Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Equanimity is sometimes taught with a defeatist attitude. A defeatist attitude says, basically, that there’s no lasting happiness to be found in the world, so you might as well give up trying to find it. Just learn to accept things as they are and don’t hope for them to be better than what they are. When you give up on your search for happiness, you can be equanimous and content with what you’ve got. That, as I said, is a defeatist attitude. It’s equanimity tinged with regret, disappointment, and a sense of powerlessness. It’s heavy and narrow, a contentment found by lowering your standards for satisfaction. We bow down to the Buddha, though, because he actually has us raise our standards for satisfaction, to accept nothing less than the ultimate happiness. There’s nothing defeatist in his attitude at all. In fact, he called the noble eightfold path the path to victory: You can find a happiness that’s not subject to aging, illness, and death, that’s totally free of s...

"The problem is that sometimes, when we’re practicing the Dhamma, we lack common sense. We hear about the Dhamma protecting us or we hear about our good intentions protecting us, and we think that we don’t have to be wary about the world around us. Our good intentions will protect us. But the Buddha never said that. The protection you get from the Dhamma is that you’re not creating any new bad kamma right now, but it doesn’t protect you from your old bad kamma. So you still have to watch out. I noticed that Ajaan Fuang was a very wary person — wary of dealing with other people. He wouldn’t trust people right away. He would watch them for a while first. When I lived with him, it was two or three years before I was even allowed in his room. I eventually became his attendant, and then it became my duty. I had to clean up his room and arrange everything. But he wouldn’t allow me in there until he felt that he could really trust me. And when different issues came up in the monastery — ...

"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...

"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...

"Ajaan Fuang once said that it’s a good thing most of us can’t remember our past lives because we could very easily get fixated on all the wrong that was done to us, all the issues that never got settled. And we might want to go back and settle some old scores. Of course, there’d be no end to that. After all, the people whose scores got settled would probably want to settle some scores with us, because the other part of potentially remembering your past lives is remembering all the wrongs you did, the ways you harmed people, that you’d be ashamed to think about now. But just the thought of that possibility leaves us with an important lesson. No scores are fully settled. Things don’t come to closure. This is the nature of samsara: It just keeps wandering on and on and on. No story comes to an end. We watch plays, read books, where events come to a satisfying closure, and part of us would like to see that in our own lives as well. But one of the facts you have to accep...

"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...

"Sometimes, when we’re practicing the Dhamma, we lack common sense. We hear about the Dhamma protecting us or we hear about our good intentions protecting us, and we think that we don’t have to be wary about the world around us. Our good intentions will protect us. But the Buddha never said that. The protection you get from the Dhamma is that you’re not creating any new bad kamma right now, but it doesn’t protect you from your old bad kamma. So you still have to watch out. I noticed that Ajaan Fuang was a very wary person — wary of dealing with other people. He wouldn’t trust people right away. He would watch them for a while first. When I lived with him, it was two or three years before I was even allowed in his room. I eventually became his attendant, and then it became my duty. I had to clean up his room and arrange everything. But he wouldn’t allow me in there until he felt that he could really trust me. And when different issues came up in the monastery — so-and-...

"It’s amazing how many habits carry over from life to life to life. I think I’ve told you that story of King Asoka. There’s a belief that Ajaan Lee was King Asoka reborn. When I learned that, I got a biography of King Asoka that included some translations of the King Asoka edicts in the back. So I translated some of them into Thai for Ajaan Fuang to listen to. There was one where Asoka says to his government workers, “If you want to satisfy me that you’re quick enough in responding to my desires, you have to know what I want before I do.” Ajaan Fuang laughed at that and said, “Two thousand years. He didn’t change.” If you look at your actions now, you’ll probably see a lot of patterns that are responsible for the way you are now, even though the actual action that got you here — in this particular set of circumstances — may have been an action from the distant past. But the patterns carry over. Think in terms of the seven treasures, of the noble treasures the Buddha set out. Whic...

"We hear about the Dhamma protecting us or we hear about our good intentions protecting us, and we think that we don’t have to be wary about the world around us. Our good intentions will protect us. But the Buddha never said that. The protection you get from the Dhamma is that you’re not creating any new bad kamma right now, but it doesn’t protect you from your old bad kamma. So you still have to watch out. I noticed that Ajaan Fuang was a very wary person — wary of dealing with other people. He wouldn’t trust people right away. He would watch them for a while first. When I lived with him, it was two or three years before I was even allowed in his room. I eventually became his attendant, and then it became my duty. I had to clean up his room and arrange everything. But he wouldn’t allow me in there until he felt that he could really trust me. And when different issues came up in the monastery — so-and-so said this about you, so-and-so said that about you — he would sometimes ask t...

"A lot of people like the brahma-vihāras. It feels good to be sitting here thinking, “May all beings be happy” or to think of anyone who’s suffering and send compassion: “May that person be free from suffering.” You see people who are happy or doing things that are good, you’re happy for them. Those are pleasant things to think about, and you feel good about yourself thinking them. But you have to realize the brahma-vihāras are not entirely pleasant, especially the first three, because after all they’re involved in wishes. May all beings be happy. May all those who are suffering be free from their suffering. May all those who are happy or doing good things, may they continue to be happy. May, may, may. But you look at the world. Not everybody is happy. A lot of people are suffering or doing things that are going to cause suffering both for other people now and for themselves on into the future. And there are some people who are happy and yet are abusing their happiness. So the b...

"We realize that Buddha was right: that acts of merit are another word for happiness. In other words, when you’re generous, when you’re virtuous, as you get your mind under control, this is where happiness lies. As you realize happiness is in your power, you don’t have to go around begging it from somebody else or having to demean yourself. As Ajaan Fuang once said, when we come to the practice, we’re nobody’s servant. We’re here independently because we see that what the Buddha said was right, that it’s our actions that will make a difference. So we take responsibility. We assume that power and then we reap the rewards. That happiness is lasting: a happiness that doesn’t harm anybody in anyway. That’s the kind of happiness you want for a happy New Year. As for the things outside, whether they’re good or bad: A lot of that is beyond our control, but we can control our actions. We can make up the mind that we’re going to do only skillful things. Anything that’s unskillful, we sta...

"A chant we have regularly — that we’re the owners of our actions, heir to our actions — is basically a reflection on the teaching of karma. Ajaan Fuang once said to me, “That’s the one thing you’re asked to believe: the principle of karma,” which is the principle of action. This means, one, that action really does take place. It’s not an illusion. There were actually people in the time of the Buddha who taught that action was illusory, that the only real things in the world were substances that didn’t change, and because action was movement and change, it didn’t really exist. The Buddha said, “No, that’s not the case. There really is action.” Two, you really are responsible for your actions. It’s not some outside force like the stars or who-knows-what acting through you. You do have the choice to do things. Three, actions have results, and the quality of the results depends on the quality of the intention underlying the action. This is a very empowering teaching. It’s not a dif...

"Ajaan Fuang once said that it’s a good thing most of us can’t remember our past lives because we could very easily get fixated on all the wrong that was done to us, all the issues that never got settled. And we might want to go back and settle some old scores. Of course, there’d be no end to that. After all, the people whose scores got settled would probably want to settle some scores with us, because the other part of potentially remembering your past lives is remembering all the wrongs you did, the ways you harmed people, that you’d be ashamed to think about now. But just the thought of that possibility leaves us with an important lesson. No scores are fully settled. Things don’t come to closure. This is the nature of samsara: It just keeps wandering on and on and on. No story comes to an end. We watch plays, read books, where events come to a satisfying closure, and part of us would like to see that in our own lives as well. But one of the facts you have to accept when you c...

"When I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, I asked him about the whole issue of past lives, because I had heard some people say that the Buddha never really taught about past lives, while other people said that he had. Ajaan Fuang’s answer was: The important thing to believe in when you’re practicing here is not that issue. The important issue is the principle of karma, that you shape your experience through your actions. How long you’ve been doing it is not the issue. The issue is that you’re doing it right now. The meditation is an exploration of exactly how you shape it, and how much you shape it, and learning other ways to shape it skillfully." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Up for the Challenge"

"When I first went to stay with Ajaan Fuang, I asked him about the whole issue of past lives, because I had heard some people say that the Buddha never really taught about past lives, while other people said that he had. Ajaan Fuang’s answer was: The important thing to believe in when you’re practicing here is not that issue. The important issue is the principle of karma, that you shape your experience through your actions. How long you’ve been doing it is not the issue. The issue is that you’re doing it right now. The meditation is an exploration of exactly how you shape it, and how much you shape it, and learning other ways to shape it skillfully." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Up for the Challenge"