Dhamma talk after the 9/11 attacks (extract)

Mid-September 2001: "A lot of people have been asking recently about how karma has played out in recent events. The Buddha generally discourages trying to trace back exactly what people did that caused them to die in this or that way. He said that if you tried to trace that back you’d go crazy, for the issues of karma are so complex. The basic principle is simple: Whatever was done with a skillful intention gets a pleasant result, whatever was done with an unskillful intention gives an unpleasant result. And there’s a correspondence between a particular type of unskillful action and a particular type of unskillful result. But the precise details — “What exactly did these people do? Did they do it all together? Did they do it separately?” — no one can trace those back.

What the Buddha did teach, though, is to focus on what’s the most skillful thing we can do now, given the situation. That’s where the emphasis should lie."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "For the Good of the World"

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