「Karma is fatalism: everything that happens to you is a predestined retribution for past actions, and your current fate is entirely sealed.」

This view stems from a understandable human desire to find order and accountability in suffering. However, it mistakes karma for a rigid, predetermined sentence. If all present experiences were rigidly fixed by the past, moral effort, spiritual growth, and personal transformation would be impossible.

The Buddha explicitly rejected strict fatalism, stating that assuming all experiences are completely determined by past karma renders the spiritual life meaningless. In the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra, he distinguishes between 'determinate' and 'indeterminate' karma, explaining that present wisdom and spiritual practice (cultivating the body, moral discipline, mind, and wisdom) can lighten severe karma, turning what would be heavy future retribution into a minor present experience 【Source 2】. Furthermore, present actions serve as immediate conditions that influence how past seeds ripen 【Source 1】【Source 2】.

It's easy to view karma as an unchangeable fate, but Buddhism actually teaches the opposite—empowerment. Past actions create inclinations and conditions, but your current choices and mindsets shape how those conditions unfold today. Think of past karma as seeds, and your present choices as water and sunlight; by cultivating wisdom and kindness right now, you actively rewrite your path forward.