What Is Karma — and What Is It Not?

The word karma has entered everyday language. Something unfortunate happens and someone says, “That’s karma.” Sometimes karma is imagined as a mysterious cosmic system that rewards good people and punishes bad ones. That is not how Buddhism originally presents it.

The Sanskrit word karma simply means action. More specifically, Buddhist teaching places great importance on intentional action. What we repeatedly think, say and do has consequences. Some consequences are obvious. If we regularly speak harshly to people, relationships change.

If we practise generosity, we strengthen generous habits. If we repeatedly respond to difficulty with anger, anger becomes easier to produce. Our actions do not merely change the world around us. They also shape the person we are becoming. Imagine walking through grass every day along the same route.

At first there is no path. After repeated walking, a track appears. The mind works similarly. Each time we react in a certain way, that route becomes slightly more familiar. This is one practical way to understand karma. It is not fate. In fact, if everything were predetermined, Buddhist practice would make little sense.

Practice is possible precisely because present choices matter. Our past influences us, but it does not completely imprison us. At any moment we can begin cultivating different habits. Patience can be practised. Compassion can be strengthened. Anger can gradually lose its automatic power.

Karma therefore places responsibility in our hands without reducing life to simplistic judgement. Not every misfortune is someone’s fault. Illness, accidents, natural disasters and social injustice arise through many conditions. It is harmful to tell someone who is suffering that they somehow “deserved” it because of karma.

A mature understanding of karma produces greater care, not greater judgement. We begin to understand that even small actions matter.

A thought to carry with you

Every action is also practice.

The question is: what are you practising?

Connection to the Buddhist Path

Karma is fundamentally a teaching about intentional action and its consequences. It reminds us that our choices matter: repeated actions shape habits, character and the conditions in which future actions arise. This is why karma should not be confused with fatalism. Buddhist practice would have little meaning if change were impossible. Dzongkar Choede’s philosophical curriculum studies karma within Abhidharma, while daily monastic life emphasises something equally practical: the intention behind an ordinary action can transform work into service and spiritual practice.

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