Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

Question: Kamma and Rebirth, second try. How does individual kamma migrate from this life to the next one? Is this a relevant question? If no, how can our next life be better if we don’t have the benefit of a kind of karmic legacy? Thank you, Ajaan, for clarifying this “critical” question. Thanissaro Bhikkhu: It’s not a matter of migrating. Our kamma is actually what creates our experience of the next life — or rather, it supplies the raw material for our experience of the next life. When we leave this life and go to the next one, it doesn’t feel like we’re going someplace else. Just as we have a sense of our present life as “right here,” the next life will also have a sense of being “right here,” right at our consciousness. It’s like going from one dream to another. Even though the appearance of the location in the second dream is different from the location in the first, it still has a sense of happening “right here” just as the first one did. To give another examp...

"This story of the world right now.... If you believe the media, then where everything else is happening, that’s where the power is. The people who seize the power, those are the important ones. But from the long view, those are the ones who are going to suffer the most. So use the power you have right now to make wise choices — because it is within your power to really make a difference, a difference that will last for the long term." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Taking the Long View"

"Everybody deserves compassion. Everybody deserves goodwill [mettā], empathetic joy. But again, it’s not so much what they deserve, it’s: What do you want to do with your life? How are you going to shape your experience? How do you want to shape the world around you? Give your goodwill as a gift, your compassion as a gift to others and to yourself. That’s a good way of shaping things." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill & Karma"

"There are some people who complain that the precepts are absolute, hard-and-fast rules. People don’t like hard-and-fast rules, but actually the precepts clear-cut, and for a good reason. Clear-cut rules are easier to remember: Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t have illicit sex, don’t lie, don’t take intoxicants, period. Although some people would prefer a little wriggle room in the rules, they’re being shortsighted and heedless. The times when you need clear-cut rules the most are when you’re most tempted to break them. It’s a lot easier to remember clear-cut promises that you make to yourself. Remember, right after 9-11? So many Buddhist teachers were saying, “Well, this business about not killing, we can throw that away for the time being. And this business about hostility not being cured by hostility, forget about that.” People were throwing away the basic principles that they actually needed most at that point. The Buddha’s not teaching us these principles just for times when t...

"We saw all that insanity after 9/11, where people were willing to throw morality out the window because they were so scared. There was even that Buddhist teacher who said, “This principle that hatred is never appeased by hatred, that it’s only appeased by non-hatred [i.e. goodwill,]” was totally useless. Didn’t have any practical application when things were so uncertain. Actually, though, that principle was designed for times when people really are seething with hatred, when they have to be reminded that you can’t put aside your principles in a situation like that. When life is in danger, your first impulse may be not your best impulse at all. You need clear-cut precepts to keep reminding you that under no circumstances would you kill, steal, have illicit sex, lie, or take intoxicants. That’s why the precepts are so simple, to be easy to remember in difficult situations." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Ennobling Path"

"[The Buddha] didn’t ask that his listeners all commit themselves to an unquestioning belief in the possibility that their actions might lead to rebirth, but he wasn’t interested in teaching anyone who rejected that possibility outright. As we’ve already noted, he saw that heedfulness lay at the root of all skillful qualities. If a listener couldn’t be persuaded to develop an appropriate level of heedfulness around the risks of action, any further teaching would be a waste of time." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Truth of Rebirth and Why It Matters for Buddhist Practice"