Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"If you develop a mind state where you realize you have no ill will for anyone, it gives you a sense of strength and nourishment, and as the Buddha says, it provides protection for you in all directions, into the past and into the future. What this requires, though, is that when you’re developing goodwill [mettā], you don’t simply think over and over again, “May so-and-so be happy, may they be happy, may they be happy.” You also have to think, “Is there anyone out there for whom I cannot have genuine goodwill? Why can I not feel goodwill for this person?” If they’re misbehaving, genuine goodwill means that you’re wishing that they will have a change of heart: that they’ll change their ways and behave more skillfully. Now, is there anyone out there who you would like to see suffer before they change their ways? If there is, ask yourself, “Okay, why? What are you feeding on?” It’s usually a sense of revenge. And even though they say revenge is sweet, it’s miserable food. It woul...

"When people who are enjoying good fortune abuse that good fortune — say, using their power to create war and mayhem in the world — you can’t wish for them to lose their good fortune. A more skillful attitude would be to wish that they would see the error of their ways and then use their good fortune for greater good." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Sublime Determinations: a Retreat on the Brahmavihāras with the Sociedade Vipassana de Meditação BrasÍlia"

"Of the various forms of wrong speech and wrong action, the Buddha regarded the telling of lies as the most serious and most destructive — perhaps because if you cause your listeners to misunderstand the truth, it can cause them to act unskillfully not only in this lifetime, but also in future ones as well. Furthermore, as he said in [Iti 25], if a person feels no shame at telling a lie, there is no evil that that person will not do." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Right Speech & Right Action"

"As [the Buddha] saw, people would fare through the world up and down, based on their actions. Their actions were shaped by their intentions. Their intentions were shaped by their views. The way these things worked out was pretty complex, but the basic principle was simple: You act on skillful intentions, the result is happiness. You act on unskillful intentions, the result is suffering, pain. Of course, you look at your life, and it’s not the case that you do nothing but good actions, nothing but bad actions. There’s a mixture. But what’s important is that, as you go through life and you realize you’ve made mistakes, you admit the mistakes and you try to develop right view. Then your actions really do make a difference. Believing in that gives you the energy to try to do your best. There are people out there, just as there were people in the Buddha’s time, who say that you’re powerless. Either actions are not real at all, or even though they are real, they have no impact on shapi...

"Our experience of the world is defined through our actions, our choices. Take that home and think about it quite a bit. It’s not that the world is imposed on us, willy-nilly. We’re looking for things, making choices, and in making choices, we develop our sense of the world, of what’s here and what’s over there. What comes first? What comes second? That’s how space and time are defined. So we’re defining space and time by our actions. When there’s no action, there’s no experience of space or time. The Buddha’s teachings are that radical." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Action & Result"

"As [the Buddha] noted, you can’t see all the results of actions here in this lifetime. Some people say, “Everything I’ve seen in life is enough to convince me that kamma works.” Well, No, it’s not. There are plenty of people who do all kinds of horrible unskillful things, yet they’re still alive. They thrive. The Buddha has a long list of people who thrive because they kill, steal, engage in illicit sex, lie, or take intoxicants [Saṁyutta Nikāya 42:13]. They do it with the right people and they do it in the right way to please someone in power, so they actually get rewarded by society in one way or another. But as the Buddha commented, those are only the short-term consequences. You’ve got to take the long-term consequences into consideration as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Rebirth is Relevant"