The protection you get from the Dhamma is that you’re not creating any new bad kamma right now, but it doesn’t protect you from your old bad kamma. So you still have to watch out.

"We hear about the Dhamma protecting us or we hear about our good intentions protecting us, and we think that we don’t have to be wary about the world around us. Our good intentions will protect us. But the Buddha never said that. The protection you get from the Dhamma is that you’re not creating any new bad kamma right now, but it doesn’t protect you from your old bad kamma. So you still have to watch out.

I noticed that Ajaan Fuang was a very wary person — wary of dealing with other people. He wouldn’t trust people right away. He would watch them for a while first. When I lived with him, it was two or three years before I was even allowed in his room. I eventually became his attendant, and then it became my duty. I had to clean up his room and arrange everything. But he wouldn’t allow me in there until he felt that he could really trust me. And when different issues came up in the monastery — so-and-so said this about you, so-and-so said that about you — he would sometimes ask trick questions to see how you would respond, to check to see if the accusation was true. He wouldn’t come right out and trust people right away, because he learned in dealing with his own defilements: You can’t trust your own defilements, and other people have their defilements — so how can you trust them?

So you’ve got to keep your guard up. You can’t believe that simply having good intentions is going to be enough. After all, the Buddha said it’s not good intentions, it’s skillful intentions that matter. That means you have to be circumspect, so that you can avoid dangers."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Guarding against Trouble"

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