If you think everything ends with death, there’s never any sense of enough. But, if you realize that you’re going to keep coming back, back, back, back again, that changes things. So, keep that larger context in mind.

"You start with right view about kamma and rebirth in general, thinking about what those principles say about your life. If you think that life ends with death and that’s it — there’s nothing more — then that’s going to put everything else in your daily life into one context. But if you think of samsara as something that’s going to lead on for more and more and more lives, then your actions take on a different meaning.


You want to keep that larger context in mind, so that you can have a clear idea: What really is worth doing? What’s not worth doing? When you start getting attached to ideas, memories, material things, you can remind yourself, “Okay, you’ve had these things before, you’ve let go of them before, and you’ve come back to them again, and you’re setting yourself up to miss them again. Haven’t you had enough?”

If you think everything ends with death, there’s never any sense of enough. You want to grab as much as you can before you go. But, if you realize that you’re going to keep coming back, back, back, back again, and you’ve been through this many, many times — and what do you have to show for it? That changes things. As the Buddha said, you’ve shed more tears than there is water in the ocean. So, keep that larger context in mind."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Bringing Daily Life into the Practice"


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Question habits and intentions. However, faith in karma should be maintained as a working hypothesis all the way to Nibbana.

"When the Buddha described his quest for awakening as a series of responses to questions of the form, “Why am I doing this?” he was indicating the point at which the search for a way out of stress turns inward: the realization that stress may be caused by one’s own actions. He was also indicating that an important part of the path consists of the realization that one’s habits — and in particular, one’s intentions — are not to be blindly accepted or taken for granted. They should be called into question and subjected to honest scrutiny. However, he also was indicating that not everything is to be questioned — in particular, conviction in the efficacy of action should be maintained as a working hypothesis all the way to release." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Skill in Questions: How the Buddha Taught"
Read more

There are lots of things about karma that are not fair, the Buddha didn't design it

"Some people say Buddhism is selfish or harsh with its teachings on karma, selfish in the fact that each person is looking out after his or her own well-being, harsh in that people are being held responsible for their own suffering. If the Buddha could have saved us all, he would have. He had an enormous immeasurable heart, but he saw that this is the way that karma is. There are lots of things about karma that are not fair. Look at Ven. Angulimala: He had killed almost a thousand people and yet he was able to become an arahant without having to undergo a thousand deaths to pay off that karmic debt. By training his mind, he was able to mitigate a lot of the suffering he would have otherwise undergone. A lot of people were unhappy about that. They felt it wasn’t fair. The Buddha didn’t design the teaching on karma to make things fair or to be consoling. He didn’t design it at all. He just pointed out that this is the way things are, this is how they work." ~ Thani
Read more

Have some positive feelings toward this teaching on kamma. It’s not there just to punish you. It’s there to offer you opportunities. It’s there to remind you that your actions are important.

"Have some positive feelings toward this teaching on kamma. It’s not there just to punish you. It’s there to offer you opportunities. It’s there to remind you that your actions are important. And even though you’ve done unskillful things in the past, you’ve got a new opportunity right now to do something skillful. And then again right now. Each right now. So if you do find yourself in the middle of having made some unfortunate choices, you can say, “Well, I’ll stop.” And the fact that you stopped becomes positive kamma right there. Part of the mind may say, “You’ve been doing unskillful things in the past, you’re going to give in to unskillful impulses in the future, so why bother resisting now?” Fight that. You’ve got to fight it. And you have the freedom to fight it. That’s the important part of our kamma: that element of freedom." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Good Side of Kamma"
Read more