Buddhist teachings on how cause and effect (Karma) work, show how our behaviour influences the way we experience everything. Enlightened activities arise, once we are liberated from Karma. To attain liberation, Buddhists train behaving positively with body, speech, and mind to gain energy for deeper insights within meditative experience. They remove tendencies for negative behaviour by means of purifying meditations and strong wishes, and they can draw on support by the Buddha, their teachers, or their friends on the way. With many good impressions in one's mind, meditation becomes much easier and there arises strength and courage to look beyond inner states of experience at the absolute space-like clarity of mind. On  the "paths of accumulation and of connection" positive actions are as important as collecting wood before setting up a fire. By removing the illusion of a self, one has overcome the dualistic view, but still puts more wood into the fire, to achieve full enlightenment.

For this process to work properly, Buddhists combine meditation and behaviour to develop liberating activity and wisdom. First, they learn to take into account the effects of dualistic actions, then they learn to practice the liberating effects of Buddha activities. As long as the world is experienced as positive, negative or neutral, it is important to do positive actions, to avoid negative ones and to stay aware during neutral actions. For this reason, Buddha advised to use one's body to 1. protect the lives of others by way of defence, care, medicine and so on; 2. give things needed as food, clothes, jewelry, tools, but also abilities and skills; 3. make one's life partner or sex partner happy, if there is no vow of celibacy.
 
According to Buddha we should really avoid: 1. killing; 2. stealing; 3. causing any form of sexual harassment, harm or rape.

Speech is regarded as a most powerful instrument. Although its effects often are not as clearly visible as with bodily actions, it may easily touch more people and has far-reaching consequences.
The following 4 habits regarding speech are beneficial: 1. telling the truth yields power; 2. a speech that harmonizes and inspires confidence brings influence; 3. who speaks mildly and gently will hear many pleasant words, later; 4. to talk sensibly in accordance with a given situation will enhance the speaker's ability to understand contexts and brings respect by others accordingly.
On the negative side, first off all, advice is given against lying, for it harms others, and it increases our ignorance. The biggest lie would be one about a spiritual realization that does not exist. "False gurus" not only build up negative Karma for themselves, but according to Buddha's explanations, they also block their disciples development for several lifetimes. 2. Intrigues, notoriety, or betrayal lead to rebirth in completely inscrutable circumstances, where you cannot find your way. 3. Because of slandering or constantly pointing out other's weaknesses or faults, one will live together with negative people under circumstances of little benefit. 4. According to Buddha, bar-room mentality and idle talk will lead to rebirth as an animal. If still reborn as a human, we will remain unnoticed.
According to Buddhism, the most important tendencies are intentions or mental actions, from which words and bodily actions will eventually arise.

Here, first of all it is important to develop wisdom. On the worldly level this means intellectual knowledge, which is useful for ourselves and others, on the spiritual level it is the recognition of all beings' Buddha nature and knowledge of the Buddhist way and its goal.
Secondly, a benevolent attitude towards all beings is recommended, since all beings wish to be happy and avoid suffering. And as the third point, Buddha recommends cultivating contentment and being happy about the unique nature of every single situation.

Negative tendencies or mental poisons are depicted as pig, cock, and snake on Tibetan Buddhist scroll paintings. A pig wallows in the mud and loses its clarity. Therefore it denotes ignorance of the nature of mind and one's own mental state. The cock is after the hens, constantly driven by desire, which keeps him from finding rest or real happiness. Finally, the poisonous snake denotes aggression, which is counted as the worst mental poison, since actions deriving from aggression, within but a few moments, may destroy many positive impressions, that were built by dint of sheer hard work over a long time.

In this context, basic meditations on breath and awareness of all Buddhist schools help to gain some distance from inner experiences. The resulting calmness increasingly renders freedom of deciding to avoid negative and practice positive behaviour. Eventually, basic ignorance, the root of all disturbances, is removed by means of insight.