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Karma (Sanskrit: कर्मन karman, Pāli: कमा Kamma) means "action" or "doing"; whatever one does, says, or thinks is a karma.
In Buddhism, the term karma is used specifically for those actions which spring from :
which bring about a fruit (Pali, phala) or result (vipāka), either within the present life, or in the context of a future rebirth. Karma is the engine which drives the wheel of the cycle of uncontrolled rebirth (saṃsāra) for each being.
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In the (Anguttara Nikaya Nibbedhika Sutta) the Buddha said :
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 a person professes piety and virtue but nonetheless acts with greed, anger or hatred (veiled behind an outward display of well-meaning intent) 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 (kusala-kamma) -- that result in happiness, and unwholesome actions (akusala-kamma) -- that result in unhappiness.
Karma is thus used as an ethical principle and a cosmological explanation for the world. Buddhists believe that the actions of beings determine their own future, and because of this there are no private actions: all actions have a consequence. The emphasis of karma in Buddhism is on mindful action, not on blaming someone else for whatever happens to oneself.
There is a further distinction between worldly, wholesome kamma 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 then there is liberating karma - which is supremely good, as it ends suffering forever. Once one has attained liberation one does not generate any further kamma, and the corresponding states of mind are called in Pali Kiriya. Nonetheless, the Buddha advocated the practise 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 is often used to refer only to samsāric karma, as indicated by the twelve nidanas of dependent origination.
Because of the inevitability of consequence, Karma entails the notion of Buddhist rebirth. However, karma is not the sole basis of rebirth. The rebirths of eighth stage (and above) Bodhisattvas in the Mahayana tradition refers to those liberated beings who consciously choose to be reborn in a future life in order to help others still trapped in saṃsāra. However, this is not 'uncontrolled' rebirth anymore.
The Buddha explains what having conviction in karma means:
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.
In Buddhism, karma is simply there as a guide and an indication of what the reason for your present state is and how one's future can be made better by self effort. Fatalism and pre-determinism is the anti-thesis of the notion of perfection or self-conquest -- which is the primary aim of Buddhism.
