As for what other people are thinking or saying or doing, just remember: They can never take you to heaven or hell. If you’re going to go to heaven or hell, it’s through your own doing.

"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 stay centered right here inside, because when you’re operating from here, you can see things a lot more clearly. With less worry and flurry cluttering up your mind, you can also have a better idea of what you can do to respond to any given situation in an appropriate way, without having to pre-plan it, or worry about it too much. It comes because the mind is in a spot where it sees things a lot more clearly and quickly, with less of a sense of being under the power of other things."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Giving Weight"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Develop the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes he can't solve all the cases in the world

"When, while you’re trying to develop compassion and empathetic joy, you run across cases where you can’t help the other person, either to become happy or to maintain happiness, that’s when you have to develop equanimity. This is the equanimity of a good doctor who realizes that he can’t solve all the cases in the world. But if he lets his heart get broken over all the cases he can’t solve, he won’t have the energy to help the cases he might have been able to solve. So for the people who come to him and have the karma that allows him to help — and he himself has the karma that allows him to help them — he should think of that as a precious opportunity. It’s not always there. Make the most of it and don’t let yourself get distracted by things you can’t control or where you can’t be of help. Because, as I said, karma is complex. The combination of the patient’s karma to be in a position where he or she can be cured, and the doctor’s karmic connection with that patient: It doesn’t al...
Read more

On the ethics of meat-eating

Question: The precept against killing is often translated into adopting a vegetarian diet. Is this necessary? Aren’t you also killing these poor vegetables, stripping their skin off while they’re still alive and boiling them? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: For the monks, our rule is that we’re not allowed to eat meat if we either know or suspect that it was killed for the purpose of feeding us. The precept against killing is specifically against either killing something on your own or telling someone else to kill. Now, if you want to take the precept further and adopt a vegetarian diet, that’s perfectly fine. But the precept doesn’t require it. Just make sure that when you go to a seafood restaurant and they have a fish tank with live fish, don’t choose any of the live fish. As for vegetables, they don’t come under the concept of sentient being — they don’t feel pain — so the precept doesn’t cover them. We’ve received several questions on the issue of the relationship between the...
Read more

You know that you’ve got some past mistakes. There’s going to be some pain coming in the future. This shouldn’t be news. Having concentration as an alternative to sensual pain and pleasure puts you in a safe place.

"You know that you’ve got some past mistakes. There’s going to be some pain coming in the future. This shouldn’t be news. So you develop the qualities of mind that can guarantee that pain and pleasure won’t overcome the mind. In other words, you develop concentration; you develop discernment. Having concentration as an alternative to sensual pain and pleasure puts you in a safe place." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Remorse"
Read more