What is karma in Buddhism?

By Tim Yu · Updated 2026-06-04

In Buddhism, karma (Pāli kamma) means intentional action. The Buddha located karma not in the outward deed but in the intention (cetanā) behind it: choices made through body, speech and mind. It is an ethical principle of cause and effect — not fate, and not a punishment for past wrongs.

The short answer

The word kamma literally means “action” or “deed”, but the Buddha gave it a specifically ethical, intention-centred meaning: what makes an act karmically significant is the volition driving it. Crucially, karma is not determinism or fate. The Buddha taught that intentional action shapes our tendencies and experiences over time, yet he explicitly rejected the idea that everything we undergo is simply the fixed result of the past.

In more depth

The Buddha’s definition: intention is karma

The clearest canonical definition comes from 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.” The underlying Pāli reads “Cetanāhaṁ, bhikkhave, kammaṁ vadāmi. Cetayitvā kammaṁ karoti—kāyena vācāya manasā” (SuttaCentral, root-pli-ms), which Bhikkhu Sujato renders, “It is intention that I call deeds. For after making a choice one acts by way of body, speech, and mind.” Both translators agree on the central point: karma is rooted in cetanā, volition.

From “action” to ethicised intention

In its older Indian usage the word simply meant “act” — Encyclopædia Britannica notes that karma derives from the Sanskrit karman, “act” or “deed”. The distinctively Buddhist move is to relocate karma in the quality of intention: a deed matters karmically because of the wholesome or unwholesome volition behind it. This is why two outwardly identical actions can differ entirely in their karmic character. (For what makes karma good or bad, with everyday examples, see good and bad karma.)

Karma is not fate or punishment

Buddhism is not fatalism. In the Titthāyatana Sutta (AN 3.61), the Buddha criticises the view that everything a person feels is “caused by what was done in the past”. As Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu translates, “When one falls back on what was done in the past as being essential… there is no desire, no effort [at the thought], ‘This should be done. This shouldn’t be done.’” If the past fixed everything, ethical effort would be pointless — so the teaching keeps the focus on present, free intention. (We compare karma with fate, destiny and determinism in full in karma vs fate.) This also means karma should not be read as a verdict that present misfortune is deserved: the emphasis is forward-looking, on the intentions we cultivate now, not on assigning blame for suffering.

The results of action — the “fruit”, vipāka — are understood to ripen over time, sometimes in this life and sometimes across rebirths, and the connection is often not observable (Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism).

A note across traditions

The principle that intentional action bears fruit is shared across Buddhist traditions: it is common ground for Theravāda and Mahāyāna alike, both of which trace karma to volition rather than to mere outward behaviour. Schools differ in how they elaborate the mechanics of karma and rebirth, but the intention-centred core stated at AN 6.63 is not in dispute between them.