Karma in Buddhism: what kamma is and how it works

Karma in Buddhism is intentional action and its results: what the Buddha taught about kamma, why it is not fate, and how it shapes rebirth

Karma in Buddhism means intentional action and the results it brings. Karma is the Sanskrit form of the word; the Pali form used in the Theravada scriptures is kamma, and both simply mean 'action' or 'deed'. The Buddha gave the word a precise sense: what counts is the intention behind an action of body, speech or mind. Wholesome intentions bring pleasant results, unwholesome ones bring painful results, and these can ripen in this life or in lives to come. Karma in Buddhism is not fate, not a punishment handed out by a god, and not a ledger that explains everything that happens to you. This page sets out what the suttas say: what kamma is, wholesome and unwholesome deeds, how results ripen, why people differ, the daily reflection on kamma, rebirth, and the common misunderstandings.

What is karma? Intention is the deed

The clearest definition comes from a discourse in the Numbered Discourses called the Penetrative (AN 6.63):

Cetanāhaṁ, bhikkhave, kammaṁ vadāmi.
Cetayitvā kammaṁ karoti
kāyena vācāya manasā.
Mendicants, it is intention that I call kamma. For having intended, a person acts by body, by speech and by mind.
AN 6.63

Intention (cetanā) is the choice that sets an action going. This is why two actions that look alike from outside can be very different kamma. A surgeon's cut and a stabbing both break the skin; one is meant to heal, the other to harm. Stepping on an insect you did not see is not the same as crushing it on purpose. Intention also works on its own in the mind, the third of the three doors of action, so nursing a plan to hurt someone is already kamma before a word is spoken. So what is karma, in one line? It is what you mean to do, and then do.

A hand placing a seed in the soil beside a young sprout.

Six things to know about kamma

In the same discourse the Buddha says kamma should be understood in six ways. Together they make a short map of the whole teaching:

Kamma itself: intention, expressed by body, speech and mind.
Its source: contact (phassa), the meeting of a sense, its object and awareness. First we see, hear or recall something; intention follows.
Its variety: some deeds lead to rebirth in hell, some among animals, some among ghosts, some in the human world and some among the gods.
Its result (vipāka): it ripens in this very life, in the next life, or at some later time.
Its ending: when contact ends, kamma ends.
The way to its ending: the noble eightfold path.

The last two points are easy to skip, but they show where the teaching is going. Buddhist practice is not about piling up good kamma for ever. It points beyond kamma altogether, to the freedom of a mind no longer driven by craving.

Wholesome and unwholesome deeds

The suttas sort deeds into wholesome (kusala) and unwholesome (akusala). Kusala means skilful or healthy: what a wise person would do. The difference lies in the roots. Unwholesome deeds grow from greed (lobha), hatred (dosa) and delusion (moha); wholesome deeds grow from their opposites, which show up as generosity, kindness and understanding. In the Kalama Sutta the Buddha asks his listeners to check this for themselves: when greed arises in a person, is it for their welfare or for their harm?

The suttas also give a practical list of ten unwholesome courses of action (MN 41): three by body (killing, stealing, sexual misconduct), four by speech (lying, divisive speech, harsh speech, idle chatter) and three by mind (covetousness, ill will, wrong view). Refraining from them, and doing their opposites, are the ten wholesome ways of action. On the positive side, good kamma is made in three ways: giving, keeping the precepts and developing the mind, explained on the page on grounds for making merit.

How results ripen

The result of a deed is called vipāka, 'ripening', and the image is of fruit. A deed does not simply vanish when it is over; it leaves a mark in the one who did it, which ripens when conditions allow. AN 6.63 gives three times for this: in this very life, in the next life, or later still. The law of karma in Buddhism has no judge and no one keeping the books. In the words of MN 135, beings are 'owners of their deeds and heirs to their deeds': the result belongs to the one who acted, as naturally as a fruit belongs to its tree.

Results are not a fixed price list either. In the discourse on the lump of salt (AN 3.100), the Buddha says the same small bad deed weighs very differently in different people: a lump of salt makes a cup of water undrinkable, but the same lump thrown into the river Ganges changes nothing. In a person who has developed virtue, mind and wisdom, a small misdeed is diluted; in a person with a narrow, undeveloped mind it is felt in full. The Buddha also warns that the exact workings of kamma's results are one of four things that cannot be worked out by thinking (AN 4.77); trying to calculate them only leads to frustration.

Why karma in Buddhism is not fate

A common idea is that karma means everything is settled in advance by what you did before. The Buddha rejected this in so many words. In AN 3.61 he describes three views held by other teachers: that whatever a person experiences is caused entirely by past deeds, or entirely by the creation of a god, or happens without any cause at all. He answers that each view leaves no room for choice: if everything came from past deeds, a person would kill or steal because of the past, and there would be no reason to make an effort to do good or avoid harm. Karma in Buddhism is the opposite of fatalism. The past shapes the situation you are in; what you intend now is new kamma, and it is yours to choose.

In another discourse (SN 36.21) the wanderer Sīvaka asks about the view that everything a person feels is caused by past deeds. The Buddha says this goes beyond what people know from their own experience and what the world accepts as true, and lists eight sources of feeling: bile, phlegm, wind, a combination of these, a change of season, careless conduct, an injury or attack, and the ripening of kamma. Illness, accidents and hardship can have many causes. Telling a sick or poor person that they 'deserve it' is not what the Buddha taught.

Why people differ (MN 135)

In MN 135, the Shorter Analysis of Deeds, a young brahmin student named Subha asks why human beings are so unequal: some live short lives and some long, some are often ill and some healthy, some are ugly and some beautiful, some have little influence and some much, some are poor and some rich, some are born into low families and some into eminent ones, some are foolish and some wise. The Buddha's short answer is this:

Kammassakā, māṇava, sattā kammadāyādā
kammayonī kammabandhū kammappaṭisaraṇā.
Kammaṁ satte vibhajati yadidaṁ
hīnappaṇītatāyā.
Student, beings are the owners of their deeds and the heirs of their deeds; deeds are their origin, their kin and their refuge. It is deeds that divide beings into low and high.
MN 135

He then explains in pairs which way of living tends towards which result when a person is reborn as a human:

Killing leads to a short life; not killing, to a long one.
Hurting living beings leads to much illness; not hurting them, to good health.
Anger and irritability lead to ugliness; freedom from anger, to beauty.
Jealousy leads to little influence; freedom from jealousy, to great influence.
Not giving leads to poverty; giving, to wealth.
Arrogance and disrespect lead to birth in a low family; humility and respect, to an eminent one.
Never asking the wise what is good and bad leads to little wisdom; asking, to great wisdom.

These are tendencies traced across lives, not a rule for judging the people around you. The teaching looks forward: whatever your starting point, the way you live now shapes what comes next. The last pair, asking the wise, is something anyone can begin today.

The fifth remembrance: I am the owner of my deeds

The Buddha recommends five reflections that everyone, woman or man, lay or ordained, should make often (AN 5.57): I am subject to ageing; I am subject to illness; I am subject to death; I will be parted from everyone and everything I love; and the fifth, about kamma:

Kammassakomhi, kammadāyādo
kammayoni kammabandhu kammapaṭisaraṇo.
Yaṁ kammaṁ karissāmi,
kalyāṇaṁ vā pāpakaṁ vā,
tassa dāyādo bhavissāmi.
I am the owner of my deeds and heir to my deeds; deeds are my origin, my kin and my refuge. Whatever deed I do, good or bad, I will be its heir.
AN 5.57

The discourse gives the reason. People do wrong by body, speech and mind; reflecting often that one owns one's deeds makes such conduct fall away, or at least grow less. And when the reflection widens to all beings ('it is not only I: every being that comes and goes, passes away and is reborn, owns its deeds'), the path is born in the mind. The five remembrances take a minute to say each morning, and they are one of the most practical ways to keep karma in Buddhism a matter of daily choices rather than theory.

Rebirth in plain words

Karma in Buddhism is tied to rebirth. AN 6.63 speaks of deeds that lead to rebirth in different realms, and MN 135 of what happens 'when the body breaks up, after death'. Rebirth here is not a soul moving from one body into the next, because the Buddha taught that there is no unchanging self to move. It is a process of cause and effect: the craving and intentions at work in one life condition the start of the next, as the twelve links of dependent origination describe. A later text, the Milindapañha, compares it to lighting one lamp from another: nothing passes over from the first lamp, yet the second flame depends on it.

People who are unsure about rebirth are not shut out of the teaching. The Kalama Sutta ends with four assurances: if there is a next life, a good life leads to a good rebirth; if there is not, a life free of hatred and ill will is still a happy one here and now. Either way, the practice is the same.

Common misunderstandings about karma in Buddhism

Popular ideas of karma in Buddhism often drift a long way from the texts. The most common:

'Karma is fate.' No: the past shapes your situation, but your intention now is free, and it is itself new kamma (AN 3.61).
'Karma is punishment.' No one hands out rewards or punishments. Results ripen from the deed in the one who did it, as fruit grows from a seed.
'Everything that happens to me is my karma.' The Buddha named seven causes besides kamma for what people feel (SN 36.21).
'Karma comes back at once.' Results can ripen in this life, the next or later (AN 6.63). Do not judge kamma by what you see in a day.
'Their suffering is their karma, so it is not my business.' Judging other people's kamma is guesswork (AN 4.77), and the response to suffering the Buddha taught is compassion.
'The goal is to collect as much good karma as possible.' Good kamma matters, but the Buddha called the eightfold path the way to the ending of kamma.
'Karma and kamma are different things.' They are the same word, in Sanskrit and in Pali.

Living with the law of karma

The law of karma in Buddhism is meant to be used, not only believed. A few practical ways:

Check your intention before you speak or act. Is it coming from greed, anger or confusion, or from their opposites?
Watch the point where kamma starts. AN 6.63 says contact is its source: the moment you see, hear or remember something that moves you. Noticed in time, there is room to choose.
Say the fifth remembrance in the morning: whatever I do today, good or bad, I will be its heir.
When you slip, see it plainly as a mistake, resolve not to repeat it, and begin again. Brooding over it only adds worry, which the suttas count among the hindrances.
Train mindfulness. The four foundations of mindfulness make intentions visible as they arise, and that is where kamma can actually be changed.

Based on: Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63) · Cūḷakammavibhaṅga Sutta (MN 135) · Abhiṇhapaccavekkhitabbaṭhāna Sutta (AN 5.57) · Kālāma Sutta (Kesamutti Sutta) (AN 3.65) · Sāleyyaka Sutta (MN 41) · Puññakiriyavatthu Sutta (Iti 60) · Titthāyatana Sutta (AN 3.61) · Sīvaka Sutta (SN 36.21) · The lump of salt (AN 3.100) · Acinteyya Sutta (AN 4.77) · Milindapañha