The Buddhist doctrine of kamma should be distinguished from other non-Buddhist doctrines of karma which were taught by non Buddhist thinkers prior to, during, and even after the time of the Buddha. Kamma is the law of moral causation that shapes the destiny of beings and brings about rebirth.

The word "kamma" in Pali, i.e. the language the Buddha used, and the word "karma" in Sanskrit, etymologically mean, literally "action" or "doing." Not all actions, however are considered as kamma. The growing of hair and nails, and the digestion of food, for instance are actions of a sort, but not kamma. Reflex actions are also not kamma, but activities without moral significance.

As a technical term, the word "kamma" is used in the early Buddhist texts to denote volitional activities (sankhără). these actions may be kusala, that is morally good, or akusala, that is morally evil, or avayăkata that is morally neutral. They may be actions which find expression in bodily behaviour (kăyakamma), verbal behaviour (vacikamma) and mental (psychological) behaviour (manokamma). In other words, actions may be physical, verbal, or mental. And it is our own volitional activities which we call kamma. So the word kamma is used to denote volitional activities which find expression in thought, speech, and physical deeds which are good or evil and are liable to give rise to consequences which partly determine the goodness or badness of these acts. Kamma is the action, the result of the action is called kamma-vipăka. "Having willed, man acts by deed, word or thought, and they have their due consequences. All living beings have actions (kamma) as their own, their inheritance, their congenital cause, their kinsman, their refuge."²

This endless play of kamma and kamma-vipăka, action and reaction, cause and effect, seed and fruit, continue in perpetual motion, and this is becoming, a continually changing process of psycho-physical phenomena of existence (samsăra).

It is now clear that kamma is volition which is will, a force. Having willed, man acts through body, speech and mind, and actions bring about reactions. Craving gives rise to deed, deed produces results, results in turn bring about new desires, new craving. This process of cause and effect, action and reaction is a natural law.

The operations of kamma are characterised by perfect justice since kamma is a strict accountant. Therefore each one gets his or her exact deserts, what one deserves.

Kamma is a law in itself, with no need for a low-giver; an external agency, an unseen power that punishes the ill deeds and rewards the good deeds has no place in Buddhist thought. Man is always changing either for good or evil. This changing is unavoidable and depends entirely on his own will, his own actin. This is merely the universal natural low of the conservation of energy extended to the moral domain.

Although it is popularly supposed that the law of kammic action is followed by its results, it should be known that other causative factors also come into play and often it is their combined effect that determines the result. A single cause cannot produce a result much less many results.

According to Buddhism, things are not causeless (a-hetuka), nor due to one single cause (eka-hetuka). A number of facts operate in conditioning man's experience. Things are causally conditioned (paticcasamuppanna), and man by his knowledge of himself and nature, could understand, control and master them.

Kammic correlations are not deterministic, not fatalistic. Kamma is one of many factors conditioning the nature of experience and past kamma is extinguishable and modifiable in the context of one's present actions. It need hardly be pointed out that the Buddhist teaching of kamma is not fatalistic. Buddhism, it may be noted, is opposed to all form of determinism: natural determinism (sabhăvavăda), theistic determinism (issarakaranavăda) and kammic determinism (pubbakammavăda), that is, attributing everything to past kamma or any combination of them.

According to Buddhism, man is conditioned by his biological laws (bijaniyăma), by his environment and physical laws (utu-niyăma), by psychological laws (cittaniyăma) including his kammic heritage (kamma-niyăma); he is not determined by any or all of them. He has an element of free will (attakăra) or personal endeavour (purisakăra) by exercising which, he can change his own nature as well as his environment (by understanding it) for the good of himself as well as others.