Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"In music, they have the term ostinato, which means a theme that’s repeated over and over and over again, usually in the bass. The mind has its ostinato, too. You dig down deep enough, and you find it asking a question all the time: “What’s next? What to do next? What to do next?” If the answer’s clear, the mind tends to be happy. If it’s not clear, if there are confusing signals being sent, then it gets uncertain, ill at ease. So, to get your mind settled in right now with a sense of certainty and ease, just tell yourself that you’re going to do one thing right now. You’re going to stay with the breath — all the way in, all the way out. You don’t have to go anywhere else. There will still be some questions as you’re staying with the breath, as how to get settled in with the breath, and how to deal with other thoughts that come up. But as long as you’ve established your priorities clearly, then the mind will feel more at ease." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Mind’s Ostinato

"There are lots of alternatives that face us after death. Some human beings, when they die, go to a higher level where they can just stay there with an energy body, as a deva or brahmā. Some of those beings on the higher levels then become deluded, thinking that they have found their permanent place, but they haven’t. They will eventually fall from that state and take rebirth on a lower level. Other human beings come back as human beings, or on a lower level. It depends on your past kamma and on your state of mind at death. But none of these states of being are permanent. The higher beings can fall; the lower animals can come back up. So our task is to try to come back to a good level where we can practice so that ultimately we get out of this mess entirely. And it is a mess. Ajaan Mun said that he could remember having been reborn as a dog 500 times, simply because it appealed to him at the time." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Facing Aging, Illness, & Death: The Central Tea

  Autonomous Good Karma , short morning talk November 16, 2015. Okay, focus on your breath. You might say there are lots of other things in the world that need attention right now, but the primary thing for each of us is to attend to our own minds: make sure our minds are in good shape, so that as we engage in the world, we’re not going to be adding more danger to the world, not be adding more of a mess to the world. After all, our actions are what shape the world, and where do our actions come from? They come from inside. Other people’s actions come from their minds. Try as we may to have a good influence on them, it doesn’t always work. But we can influence our own minds, so focus there first. Get your own mind in shape, and then from there if you come out into the world and see something you can do, something you can help with, you’re coming from a much better place. All too often, people who meditate are accused of being irresponsible in the face of all the troubles o

"When you look around at the world, it’s hard to say, “It’s a wonderful world, everything’s fine, therefore I’m going to be good.” You have to realize that, okay, even though the world is a mess, and people are doing all kinds of horrible things to make it messier, still, for your own sake, you have to ask yourself, “What kind of actions can I do right now that would lead to good long-term results?” That’s what you’re responsible for, and that’s what you’re going to have to live with." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Death World"

"Someone this morning expressed the idea, “Well, it’s all going to come out okay in the end.” And the Buddha questions that: “Will there be an end where it all sort of settles in?” We like to think that the world or the universe has some sort of plan behind it. It’s like a nice novel, all the loose ends get tied up in the end. But when you look at people’s lives: How many people’s lives have their loose ends tied up? How many people’s lives end with a nice, satisfactory, esthetically pleasing closure? That’s not the way of the world at all. It’s all unfinished business. People stop their work because they get too old, too weak to do it, or they die before it’s done. It’s not that the work ever really gets finished – it’s just that people have to drop it. Relationships tend to have lots and lots of loose ends that never really get resolved. And so the idea, “Well, it doesn’t really matter because it’s all going to come out in the end”: That’s one of the most destructiv

"You take your gift to the world — which is the current of energy that the mind sends out, both while it’s sitting here still and when it’s using that current to speak or act — and you’re making it a gift of high value, something you can be proud to present. You present this to your parents, you present this to all the people who’ve been good to you, all the people you respect. Then from there, you spread it to everyone. This is how we improve the world, one person at a time. It’s the only way that lasting improvements can be made." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "A Valuable Gift"

"There’s an interesting passage where the Buddha says that ill will is also a form of wrong view, the implication being that goodwill [mettā] is a form of right view. The view underlying ill will, of course, is that you would gain something by seeing somebody else suffering. Right view is that you gain something by wishing everybody to be happy." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill as Right View"

"On the mundane level, the first five factors of [the Buddha's noble eightfold] path [leading to the cessation of suffering and stress] correspond to the faculty of conviction. Right view on this level means believing in the principle of kamma and trusting that those who have practiced properly truly understand the workings of kamma in this life and the next. In the Buddha’s words, this level of right view holds that “There is what is given, what is offered, what is sacrificed. There are fruits & results of good & bad actions. There is this world & the next world. There is mother & father. There are spontaneously reborn beings; there are contemplatives & brahmans who, faring rightly & practicing rightly, proclaim this world & the next after having directly known & realized it for themselves.” What this passage means is that there is merit in generosity; the moral qualities of good and bad are inherent parts of the cosmos, and not simply social

"You can’t be responsible for other people’s actions. In other words, you can’t go through life making other people happy, because their happiness will depend on what they do. So, you focus on where you are responsible, on your own actions, and in that way, you give a good example to others. If they’re willing to follow the example, that’s how they become happy." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Good Heart, Good Mind: The Practice of the Ten Perfections"

"We live in a world where there are lots of influences around us: people, places. Of course, we were the ones who wanted to come here. I think I’ve told you the story about the nurse who was a victim of a lot of gossip in her workplace. One day when she was feeling especially oppressed by all this, she came to meditate with Ajaan Fuang. She had a vision in her meditation of being in a hall of mirrors: looking in one direction and seeing herself reflected back, back, back, back, back; looking in the other direction and seeing herself reflected back, back, back, back. The vision hinted that she’d probably been the victim of this sort of suffering many, many lifetimes. It made her feel even more oppressed. So she left meditation and talked to Ajaan Fuang about this, hoping that she’d get some comfort from him. Instead, he said, “Well, you were the one who wanted to be born as a human being in the first place.” It was like a slap in the face. But that’s the case. Each of us wanted to

"I was talking to someone today who likes to get exercise by riding a bike. Recently a number of her acquaintances have had really bad bike accidents, and she was getting concerned. She’s getting older now. And seeing how badly mangled her friends were, she was beginning to worry about herself, and thought maybe she should stop riding the bike. She had mentioned this to a friend of hers, and the friend said, “Oh no, don’t think of accidents. We create our reality, so if you think about accidents, you’ll make them happen; but if you don’t think about accidents, they won’t happen.” Kind of a Barnie-the-dinosaur approach to the world. If it were true, nobody would age, nobody would die. Most people who die are not thinking about death. Most people who get sick are not thinking about illness. These things happen because of karma. We have all kinds of karma in our past, good and bad, and it’s a combination of past karma and present karma that actually shapes our experience. If we coul

"It is possible, even as the body weakens with age, to accomplish great things in strengthening the mind’s tendency to form and act on skillful intentions. Given that the skillfulness of your intentions will determine how well you face illness and death, the best investment of your energy is acting in skillful ways that will help you in that regard. So it’s not wise to compose a bucket list of last-minute sensory pleasures to cram into what little time remains before you go. Instead, your bucket list should focus on the goodness you can create in your thoughts, words, and deeds. This goodness includes two sorts of qualities: general qualities, such as conviction, virtue, generosity, and discernment that will create the conditions for a good rebirth; and specific meditative skills, which will be needed to master craving at the moment of rebirth." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Undaunted: The Buddha’s Teachings on Aging, Illness, Death, & the Deathless"

"There’s a story where Somdet Toh was approached by a young monk complaining about another monk who had hit him. And Somdet Toh told him, “Well, you hit him before that.” The young monk replied, “No I didn’t. He just came up and hit me out of nowhere.” And Somdet Toh kept saying, “No, you hit him first.” So the young monk went to complain to the abbot of another monastery. The other monastery’s abbot came over and asked Somdet Toh what he was talking about. Somdet Toh said, “Well, obviously, he hit the other monk sometime in a previous lifetime.” In other words, if you try to trace things back to where a problem started, you go crazy. Because it just goes back and back and back, and there’s no sense of who was the original instigator. Which means that when you’re thinking about issues in the past, you just have to let them go. Just say, “Whatever it was, it was a karmic back and forth. Do you want to still continue it?” There’s another story — it’s in the Commentary — o

"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 wit

"Now, if you look at your actions over the past week or so, what kind of treasures are they? Are they something that you want to put in a suitcase and carry with you on into the future? If they’re not, you know what to do this week. You have to act in ways that will create treasures that you would like to keep with you. You have to treat your actions as your most important possessions." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Karma of Mindfulness: The Buddha's Teachings on Sati and Kamma"

"First, kamma: When someone is suffering, you have to reflect on the reasons why people suffer. Here we have to correct a common misunderstanding about kamma. The Buddha didn’t say that our present suffering comes entirely from our past actions. In fact, he actually said that to believe that what you experience now depends solely on past actions is an extreme form of wrong view. He took this point so seriously that — even though he wasn’t the sort of person to look for fights — when he heard that other people were teaching this view, he sought them out to argue with them. If you teach that everything depends on past kamma, he said, it leaves your students unprotected and bewildered, for it leaves them with no way of escaping from suffering in the present. One case involved some Jain ascetics: They claimed that by engaging in extreme asceticism, they were burning off the pains caused by their past bad kamma. So he asked them: “Have you noticed that when you don’t enga

Question 25. Can the Buddha’s teachings on kamma be divorced from his teachings on rebirth? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Not really. If there were no life before birth, kamma would have no role in explaining pleasure and pain early in life. And as the Buddha said, many people are rewarded in this lifetime for doing unskillful things — he cited people who are rewarded for killing the enemies of a king, stealing from an enemy of a king, or telling a lie that entertains a king — and you can probably think of similar examples in modern business and politics [SN 42:13]. Sometimes the results of those unskillful actions don’t even show until many lifetimes later — because the causal principle underlying kamma is so complex [MN 136]. ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Karma Q & A, a Study Guide"

"When an intention comes up to do or say or think something, you want to know what that intention is. It’s a teaching that the Buddha teaches his son Rahula: to look at his intentions before he does or says or thinks anything. I’ve heard a lot of people say, “Gee, that’s an awful lot of attention to something like that,” because they have so many other things they have to pay attention to. Well, it turns out that the other things you’re paying attention to are often the results of your own past actions. It’s much better to start at the very beginning to make sure that the new intentions coming out are well-formed. So try to stay right here. Find ways of making the mind happy to be right here, so that it has the energy and the inclination to want to look into what’s going on in the mind and straightening that out. Once you’ve straightened out the mind, everything else gets straightened out further down the line." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Straightened Intentions&

Question 10. You say that certain actions tend to lead to certain results. Can you give some examples? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Yes. On the unskillful side, the Buddha noted these tendencies: killing — to a short life; stealing — to loss of wealth; sexual misconduct (having sex with minors, with people already in another committed relationship, or with those who have taken a vow of celibacy) — to rivalry and revenge; telling lies — to being misrepresented and falsely accused; divisive speech — to the breaking-up of your own friendships; harsh speech — to hearing unappealing sounds; idle chatter — to hearing words that aren’t worth taking to heart; taking intoxicants — to mental derangement; beating others — to sickness and poor health; being ill-tempered and easily angered — to ugliness; being envious — to being uninfluential; being ungenerous — to poverty; being disrespectful and arrogant — to a low birth; not asking knowledgeable people about what to do to bring about long-term happines

"Following the precepts strictly also forces you to expand the range of time you consider when weighing the potential results of your actions. The Buddha formulated the precepts as he did because he saw that, over the long term, actions that go against the precepts eventually end up doing more harm than good. In following the precepts, you align your actions with the conviction that the immediate benefits that might come from breaking the precepts shouldn’t blind you to the harm that such actions will create over a very long term: the course of many lifetimes." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Virtue Without Attachment"

Question: What is the common thread among all ten perfections [pāramīs] that allows you to apply them in daily life? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The common thread is that you always have to think about the long-term consequences of what you’re doing, and to remember that the most important aspect of any activity is what qualities it develops in your own mind. For instance, suppose you’re at work. Your boss has said something really stupid and infuriating. You have to ask yourself, “What would be the best thing for me to say right now that would give the best long-term results?” Now, you may be able to think of a very clever, sarcastic reply, but then you have to ask yourself, “If I let this out of my mouth, what will happen? What kind of person will I become? What kinds of qualities will I be developing?” That’s a simple example. So, think about the long-term consequences of what you’re doing — and we’re talking really long-term: throughout this lifetime and into future ones. That’s the pe

"You can follow the path of action by looking at your actions. Ask yourself, “Okay, what are the results I’m getting here? Are they satisfactory?” If not, go back and change what you’re doing. Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. We want to be sane, so we have to figure out where to change our actions so that we can get the results we want. If you don’t like the results of your actions, that’s perfectly fine. That’s a kind of discontent that the Buddha actually encouraged. But don’t stop there and give up. And don’t make the mistake of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” Instead, ask yourself, “Where am I acting in a way that’s not skillful? And how can I change that?” Those are the questions that can take you far." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Ask Yourself the Buddha's Question"

"Generosity helps to overcome the greed that leads people to take unfair advantage of one another. Virtue helps to prevent the lies, thefts, and other callous actions that drive people apart. And universal goodwill [mettā] helps to overcome the various forms of tribalism that encourage favoritism and other forms of unfairness." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Wisdom over Justice"

"The issue is not whether we’re better than other people or worse than other people or equal to other people. The issue is that we’re suffering, and the suffering is coming from our own actions. We’ve got to learn how to train ourselves in how to think, how to speak, how to act in such a way that we’re not causing suffering. We have to be more circumspect. We have to be more alert to what we’re doing." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Getting Yourself"

"The way the Buddha teaches mindfulness of death, it makes sense only in the context of his explanation of what happens at death. If it were the case that death were the end of everything, mindfulness of death would mean doing everything you can to survive physically and squeezing as much enjoyment as you could out of whatever time is available. The attitude of “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we may die”: That’s how some people think about death. But as the Buddha pointed out, a basic principle of mundane right view is that here is the next world, and it’s built by your karma, built by your actions. And as he explained further in transcendent right view, your state of mind is going to be very, very, important at the moment of death. You want to be able to see your clingings, see your cravings. If you can learn how not to ride with them at all, so much the better. But if you find that you can’t manage that, at least keep yourself, as the texts say, “rightly direc

"The times that are needed to say things displeasing are very rare. It’s a sign of a lot more skill, when you have difficulty with someone, that you can get your emotions under control and you can express your thoughts in ways that they will be happy to hear. Even when you’re saying things that are unpleasant, you have to show respect for the other person. Don’t show disdain; don’t show contempt. Choose the right time, the right place, the right situation to say those things." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "True Freedom of Speech"

"[An awakened person] feels sympathy for others and seeks their well-being, experiencing a sense of satisfaction when they respond to [his/her] teachings, but otherwise [he/she] stays equanimous, untroubled, mindful, and alert. This passage shows that the even-mindedness of a fully awakened person is an attitude not of cold indifference, but rather of mental imperturbability. Such a person has found true happiness and would like others to share that happiness as well, but that happiness is not dependent on how others respond. This is the ideal state of mind for a person who truly works for the benefit of the world." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wings to Awakening"

"The pleasures that come from taking into account mistakes you’ve made in the past and then you learn to do something right: Those pleasures are really satisfying. As the Buddha says, people who were heedless in the past but then change to become heedful, brighten the world like a moon at night when released from a cloud. So don’t be ashamed of the fact you’ve made mistakes, in the sense of not letting them get you down." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Learn from Your Mistakes"

"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"

"Generosity trains the mind so that you learn to be more mindful of the needs of others, more attentive to the needs of others, realizing that your happiness spreads around and is not diminished when you’re being generous. In fact, it grows more. Virtue is to remind you that you have to keep the mind under control. There are certain things you may want to do but will be harmful, so you have to tell yourself No. And of course, meditation trains the mind directly. It’s all for the purpose of this." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Bottom Line"

Question: So there’s no self. So in that case, who acts and who creates the kamma? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: The Buddha never said that there is no self. When he teaches not -self, he’s teaching a technique, a strategy for getting rid of attachment. There’s a common misconception that the Buddha starts with the idea of there being no self, and in the context of no self teaches the doctrine of kamma, which doesn’t make sense: If there’s no self, who does the kamma and who receives the results? But that misconception gets the context backwards. Actually, the Buddha starts with the doctrine of kamma, and then views ideas of “self” and “not-self” as types of kamma. In other words, he focuses on seeing the way we define our sense of self as an action. Then the question becomes, when is the activity of identifying things as your self skillful, and when is it not? When is the activity of identifying things as not-self skillful, and when is it not? There are some instances where the B

"When things don’t seem to be going well, remind yourself that you haven’t reached the point where you’re suffering too much to practice. And you’re fortunate that you don’t have so much pleasure that you can’t practice. You’re in a good spot. As long as you have the will to practice, the desire to practice, you’re in the right spot." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Count Yourself Lucky"

"So remember, we’re here to go beyond ourselves, to go beyond just being beings that are consuming all the time. We try to redefine ourselves, not by what we eat or what we own or what we consume, but by what we produce, what we can give. Making this switch in the mind changes everything. Difficult patches come up in the meditation and you ask yourself not, “Why is this so bad? Does this mean I’m a miserable meditator?” You say, “No, what can I give to this situation so that it doesn’t snowball? What resources do I still have? What can I draw on to give to the situation to turn it into a different kind of situation?” When things are going well, again, what do you give to make sure that they continue to go well? You don’t just sit there slurping up the pleasure and the rapture. You look after them. You give your energy to protect them." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Better to Give than Consume" (Meditations6)

"As for what other people are thinking or saying or doing, just remember: They can never take you to hell. If you’re going to go to hell, it’s through your own doing. They can’t take you to heaven, either. If you are going to heaven, it’s through your own doing. And you don’t have to worry about heaven and hell in the afterlife. Right here and now, you can see it. Other people can do horrible things, but it’s only when you let what they’re doing get into your mind, and then you start doing horrible things along with them: That’s when it really gets bad. At the same time, no matter how good other people may be, you can always be worried about how much longer that goodness is going to last. Sometimes, the better the person is, the more you’re worried: “It can’t last. So I’m just going to have to hold on to them.” The issue isn’t what other people are doing, it’s how you’re managing your own mind. This is why you have to give importance, give weight to this ability to st

"[Other] people have all kinds of intentions, and we can’t be responsible for or control their intentions. But we can be responsible for our own intentions, and we can make our mind large. We wish them goodwill [mettā] not because they’re good but because we want to master the power of endurance so that the things that other people do to us are not going to have that much of an impact and persuade us to do unskillful things." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Cultivate a Limitless Heart" (Meditations8)

"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"

"We’re creating our lives. And even when the mind seems to be simply spinning its wheels, it’s not just idly spinning its wheels. It’s creating new states of being, new possibilities — some of which are good, some of which are not so good. You have to keep that principle always in mind as you’re meditating. You’re not simply here innocently watching what’s going on without any responsibility for what you’re experiencing. You’re responsible for your experiences — through your actions in the past and in the present moment. On the one hand, this sounds a little onerous because nobody likes to take responsibility. On the other hand, though, it’s empowering. If you don’t like the present moment, you can create a new present moment because the opportunities to do so are endless. We’re not just consumers of experiences. We’re also producers. We have to keep this principle in mind as we go through the practice. Our training in the precepts reminds us that we shape our life

"Suppose we lived in a world where your actions didn’t make any difference, and everything were determined already from the past, where everything you experienced had already been set in motion a long time ago, nothing you could do about it. It would be a pretty miserable world. And it wouldn’t be a world in which you would have a Buddha, because he gained awakening by observing himself, testing himself — on the assumption that he could learn from his mistakes and change the course of his life by his actions. That approach works only in a world where your choices do make a difference, where you have a role in shaping things. As he later explained causality, some influences come in from the past, but other things are chosen in the present moment. You put things together in the present moment. You’ve got the raw material coming in from the past, but your skill in putting things together right now is what’s going to make a difference. If it didn’t make a difference, there wouldn’t