"The Nigaṇṭhas taught that the present moment was shaped entirely by your past actions. This meant that your present actions could have an influence on the future, but not on what you’re experiencing right now. The Nigaṇṭhas also believed that all kamma resulted in suffering, which meant that the only way to put an end to suffering would be to stop acting. So their practice consisted of austerities in which they endured sharp pains in the present moment without reacting to them. That way, they believed, they would burn off past kamma while creating no new kamma. Freedom from suffering would come when all past kamma was burned away.
If you envision the Buddha as uttering nothing but sweetness and light, it may come as a shock to learn how thoroughly he ridiculed the Nigaṇṭhas over this belief. To paraphrase some of his remarks (MN 101), he once asked them if they could possibly measure how much kamma they burned off through their practice, or how much remained to be burned. As for their claims that suffering in the present came entirely from past kamma, he asked them if they hadn’t noticed that the pain caused when they were doing their austerities stopped when they stopped doing the austerities.
In other words, he was pointing to the fact that what you do in the present moment can have an influence not only on the future, but also on what you experience right now. Past actions may have some role in shaping your present experience of pleasure and pain, but they don’t totally determine it. In fact, present actions can make all the difference between whether a past bad action leads to a lot of suffering right now or only a little (AN 3:101)."
~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Now: Why the Present Moment Isn’t the Goal"
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