Buddhist karma is the law of retribution for acts. Every action is perceived as a cause that brings about an effect: the effect will follow on irreversibly from the cause. It is, however, the intention that determines the act. Each one of us is responsible for his or her own actions and each current action is itself determined by a long series of past acts. It is this which gives the notion of karma a hint of fatalism. However, the action is never entirely determined; there is always an element of free will involved. The indi- vidual is always faced with a choice that will have good or bad consequences. Nothing is ever entirely determined.
In the earliest Buddhist texts, karmic retribution was portrayed as being inevitable and highly individualized. The individual faces his actions alone and cannot escape their consequences, whatever he does. Karma, in particular, explains the requirement for rebirth: the weight of one’s actions constitutes an individual’s destiny and affects his or her rebirth.
According to Buddhist scholasticism, the self is purely the result of physical and mental processes, a sort of “mental fabrication” which has no ultimate reality. Awakening involves becoming aware of this illusory nature of the self. As the monk Nagasena put it famously: “Just as, when certain pieces of wood are assembled, we talk of a chariot; in the same way, when the five physical and mental components are present, we talk of the ‘Self’.” These five groups or “aggregates” (skandha), are impermanent and therefore contribute to the impermanence of the self. They are: form, sensations, perceptions, mental formations, and consciousness.
That is just to summarize the view of karma in mahayana buddhism.
An old question to rake up, is how does karma function when consciousness is extinguished and the self is perceived as ephemeral and a transitory becoming? Do “merits” get transposed?
Is there any stand superior to an “Intention-morality”?