Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Many people in the modern world come to Buddhism suffering from their conceptual framework. They’re raised in a materialist worldview whose basic concepts — that life comes from nothing and returns to nothing, with a brief chance to pursue pleasure in the interim — are pretty dismal. They believe that if they could free their minds from these concepts and simply dwell in the present with no thought of what happens at the end, they’d be happy. They’d be able to squeeze as much pleasure out of the present as they could before the inevitable hits. So they look for a way to be free of all concepts. When they come here, though, they run into concepts. They see the Buddha’s teachings on kamma and rebirth, and they say, “This is invalid; you can’t make presuppositions about these things. Nobody knows anything about what happens before we’re born. Nobody knows anything about what happens after we die. Doesn’t the Buddha say that you have to prove things before you can accep...

"Everybody deserves compassion. Everybody deserves goodwill [mettā], empathetic joy. But again, it’s not so much what they deserve, it’s: What do you want to do with your life? How are you going to shape your experience? How do you want to shape the world around you? Give your goodwill as a gift, your compassion as a gift to others and to yourself. That’s a good way of shaping things." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Goodwill & Karma"

"Learn to look at what other people say as the result of your past actions; what other people do is the result of your past actions. In other words, the karma you’ve done in the past is coming back at you. It’s a sobering thought to think: Your past actions were done with the desire for happiness, and now you’re experiencing the skillfulness or lack of skillfulness in your past actions, in your past desires for happiness, your past efforts to bring about happiness. When you have that attitude, it’s a lot easier to live with other people. If they do something outrageous, you realize that you probably were a real character sometime in the past. And let it go at that. Your focus right now should be on what you’re doing and saying and thinking in the present moment." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Your Own Karma"

"A proper understanding of karma also helps to correct the false idea that if people are suffering they deserve to suffer, so you might as well just leave them alone. When you catch yourself thinking in those terms, you have to keep four principles in mind. First, remember that when you look at people, you can’t see all the karmic seeds from their past actions. They may be experiencing the results of past bad actions, but you don’t know when those seeds will stop sprouting. Also, you have no idea what other seeds, whatever wonderful latent potentials, will sprout in their place. There’s a saying in some Buddhist circles that if you want to see a person’s past actions, you look at his present condition; if you want to see his future condition, you look at his present actions. This principle, however, is based on a basic misperception: that we each have a single karmic account, and what we see in the present is the current running balance in each person’s account. Actually, no one’s...

"If Buddhist groups are to bring reconciliation to modern society, they have to master the hard work of reconciliation among themselves. Only then will their example be an inspiration to others. And even if their impact is not enough to prevent a general descent into the madness of fascism, terror, and war, they will be planting seeds of civilization that can sprout when the madness — like a fire across a prairie — has passed." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Reconciliation, Right & Wrong"

"This is one of the purposes of doing meditation to begin with — to see how much of our experience we’re fabricating. We’re fabricating a lot more than we think. “Fabricating” here doesn’t mean that you’re lying, it simply means that you’re creating things, jerry-rigging things together, to make some sense out of your experience, or to get something out of your experience. But the way you jerry-rig can carry lots of problem with it. A lot of things that bother us in life are not simply “givens.” We’ve taken some raw material from our past karma and have shaped it into something oppressive. That’s the kind of pain that the Buddha is focusing on — the pain that comes from craving." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Fabrication of Pain"

"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 Mi...

"The body, we’ll have to lose; our relatives, we’ll have to lose; society will break down at some point, whether it happens while we’re alive or after we die. But if it doesn’t break down before we die, the fact that we’re dying means that society is not going to be much help at that point. What will be of help is the fact that we’ve maintained our devotion to being skillful. And we see that as our top priority." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Worry"

"The fact that you’ve done bad things in the past doesn’t mean you’re a bad person now . 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. Because you can’t look into your karmic account and figure out what the running balance is or when good things are going to come, when bad things are going to come. The Buddha’s image is more like a field. You plant seeds, and some of the seeds sprout quickly, some seeds sprout slowly. What you’re seeing right now are the seeds that are sprouting right now, but you don’t know what else you have planted in that field. You don’t know what else other people have in their fields. Use this thought to depersonalize the issue." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Karma Storms"

"Ordinary happiness — the happiness of the body eating, sleeping, getting the things it wants — involves conflict because there are only so many resources in the world, and the fact that we need to eat and have clothing, shelter, and medicine means we’re a burden on the rest of the world. So that kind of happiness inevitably brings conflict, which is why the desire for release from all this is not a selfish thing. Now, we can’t release other people. The reason we’re tied up in this world of wandering on is because of our own lack of skillfulness. The same holds true for others: They’re tied up by their lack of skillfulness, too. We can learn to be skillful but we can’t make other people skillful. You can teach them how, but it’s up to them to want to do it, and it’s up to them to put in the necessary effort. So our first order of business in being kind to others and showing true goodwill is to develop our own skillfulness, because one way of encouraging other people to become skil...

"Then there will be part of the mind that says, “I don’t want to think about [the Dhamma right now] because it means I’ve been acting unskillfully in the past, and it just hurts too much to think about that.” That’s where the Buddha recommends developing the right attitude toward your past mistakes. It’s not inevitable that you’re going to have to suffer a lot from your past mistakes. As the Buddha said, if you can develop an attitude of limitless goodwill, compassion, empathetic joy, and equanimity, that’ll mitigate the results of your past bad actions. If you can train yourself so that the mind isn’t overcome by pleasure, isn’t overcome by pain — in other words, you don’t let these feelings get in the way of your seeing what’s actually going on — then again, the mind is immune, or at least the results of your past mistakes will be mitigated. So the proper attitude to have toward your past bad actions is, one, realize that remorse is not going to undo them. Simply ...

"Learn how to be a good storyteller, telling yourself the right stories, stories that will bring you into the present with a sense of confidence in your own abilities, with a sense of well-being, a sense of the importance of stilling the mind. No matter what the stories are — no matter what other people have done, no matter what you’ve done — there’s a way of looking at them that can put the mind at rest. To try to find that way: This is what all the teachings on kamma, all the teachings on the sublime attitudes, are about. You weave new stories in the mind, stories in which you have a change of heart, new stories that come together right here, enabling you to stay right here with a sense of well-being, clarity, concentration, mindfulness, and discernment. Without anything tugging you back into the past, pulling you into the future, you’re able to just be right here, right now, aware right here, right now, healing the mind right here, right now. That’s how you use the mind’s story...

"Direct your thinking specifically to making the mind still. In other words, you don’t try simply to stop thinking altogether, because that doesn’t work. You have to do something that seems a little bit paradoxical: You’re going to think about bringing the mind to stillness, or think about bringing it to a point where it doesn’t have to think. That recognizes steps in the process. Like that old paradox, you have to have a desire to put an end to desire before you can actually get to the end of desire, because life is a constant process of desiring and acting. People tend to lose sight of this, especially when they try to turn the Buddha’s teachings into a philosophy or a philosophical system whose purpose is to step back and take a look at the way the world is and draw a map of the world. Now, the Buddha did draw maps, but instead of, say, drawing a whole set of plans for how the house is built, he simply drew a map to where the exits are. Part of the Buddha’s map to the exits is ...

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...

"So as you’re looking for significance, this is where it lies: in training the mind so that it can be harmless. There’s not much news out there about harmless people, and yet they’re the really important people in the world: the ones who know that the search for happiness has to be responsible. You can’t just take your pleasures where you find them, or where you want to find them. You have to think about the consequences. Few people do that." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Significance"

"Virtue is not just following the precepts, but it’s a quality of mind that’s solid in its intentions. You make up your mind that you’re going to avoid evil, and then you just stick with that intention. That’s the essence of virtue. The word “sila” in Pali is related to the word “sela,” which means rock. In other words, there’s a solidity to that intention that you hold onto. You don’t let it go. Initially it may not seem like much, but you find that as you really hold onto these intentions — “Not to harm, not to harm, not to harm” — it really protects the mind from a lot of things. You learn not only not to harm people outside, but you also learn how not to harm yourself. And as you don’t harm yourself, you find resources of strength in your mind that you wouldn’t have guessed at otherwise. Because as long as the mind is harming itself, it keeps sapping its own strength, thinking in ways that get it depressed, thinking in ways that get it fearful, that just drain its strength aw...

"You hear the planes going overhead. There are people up there saying to themselves that they’ve got to stay ready for a war. That’s their way of being heedful. The Buddha’s way of being heedful, though, is to say that whether there’s war or no war, there’s always a danger in being unskillful. When that sense of danger stays alive, your sense of heedfulness will help keep you on the path and get you to a point where there is no danger." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Karma & Rebirth: A Handful of Leaves"

"Look at everything, even your sense of who you are, as types of action, and then look at whether they’re skillful or not. This is where that reflection on karma can take you. That fifth reflection may sound very simple, very basic — some people call it kindergarten Buddhism: You do good, you get good results; you do bad, you get bad results. But it’s exploring that basic principle that can take you all the way." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Up for the Challenge"

"You can do actions. You can choose to do something that’s more skillful, less blameworthy. And nine times out of ten, the more skillful choice is the obvious one. Maybe not the easiest one, but it’s obvious what’s skillful. There are a few cases where it’s not so obvious, but focus on the ones where it is obvious, and you clear up a lot of problems. As for when the issue is not so obvious, ask yourself why. Is the problem really that complicated?" ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "What You Can Do"

"The second precept [for the mind] is against stealing: This refers to stealing other people’s bad qualities and thinking about them all the time, without asking their permission to take their bad qualities to think about. You just take them. And that’s a kind of stealing. What happens is that you clutter up your mind with all kinds of garbage. As long as you’re going to steal other people’s habits or behavior, steal their good ones. See what other people are doing that sets a good example. Take that as a lesson for yourself. If you’re going to look at their mistakes or their bad habits, reflect back on yourself. You see their bad habits. This is what those habits look like from the outside. If you have the same habits, that’s what they look like. Use their bad habits as a mirror. Check and see if you have any of those yourself. But if you don’t have those habits, you don’t have to take them from them. You’d just be cluttering up your mind with garbage." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu ...

"It’s a matter of priorities: Where are you going to focus your energies to get the best results? The reflection connecting the principle of karma with equanimity is meant to clear the decks so that you can focus right there, on your present actions. That’s where the true issue is. That’s what underlies the basic structure of reality. When you can focus here, you don’t get all caught up in all the “what ifs” about the past: “What if I had done this? What if I hadn’t done that?” All those “what ifs” about the past are a massive waste of time. The important “what if” is: “What if I act skillfully now?” Try that out." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Intelligent Equanimity" (Meditations3)

"Think of the case of Angulimala. He had killed hundreds of people, yet the Buddha saw that he had potential. Rather than just leaving him to his fate, the Buddha was able to teach the Dhamma in such a way that Angulimala wasn’t going to have to suffer in the lower realms. A lot of people were unhappy with that because, literally, he was getting away with murder. But then you take their desire to see him punished, and you compare that with the Buddha’s goodwill to see him escape, regardless of what his past was: That’s what goodwill [mettā] means. A lot of harm is done in the world by people who want to see justice done through punishment. But if you can find a way that people can learn how to behave skillfully and stop doing unskillful things, that’s much better than just punishing people, because punishment doesn’t go very far. Some people learn their lesson from punishment, but a lot of people don’t." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Light of the World"

"[Conviction in the principle of karma and rebirth] can make you brave in doing good. If you’re convinced that the results of skillful intentions will have to return to you even if death intervenes, you can more easily make the sacrifices demanded by long-term endeavors for your own good and that of others. Whether of not you live to see the results in this lifetime, you’re convinced that the good you do is never lost. In this way, you develop the courage needed to build a store of skillful actions — generous and virtuous — that forms your first line of defense against dangers and fear." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Freedom from Fear"

"The same goes for our actions: We’re not really paying attention to what we’re doing because we’re often thinking about what we’re going to do next. Or we think about what we want to get out of the action and we’re not really looking at what we’re doing. As for the results, again, sometimes we don’t like the results of our actions, so we close our eyes. This is why there’s so much delusion in our lives. When you first look at these three stages of action, it’s pretty disconcerting. You see all the different things in your mind that you really don’t like — all the unskillful voices, all the unskillful motives. This is why you want to get the breath as comfortable as possible so that you can put yourself in a good mood, feeling settled, at ease, so that you can see the mind’s negative states without getting sucked into them, without getting depressed by them, without getting upset: simply, “Oh, yes, there’s that, too.” " ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Dealing with Confusion"

"These are important skills: learning how to recognize how you fabricate an emotion and how you do it unskillfully; and how you can deconstruct it and construct something more skillful in its place. It may sound artificial, but the whole process of constructing an emotion is artificial in the first place. It’s something fabricated. There’s an element of intention and, in many cases, the intentions have become so habitual that they seem automatic, because of the strength of the perceptions and the strength of the breath or that particular way of breathing around greed or aversion or delusion. You tend to think, “Well, this is what I really feel.” But it’s just a habit, and as with any habit, if you see that it’s harmful to you, harmful to the people around you, you want to learn how to undo it; replace it with other habits." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Deconstruct Your Emotions"

"Don’t latch on to the results of your actions; latch on to the fact that you’re making the decisions right now, all the time. Once a decision has been made, it’s been put into a larger circle of cause and effect beyond your control; but you do have a chance to make a decision again the next moment, and the next moment, and then the next. Focus on that. Don’t get caught up in the results of past actions. Focus on what you can do now to make the present actions skillful. That’s the focus of the teaching, “We’re the owners of our actions.” " ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Sublime Attitudes" (Meditations2)

"As the Buddha said, “You don’t go to heaven or hell because of other people’s actions. You go because of your own actions.” Those can take you to heaven; they can take you to hell. So why are you taking yourself to hell? And why are you upset with what other people are doing, which really has nothing to do, really, with you? It’s your actions that make all the difference." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Look at Yourself"

"As the Buddha said, discernment begins when you ask the question of someone who seems reliable: “What, when I do it, will lead to my long-term welfare and happiness?” Now you can interpret that on an external level, but you can also interpret it on an internal level. The external level is the practice of merit. Generosity leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Virtue leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Developing attitudes of universal goodwill [mettā] in the mind leads to long-term welfare and happiness. Those are attitudes and actions you want to develop because they help you see more clearly how your actions have an impact on your life. As you act in more skillful ways, life becomes a lot lighter. You feel a lot better about yourself. There are a lot of people out there who, when they’re feeling bad about themselves, go see a therapist. And what the therapist should tell them is, “Go out and do something good. Go out and help somebody. Try to be more principled in y...

"Learn how to speak to yourself in a way that shows compassion, that shows goodwill [mettā], really does wish for your true happiness. A part of the mind has a tendency to believe in the negative things more than in the positive, so it feels fake to remind yourself of how much you really do want true happiness. But don’t you want true happiness? Can’t you allow yourself to think that thought? Part of the mind will say, “But look at all these horrible people and what they’re doing.” Well, that’s their business. That’s their kamma. You don’t have to go around collecting other people’s bad kamma and weighing yourself down. Take a couple of good, long, deep breaths again. Air things out. Think about how petty a lot of the issues are that you get worked up about — the things that people say and do. You know that ten years from now you’re going to totally forget them. Or you’ll look back on today and say, “How could I let myself get so worked up about those things? Why did I waste my ...

"So when we talk about acceptance as a part of the path, we have to be very careful about what it means and what it doesn’t mean. It doesn’t mean that you just accept everything as wonderful, learning to be accepting of all things and equanimous around all things. Sometimes equanimity is useful; sometimes it’s not. You accept the fact that your actions do shape your experience, and you accept the fact that there’re going to be a lot of unpleasant things in life because you’ve been unskillful in the past, but you don’t just sit there. You try to figure out what you can do now to act as skillfully as possible, speak as skillfully as possible, think as skillfully as possible, listen as skillfully as possible, respond to pain and pleasure as skillfully as possible. So make use of the insight that our lives are shaped by our actions. The question is not so much what we are, the question is what are we doing? Actually, what we are is the result of actions, both past and present, so ev...