Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"So here’s the way out. It’s better to bring the mind to the present moment. Put aside the issues of who you are, what your personal past is, and what your personal narrative is. If you have any narratives at all, think of it as a narrative that says, “After all that suffering, you finally were able to learn how to bring an end to it.” That’s a good narrative. That’s the narrative that brings you into the present moment." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Dissolving Narratives"

"When I was up in the Bay Area [in September 2017], I came across a new word: corelessness . Apparently, the latest fashion is to claim that the Buddha said we are coreless, and that that’s the meaning of anatta . In other words, there’s a jumble of karmic activities that make up a human being. That’s what you are. The anatta  teaching, in this interpretation, is not a not-self teaching; it’s a no-self teaching. It answers the question of what you are, saying that what you are has no core. You’re like a karmic fuzz ball. All the fuzz that’s picked up as the fuzz ball moves across the floor under the force of the wind is held together only by static electricity, but there’s no real core there. This is supposed to represent what the Buddha taught about what we are. The problem is that the Buddha never talked about what we are. That was one of the questions he consistently avoided. If you say that there’s no core there, then when kamma ends in the attainment of nibbana, there’d be no...