Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"I’ve heard many people complain that they can think thoughts of goodwill [mettā], but they don’t get any warm feeling out of it. Well, it’s not necessary to have the warm feeling, as long as you think about other people’s well-being and take that into consideration as you plan your actions. That’s an awful lot right there." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill in Heart & Mind"

"So goodwill [mettā] for yourself means not harming others. And then you start thinking about them. They want happiness too, just like you. It’s just that we live in this world where people have lots of different levels of understanding and levels of behavior, and you have to be forgiving. So when anger comes up, you’ve got a tool to deal with it." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Guardian Meditations"

"One of the suttas we chanted just now was the Mangala Sutta . The word mangala means blessing. It also means protection. The story behind the sutta is that a deva came to see the Buddha and asked him, “People talk about protection. They talk about blessings. What is a real protection? What’s a real blessing?” The Buddha gave a list, starting with very simple things — not associating with fools, associating with wise people — ultimately building up to complete awakening, the point being that blessings don’t come from other things. They don’t come from the stars. They don’t come from the words of other people. They come from your actions. You protect yourself with your actions; you bless yourself with your actions." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Blessings"

"Even when people behave unjustly, you have to learn how to set aside thoughts of revenge, because they accomplish nothing good. Remind yourself that what other people do is their kamma; what you do is your kamma. You can’t ultimately be responsible for their kamma; however, you can be responsible for your own actions. So, you spread thoughts of goodwill [mettā]: thoughts that they may be happy, and especially that they may understand the causes for true happiness and then really act on them. That’s a thought you can extend even to people who are really cruel. In fact, you especially want to extend that to cruel people so that instead of focusing on getting revenge or retribution, you open your mind to the question of what you might do or say that would actually get them to change their ways. That way your intentions become more skillful." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wisdom of Wising Up" (Meditations6)

"As you look at the Buddha’s teachings, see that he’s teaching in a way that’s just right for people who are fabricating in unskillful ways, and who need directions in how to fabricate in new ways, with the realization that it is possible to change. Then you can apply the lessons to yourself. We’re not stuck in our old ways unless we keep ourselves stuck. We have the choice. The Buddha’s giving you some instructions on how to take advantage of that power of choice to fabricate your experience skillfully. And there’s nothing to keep you from trying those recommendations out." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "How to Change" (Meditations11)

"If we’re just automatons, if everything were determined, if we were just material beings having to feed our desires without any choice, that would be hopeless. But, as the Buddha said, the whole point of the teaching is that we are not hopeless. We actually have the potential for good habits that we can develop and we can make our choices. We don’t have to follow our old ways. It is possible to turn a new leaf." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Pain of Conviction"

"So when the mind feels tempted to go out someplace else, remind yourself: What you’re doing right here, being with the breath, even though you may not be seeing all the results you want right away, at least it’s headed in the right direction. We don’t just sit in the present moment. The present moment has an arrow. Time has an arrow. It moves into the future. What you choose to do now will have an impact now and on into the future. Sometimes the immediate impact is not what you want, or not as good as you want, but it’s headed in the right direction. It’s part of a path, a path that leads to knowledge, a path that leads to awakening, a path that leads to goodness all around. So when you’re tempted to slip off the path, remind yourself, it’s hard to find a path that good. And whatever else you’re slipping off to is pretty miserable in comparison. It’s in this way that reflection on gratitude in the context of karma can bring you right here, doing what you should be doing in terms ...

"Look at everything, even your sense of who you are, as types of action, and then look at whether they’re skillful or not. This is where that reflection on karma can take you. That fifth reflection may sound very simple, very basic — some people call it kindergarten Buddhism: You do good, you get good results; you do bad, you get bad results. But it’s exploring that basic principle that can take you all the way." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Up for the Challenge"

"The Buddha’s test for a teaching is: Does it lead you to do skillful things? And the teaching on karma is very much one that focuses on the power of your actions right now. And the same with rebirth: That allows for your actions to have lots of ramifications and reverberations throughout time, so you want to be extremely careful about what you’re doing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma Snake"

"When you’ve made a practice of generosity and virtue, the mind’s ability to say No to its impulses has been strengthened and given finesse. You’ve seen the good results that come from being able to restrain yourself in terms of your words and deeds. You’ve seen that restraint means the opposite of deprivation. Now, as you meditate, you’ve got the opportunity to restrain your thoughts and see what good comes from that. If you really are able to say No to your vagrant ideas, you find that the mind can settle down with a much greater sense of satisfaction in its state of concentration than could possibly come with those ideas, no matter how fantastic they are. You find that the satisfaction of giving in to those distractions just slips through your fingers as if it were never there. It’s like trying to grab a handful of water or a fistful of air. But the sense of well-being that comes with being able to repeatedly bring your mind to a state of stillness, even if you haven’t gone all...

"In its most sophisticated expression, though, the Buddha’s insight into causality implies that each moment is composed of three types of factors: results of past intentions, present intentions, and the results of present intentions. Because many past intentions can have an impact on any given moment, this means that there can be many potential influences from the past — helpful or harmful — appearing in the body or mind at any given time. The role of appropriate attention is to focus on whichever influence is potentially most helpful and to look at it in such a way as to promote skillful intentions in the present." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Food for Awakening: The Role of Appropriate Attention"

"Even though we’re living in the same world, each of us has our own world. We’re all sitting here in the same room but each of us is in a different world. So you want to make sure that your inner world is a peaceful one, because the inner worlds are what then go out and create the outer worlds. If you can be peaceful inside, you begin to find that you connect with other people who are peaceful. Even though you may have some past bad karma from other worlds that you’ve been creating for yourself, at the very least you’re creating good ones right now. That’s what matters." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "World Peace Begins Inside"

"Present experience is a combination of three things: the results of past intentions — your old karma; present intentions; and the results of present intentions. Your present intentions are the determining factor as to whether the mind does or doesn’t suffer in any given moment. They’re also the factor where freedom can come into the mixture. Past karma is a given, providing the raw material that your present karma can shape into present experience; the principle of causality is a given, providing the ground rules as to which present actions will or won’t give good results. These givens provide, so to speak, the point of contact against which present actions can push and pull and actually propel you in a particular direction. The wider the range of skills you bring to your present actions, the more freedom you gain in knowing how to push and pull skillfully — and the more you’ll be able and willing to act on this knowledge." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Did the Buddha Teach Fre...

"The effects of action can be experienced both now, in the immediate present, and into the future. As a result, your present experience is composed of three things: the results of past intentions with long-term effects, present intentions, and the immediate results of present intentions. Past intentions provide the raw material from which present intentions shape your actual experience of the present moment." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Buddha's Teachings: An Introduction"

"People have noted how ironic it is that in a teaching that emphasizes not-self we have some of the earliest spiritual autobiographies of the world. The Buddha, when talking about his quest for awakening spoke very much in terms of: This is what I did, and looking at what I had done and seeing that it hadn’t given the results I wanted, I tried something else. That’s the pattern. When you think of the issue in other terms, though, this way of speaking is not ironic at all because the Buddha’s main teaching was kamma: We suffer because of our actions, but we can find the end of suffering by understanding our actions — the actions that lead to suffering, and then the actions of the path to the end of suffering. That understanding is what opens the way. The Buddha’s autobiography shows the lessons he learned about action in the course of his awakening, and he tells his story to show how we can follow his example and learn from our actions, too." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu ...

"When a Buddhist takes refuge, it is essentially an act of taking refuge in the doctrine of karma: It’s an act of submission in that one is committed to living in line with the principle that actions based on skillful intentions lead to happiness, while actions based on unskillful intentions lead to suffering; it’s an act of claiming protection in that, by following the teaching, one hopes to avoid the misfortunes that bad karma engenders. To take refuge in this way ultimately means to take refuge in the quality of our own intentions, for that’s where the essence of karma lies." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Going for Refuge"

"What the Buddha taught about karma is this: Your experience of the present moment consists of three things: 1) pleasures and pains resulting from past intentions, 2) present intentions, and 3) pleasures and pains resulting from present intentions. With reference to the question of happiness, this teaching has three main implications. • The present is not totally shaped by the past. In fact, the most important element shaping your present pleasure or pain is how you fashion, with your intentions in the present, the raw material provided by the past. • Pleasures and pains don’t just come floating by of their own accord. They come from intentions, which are actions. This means that they have their price, in that every action has an impact both on yourself and on others. The less harmful the impact, the lower the price. If your search for happiness is harmful to others, they will fight to undo your happiness. If it’s harmful to yourself, your search has failed. • Your s...

"We tend to think the Buddha encouraged people to be frugal – and he did – but he didn’t encourage stinginess, the kind of miserly attitude where all you can think of doing with wealth is squirreling it away. He said that one of the benefits of wealth is that you get to enjoy it. He actually criticized people who don’t know how to enjoy their wealth. It’s because basically you feel bad about enjoying things, and if you feel bad about enjoying things yourself, then how are you going to feel good about other people enjoying things? How are you going to want to make other people have joy? The mind just shrivels up, the heart shrivels up, with an attitude like that. So to nourish the heart, it’s good to learn how to take some joy in the wealth that you’ve got, the goodness and good fortune you’ve got — and that you take joy in the goodness and good fortune of other people. That nourishes the heart. Remind yourself that happiness is a good thing. After all, the practice of Dhamma is a ...

"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 with learning ho...

"So when we wish that all beings be happy, part of the reason is that we’re trying to develop the motivation that we don’t want to harm anybody in our actions. Because that’s all we’re responsible for: our own actions. Then you also think about the fact that the happiness there — in “May all beings be happy” — has to come from causes. It’s not that we go around with a magic wand to touch beings on the heads and say, “Okay, whatever you’re doing right now, be happy.” Because a lot of activities that people do are harmful to themselves, to other people. Part of being truly happy — and that’s the important part, that it’s true happiness — part of being truly happy is to learn how to stop doing unskillful actions." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Can All Beings Be Happy?"

"When you see other people acting on their unskillful mind states, it gives you a chance to see what you look like when you act on yours. It’s not a pretty sight. For example, we all have a tendency to want to straighten other people out. We want this person to be that way and that person to be this way. But when other people try to straighten you out, how do you feel? The Thais call this putting other people’s heart in your heart, and your heart in theirs: in other words, realizing that what you feel is what other people feel. If you ever want to straighten anything out, well, you’ve got your heart here that needs straightening out first. And so focus right here — because this is where you really can do the work." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Bodies & Minds Outside"

"We can’t wait until the world gets straightened out before we straighten out our own minds, because the cause is in the mind. The world out there is the realm of effects. The realm of causes is in here: That’s one of the basic lessons of dependent co-arising. All the causes of suffering come prior to your engagement with the world. If you want other people to change their behavior, you’ve got to straighten out your behavior. You have to walk your talk, so that your talk is compelling. You can’t force other people to follow your example, but at least you establish that example here in the world. It’s good to have these examples in the world. Otherwise the world would be a totally depressing place." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "True Protection for the World"

"If you appreciate the help that you have received from others and show gratitude for the effort that they put into it, you will also be more likely to provide help to others. So you can see that the Buddha’s teachings on kamma affirm the social virtues of generosity and gratitude. Without these two virtues, human society would be chaos." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma"

"There are some unskillful things happening in the world that really are worth banding together with other people, getting your energies together, and seeing if you can put a stop to them. But you have to do it in a skillful way. There’s never a case in the Dhamma where good ends justify unskillful means. The means have to be good — in fact, everything is all means. After all, where would you put the ends? You settle one issue and there’s another issue. You settle that issue, then everyone dies, they get reborn, and things start up again." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Justice vs. Skillfulness" (Meditations8)

"There’s no wrong that goes unpunished, no good that goes unrewarded. That’s simply the way kamma is. Therefore, we don’t have to carry around ledger sheets — which person did this, which person did that — with the fear that if the ledger sheet disappears then that person’s not going to get the retribution he or she deserves. The principle of kamma takes care of that. But remember that it also takes care of you as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Story-telling Mind"

"You can ask yourself, “If I were to die and were looking back at my life, looking back at today, what would I wish I had done today? What would I wish I’d said today?” Knowing that most of your ordinary worries and cares are rendered pretty meaningless by death, then live your life from that perspective. Say the good things you will have wished you had said, do the good things you will have wished you had done." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "You're Already Dead"

"Remember one of the consequences of right view is that it develops right resolve, and one aspect of right resolve is non-ill will. If you allow ill will to take over, not only does it get in the way of your concentration, but it’s also going to lead you to want to do things and say things, advocate courses of action that will simply bring more suffering into the world. If you can develop some goodwill for yourself, goodwill for the people who’ve been doing wrong, then there’s some hope for the world. After all, you probably haven’t had all your wrong actions tallied up and punished. And you’re probably glad that that’s the case. Try to develop the same attitude toward other people and see what you can do to develop some health in your mind. When you know the way to make your mind healthy, then you’re in a better position to be a good example to others, so that they can make their minds healthy as well. In that way, we all benefit." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "When Your Will I...