Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

Question: I’ve come to meditation to help me bear the atrocities of the world. What is awakening? Is it a moment of conscience when one embraces all the sorrows of the world, and in that case means hello to all sorrows or is it on the contrary a state of total forgetfulness and egotism, in that case it would be hello to guilt? So, which is it? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Neither. Remember the image of feeding. Ordinarily, we feed on the world, both physically and mentally, in order to gain happiness and maintain our identity as beings. But when you gain full awakening, the mind no longer needs to feed because it already has enough in terms of its own happiness. When you’ve reached that state, you can engage in the world without having to feed on it. You can help those whom you can help, and you don’t have to suffer in cases where you can’t help. In this way, you’re neither embracing the sorrows of the world nor are you running away from them. Instead you have a different relati...

"The word “deserve” never appears in the Buddha’s teachings except for one thing — arahants deserve our respect and our generosity — but there’s nothing about people deserving to suffer. After all, when the Buddha taught how to put an end to suffering, he didn’t first ask people, “What karma did you do in the past that’s making you suffer right now? I’ll teach you only if you don’t have any bad karma.” If he had said that, he wouldn’t have had anybody to teach. He taught an end to suffering for all cases of suffering, whether it was “deserved” or not. So learn how to maintain a sense of well-being, and don’t listen to the thoughts that say you don’t deserve it." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Breath Teaches the Brahmaviharas"

"Concentration teaches you how to be with pleasure and not be overcome by it. It’s in this way that you have a refuge from your past karma, a refuge from your urges to create unskillful karma in the present moment. But even then, as the Buddha said, you’re still in a world that goes up and down, and you’re still subject to the fact that your mind could change. This is why you need something more solid. This is what the noble eightfold path provides. It’s the karma that leads to the end of karma. It takes the mind to a place that really is secure, where you step outside of time, step outside of space, and nothing is being done in that dimension. No old karma can reach you in there, no new karma is being created — and that’s the ultimate happiness. It’s the ultimate security, the ultimate safety, the ultimate refuge. It’s a refuge that lies beyond not only unskillful karma, past and present, but also skillful karma. That’s where you’re really safe." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A...

" “We’re related through our actions” The connections we have in life with different people are created by our actions: things that we’ve done together with other people or to other people or for other people. These create the connections that we have with the people around us. Interconnectedness is a very popular teaching in Buddhism, especially nowadays, but it’s funny that people like to talk about interconnectedness without the teaching on karma. They turn to dependent co-arising as a model for interconnectedness, this web of connections where one factor can’t exist without a whole lot of other factors, but they neglect to realize that dependent co-arising is a teaching on how ignorance is connected with suffering, how craving is connected with suffering. It’s the kind of connectedness you want to cut, not the kind you want to celebrate. Connectedness through karma can go either way — the connections can be good, or they can be bad. So you want to foster the good ...

"You have to be clear about your intentions, mature about admitting when you have some unskillful intentions in the mind, and honest about the results that come when you act on unskillful intentions. Only by observing that, again and again, can you finally get tired of those intentions. When you really see that there’s a connection between unskillful intentions and needless suffering, you become genuinely motivated to find the escape from that suffering. This is the only way you can do it. Basically, you have to learn to judge what’s worth observing and what’s not. And again the Buddha points you to what’s worth observing. The issue of needless stress that comes from unskillful states of mind: That’s where he points you – “Look here, look here, look here.” Then it’s up to you to see and — when you’ve seen — to take that knowledge and put it to use. This requires that you be responsible." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Adult Dhamma" (Meditations5)

"There are three kinds of fabrication: bodily, verbal, and mental. On the large scale, that refers to bodily kamma, verbal kamma, and mental kamma as they give results in this lifetime and on into the next. But in the present moment, the three fabrications get boiled down to what leads to bodily, verbal, mental kamma on the large scale, and here the Buddha gives different definitions. Bodily fabrication is the in-and-out breathing. If you weren’t breathing, you couldn’t do anything physically. Verbal fabrication is directed thought and evaluation, how you talk to yourself: You direct your thoughts to a topic and you make comments about it. You may ask questions about it, and when you’ve thought in those ways, that’s when you open your mouth to speak. Finally, mental fabrications are perceptions and feelings: the labels you put on things, the feeling tones you have. These are the building blocks for all mental kamma." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "How to Change" (Meditation...