cannot be determined by a single sentient being; it is determined by all sentient beings with collective karma, through all of their karmic conditions and karmic seeds. Therefore, the external living environment is not something that a single sentient being's tathāgatagarbha can create alone; it is jointly transformed and produced by the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings with karmic connections. The tathāgatagarbhas of sentient beings with collective karma jointly output the four great element seeds of earth, water, fire, and wind, and output the karmic seeds of the karma created by sentient beings; after these are output, they jointly manifest the circumstantial retribution of all sentient beings with collective karma—the living environment.

The harvest of the food, melons, fruits, and vegetables that we depend on for survival is determined by the collective karmic conditions of all sentient beings with karmic connections. So how is this circumstantial retribution formed? The karma of sentient beings includes collective karma and individual karma. Individual karma includes the karma of a single sentient being and the karma of a portion of sentient beings that differs from that of all sentient beings. Collective karma and individual karma are relative, not absolute. For example, the karma of a certain region is both collective karma and individual karma: the collective karma is the shared karmic condition of the sentient beings in that region, while the individual karma is the karmic condition that differs from other regions and from the sentient beings of the entire world. The karma of all sentient beings forms the circumstantial retribution—the living environment—after the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings output the karmic seeds in accordance with sentient beings' karmic conditions. Therefore, the living environment of circumstantial retribution cannot be determined by the tathāgatagarbha of a single sentient being; it is determined by the tathāgatagarbhas of all sentient beings in accordance with their shared karmic seeds.