In the ''Nibbedhika Sutta'' (Anguttara Nikaya 3.415) the Buddha said:
:"Intention (P. ''cetana'', S. ''cetanā''), monks, is karma, I say. Having willed, one acts through body, speech and mind."
In the ''Upajjhatthana Sutta'' (AN 5.57), the Buddha states:
:"I am the owner of my karma. I inherit my karma. I am born of my karma. I am related to my karma. I live supported by my karma. Whatever karma I create, whether good or evil, that I shall inherit."
Intention and the moral quality of actions
Every time a person acts there is some quality of intention at the base of the mind and it is that quality rather than the outward appearance of the action that determines the effect. If one appears to be benevolent but acts with greed, anger or hatred, then the fruit of those actions will bear testimony to the fundamental intention that lay behind them and will be a cause for future unhappiness. The Buddha spoke of wholesome actions (P. ''kusala-kamma,'' S. ''kuśala-karma'') that result in happiness, and unwholesome actions (P. ''akusala-kamma,'' S. ''akuśala-karma'') that result in unhappiness. The Buddha also elaborated that it was impossible for virtuous action to produce unfavorable results, and for nonvirtuous action to produce favorable results. However, although a good deed may produce merit which ripens into wealth, if that deed was done too casually or the intention behind it was not quite pure, that wealth so obtained sometimes cannot be enjoyed (AN.4.392-393). There are two classes of determined deeds which always produce good or bad results (fixed results, P. ''niyato-rasi'') respectively, and a class of deeds which may produce either good or bad results (non-fixed results, P. ''aniyato-rasi'') presumably depending on the context, although the Buddha does not elaborate (DN 3.217). Good karma is described as generating merit (P. ''puñña'', S. ''puñya''), whereas bad karma is described as demerit (''apuñña/apuñya'' or ''pāpa'').Karmic results
The Buddha most often spoke of karma as the determining factor of the realm of one's subsequent rebirth--for this reason karma is often explained in tandem with rebirth and cosmology. The ''Cūlakammavibhanga Sutta'' ("The Shorter Exposition of Action," Majjhima Nikaya 3.203) is devoted to describing the various rebirths that various kinds of actions produce; negative actions such as killing lead to rebirths in the lower realms such as hell, and virtuous action such as gracious behavior under duress leads to rebirth in the human or other higher realms. Further, within human rebirths in particular, virtuous actions produce desirable qualities and good fortune such as physical beauty, influence, and so forth, whereas nonvirtuous actions lead to ugliness, poverty, and other misfortunes. The ''Mahākammavibhanga Sutta'' ("The Greater Exposition of Action," MN.3.208) is a similar exposition, with the additional stipulation that other rebirths may intervene between the time of the virtuous or nonvirtuous actions and the rebirth that they impel.The Buddha denied one could avoid experiencing the result of a karmic deed once it's been committed (AN 5.292). In the Anguttara Nikaya, it is stated that karmic results are experienced either in this life (P. ''diṭṭadhammika'') or in a future lives (P. ''samparāyika''). The former may involve a readily observable connection between action and karmic consequence, as when a thief is captured and tortured by the authorities, but the connection need not necessarily be that obvious and in fact usually is not observable. Among the results which manifest in future lives, five heinous actions (P. ''ànantarika-kamma'') provoke a rebirth in hell immediately subsequent to death, according to the ''Vinaya'': matricide, patricide, killing an arhat, intentional shedding of a Buddha's blood, and causing a schism in the sangha (Vinaya 5.128).
Karmic action & karmic results vs. general causes & general results
The Buddha makes a basic distinction between past karma (P. ''purānakamma'') which has already been incurred, and karma being created in the present (P. ''navakamma''). Therefore in the present one both creates new karma (P. ''navakamma'') and encounters the result of past karma (P. ''kammavipāka''). Karma in the early canon is also threefold: Mental action (S. ''manaḥkarman''), bodily action (S. ''kāyakarman'') and vocal action (S. ''vākkarman'').The Buddha's theory of karmic action and effect did not encompass all causes (S. ''hetu'') and results (S. ''vipāka''). Any given action may cause all sorts of results, but the ''karmic results'' are only that subset of results which impinge upon the ''doer'' of the action as a consequence of both the moral quality of the action and the intention behind the action. In the Abhidharma they are referred to by specific names for the sake of clarity, karmic causes being the "cause of results" (S. ''vipāka-hetu'') and the karmic results being the "resultant fruit" (S. ''vipāka-phala''). As one scholar outlines, "the consequences envisioned by the law of karma encompass more (as well as less) than the observed natural or physical results which follow upon the performance of an action." The law of karma also applies "specifically to the moral sphere . . not concerned with the ''general'' relation between actions and their consequences, but rather with the moral quality of actions and their consequences, such as the pain and pleasure and good or bad experiences for the doer of the act." The theory of karma is not deterministic, in part because past karma is not viewed as the only causal mechanism causing the present. In the case of diseases, for instance, he gives a list of other causes which may result in disease in addition to karma (AN.5.110).
The Buddha's theory of moral behavior was not strictly deterministic; it was conditional. His description of the workings of karma is not an all-inclusive one, unlike that of the Jains. The Buddha instead gave answers to various questions to specific people in specific contexts, and it is possible to find several causal explanations of behavior in the early Buddhist texts.
In the Buddhist theory of karma, the karmic effect of a deed is not determined solely by the deed itself, but also by the nature of the person who commits the deed and by the circumstances in which it is committed.
A discourse in the Anguttara Nikaya (AN.1.249) indicates this conditionality: A certain person has not properly cultivated his body, behavior, thought and intelligence, is inferior and insignificant and his life is short and miserable; of such a person ... even a trifling evil action done leads him to hell. In the case of a person who has proper culture of the body, behavior, thought and intelligence, who is superior and not insignificant, and who is endowed with long life, the consequences of a similar evil action are to be experienced in this very life, and sometimes may not appear at all.
The Buddha declared that the precise working of how karma comes to fruition was one of the four incomprehensibles (P. ''acinteyya'' or ''acinnteyyāni'') for anyone without the insight of a Buddha (AN.2.80). The Buddha sees the workings of karma with his "superhuman eye." Contemporary scholar Bruce Matthews asserts that the ''Cūlakammavibhanga Sutta'' (M.3.203) indicates that karma provokes "tendencies or conditions rather than consequences as such;" presumably he counts the rebirths resulting from karma described in the sutta as "tendencies or conditions" rather than "consequences," although he does not elaborate the point.
In the ''Lakkhana Sutta'' (Digha Nikaya 30), the Buddha explains that his thirty-two special physical characteristics are the fruition of past karma.
Karma & Nirvana
There is a further distinction between worldly, wholesome karma that leads to samsāric happiness (like birth in higher realms), and path-consciousness which leads to enlightenment and nirvana. Therefore, there is samsāric good karma, which leads to worldly happiness, and there is liberating karma—which is supremely good, as it ends suffering forever. Once one has attained liberation one does not generate any further karma, and the corresponding states of mind are called in Pali ''Kiriya''. Nonetheless, the Buddha advocated the practice of wholesome actions: "Refrain from unwholesome actions/Perform only wholesome ones/Purify the mind/This is the teaching of the Enlightened Ones" (Dhp v.183).In Buddhism, the term ''karma'' refers only to samsāric actions, the workings of which are modeled by the twelve nidanas of dependent origination, not actions committed by Arhats and Buddhas.
Incorrect understandings of karma in the early sutras
In Buddhism, karma is not pre-determinism, fatalism or accidentalism, as all these ideas lead to inaction and destroy motivation and human effort. These ideas undermine the important concept that a human being can change for the better no matter what his or her past was, and they are designated as "wrong views" in Buddhism. The Buddha identified three:# Pubbekatahetuvada: The belief that all happiness and suffering, including all future happiness and suffering, arise from previous karma, and human beings can exercise no volition to affect future results (Past-action determinism).
# Issaranimmanahetuvada: The belief that all happiness and suffering are caused by the directives of a Supreme Being (Theistic determinism).
# Ahetu-appaccaya-vaada: The belief that all happiness and suffering are random, having no cause (Indeterminism or Accidentalism).
Karma is continually ripening, but it is also continually being generated by present actions, therefore it is possible to exercise free will to shape future karma. P.A. Payutto writes, "the Buddha asserts effort and motivation as the crucial factors in deciding the ethical value of these various teachings on kamma."
Adapted from the Wikipedia article Karma in Buddhism, under the G. N. U. Free Documentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
