What is Karma?

Answer 1

Karma is action and the result of action. Cause and effect. You put out a cause (action) and you will live out the effect.

Answer 2

Karma is a sum of all that an individual has done, is currently doing and will do. Karma is not about retribution, vengeance, punishment or reward; karma simply deals with what is. The effects of all deeds actively create past, present and future experiences, thus making one responsible for one's own life, and the pain and joy it brings to others.

All living creatures are responsible for their karma, their actions and the effects of their actions. For example if you do wrong to someone else then your karma will become unbalanced and inturn cause harm or problems for you.

Its the same as the saying,
"What comes around goes around".
AND
""if you do good things, good things will happen to you".

According to karma, performing positive actions results in a good condition in one's experience, whereas a negative action results in a bad effect. The effects may be seen immediately or delayed. Delay can be until later in the present life.

karma is a force of nature and not a sentient creature capable of making value judgments, karma isn't about good and evil deeds, because applying those labels would be judgmental, but that it is about positive and negative energy,

Answer 3

Karma (Sk.). Physically, action: metaphysically, the LAW OF RETRIBUTION, the Law of cause and effect or Ethical Causation. Nemesis, only in one sense, that of bad Karma. It is the eleventh Nidana in the concatenation of causes and effects in orthodox Buddhism; yet it is the power that controls all things, the resultant of moral action, the metaphysical Samskâra, or the moral effect of an act committed for the
attainment of something which gratifies a personal desire. There is the Karma of merit and the Karma of demerit. Karma neither punishes nor rewards, it is simply the one Universal LAW which guides unerringly, and, so to say, blindly, all other laws productive of certain effects along the grooves of their respective causations. When Buddhism teaches that “Karma is that moral kernel (of any being) which alone survives death and continues in transmigration” or reincarnation, it simply means that there remains nought-after each Personality but the causes produced by it; causes which are undying, i.e., which cannot be eliminated from the Universe until replaced by their legitimate effects, and wiped out by them, so to speak, and such causes-unless compensated (during the life of the person who produced their with adequate effects, will follow the reincarnated Ego, and reach it in its subsequent reincarnation until a harmony between effects and causes is fully reestablished. No “personality”--a mere bundle of material atoms and of instinctual and mental characteristics-- can of course continue, as such, in the world of pure Spirit. Only that which is immortal in its very nature and divine in its essence, namely, the Ego, can exist for ever. And as it is that Ego which chooses the personality it will inform, after each Devachan, and which receives through these personalities the effects of the Karmic causes produced, it is therefore the Ego, that self which is the “moral kernel” referred to and embodied karma, “which alone survives death.”

Answer 4

The actions we take in our day to day life are called karmas, when we do what is right without thinking about anything else then we are doing the right karmas i'e when we keep doing our duties without thinking about anything else. When we do not give up and keep going on on to the right track...

Answer 5

According to Buddhist thought: It's basically cause and effect, thoughts and actions plant a "seed" (not literally) in our mindstream and when the causes and conditions for that "seed" to ripen, arise, then you reap the results. This is very simplistic of course. More info can be found at www.buddhanet.net if you're interested.

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Answer 6

Karma is the Hindu and Buddhist idea of "What goes around, comes around," except that you build up a karmic debt from life to life. The reason for your suffering in this life is because of the karmic debt you carried over from the previous life. You are paying now for the sins of your previous life.

If you like, this is the debt of sin that Jesus came to carry away for us.
John 1:29-30
29 ¶ The next day he saw Jesus coming to him, and said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! 30 "This is He on behalf of whom I said, 'After me comes a Man who has a higher rank than I, for He existed before me.'"

1 Peter 1:17-21 17 And if you address as Father the One who impartially judges according to each man's work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth; 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, 19 but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ. 20 For He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times for the sake of you 21 who through Him are believers in God, who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.

Answer 7

Eastern philosophy, or western?
Eastern is belief that what you do in your life time will reflect on your in your next lifetimeand or subsequent lives after.
Western philosophy usually believes what you do comes back to you in this life.
This is of course a simple definition. If you are curious, google it.