The Buddha’s teaching on karma focuses on the fact that while your experiences are influenced to some extent by actions from the past, the way you experience those influences depends on what you do with them right now

"The teachings on action, or karma, are so central to the Buddha’s message. Contrary to popular belief, the Buddha did not teach fatalism. In fact, he was extremely critical of fatalism — the belief that your experiences are already determined from causes in the past — because fatalism denies that your present actions can make a difference. In one of his discourses, he notes that fatalism leaves you without protection, for it allows no foundation for even the idea of what should and shouldn’t be done. If everything is predetermined, there’s no way of saying that one action is good and another bad. Everything is just the way it has to be.

The Buddha’s teaching on karma, however, focuses on the fact that while your experiences are influenced to some extent by actions from the past, the way you experience those influences depends on what you do with them in the present. In fact, without the karma of your present actions, you wouldn’t experience anything at all."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Beyond All Directions: Refuge in the Buddha, Dhamma & Sangha"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Develop the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes he can't solve all the cases in the world

"When, while you’re trying to develop compassion and empathetic joy, you run across cases where you can’t help the other person, either to become happy or to maintain happiness, that’s when you have to develop equanimity. This is the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes that he can’t solve all the cases in the world. But if he lets his heart get broken over all the cases he can’t solve, he won’t have the energy to help the cases he might have been able to solve. So for the people who come to him and have the karma that allows him to help — and he himself has the karma that allows him to help them — he should think of that as a precious opportunity. It’s not always there. Make the most of it and don’t let yourself get distracted by things you can’t control or where you can’t be of help. Because, as I said, karma is complex. The combination of the patient’s karma to be in a position where he or she can be cured, and the doctor’s karmic connection with that patient: It doesn’t al...
Read more

On the ethics of meat-eating

Question: The precept against killing is often translated into adopting a vegetarian diet. Is this necessary? Aren’t you also killing these poor vegetables, stripping their skin off while they’re still alive and boiling them? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: For the monks, our rule is that we’re not allowed to eat meat if we either know or suspect that it was killed for the purpose of feeding us. The precept against killing is specifically against either killing something on your own or telling someone else to kill. Now, if you want to take the precept further and adopt a vegetarian diet, that’s perfectly fine. But the precept doesn’t require it. Just make sure that when you go to a seafood restaurant and they have a fish tank with live fish, don’t choose any of the live fish. As for vegetables, they don’t come under the concept of sentient being — they don’t feel pain — so the precept doesn’t cover them. We’ve received several questions on the issue of the relationship between the...
Read more

You know that you’ve got some past mistakes. There’s going to be some pain coming in the future. This shouldn’t be news. Having concentration as an alternative to sensual pain and pleasure puts you in a safe place.

"You know that you’ve got some past mistakes. There’s going to be some pain coming in the future. This shouldn’t be news. So you develop the qualities of mind that can guarantee that pain and pleasure won’t overcome the mind. In other words, you develop concentration; you develop discernment. Having concentration as an alternative to sensual pain and pleasure puts you in a safe place." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Remorse"
Read more