Kamma is the one big metaphysical issue the Buddha talks about a lot: the nature of action, what action does, when it gives its results, the fact that action is real, that it gives results both immediately and over time.

"A lot of people believe that kamma is one of those teachings that’s not particularly relevant to their meditation practice. But essentially, kamma is what the practice is all about. After all, kamma is what you’re doing to create suffering. Changing your kamma is what’s going to bring suffering to an end. The Buddha tends to avoid talking about metaphysical issues, but kamma is the one big metaphysical issue he talks about a lot. The nature of action, what action does, when it gives its results, the fact that action is real, that it gives results both immediately and over time: These are metaphysical issues. And the reason the Buddha focuses on these and not on other issues is because the nature of action is important for understanding why we suffer and how we can stop suffering. There’s the kamma that leads to suffering; there’s the kamma that leads to its end.

So we’re here trying to understand what action is all about, what action does, and what it creates."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Becoming" (Meditations4)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You Don't Have to Be Afraid of Missing Out on Your Karmic Legacy

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 example,...
Read more

The Buddha introduces the topic of kamma with generosity and gratitude

"When [the Buddha] introduces the topic of kamma, he doesn’t talk about the bad things you’ve done in the past; he talks about good things. The first topic he mentions in connection with kamma is generosity. Generosity, he says, is something real. It’s a good thing to be generous. He even has you use it as a topic of focused contemplation. When things are going dry in your meditation and everything seems to come to a stop, remind yourself of the ways you’ve been generous in the past. The other topic the Buddha uses to introduce the topic of kamma is gratitude. Think of all the people who have helped you in the past — the ones who volunteered to help without you’re doing something nice to them first. They helped you out of the goodness of their hearts. That sort of action is worth appreciating, worth emulating. You realize how much you benefited when you were fed by them or clothed by them or taught or helped in whatever way they did. And this, combined with the princ...
Read more

We all have our past kamma, the things that come at us in life from our past actions. But again, it’s what you’re doing right now that’s going to make all the difference.

"So remember, your actions are important, and you can make skillful choices now. Now, as you live in this human life, we can’t guarantee that once you’ve started on the path everything will be a path of roses. We all have our past kamma, the things that come at us in life from our past actions. But again, it’s what you’re doing right now that’s going to make all the difference, so you want to focus on: What are your capabilities right now? Where are you holding onto things that are making you suffer? That was the Buddha’s definition of suffering. It’s not something that’s happening to us. It’s something we're doing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Encouragement"
Read more