user690: I ask this question in the context of one who does wrong action and gets right results anyways, which happens a lot. Someone with a pretty good understanding of Kamma but to my knowledge it doesn't usually work like that. 
So, wrong action produces right results regularly, a lot of times ends up on top and in a better situation even through challenging circumstances... practices diligently.
What is known about this phenomenon? 

user104: There is no such thing as instant Karma. We sometimes might have an impression that one action directly led to some result but we really cannot know it for sure.
The world we experience now is a result of karmic seeds we planted during countless of lifetimes. Results of some actions ripen for centuries, some ripen for weeks. Imagine you have a Karma to win the lottery - you never played it so there were no conditions for the karmic seed to ripen. You did lots of bad deeds in your current life and one day you decide to play the lottery for the first time. The seed finally ripens and you win the lottery. Then you think that your immoral deeds have some connection with the winning and conclude that you can still be immoral if good things happen to you anyways. The truth is that these things are not connected at all. Every bad deed will plant a seed which will give you suffering in the future. Every good deed will bring something positive. The trick is that we don't know when exactly.

user2478: We engage in various thoughts, speech and physical actions. We are aware of some things happening to us. It is quite difficult to see the relation between all of them. I disagree with your statement "wrong action produces right results regularly". If by "right results" you mean positive events occurring, this is the result of positive actions you have taken in the past.
In the Sutra of Instructions to the King it says:
When the moment comes to leave, 0 King,
Neither possessions, friends nor family can follow.
But wherever beings come from, wherever they go,
Their actions follow them like their own shadow.

as mentioned by Patrul Rinpoche in Words of my Perfect Teacher.

user295: Let me put it this way.
If you steal, you temporarily get ahead in wealth, but if you get caught you are looking at some jail time and returning what you stole, legal fees and all kinds of other headaches in the process. This would means you are worse off than before on average for thieves.
Like wise this extends to many other situation where you can temporarily get ahead in life to fall back to worst situations later on.
Also some may get away but if you look at the average over a majority you take one step forward and then two steps back in many of these situations.

690: <p>I ask this question in the context of one who does wrong action and gets right results anyways, which happens a lot. Someone with a pretty good understanding of Kamma but to my knowledge it doesn't usually work like that. 
So, wrong action produces right results regularly, a lot of times ends up on top and in a better situation even through challenging circumstances... practices diligently.</p>

<p>What is known about this phenomenon? </p>
 104: <p>There is no such thing as instant Karma. We sometimes might have an impression that one action directly led to some result but we really cannot know it for sure.</p>

<p>The world we experience now is a result of karmic seeds we planted during countless of lifetimes. Results of some actions ripen for centuries, some ripen for weeks. Imagine you have a Karma to win the lottery - you never played it so there were no conditions for the karmic seed to ripen. You did lots of bad deeds in your current life and one day you decide to play the lottery for the first time. The seed finally ripens and you win the lottery. Then you think that your immoral deeds have some connection with the winning and conclude that you can still be immoral if good things happen to you anyways. The truth is that these things are not connected at all. Every bad deed will plant a seed which will give you suffering in the future. Every good deed will bring something positive. The trick is that we don't know when exactly.</p>
 2478: <p>We engage in various thoughts, speech and physical actions. We are aware of some things happening to us. It is quite difficult to see the relation between all of them. I disagree with your statement "<em>wrong action produces right results regularly</em>". If by "<em>right results</em>" you mean positive events occurring, this is the result of positive actions you have taken in the past.</p>

<p>In the <strong>Sutra of Instructions to the King</strong> it says:</p>

<pre><code>When the moment comes to leave, 0 King,
Neither possessions, friends nor family can follow.
But wherever beings come from, wherever they go,
Their actions follow them like their own shadow.
</code></pre>

<p>as mentioned by Patrul Rinpoche in <strong>Words of my Perfect Teacher</strong>.</p>
 295: <p>Let me put it this way.</p>

<p>If you steal, you temporarily get ahead in wealth, but if you get caught you are looking at some jail time and returning what you stole, legal fees and all kinds of other headaches in the process. This would means you are worse off than before on average for thieves.</p>

<p>Like wise this extends to many other situation where you can temporarily get ahead in life to fall back to worst situations later on.</p>

<p>Also some may get away but if you look at the average over a majority you take one step forward and then two steps back in many of these situations.</p>
