The Buddha taught kamma in a way that is psychologically very healthy: neither fatalistic, complacent, nor callous.

"In the West, these teachings [on kamma] are often misunderstood and, as a result, disliked. Part of the problem is that people, believing that these teachings to be deterministic, dismiss them as psychologically unhealthy. The complaint is that the teaching on kamma makes people fatalistic about their own suffering, complacent about their pleasure, and callous and indifferent to the sufferings of others.

But this complaint is based on a misunderstanding of the Buddha’s actual teachings on kamma. In fact, the Buddha taught kamma in a way that is psychologically very healthy: neither fatalistic, complacent, nor callous."

~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Buddha Teaches His Son: An Essay on Majjhima Nikāya 61"

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We’re never going to get a perfect society, but you find that the wiser you are in your generosity, the more consistent you are in your virtue, then the better the world you create around you. And it can be done without force, without imposing your will on other people.

"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...
Read more

Connectedness through karma can go either way — the connections can be good, or they can be bad. So you want to foster the good ones.

" “We’re related through our actions” The connections we have in life with different people are created by our actions: things that we’ve done together with other people or to other people or for other people. These create the connections that we have with the people around us. Interconnectedness is a very popular teaching in Buddhism, especially nowadays, but it’s funny that people like to talk about interconnectedness without the teaching on karma. They turn to dependent co-arising as a model for interconnectedness, this web of connections where one factor can’t exist without a whole lot of other factors, but they neglect to realize that dependent co-arising is a teaching on how ignorance is connected with suffering, how craving is connected with suffering. It’s the kind of connectedness you want to cut, not the kind you want to celebrate. Connectedness through karma can go either way — the connections can be good, or they can be bad. So you want to foster the good ...
Read more

Gratitude is focused on actions: the actions you’ve benefited from and the actions you feel called on to make in response to repay your debt of gratitude and to try to continue this stream of goodness into the world, on into the future.

"This is what gratitude is all about: It’s a sense not only that you appreciate the choices that people made but also that you need to respond. The word patikaroti means to repay or to make amends, but it can also mean to imitate. In other words, you imitate the goodness that they did, the intention that they had. You try to carry that out. That’s the response that keeps their goodness alive. There’s that question that people would often ask Ajaan Fuang: “How can I repay you for having taught me?” and his response was, “Be really intent on the practice.” That’s the best repayment right there. So this is why the Buddha’s teachings on gratitude are all surrounded by words that deal with action. You appreciate someone’s good actions and then you realize there’s an action that’s called for from you, an appropriate response. That’s what makes it different from appreciation or contentment. As the Buddha said, it’s a characteristic of a good person to feel gratitude and to want to rep...
Read more