Dagpo Rinpoche wrote a book on kamma, called Karma.
He describes in this book that cognition is caused by kamma, in the sense that kamma is the mental activity (cetana) which leads the mind towards a certain object. Without this mental activity (Tib. sems pa, cetana in Pali), i.e. without kamma, there will not occur awareness of an object or cognition (page 26, in the Dutch translation). (I am not sure ‘leads the mind to the object’ is a good translation of the Dutch ‘doet de geest uitgaan naar een bepaald object)’.
This kamma or cetana is Always present when there is sense-cognition. It causes sense-cognition (awareness of Visuals, sounds etc.) and is not a kind of kamma which is bad or good kamma. We do not accumulate kamma in this way. It is just some kind of neutral mental activity, not moral nor immoral. So, sense-cognitions are due to kamma/cetana, but not due to moral or immoral kamma. That is what he seems to write.
My impression is, in this way it can be understood that the vinnana that sees, hears, smells etc. is a kamma-vipaka. This vipaka is just neutral, not moral or immoral.
What do you think Lal (or others)?
kind regards,
Siebe