Intentions Lead to Habitual Patterns of Behavior

The idea of rebirth is meaningful in religious Buddhism only insofar as it provides a vehicle for the key Indian metaphysical doctrine of actions and their results known as "karma." While the Buddha accepted the idea of karma as he accepted that of rebirth, when questioned on the issue he tended to emphasize its psychological rather than its cosmological implications. "Karma," he often said, "is intention": i.e., a movement of the mind that occurs each time we think, speak, or act. By being mindful of this process, we come to understand how intentions lead to habitual patterns of behavior, which in turn affect the quality of our experience. In contrast to the view often taught by religious Buddhists, he denied that karma alone was sufficient to explain the origin of individual experience.

---Buddhism Without Beliefs - by Stephen Batchelor---