Results of KARMA: vipaka and phala

Ven. Nyanatiloka, Buddhist Dictionary; YK; Dhr. Seven, Ven. Aloka (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Resultant (vipaka)

Krishnan on vipaka (Numen)

"Karmic result," is any karmically (morally) neutral mental phenomenon (e.g., bodily agreeable or painful feeling, sense-consciousness, etc.), that is the result of wholesome or unwholesome "karma" (volitional action through body, speech, or mind) done either in this or some previous life.

Totally wrong is the belief that, according to Buddhism, everything is the result of previous karma (action). Never, for example, is any karmically wholesome or unwholesome volitional action the result of former action, being in reality itself karma.

On this subject see titthāyatana, karma, Table at the end of the book I; Fundamentals of Buddhism II, Ven. Nyanatiloka (BPS.lk). Cf. A. III, 101; Kathāvatthu 162 (Guide through the Abhidhamma Pitaka, Ven. Nyanatiloka, 3rd ed. 1971, BPS.lk, p. 80).

Karma-produced (karma-ja or karma-samutthāna) corporeal (bodily) things are never called karma-vipāka, as this term may be applied only to mental phenomena (like intimation).

Fruit (phala)

Phala (lit. "fruit") 1. result, effect (often together with hetu, cause); 2. benefit (e.g., in Sāmañña-phala Sutra, "The Discourse on the Fruits [Benefits] of Recluseship," DN 2).

As "path-result," or "fruition," it denotes those moments of supermundane consciousness that flash forth immediately after the moment of various stages path-consciousness (see the noble ones, or ariya-puggala, on the stages of enlightenment and which, until the attainment of the next higher path-consciousness, may recur innumerable times during the practice of insight (vipassanā).

If thus repeated they are called the "attainment of fruition" (phala-samāpatti), which is explained in detail in The Path of Purification (Vis.M. XXIII).