Thanissaro Bhikkhu on Karma & Rebirth

"Kamma works regardless of what power you have. It may explain a lot of suffering, but it doesn’t justify the suffering. It just simply says that this is why it’s there, but the way kamma works also offers the way out. So even though we’ve done bad things in the past, we don’t have to suffer for them. Think of that image of the salt crystal: You put it into a cup of water and you can’t drink the water. You put it into a river of clean water and you can still drink the water — because there so much more water than there is salt. The water stands for the state of mind in the present moment. The salt stands for your past bad kamma. How expansive the water of your mind is going to be is your choice right now. So take advantage of the freedom of choice that you’ve got right here, right now. That can make you happy." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Happy about Kamma"

Question: Kamma and Rebirth, second try. How does individual kamma migrate from this life to the next one? Is this a relevant question? If no, how can our next life be better if we don’t have the benefit of a kind of karmic legacy? Thank you, Ajaan, for clarifying this “critical” question. Thanissaro Bhikkhu: It’s not a matter of migrating. Our kamma is actually what creates our experience of the next life — or rather, it supplies the raw material for our experience of the next life. When we leave this life and go to the next one, it doesn’t feel like we’re going someplace else. Just as we have a sense of our present life as “right here,” the next life will also have a sense of being “right here,” right at our consciousness. It’s like going from one dream to another. Even though the appearance of the location in the second dream is different from the location in the first, it still has a sense of happening “right here” just as the first one did. To give another examp...

Aṅguttara Nikāya 4:99 Sikkhā Sutta: Trainings, translated from the Pāli by Thānissaro Bhikkhu “Monks, these four types of individuals are to be found existing in the world. Which four? The one who practices for his own benefit but not for that of others. The one who practices for the benefit of others but not for his own. The one who practices neither for his own benefit nor for that of others. The one who practices for his own benefit and for that of others. “And how is one an individual who practices for his own benefit but not for that of others? There is the case where a certain individual himself abstains from the taking of life but doesn’t encourage others in undertaking abstinence from the taking of life. He himself abstains from stealing but doesn’t encourage others in undertaking abstinence from stealing. He himself abstains from sexual misconduct but doesn’t encourage others in undertaking abstinence from sexual misconduct. He himself abstains from lying but doesn’t encourage...

"Buddhism is unusual among the world’s religions in admitting that it was founded by someone who knew he had made mistakes. The Buddha was a human being just like us. Through many years of his many lives, he knew he had made lots of mistakes but he learned how to learn from those mistakes. That’s what made all the difference. This means that he knew what it’s like to make a mistake, to regret making mistakes, to be in the position of living forward but only understanding backwards. And so from his experience of learning how to overcome those difficulties, he gives us wise advice on not only trying to prevent as many mistakes as you can, but also learning how to live with mistakes, because that’s what life is full of. We often make mistakes. If we take them as an opportunity to learn rather than a reason to go into strong guilt or strong denial, we can benefit from them. The more clearly you see and understand what’s going on right now, then the less likely it is that the choices y...

"Your mind needs training. You’re going to be better off with a trained mind. After all, as the Buddha said, a trained mind is what brings happiness. You can have everything else in the world going really well for you, but if your mind is a mess, you can create all sorts of suffering. In fact, people with untrained minds who gain wealth and power are the ones who create all the big problems in the world. So remind yourself of how important it is to meditate, and how much you’ll benefit from your meditation." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Home Schooling Your Inner Children"

"If a monk commits an offense and refuses to undergo the penalty, the Community may decide how seriously they take the matter. Since there is no monks’ police beyond the individual’s conscience, it may often happen that no one else knows of the offense to begin with, and nothing is done. If however it becomes common knowledge, and the Community regards it as a serious matter, they should talk privately with the monk to help him see the error of his ways. If he is recalcitrant, they may strip him temporarily of his status, either by censuring him, stripping him of his seniority, driving him from the Community, or suspending him from the Order of monks as a whole. If the offender sees the error of his ways and reforms his behavior accordingly, the Community may return him to his former status. Now of course there may be some hardened souls among the monks who are unfazed by punishments of this sort, but we should note that the Buddha saw no use for physical coercion in enforcing his...

"[An awakened person] feels sympathy for others and seeks their well-being, experiencing a sense of satisfaction when they respond to [his/her] teachings, but otherwise [he/she] stays equanimous, untroubled, mindful, and alert. This passage shows that the even-mindedness of a fully awakened person is an attitude not of cold indifference, but rather of mental imperturbability. Such a person has found true happiness and would like others to share that happiness as well, but that happiness is not dependent on how others respond. This is the ideal state of mind for a person who truly works for the benefit of the world." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wings to Awakening"

"There are people whose kammic background — past or present — is such that they will respond to the Dhamma teaching the path to the end of suffering and stress. Within the context of this background, the act of teaching and learning is a collaborative effort. On the one hand, the act of teaching  is a type of kamma, which means that the teacher has to maintain a pure intention while teaching, to ensure that he is teaching from kind and compassionate motives. He must also keep in mind the performative nature of his words — what they do  to the listener or incite  the listener to do — and that they must follow the principles of right speech. On the other hand, the act of learning is also a type of kamma, in that the listener must respond sincerely to the teacher’s words in order to benefit from them. This means that the purity of the listener’s intention plays an important role as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Skill in Questions: How the Buddha Taught"

"So be serious about being happy. Be willing to do whatever is needed. Be willing to sacrifice whatever has to be sacrificed, and you’ll find that that kind of survival really is worth struggling for, because you’re not involved in struggling against other people, you’re struggling against your own defilements. And victory over the defilements is the best kind of victory there is. You’re not creating bad kamma with other people. In fact, your inner victory is going to be good for other people outside as well." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "For the Survival of True Happiness"

"People tend to be pretty lax in their own behavior, but they have very strong demands for what other people should do. This is why we can’t get along. On the other hand, if you have strong ideas about what you  should be doing, realizing that this is where your happiness lies, then it’s a lot easier to have equanimity with regard to other people — patience, endurance. As the Buddha said, if you develop these qualities, it’s beneficial for other people and it’s good for you, too. That’s because you’re going to need endurance, you’re going to need patience, you’re going to need equanimity in the training of your own mind." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Free from Fear"

Question: Is it possible to send thoughts of goodwill [mettā] to dead people? Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Please do. After all, they’ve been reborn — either that or they’re looking for a place to be reborn — and either way, they can benefit from your kind thoughts of goodwill for them. ~ "Facing Aging, Illness, & Death: The Central Teaching of the Buddha"

"Never underestimate the power of the good example you create. This is how goodness gets spread around in the world: not by people talking, not by books, as much as by examples. When you see someone who’s done something really unselfish, it’s very inspiring. You realize, okay, the world is a place with good people, people who are able to overcome their defilements or their narrowness or whatever. The things that keep them bound up in the cycle of suffering and then revenge for suffering and then more suffering and then more revenge for suffering: That goes nowhere. We’ve seen way too much of that. But the people who stand up and say, “No, I’m not going to continue that way”: Those are the ones who make the human world a good world to be in, and they inspire us all. So you want your examples — the examples you set by your thoughts, words and deeds — to be good ones. That’s one of the ways in which you’re acting for the benefit of others." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu ...

"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...

"If you come to the meditation simply thinking, “What’s in it for me?” you won’t benefit much from the meditation. You’ve got to train yourself to say instead, “What’s in it for the whole mass of beings? To what extent can my meditation help them too?” At the very least, it gets you out of that feeding system. There’s at least one less mouth to be fed. In the meantime, you can be an inspiration. You can take refuge in the Sangha. It’s good to keep having members of the noble Sangha appearing in the world, so that it’s not just a matter of some story way in the past, the time of the Buddha or over there in Asia. When there are members of the noble Sangha appearing right now, that’s an inspiration to other meditators. So we’re not doing this just for ourselves. We’re doing it for everybody. If we can get to the point where we have less greed, aversion, and delusion, we’re not the only ones benefiting. Other people are suffering less from our greed, aversion, and delusion. If we ge...

"[An awakened person] feels sympathy for others and seeks their well-being, experiencing a sense of satisfaction when they respond to [his/her] teachings, but otherwise [he/she] stays equanimous, untroubled, mindful, and alert. This passage shows that the even-mindedness of a fully awakened person is an attitude not of cold indifference, but rather of mental imperturbability. Such a person has found true happiness and would like others to share that happiness as well, but that happiness is not dependent on how others respond. This is the ideal state of mind for a person who truly works for the benefit of the world." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wings to Awakening"

"Ordinarily, the Buddha was not the sort of person who would look for people to debate with, but there were a couple of issues when he would actually approach other teachers and say, “Do you really teach this?” Then he’d point out how destructive it was to teach those things. There were three cases, one of which was people who taught that everything you experienced in terms of pleasure or pain came from past actions. He approached those people and asked, “Do you really teach this?” They said, “Yes.” Then he sorted out the implications: “Well, in that case: People steal, people kill, have illicit sex, they lie, they drink because of something that’s totally beyond their control — what’s happened in the past.” He says, “When you teach people that, you’re leaving them unprotected and bewildered.” Now, that statement connects to two other teachings, one having to do with the problem of suffering. As he says, people are bewildered because of their suffering, and they sea...

"Even though there are miserable people in the world — and by that I mean people acting in miserable ways — not all human beings are like that. There are human beings who have been shining examples. You can take them as an example and you’ll benefit. That was one of the Buddha’s discoveries: By being good — in other words, developing really skillful qualities of the mind, qualities that are harmless, qualities that strengthen the mind in a good direction — you can find true happiness. And it’s not the happiness simply of patting yourself on the back that you were good, but you open up to a dimension that’s totally other, totally free from suffering." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "To Gladden the Mind"

"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...

"Following the precepts strictly also forces you to expand the range of time you consider when weighing the potential results of your actions. The Buddha formulated the precepts as he did because he saw that, over the long term, actions that go against the precepts eventually end up doing more harm than good. In following the precepts, you align your actions with the conviction that the immediate benefits that might come from breaking the precepts shouldn’t blind you to the harm that such actions will create over a very long term: the course of many lifetimes." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "Virtue Without Attachment"

"[An awakened person] feels sympathy for others and seeks their well-being, experiencing a sense of satisfaction when they respond to [his/her] teachings, but otherwise [he/she] stays equanimous, untroubled, mindful, and alert. This passage shows that the even-mindedness of a fully awakened person is an attitude not of cold indifference, but rather of mental imperturbability. Such a person has found true happiness and would like others to share that happiness as well, but that happiness is not dependent on how others respond. This is the ideal state of mind for a person who truly works for the benefit of the world." ~ Thanissaro Bhikkhu "The Wings to Awakening"