When you realize that what you’re doing right now is the important part of kamma, and that you’re free not to do something unskillful, then you can realize you don’t have to give into your impulses. That’s when you escape.

"When you realize that what you’re doing right now is the important part of kamma, and that you’re free to do something skillful or not, then you can look into your impulses right now that would try to get you to do something unskillful, and you can say, “I don’t have to follow these.” You can pry into them, look into them, see what’s their allure. And then you can compare the allure with the drawbacks, gain a sense of where the compulsion came from, and realize you don’t have to give into it. That’s when you escape."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Generosity of Spirit"

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

You Don't Have to Be Afraid of Missing Out on Your Karmic Legacy

Buddhism is not saying that if you have anger you’re a bad person and it’s all your fault. Rather, it’s saying that the anger is the unskillful element in the equation of sensing that something should be done — and that’s what you want to deal with.

A lot of people are embarrassed to think about the fact that they may have committed some pretty bad karma in the past. But we’re all in that boat, simply that some people’s karma is showing now and other people’s is going to show later.