Six types of cause
The six types of cause (Wyl. rgyu drug) are the basis on which all conditioned things arise. They are:
- Acting causes are like the seed to its sprout. This is the general trait of all types of causes.
- Cooperating causes are things that mutually uphold one another, like tent-poles in tipi supporting each other.
- causes similar to their result when cause and effect are of similar kind, as for example, virtue arising from a virtuous frame of mind or barley growing from barley.
- Concurrent causes correspond only to consciousness and mental states which are concurrent in five ways. They are a type of cooperating causes.
- Omnipresent causes--here "omnipresent" refering to disturbing emotions, it is just another way of talking about production by phenomena mixed with disturbing emotions.
- Causes of karmic ripening which produce pleasurable and painful experiences in samsara. They refer only to defiling virtue or nonvirtue.