karma
The word ‘karma’ means activity, activity that is based upon desire and governed by the law of cause and effect. For every good and bad act of the body, of speech, and of thought performed in the present, there is a corresponding result which is experienced in the future.
In every moment, we experience the results of our past body, speech and thought-karma and simultaneously create new karma which will bear fruit in the future. Thus karma is the primary force which keeps us in the cycle of rebirth, continually being reborn in the various realms of existence (wsix paths of rebirth).