Karma · Pāli: kamma; Skt: karma

The clearest canonical definition comes in the Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63), where the Buddha says, in Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu’s translation, “Intention, I tell you, is kamma. Intending, one does kamma by way of body, speech, & intellect.” What gives an act karmic weight is therefore the volition behind it, not the outward deed alone. The same discourse adds that “contact is the cause by which kamma comes into play”, that results are “of three sorts… that which arises right here & now, that which arises later [in this lifetime], and that which arises following that”, and that karma ceases through “just this noble eightfold path”, which it names “the path of practice leading to the cessation of kamma”. It also ties karma to rebirth, listing “kamma to be experienced in hell”, among animals, among the hungry shades, “in the human world” and “in the world of the devas”.

Karma in this teaching is not fate. In AN 3.61 the Buddha refutes those who hold that “whatever a person experiences… is all caused by what was done in the past”, on the ground that “when one falls back on what was done in the past as being essential, monks, there is no desire, no effort” over what should and should not be done. If the past settled everything, moral effort would be pointless, so the emphasis stays on present intention. (We compare the two ideas at length in karma and fate, and sort out what makes intentions wholesome in good and bad karma.)