I will make referance to the word Karma in the begining part of this teaching. It is the most widely known term but, the Pali word is Kamma.

When a bad thing happens to a person others might say "That was their Karma." actually that is a wrong interpretation of the word. The Karma or Kamma (Pali word) is the action. When a bad thing has happened to a person that is the fruit of an action coming to bear. We call that Vipaka which literally means the fruit. Kamma is the seed from which the fruit has come.

Kamma means action as it is referred to as willed actions of the body, speech and mind.

Every action we do will produce these seeds and eventually these seeds bear fruit. They will bear fruit as follows;wholesome acts produce wholesome fruit, unwholesome acts produce unwholesome fruit and so forth.

Kamma is a powerful force that can leap over death into the next life. This explains the differant circumstances by which people are born and experiance life. Kamma is as natural a force such as when you place your hand in fire (kamma), it hurts (vipaka).

The more powerful the action (kamma) such as killing or hurting another living being the fruit (vipaka) of that action may be slow in coming but, it will come.

We can observe the kammic formations in our daily lives such as when an outburst of anger and bad things said between two people may sour or taint the relationship for an indefinite period of time.

Kammic formations keep everything in balance. An action (kamma) produces an equal and opposite reaction (vipaka).