kamma
Action, deed
[ KUM-ma ]
Seeing it in life
Kamma is identified with cetanā. Classified by function, order of ripening, time of ripening, and place of ripening.
In short
Volitional action producing future results.
The analysis
Kamma is volitional action — and the Abhidhamma is specific that it's the volition (cetanā) itself that constitutes kamma, not the outward physical or verbal act alone. Kamma is classified several ways: by function, by the order in which it ripens (weighty, near-death, habitual, or merely performed), by time of ripening (this life, the next, or indefinitely later), and by place of ripening. A far more granular system than the popular shorthand 'what goes around comes around' suggests.
Where it sits
Kamma is produced at the javana stage of the cognitive process — the seven kammically decisive moments within each vīthi — and its results appear as vipāka-citta: resultant consciousness, the ripening of past volitional action. The kammic weight of an act is a function of the cetanā behind it, which is why the Abhidhamma insists two outwardly identical actions can carry entirely different kammic character.
A difficult conversation handled from genuine care produces different javana, and therefore different kamma, than the same words delivered from resentment — even if an observer outside the exchange couldn't tell the two apart.
Commonly mistaken for
Fate, or an external system of cosmic reward and punishment. Kamma is generated by one's own volitional action, not administered by an outside judge.
Only about future lives. Kamma ripens across many timescales, including within this life, sometimes within the same day.
Nibbedhika Sutta (AN 6.63); Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha V.
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