What is Karma?

The word karma comes from the Sanskrit language, an ancient Indian language. The Buddhist texts were originally written in the relate Pali Language, where the word is kamma. As the prominent scholar-monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu points out on his website AccessToInsight, karma may be understood as “action,” but there really is not one word to define karma. One of the important pieces of understanding karma is in understanding karma as intentional actions, or actions which we volitionally take.The other piece of karma often missed is that kamma is only a piece of the puzzle. The full picture is kamma-vipaka. Vipaka is the result of intentional action. That is, we take some intentional action (karma), and have a result from the action (vipaka). We often use the word karma to encapsulate both pieces, but understanding the meaning of the two terms can help us to define and understand karma. At it’s most basic, karma is the teaching that our intentional actions have consequences. I often refer to karma as “cause and effect.”