What the Buddha's awakening into the role of karma means for us now

"The role that kamma plays in the [Buddha's] awakening is empowering. It means that what each of us does, says, and thinks does matter — this, in opposition to the sense of futility that can come from reading, say, world history, geology, or astronomy, and realizing the fleeting nature of the entire human enterprise. The awakening lets us see that the choices we make in each moment of our lives are real, and that they produce real consequences. The fact that we are empowered also means that we are responsible for our experiences. We are not strangers in a strange land. We have formed and are continuing to form the world we experience. This helps us to face the events we encounter in life with greater equanimity, for we know that we had a hand in creating them. At the same time, we can avoid any debilitating sense of guilt because with each new choice we can always make a fresh start.

The awakening also tells us that good and bad are not mere social conventions but are built into the structure of experience. We may be free to design our lives, but not to change the underlying rules that determine what good and bad actions are, and how the process of kamma works itself out. Thus cultural relativism — even though it may have paved the way for many of us to leave our earlier religious orientations and enter the Buddhist fold — has no place once we are within that fold. There are certain ways of acting that are inherently unskillful, and we are fools if we insist on our right to follow them."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Meaning of the Buddha's Awakening"