Certain actions tend to lead to certain results.

Question 10. You say that certain actions tend to lead to certain results. Can you give some examples?

Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Yes. On the unskillful side, the Buddha noted these tendencies:

killing — to a short life;
stealing — to loss of wealth;
sexual misconduct (having sex with minors, with people already in another committed relationship, or with those who have taken a vow of celibacy) — to rivalry and revenge;
telling lies — to being misrepresented and falsely accused;
divisive speech — to the breaking-up of your own friendships;
harsh speech — to hearing unappealing sounds;
idle chatter — to hearing words that aren’t worth taking to heart;
taking intoxicants — to mental derangement;
beating others — to sickness and poor health;
being ill-tempered and easily angered — to ugliness;
being envious — to being uninfluential;
being ungenerous — to poverty;
being disrespectful and arrogant — to a low birth;
not asking knowledgeable people about what to do to bring about long-term happiness — to a lack of discernment [AN 8:40, MN 135].

These are actually some of the slightest results coming from these actions. If you engage in them repeatedly, they can lead to the lower realms of rebirth, such as rebirth as a common animal, in hell, or as a hungry ghost. (In Buddhism, all of these states are temporary, and will end when the power of the actions leading there runs out.)

It’s also possible for unskillful actions to have a snowball effect, in which one unskillful action makes it more likely that you’ll engage in more unskillful actions, at the same time putting yourself in a position where you don’t want to hear the truths about the long-term results of your unskillful actions. This increases the likelihood that you’ll do even more unskillful things. The pursuit of power is particularly harmful in this way: You have to harm those who threaten your power, and when you get used to doing harm, you don’t want to hear the truth of what harmful actions can do to you. This makes it less and less likely that you’ll change your ways [AN 3:70].

On the skillful side, the opposite of the above actions can lead to higher rebirths — in the human or the heavenly realms — which likewise last as long as the actions leading there still give results. For example, the Buddha noticed these causal relationships:

abstaining from killing — to a long life;
abstaining from stealing — to no loss of wealth;
abstaining from sexual misconduct — to freedom from rivalry and revenge;
and so on.

~ Karma Q & A — A Study Guide by Thanissaro Bhikkhu

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