As we know the original Sanskrit term Karma means action,while vipaka is the karmic result (fruit) of action.The basic point is that our actions have consequences—
more precisely,that our morally relevant action have morally relevant consequences that extend beyond their immediate effects. In most popular understandings the
law of karma and rebirth is a way to get a handle on how the world will treat us in the future,which also implies, more immediately, that we must accept our own
responsibility for what ever is happening to us now,as a consequence of something we must have done earlier.This misses the revolutionary significance of the
Buddha’s reinterpretation that Karma is better understood as the key to spiritual development: How our life situation can be transformed by transforming the
motivations of our actions right now. When we add the Buddhist teaching about not self— in modern terms, that sense of self is a mental construct—we can see
that Karma is not something the self has, it is what the sense of self is changes according to ones conscious choices. “I” (re)construct my self by what i intentionally do,
because my sense of self is a precipitate of habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and acting.Just as my body is composed of food eaten, so my character is composed of
conscious choices, for i am constructed by my consistent, repeated mental attitudes.People are “punished” or “rewarded” not for what they have done but for what they
have become, and what we intentionally do is what makes us what we are.
Sow a thought and reap a deed
Sow a deed and reap a habit
Sow a habit and reap a character
Sow a character and reap a destiny.
Patrick O'Dwyer 