Kamma and Nibbana Action, Meditation and Liberation in Buddhism

To be is to act and to act is to be. Our being is very much constituted by the way we act and live. If one is stealing, then he is a thief. If one is teaching, he is a teacher. Buddhism upholds the view that our action determines what we are. Our suffering and the happiness are very much results of our actions. This doctrine seems to us a truism, a self-explanatory doctrine. We generally believe that good action results in happiness and bad action results in suffering. But this is not accepted by several thinkers at the time of Buddha. In the Samannaphalasutta of Digh-nikaya there is a discussion of the view of MankhaliGoshalaka, who is adeterminist (niyativadi) and upholds the view that it is wrong to believe that good conduct will lead to our desired results. There is no cause of the purity or impurity of living beings. Good and Bad acts do not affect our destiny. Any living being is purified only by passing in the cycle of 84000Mahakalpathrough the various forms of life. Buddha opposed  such types of view and advocated the middle path. The middle path is the path of Noble Eightfold Path, namely right view, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. It is the path based on the truth that our destiny is determined by our good action or bad action. 

Any action performed by us has two aspects inner and outer. The outer aspect is determined by our behavior and inner aspect by our good or bad thought or desire. Suppose we want to abuse someone but I am not abusing, because his bodily strength is superior to mine. Here outer aspect, the speech-act is good but inner aspect is bad.