If you want good results, you have to make sure you believe in the power of your actions.

"Sometimes we believe in the power of our actions and sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we say, “I really hope that my actions give results,” other times you do something and you say, “Well, I hope this doesn’t give results.” You try to convince yourself that the law of karma is something you can turn on and off. But actions always give results, and the results are in line with the quality of the action, and particularly the quality of the intention behind the action.

So if you want good results, you have to make sure that the intentions are good. If you want those good results to be consistently good, then you have to make sure your intentions are consistently good. Remind yourself that you have the choice: You don’t have to act on every intention that comes in the mind. Even though some of the unskillful ones based on greed, aversion, and delusion seem awfully strong, they don’t have to overwhelm the mind.

The mind can strengthen itself in its conviction that its actions really do matter; in its persistence, really sticking with doing what’s good; mindfulness, remembering what’s good so that you can apply it; this will bring the mind to concentration; and then the discernment: All these things are strengths of mind that enable you to do consistently the right thing.

In that way, the happiness that you want — the happiness we all want — will be consistent as well. The results have to come from causes, and the causes are there in your mind. So make sure they’re in good order and that nothing else comes in to overthrow them."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Intentions in Line with Results"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We’re never going to get a perfect society, but you find that the wiser you are in your generosity, the more consistent you are in your virtue, then the better the world you create around you. And it can be done without force, without imposing your will on other people.

"Look at the Buddha. If anybody could have created a perfect society, it would have been him. But he saw that it was useless. There was a time when Mara came to him. The question had arisen in the Buddha’s mind, “Could it be possible to rule in such a way that you wouldn’t have to create bad kamma and that you could do nothing but good for all beings?” Mara shows up, and says, “Ah, yes, do that.” And the Buddha realizes that this idea of creating a perfect society is all a trick of Mara, because you’re using people for ends. And how skillful are those ends? Even if the ends are good, there’s a tendency to try to attain them in unskillful ways, to impose them on people. If you tell people that things will be good and they’ll be happy only if society is perfect, people would die before they could find true happiness. On the other hand, the solution is not a matter of simply accepting things as they are. It’s learning how to reshape them in a skillful way, starting wit...
Read more

The mind is proactive in its engagement with the senses and with the world. We’re not just on the receiving end of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations coming in. We don’t simply respond to the stimulus of other people’s actions. We’re proactive. We go out looking for things.

"One of the distinctive teachings of the Forest tradition is its emphasis on how proactive the mind is in its engagement with the senses and with the world. We’re not just on the receiving end of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile sensations coming in. We don’t simply respond to the stimulus of other people’s actions. We’re proactive. We go out looking for things. This is in line with the Buddha’s teachings on intention. Our experience of the present moment is made up of the results of past actions, but also our current intentions and the results of our current intentions. When you look at the way the Buddha lines things up in dependent co-arising, our intentions actually come before our engagement with the senses. We intend to engage the senses, and that’s how we meet up with the sensory material that’s coming in. What this means is that our intentions don’t have to be shaped by what’s coming in. They don’t have to be pushed around by what’s coming in. We can be more skillf...
Read more

The real basis for a sense of connectedness comes through kamma. When you interact with another person, a connection is made. A connection of skillful behavior starts with generosity, and grows with the gift of virtue.

"The real basis for a sense of connectedness comes through kamma. When you interact with another person, a connection is made. Now, it can be a positive or a negative connection, depending on the intention. With generosity you create a positive connection, a helpful connection, a connection where you’re glad that the boundary is down, a connection where good things can flow back and forth. If it’s unskillful kamma, you’re creating a connection, you’re creating an opening that sooner or later you’re going to regret. There’s a saying in the Dhammapada that a hand without a wound can hold poison and not be harmed. In other words, if you don’t have any bad kamma, the results of bad kamma won’t come to you. But if you have a wound on your hand, then if you hold poison it will seep through the wound and kill you. Unskillful kamma is just that, a wound. It’s an opening for poisonous things to come in. The opposite principle also works. If there’s a connection of skillful behavior, a good...
Read more