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Impurity of Action (Kārma-Mala)
The third constraint: the separate self plunging into action and getting tangled in its consequences.
Kārma-mala is the impurity of action — the constraint by which the self, now seeing a world of separate things, plunges into doing: pursuing, avoiding, acting and reacting, and so accumulating the consequences of its deeds. This entanglement in action and its fruits is what keeps the cycle of rebirth spinning. It is the most outward of the three impurities, and the first to be loosened on the path, by the 'individual' means (āṇava-upāya).
Key passages(1)
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