 The Pāli Canon contains the claim that Saints have “abandoned goodness (puñña) and vile actions (pāpa).” Some writers have interpreted this statement as meaning that ethical norms no longer apply to Saints. But Damien Keown has argued quite convincingly against this interpretation (1992, ch. 4). “Goodness” and “vile actions” refer to actions which have karmic effects in the future, projecting a future existence that includes happiness or suffering, respectively. Since the life in which one becomes a Saint is one’s last life, it is impossible that any actions that occur after Sainthood is attained could project future existence through karma. The change which stops the accumulation of karma is most plausibly identified as the abandonment of clinging to the belief in a substantial self. Someone who no longer thinks of actions as stemming from and having effects on a real, persisting self is no longer trapped in cyclic existence.